To:         Lieberman@marketing@grid
            Gibbons@marketing@grid
From:       Strang
Subject:    OS/2 Marketing Flash & 1537
Date sent:  03/30/89 5:36 PM
Copies:     Jefferson@marketing@grid
            Bailey


David and Mike,

I like your recent Marketing Flash writeup on OS/2.  It sounds like you're headed in the right direction.  I'm glad we'll be supporting HPFS on laptops.  For a while, it sounded like we wouldn't.  Thanks for including the 1537 in your considerations.  I can offer a few comments on OS/2 on the 1537, and where it could fit in federal business.

First, regarding hardware support:

Adaptec, the maker of the 1537's SCSI chip, has OS/2 drivers for that chip on their "to do" list.  They will come out with a basic disk and ASPI driver for OS/2 first, then other drivers to sit on top of ASPI later, including one for tape.  I suggest that we just wait for Adaptec in this area.

For 1537 internal display support, EGA (640x350) is the way to go, if resources allow for it.  Otherwise, I guess we will suffer with CGA.  Just so that you know about it, I will mention an alternate approach that would require driver development.  This is what we did in InteGRiD, because it was easy there.  The 1537 run OK with VGA mode on the internal display, except that only the top 400 pixels of 480 are displayed.  A driver that sets VGA 640x480 mode but only uses the top 400 lines of pixels for display makes optimal use of the 1537 internal display.  I'm NOT saying we should do this for OS/2, but just mentioning it so you know about the possibility.

The other possible hardware support need for OS/2 on the 1537 would be a serial driver for the "RS422" custom serial port.  In the 1537, it is based on the AMD Z85C30 2 channel USART.  One or both channels can be used, so if needed we could actually provide 2 serial ports, each with half the normal complement of control lines.  I am developing InteGRiD, GRiDLink, and MS-DOS Int 14 drivers for this port, so I would be a possible resource for developing an OS/2 serial driver if we need one.  For your amusement, a writeup on the 1537's serial ports is attached.  You can get an AMD Z85C30 Technical Manual from Judy Jefferson, if you want one.

Regarding Mike's facetious comment on the GPIB cartridge, IOTech has developed a GPIB cartridge for the non-Tempest 1500s, which I hear that SAIT is going to switch to selling, in place of their own GPIB cartridge.  The IOTech cartridge is genuinely National Instruments PC-IIA and IOTech GP488B hardware compatible, which the SAIT cartridge was not.  We can just wait for IOTech and/or National Instruments to develop OS/2 software support for their hardware.

Regarding use of OS/2 in the federal sector:

One use for OS/2 would be as a replacement for InteGRiD in certain situations.  There are a moderate number of federal customers using InteGRiD based software for various sorts of portable serial communications, using either GRiDTerm or custom applications, most of which were developed by us (the federal Systems Development group).  Many of these customers are indirect or hidden with the intelligence community, making a precise count impossible, but I would guess between 100 and 200 computers worth.

These InteGRiD based applications are used for a mixture of 3 reasons: multi-tasking; ease of use; and special features.  OS/2 certainly meets the multi-tasking requirement, more reliably and flexibly than InteGRiD, though with enough more overhead that a 16Mhz 80386SX seems the minimum acceptable platform.  OS/2 has the capability to meet the ease of use requirements, though many of these users their environments are poor candidates for a pointing device, making a keyboard driven user interface necessary.  The special features divide into the half duplex and related capabilities of GRiDTerm, and the much more specialized features of the various custom packages we have written.

Almost certainly, we will not embark on porting any of these communications packages to OS/2 unless paid to do so.  However, we (the federal Systems Development group) must start our abandonment of InteGRiD sometime, the sooner the better, and we need a place to migrate to.  Under OS/2, we could hopefully find a terminal emulator with many of the special features of GRiDTerm, sparing us porting that over.  To summarize, there has historically been a significant amount of custom development work in the federal sector, and and we need a multi-tasking platform to replace InteGRiD for this work.

Another possible use for OS/2 is as part of a Tempest network server based on the 1537.  The 1537 could make a decent portable Tempest network server.  The problem is to find the right software and hardware parts to assemble around it.  A LAN-OS is one of the hardest part to fit, primarily because of device support needs.  We would need to support the SCSI disk and tape, and possibly the RS422 serial port.  Of the big 3 LAN OS's, the best choices appear to me to be 3Com 3+, which uses MS-DOS device drivers, and 3Com 3+ Open, which uses OS/2 device drivers.  We will be getting some or all of these drivers in due course, as opposed to having to develop custom drivers for Vines or Netware.  3+ Open is my preference, since we could cleanly support the SCSI disk and (hopefully) tape, and the RS422 serial port, through OS/2 drivers.  Also, 3+ Open sounds like the best platform for developing server-resident value added software on.

Will