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From: bright@dataio.Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: IBM PS/2
Message-ID: <1338@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Date: Tue, 4-Aug-87 16:40:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: dataio.1338
Posted: Tue Aug  4 16:40:29 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Aug-87 04:49:42 EDT
Organization: Data I/O - FutureNet Corp., Redmond, WA
Lines: 39

Does anyone know how a program can reliably:
	o Determine if it is running on a PS/2?
	o Determine if it is a Model 30, 50, 60 or 80?

Other things:

If you have trouble transferring files between your AT and your PS/2 because
of incompatible disks, try the Brooklyn Bridge (by White Crane Systems). It
is a well-engineered product, and works well for transferring files.
The IBM Data Migration Facility is a joke by comparison.

Afterburners on:

	o Why are the control and caps lock keys swapped? ARGG. Who designs
	  those silly keyboards? I use 4 different keyboards on a daily
	  basis, and three of them are IBM (the other's a VT100)!
	o It's difficult now to do one-handed Ctrl, Shift or Alt followed
	  by a function key.
	o The thing seems to always boot up with numlock on.
	o I've worked with a number of Japanese MS-DOS machines. They are
	  all mutually incompatible, but share two wonderful features: there
	  is a hard reset switch, and the display can be in both text mode
	  and graphics mode simultaneously. That is, the text and graphics
	  buffers are separate, and the video can be one, the other or both.
	  This is wonderful for debugging graphics programs without the
	  kludge of two monitors or a terminal out the serial port. The
	  press is always gushing over the VGA, but why couldn't IBM
	  implement this? They did a custom chip anyway.
	o The numeral 0 looks pretty strange on the VGA.
	o If you follow the directions on installing MSDOS, you wind up
	  with only 32 mb of disk, instead of the available 40.
	o I don't mind switching to 3.5" disks. However, IBM comes out
	  with two flavors (1.44mb and .72mb). Yuk! Why not just the 1.44?
	  Why don't all PS2's come standard with 1.44? Then us software
	  vendors could distribute on 1.44s, instead of always the lowest
	  common denominator. Here we are with the 1.2mb/360kb problems
	  all over again, and this time from day 1!

Gripe, grumble, razafrazza.