[net.micro.att] 7300 Probs. - CT are you out there?

gritz@homxa.UUCP (R.SHARPLES) (07/25/85)

Is there anyone out there, possibily from Convergent Technologies, that can
help with these problems with the 7300?

	1) How do you get the break key to transmit a break out through
	   cu (from a unix window).  I use "cu -l/dev/tty000" to go out
	   the serial port to a "hardwire" to a micom port selector.  The
	   micom expects 1200baud but if you send if 2 breaks it will switch
	   to 9600.  2 breaks is the only thing that will do it.  Is there
	   any way (assuming the break key doesn't work) to send a break?

	2) Why does the unixpc write to the screen so slowly when connected
	   to a host at 9600.  I have logged into a vax (thru cu) through an lan
	   (ungermann/bass) at 9600.  Still, characters appear on the screen
	   just as slowly as at 1200.  I have checked and it is not that the
	   vax is loaded down.

The AT&T help people are aware of both problems but can not offer any help.
I am looking for some sort of workaround for both.

Russ Sharples
AT&T Bell Labs
Holmdel, NJ
201-949-0575
homxa!gritz

mjs@eagle.UUCP (M.J.Shannon) (07/26/85)

> Is there anyone out there, possibily from Convergent Technologies, that can
> help with these problems with the 7300?
> 
> 	1) How do you get the break key to transmit a break out through
> 	   cu (from a unix window).  I use "cu -l/dev/tty000" to go out
> 	   the serial port to a "hardwire" to a micom port selector.  The
> 	   micom expects 1200baud but if you send if 2 breaks it will switch
> 	   to 9600.  2 breaks is the only thing that will do it.  Is there
> 	   any way (assuming the break key doesn't work) to send a break?

The way to get cu to transmit a break is "~%b" (the "~" must appear immediately
after a newline).

> 	2) Why does the unixpc write to the screen so slowly when connected
> 	   to a host at 9600.  I have logged into a vax (thru cu) through an lan
> 	   (ungermann/bass) at 9600.  Still, characters appear on the screen
> 	   just as slowly as at 1200.  I have checked and it is not that the
> 	   vax is loaded down.

I've not seen this problem on any of the 7300's I've used, so I can't offer any
suggestions.  Sorry.

> The AT&T help people are aware of both problems but can not offer any help.
> I am looking for some sort of workaround for both.
> 
> Russ Sharples

Good luck on finding an answer to problem 2.

-- 
	Marty Shannon
UUCP:	ihnp4!eagle!mjs
Phone:	+1 201 522 6063

dopey@ihlpl.UUCP (James C Blasius) (07/27/85)

> 	2) Why does the unixpc write to the screen so slowly when connected
> 	   to a host at 9600.  I have logged into a vax (thru cu) through an lan
> 	   (ungermann/bass) at 9600.  Still, characters appear on the screen
> 	   just as slowly as at 1200.  I have checked and it is not that the
> 	   vax is loaded down.
> 
I would suggest that if your terminal emulator on a 9600 baud line is
painting screens at a 1200 baud rate, something is broken in your machine!

seriously, I've just been trying my 9600 baud line to my 3b5 to see if
it paints at a 1200 baud rate and I assure you it's faster.  Nearly as fast
as a full screen vi session locally on the machine.

There is a misconception I've heard several dozen times concerning the
vt100 emulator.  The misconception is that the emulator runs slowly, even
at 1200 baud.  I would suggest that those of you who believe this try catting
large files with the emulator.  I think you will find that the emulator is
not slow.  The emulator is sporadic, not nearly as smooth in its screen
painting as cu for example, but it's not slow.

However, you must remember that the screen on the UNIX PC is a bitmapped
screen.  Bitmapped screens without special screen support hardware end up
making the processor move around large numbers of bytes whenever the screen
scrolls.  When you approach 9600 baud you may begin to find that your
overall throughput will not match the theoretical, more or less depending on
the kind of data you are sending (i.e., if you are sending short lines
there's going to be more bytes moved per character on average, etc).  This
is not limited to the UNIX PC, but is an issue with all bitmapped output
devices.

james blasius
ihnp4!ihlpl!dopey

rrt@duke.UUCP (Russell R. Tuck) (07/29/85)

In article <1054@homxa.UUCP> gritz@homxa.UUCP (R.SHARPLES) writes:
>	2) Why does the unixpc write to the screen so slowly when connected
>	   to a host at 9600.  I have logged into a vax (thru cu) through an lan
>	   (ungermann/bass) at 9600.  Still, characters appear on the screen
>	   just as slowly as at 1200.  I have checked and it is not that the
>	   vax is loaded down.
>
>The AT&T help people are aware of both problems but can not offer any help.

I have also experienced Problem 2, with an interesting twist:

I use a 7300 connected through its RS-232 port to a VAX 11/785 running 4.2BSD.
When I use the phone manager's terminal emulator to login on the VAX and cat 
a large file, the screen scrolls at normal 9600 baud speed.  However, when I 
use cu over the same line to login on the same VAX and cat the same file
(with the same low load average on the VAX and no background activity on the
7300), the lines appear much more slowly, at what appears to be 1200 baud.
I have done stty's on all the relavant ports (both machines), and they all say
the line is at 9600 baud.

The people on the AT&T support hotline could not reproduce this behavior on a
machine there and could give me no help.  Could I have an older release of cu
or some system routine which cu uses (and the phone manager does not), which 
performs simple I/O inefficiently? Could there be some hardware problem in my 
machine which affects cu, but NOT the phone manager's terminal emulator?

I am interested in any solution or idea that might lead to one.

gritz@homxa.UUCP (R.SHARPLES) (07/31/85)

As a follow up to my own posting: some of the mail I have received has
indicated that the slow speed of cu is inherent in its design.  Cu was designed
primarily for connections over phone lines at 1200 baud.  It buffers all text
in the program.  Hence, the execution speed of the program will effect the
usable baud rate.  Over a phone line, the bottle neck is the 1200 baud modem.
But on a 9600 baud serial port the bottle neck becomes cu's execution speed.
The terminal emulator doesn't use cu and is not affected by this.

Whether anything can be done about cu I haven't found out yet.  Perhaps there
is some way to modify the buffer to speed up operation. Any ideas?

Russell P. Sharples
AT&T-BL
homxa!gritz

larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (08/03/85)

> In article <1054@homxa.UUCP> gritz@homxa.UUCP (R.SHARPLES) writes:
> >	2) Why does the unixpc write to the screen so slowly when connected
> >	   to a host at 9600.  I have logged into a vax (thru cu) through an lan
> >	   (ungermann/bass) at 9600.  Still, characters appear on the screen
> >	   just as slowly as at 1200.  I have checked and it is not that the
> >	   vax is loaded down.
> >
> 
> I use a 7300 connected through its RS-232 port to a VAX 11/785 running 4.2BSD.
> When I use the phone manager's terminal emulator to login on the VAX and cat 
> a large file, the screen scrolls at normal 9600 baud speed.  However, when I 
> use cu over the same line to login on the same VAX and cat the same file
> (with the same low load average on the VAX and no background activity on the
> 7300), the lines appear much more slowly, at what appears to be 1200 baud.
> I have done stty's on all the relavant ports (both machines), and they all say
> the line is at 9600 baud.

	Welcome to the club.  I bet if you look at an stty -a you will see that
ixon and ixoff are enabled.  Your 7300 is sending X-ON/X-OFF characters to
limit throughput. If you do an stty and disable them, you will no doubt lose
characters at 9,600 baud.  I also have this problem on 3B2's and systems
running Unisoft Sys V.
	The simple truth is that ain't no way cu can keep up a throughput of
greater than 2,400 baud.  Even 2,400 is marginal, but 1,200 is safe.
	Don't feel bad; I too learned this lesson the hard way.

	Larry Lippman
	Recognition Research Corp.
	Clarence, New York
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olson@fortune.UUCP (Dave Olson) (08/05/85)

Saying that the throughput of 'cu' is limited by it's design is
ridiculous!

I've been using cu on 9600 baud lines on 11/70's (V7), VAX 11/780
(4.1BSD) , and Fortune 32:16 (V7/4.1/++ hybrid) (of course :-) ), and
ALL of them will get throughput at 9600 baud that is VERY close to a
hardwired line.  It is true that some characters will be dropped
without flow control IF the RECEIVING system is very heavily loaded,
but this does not sound likely in the case described.

If cu can't keep up on the 7300, it is either a bug in the 7300
implementation, or there is a bottleneck in the tty i/o kernel
routines, which are circumvented by the other programs mentioned.

	Dave Olson, Fortune Systems