El Vato (06 Jan, 2007 15:11):
Pete (06 Jan, 2007 02:52):
[...]Pointless using old, unsupported drivers such as CW...
[...]
With all respect, I beg to differ with you on this statement.
I have used Chris's drivers to support USB drives from 500MB up to a 80GB hard drive in a case (the latter with some problems, albeit). Yes, with a usb basic "unsupported" hack from 2003. And yes I had some initial trouble during the initial configuration. But Wohlgemuth's USB drivers are a competitive option to those "supported" alternatives because they work in various cases.
Even if a user has multiple USB controllers (Wohlgemuth's USB supports a single controller only) and the cwUSBUHC.SYS, cwUSBOHC.SYS, and cwUSBD.sys drivers can not be used, the cwUSBMSD.add driver still can be used in combination with (possibly newer) proprietary alternative USB basic support.(< http://www.os2warp.be/index2.php?name=cwusb >)
You can find an example configuration on a T40 laptop that I submitted to http://www.os2warp.be to support a 1GB Memorex Travel Drive in the appropriate section of the web site.
We would not be falling so far behind in techonology if the OS/2 code were open to be improved by third parties (Wohlgemuth's ). The Linux operating system is "unsupported" also but due to its open code, third parties have turned it into the high caliber super application that has allowed it to enter the enterprise world. Are we there yet by following this conservative old school methodology???
No. We are still having problems with something as simple as USB.
El vato
|| ...
Hi El vato
You are more than welcome to disagree with me, maybe my statement was a little too strong but I have seen lots of posts with people struggling to get these drivers to work when the remedy was to remove them and install and configure the IBM drivers correctly. However, that does in all honesty only apply to situations where access to IBM updates are/were possible.
If the CW drivers work with some of your usb devices that, for whatever reason, the IBM USB drivers fail to work with Please carry on 
Worth thinking about is that a later USB device probably works with those drivers more by accident than design.
Also worth thinking about is that other drivers are often involved in whether the device works or not - os2dasd.dmd is an example.
A common error is to use lowercase parameters to usbmsd.add and then expect it to work - Yes, case sensitive parameters, requires uppercase.
Another thing people sometimes do not realise is that the mainboard BIOS needs to be setup correctly - most mainboards should have Legacy USB support Disabled. Forgetting this simple step can be a killer as regards USB support on OS/2 based systems.
I have never tried any of the CWUSB drivers because I have never needed to. Every mp3 player, flash drive, external hard drive, scanner, mouse tried here has worked with the IBM drivers - guess I've been lucky 
I have 3 systems here all fitted with Internal USB multi cardreaders. These are specifically *Not* supported by the IBM drivers - but all work fine as long as the user remembers to Refresh the Drives Folder View or use the Refresh Removables object. Yes, the specific non-support is that inserting a card into a slot does not get the system to automatically display the attached drive - but it is attached and usable.
Sometimes some fiddling is required: in the case of external flash drives and mp3 players it has been necessary to destroy existing partitions and then recreate with LVM - no, have not needed to resort to DFSee for that yet.
I have not tried any flash drives that use fat32 yet though and suspect they may provide a little challenge.
I do agree that the current IBM drivers still have lots of room for improvement - see Internal cardreaders above as an example.
I suspect that eCS has plans to update some drivers by the simple expedient of replacing them with "home rolled" versions - maybe even open source ports from linux - over a period of time. Let's face it either eCS updates/replaces drivers as necessary or it will rapidly lose customers who need support for their devices. I suspect the current eCS worry is centered around video driver support now that SNAP is no longer being maintained 
Anyhow, I hope we have managed to disagree successfully 
Pete