[comp.os.misc] Coherent Digest Vol. 91.1, No. 13

rose@galtee.cs.wisc.edu (Scott M. Rose) (02/28/91)

Coherent Digest Vol. 91.1, No. 13      Wed Feb 27 11:11:08 CST 1991

Today's Topics:

   status report on news software?
   Help.  Disc have gone bad!
   sdb
   smail & From: header II, ignore prev post
   Chessplaying Programs on Coherent
   CMAIL
   zip & other compress stuff
   updated ls at piggy

Administrivia:

  The Coherent Digest is a forum for discussion of the MWC Coherent 3.x 
  operating system.  Send submissions to "coherent@cs.wisc.edu" and 
  administrivia to "coherent-reqeust@cs.wisc.edu".  Previous issues are 
  archived for anonymous FTP access on piggy.ucsb.edu in the directory
  "pub/coherent/mail-list".

  [Remember all the discussion on the creation of a newsgroup?  Look for the
   call for votes for comp.os.coherent to appear on a newsgroup near you
   TONIGHT.  Anticipated to appear in comp.os.misc, news.groups, and etc.
   -Ed. ]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 22 Feb 91 09:37:51
From: citrus!root@csusac.ecs.csus.edu (Joel M. Baldwin    Superuser)
To: coherent@csusac.ecs.csus.edu
Cc: root@csusac.ecs.csus.edu
Subject: status report on news software?

Where do we stand as far as getting a news package working on coherent?

I've gotten bsnews off of mwcbbs and hope to get it working soon, but
its got a lot left to be desired in that it just delievers the news to
a mail box.

Who is working on porting b or c news, how is the port going, and
would you like some help?

Joel M. Baldwin					H ( 916 ) 383-9470
N6NPL						W    "    452-1481
uunet!csusac.ecs.csus.edu!citrus!root		Sacramento CA.		/\../\

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 24 Feb 91 00:13:14 -0600
From: lantz@skvax1.csc.ti.com (Fetcher of Large Rocks)
To: "coherent@cs.wisc.edu"@skvax1.csc.ti.com
Subject: Help.  Disc have gone bad!

I have been trying to reinstall Coherent on my system and it would appear
two of my old release 3.00 disc have problems.  I have tried and keep
getting an error that they are unable to read.  Disc one and disc 4 don't
have any problem.  

What is the chance that Mark Williams can provide me with copies of disc
2 and disc 3 or release 3.0.0 or a full set of implementation disc for 
3.1.0 (I have purchased the upgrade).  

Bernie Lantz
3500 E. Park #304
Plano, TX 75074
(214) 578-8577.


------------------------------

Date: Sun Feb 24 19:24:28 1991
From: Bill Henning <bhenning@bhami.wimsey.bc.ca>
To: coherent
Subject: sdb

Today I have retreived sdb.uu1 and sdb.uu2 from piggy, to check out reports
of their corruption. I was able to successfully uudecode, unzip, and un-TAR
them. Note that you must do the following:
- - set BINARY mode for the transfer
- - after you join parts one and two, edit out the .signature between them
  (load into vi, and search for ---- then cut as directed - there is also
  some more to delete at the end of the file
- - unzip the result (Note- I unzipped with full zip's on a PC and on an
  Amiga, the unzip on Coherent may not be new enough to unzip the file
  as it was created with a fairly new release of pkzip on a PC)
- - un-tar the file.
At least one other person (Mohd H. Misnan) was able to successfully extract
the uuencoded files I put on piggy. Today I was able to successfully extract
sdb --> therefore I must conclude that the uuencoded files are fine.
The sdb.zip regexp.zip and hd.zip files (the non-uuencoded versions) are
corrupt. Sorry for the wase of bandwith.

Other matters:

I reported a bug with scanw to mwc!support, and they promptly replied
to my report - and they told me that the fix would be on mwcbbs shortly!
The lcurses.a on mwcbbs may also fix the problems I've had porting some
other code. If that is the case, I'll be uploading some more programs
to piggy soon.

I'll be posting trek73 on piggy next week.
- - 

- --
+-----------+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Amiga//   |   UUCP: bhenning@bhami.wimsey.bc.ca /* preferred address */    |
| 1000//    |                                                                |
| \\ //     |   -or-  uunet!van-bc!bhami!bhenning       \___ last resort     |
|  \X/bhami |   -or-  uunet!wimsey.bc.ca!bhami!bhenning /    may not work!   |
+-----------+----------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: 25 Feb 91 15:07:10
From: citrus!root@csusac.ecs.csus.edu (Joel M. Baldwin)
To: cs.wisc.edu!coherent@csusac.ecs.csus.edu
Cc: root@csusac.ecs.csus.edu
Subject: smail & From: header II, ignore prev post

This is another posting of this information because the first version had
some serious flaws.  This is what I get for staying up to the wee hours.
Apologys to net!      DON'T USE THE PREVIOUS POSTING!
- ----------------
I just installed smail2.5 on my system and I thought I'd pass a hint along.

The README.Coheren file in the smail2.5 distribution off of mwcbbs suggests
installing smail in /bin in such a way as will cause all mail coming into
your system to have a From: header of Spooler.

The fix is to modify a couple of string constants in the coherent /bin/mail
program from 'rmail' to 'lmail'.  In the mail.310a file off of mwcbbs these
strings start at 0x54C0 and 0x54D4.  Use the following commands for mail.310a.
All other versions use od -c to find where the strings are in the program.

						      comments

cp /bin/lmail /bin/mail.310a			{  make a backup copy
cp /bin/lmail /bin/new.mail			{  make copy to work on
db -f /bin/new.mail				{  enter db to modify program
54c0?s						{  these commands should respond
54d4?s						{  with rmail and rmail\n
54c0?c						{  go from string mode to char
54c0=0x6c					{  change location to 'l'
54d4=0x6c					{     "       "      "  "
54c0?s						{  verify proper change
54d4?s						{     "      "      "
^D						{  enter EOF to exit program
cp /bin/new.mail /bin/lmail			{  copy new version in
chmod 6511 /bin/lmail				{  reset the suid and sgid bits

If things go totally screwy and you need to reverse what you just did.

cp /bin/mail.310a /bin/lmail

Everything I'm talking about only applys if you've installed smail2.5.
If you don't understand what I'm talking about, get in touch with me.

I take no responsiblity for problems.  Use at your own risk
Joel M. Baldwin					H ( 916 ) 383-9470
N6NPL						W    "    452-1481
uunet!csusac.ecs.csus.edu!citrus!root		Sacramento CA.		/\../\

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 12:09:17 EST
From: sje@bubba.ma30.bull.com (Steven J. Edwards)
To: coherent%cs.wisc.edu@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Chessplaying Programs on Coherent

	I have heard a report of someone porting a chessplaying
program to Coherent.  I have been thinking about doing the same thing
myself, and so I would be interested in hearing about the details of
such a port.  I have not yet seen any chess software show up at the
piggy.ucsb.edu ftp site.

	I have been having some minor problems with unpacking via
unzip some of the files archived in the pkzip format (".zip" suffix).
It would probably be easier for most Coherent users to access
compressed tar files instead (".tar.Z" suffix).

      == Steven J. Edwards           Bull HN Information Systems Inc. ==
      == (508) 294-3484              300 Concord Road         MS 820A ==
      == sje@bubba.ma30.bull.com     Billerica, MA 01821          USA ==
"That Government which Governs the Least, Governs Best." -- Thomas Jefferson

------------------------------

Date:      Tue, 26 Feb 1991 23:02:50 NZS
From: "John McCombs" <jmccombs@riverx.actrix.gen.nz>
To: coherent
Subject:   CMAIL

Has anyone out there got the CMAIL mail system from piggy going?

I ftp'ed it ok, and it uncompresses ok, but it wont untar properly - barfs
after half a dozen files or so.  I've tried re ftp'ing the file (making
sure I was in binary mode), and I've tried several uncompress and untar
(also pax) versions on coherent, DOS and SYSV, without success.  Looking
at the uncompressed .tar file, it also seems to be incomplete.

If you have a working ftp'able copy of this package, or can offer some
suggestions as to where I might obtain a copy, I'd really like to hear
from you :)

Please reply direct by mail as I'm not presently on the mailing list

cheer, John
- -- 


- -----------------------------------------------------
     email: jmccombs@riverx.actrix.gen.nz
     voice: +64-3-665-234(hm) +64-3-669-871(wk)
       fax: +64-3-669-870
     snail: PO box 2708, Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND
- -----------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 13:19:03 CST
From: G-SKER@vm1.spcs.umn.edu
To: coherent
Subject: zip & other compress stuff

Subject: zip & other compress stuff

 I've got unzip for Coherent, and Lharc (with a bug that makes LARGE files),
 but I've never seen zip.  Does anyone have a zip-er?  I like Lharc, but I
 can't live with the bug.  I haven't had time to look at it, and might not
 be able to do anything with it anyway.  I hate tar and Z because I haven't
 much control over the creation of subdirectories, and the blamed thing is
 ridiculously slow (even slower than Lharc .... imagine that!).  Lastly, I
 don't have much memory, so large .Z files have to use a temporary file
 on disk instead of memory, and it takes about a half hour to uncompress.
 That too is unacceptable.  I prefer files in the zip form if they are
 good zips.  I've been uncompressing on a DOS machine with COMP43b and
 recompressing with ZIP for my Coherent machine.  If anyone has a faster
 uncompress for Coherent, that might be a good alternative, but I still
 don't like having to uncompress AND separate into separate files in two
 steps.

 Well, I'll get off this box now.

 Later,
 GS

Gerald Skerbitz                         University of Minnesota
612/626-5379  g-sker@vm1.spcs.umn.edu      g-sker.uminn1.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 9:41:25 CST
From: David Fenyes <dfenyes@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu>
To: coherent
Subject: updated ls at piggy

Hello,

Earl Chew has put the latest copy of his ls(1) at piggy.  This is a must
have, since it's much better than the ls that comes with Coherent.  For
one thing, you can set the LSOPTS variable to a set of options to use if
the output is a tty, so you don't get the default single column if you're
a tty.  It has lots of other stuff, and is faster than native ls on large
directories.

To compile it, you'll have to circumvent two Coherent bugs:

1) NULL #define's are not protected in stdio.h and one other include file,
   so you'll either need to edit them to protect them, or do an 
   #undef NULL  right before #include <stdio.h>

2) For some reason, the ctype entries for 0-9 have the hex bit set but not
   the digit bit.  You need to #undef isprint, set in <ctype.h>, and redifine
   it similarly, except with the _H bit included in the test.

Good Luck, (and thanks, Earl :-)
David.
- --
David Fenyes                                  dfenyes@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu
University of Texas Medical School            Houston, Texas

------------------------------

End of Coherent Digest Vol. 91.1, No. 13
****************************************

-- 
	Scott Rose
	rose@cs.wisc.edu
	(608) 238-3801

ottovk@ultx03.uto.dec.com (Otto van Kranenburg) (02/28/91)

Where is Coherent Digest Vol 91.1, No 12 ?????

rose@galtee.cs.wisc.edu (Scott M. Rose) (03/02/91)

In article <4054@ryn.mro4.dec.com> ottovk@ultx03.uto.dec.com (Otto van Kranenburg) writes:

>Where is Coherent Digest Vol 91.1, No 12 ?????

To which the moderator replies,

>Ah... did I forget to send that out?  Oops, and apologies.  Here it is.

Coherent Digest Vol. 91.1, No. 12      Fri Feb 22 10:18:39 CST 1991

Today's Topics:

   re: Coherent on a Notebook Machine
   Coherent on a Notebook Machine (Zeos 386 SX Notebook)
   Coherent Printer Drivers
   Dropping DTR
   bouncing mail
   good news/bad news
   re: Coherent on a Notebook Machine (Zeos 386 SX Notebook)
   IDE hard drives
   IDE hard drives

Administrivia:

  The Coherent Digest is a forum for discussion of the MWC Coherent 3.x 
  operating system.  Send submissions to "coherent@cs.wisc.edu" and 
  administrivia to "coherent-reqeust@cs.wisc.edu".  Previous issues are 
  archived for anonymous FTP access on piggy.ucsb.edu in the directory
  "pub/coherent/mail-list".

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Feb 91 14:53:52
From: mwc!norm@uunet.UU.NET (Norman Bartek)
To: cohmail@uunet.UU.NET
Cc: suppt@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: re: Coherent on a Notebook Machine

> From: uunet!bubba.ma30.bull.com!sje (Steven J. Edwards)
> Message-Id: <9102181558.AA06010@bubba.ma30.bull.com>
> To: coherent%cs.wisc.edu
> Subject: Coherent on a Notebook Machine
> 
> 	Greetings.  I have just received Coherent and I am planning to port
> it to a notebook machine.  It is a 16 MHz 386 SX with 5 Meg RAM along with a
> 20 Meg HD, 1.44 Meg 9 cm FD and claims a battery life of at least two hours
> per recharge cycle.  I was wondering if any of you folks have had experience
> with Coherent on this kind of platform.

Yes, we are running COHERENT in house on the new ZEOS 386SX notebook. The
model we have has 3MB of RAM and a 20MB hard disk. The unit is quite fast
running COHERENT and seems to run for several hours between chanrges (a spare
battery pack comes in handy for long trips). Quite a nice machine when you
have to travel and want more than just DOS.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 09:16:20 EST
From: sje@bubba.ma30.bull.com (Steven J. Edwards)
To: coherent%cs.wisc.edu@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Coherent on a Notebook Machine (Zeos 386 SX Notebook)

> Yes, we are running COHERENT in house on the new ZEOS 386SX notebook. The
> model we have has 3MB of RAM and a 20MB hard disk. The unit is quite fast
> running COHERENT and seems to run for several hours between chanrges (a spare
> battery pack comes in handy for long trips). Quite a nice machine when you
> have to travel and want more than just DOS.

	I am getting the Zeos machine also, but with 5 Meg RAM and a
387 SX.  Have you had any problems installing Coherent on this
particular machine?  Is there anything unusual I should watch out for
with the ROM setup menu or disk partitioning?

	I intend to set up the disk with an 18 Meg Coherent partition
and a 2 Meg MS-DOS partition.  I ordered MS-DOS 4.01 as part of the
Zeos package, but I am concerned with the possibility (mentioned in
the Coherent 3.1.0 Release Notes) of MS-DOS interfering with the
Coherent boot.  (I have a non-Zeos copy of MS-DOS 3.3 as a fallback.)
Does it matter which software I use for partitioning (Coherent or
MS-DOS)?

	I also ordered the internal 2400 baud MNP 5 modem.  Have you
folks had any experience with this with respect to uucp operations?

	I'm really looking forward to this setup and intend to upgrade
to a much larger HD when they become readily available.  By that time
(hopefully before that time), MWC will have Coherent/386 32 bit ready.

      == Steven J. Edwards           Bull HN Information Systems Inc. ==
      == (508) 294-3484              300 Concord Road         MS 820A ==
      == sje@bubba.ma30.bull.com     Billerica, MA 01821          USA ==
"That Government which Governs the Least, Governs Best." -- Thomas Jefferson




------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 15:43:51 EST
From: sje@bubba.ma30.bull.com (Steven J. Edwards)
To: coherent%cs.wisc.edu@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Coherent Printer Drivers

	I currently have an Apple Imagewriter II printer hooked up to
my Macintosh and have found the printer to be well designed and fairly
reliable.  I would like to connect the serial interface (RS-422 @ 9600
baud) of the Imagewriter to my Coherent machine (16 MHz 386 SX with a
9 pin IBM style serial port).  The idea is to share the single printer
physically between the two machines by using a switchbox.

	My question is: Has anyone already written a Coherent printer
driver for the Imagewriter II?  I am quite familiar with the software
aspects of the Imagewriter and would like to have a printer driver
that could handle the various special features (sheet feeding, paper
motion fine control, bitmap operations, and color).  I would be
interested in hearing about how other Coherent users have handled
printing tasks.

      == Steven J. Edwards           Bull HN Information Systems Inc. ==
      == (508) 294-3484              300 Concord Road         MS 820A ==
      == sje@bubba.ma30.bull.com     Billerica, MA 01821          USA ==
"That Government which Governs the Least, Governs Best." -- Thomas Jefferson


------------------------------

Date: 19 Feb 91 23:33:16
From: Anders Fongen <anders@fongen.uu.no>
To: cohnf@uunic.uu.no
Subject: Dropping DTR

I am unable to use the included Kermit program for data transfer
due to the following fact: Each time I press "^s" the DTR signal
is dropped, and the modem hangs up. Earlier I was able to hold the
line with "^s" and reconnect with "kermit r .." to receive data.
"^c" disconnects the line by dropping DTR too.

I can't say for sure, but the last time this worked was before I
upgraded to 3.1? Has this something to do with it? I have tried
several possibilities, like /etc/disable or /etc/enable, local and
remote control on the port, "don't hangup on last close etc." No
change.

Can this be solved, or will I have to look for xcomm to transfer
data?

Best regards,

- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Fongen			BIX : afongen
Vallerveien 57E			INET: anders@fongen.uu.no
N-1344 HASLUM			USENET: ...uunet!fongen.uu.no!anders
NORWAY				tlf: +47-2-530505
- --------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 20 Feb 91 03:55:37
From: samy%phenix.UUCP@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU (Samy Touati)
To: mcgill-!coherent
Subject: bouncing mail

Warning: This letter appears to contain mangled address(es):
	* To: header
	  Original: To: mcgill-!coherent@cs.wisc.edu

			mcgill-vision!MAILER-DAEMON
			MAILER-DAEMON@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu

Is there any way that a mail that cannot be delivered to a person on a 
Coherent system be bounced, so the original user be aware of that fact? 

Thanks

Samy Touati
samy%phenix.uucp@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu


------------------------------

Date: Tue Feb 19 21:33:44 1991
From: Bill Henning <bhenning@bhami.wimsey.bc.ca>
To: coherent
Subject: good news/bad news

Classic good news/bad news situation:

The bad news:

Apparently the uuencoded files I 'put' on piggy are still corrupt. I
suspect the problem may actually be with unzip reading the zip which
I created under DOS. I will contact Jim Lick (jim@piggy.ucsb.edu)
and ascertain the best method for me to get the files onto piggy.
Sorry for the delay.

The good news:

I have successfully ported trek73 to Coherent (a very easy port).
I will also try to put that onto piggy. The chess program is also
now running (my scanw replacement #define had a typo in it) however
it has some curses/termcap problems. 

Old news:

Within the next few days I'll try to get the new libcurses.a off 
mwcbbs and try to resolve the problems - month, chess, sc 
are all having problems with curses / termcap.


- --
+-----------+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Amiga//   |   UUCP: bhenning@bhami.wimsey.bc.ca /* preferred address */    |
| 1000//    |                                                                |
| \\ //     |   -or-  uunet!van-bc!bhami!bhenning       \___ last resort     |
|  \X/bhami |   -or-  uunet!wimsey.bc.ca!bhami!bhenning /    may not work!   |
+-----------+----------------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: 21 Feb 91 12:36:17
From: mwc!norm@uunet.UU.NET (Norman Bartek)
To: cohmail@uunet.UU.NET
Cc: suppt@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: re: Coherent on a Notebook Machine (Zeos 386 SX Notebook)

> 	I am getting the Zeos machine also, but with 5 Meg RAM and a
> 387 SX.  Have you had any problems installing Coherent on this
> particular machine?  Is there anything unusual I should watch out for
> with the ROM setup menu or disk partitioning?

No, COHERENT installed without a hitch and has been running fine now for a
few weeks. We also installed the MS-DOS that Zeos shipped. Cross your
fingers, but so far no unexpected interactions ;-)

We too are looking forward to putting a larger drive on the machine. The modem
was on back order and just arrived the other day, so I can't make any claims
about it yet.  You'll love the machine. It's wonderful being able to do
demos on a 386 machine that weighs less than 7 pounds and doesn't need a power
cord...

------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 22 Feb 91 00:44:19 EST
From: Tim Buck <TIMBUCK@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU>
To: coherent
Subject:      IDE hard drives

Does anyone besides me have Coherent on a machine with an IDE hard drive?
If so, are you having problems with the drive controller?  What type of
BIOS do you have?  What model drive?

[ I would make the following comments: I am running Coherent on a Maxtor 200
  MB IDE drive without any particular problems.  There *is* no controller, just
  a "paddleboard" that has buffers and address-decoding logic-- that's the
  whole concept of IDE, after all.  I have an AMI BIOS, which I sought out
  specifically for its "drive type 47"-- this allows me to specify the 
  parameters of my drive *to* the CMOS, rather than being constrained by the
  parameter table in ROM-- and thus had to employ the "type 47 fix" alluded to
  in a recent posting by MWC.  I also run DOS 4.01 on my other partition, this
  to permit me to address my DOS partition as one big drive.  -Editor]

I understand MWC is having great success running Coherent on a Zeos
laptop.  Don't most laptops have IDE drives?

Finally, someone was asking a few days ago about having a MS-DOS 4.01
partition.  I've been running Coherent and MS-DOS 4.01 with no booting
problems on a Packard Bell 286 (Phoenix BIOS) [however I am having
problems with the IDE controller].

___________________________________________________________________
| Timothy Buck                                     |               |
|      timbuck@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu (preferred)         | Virginia Tech |
|      jbuck@vtssi.vt.edu                          | Blacksburg,VA |
| OR   timbuck@albert.ai.mit.edu                   |               |
`--------------------------------------------------+---------------'

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 08:49:29 EST
From: sje@bubba.ma30.bull.com (Steven J. Edwards)
To: TIMBUCK@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU
Cc: coherent
Subject: IDE hard drives

> Does anyone besides me have Coherent on a machine with an IDE hard drive?
> If so, are you having problems with the drive controller?  What type of
> BIOS do you have?  What model drive?
> 
> I understand MWC is having great success running Coherent on a Zeos
> laptop.  Don't most laptops have IDE drives?
> 
> Finally, someone was asking a few days ago about having a MS-DOS 4.01
> partition.  I've been running Coherent and MS-DOS 4.01 with no booting
> problems on a Packard Bell 286 (Phoenix BIOS) [however I am having
> problems with the IDE controller].

	I am fairly sure that the Zeos 386 SX laptop has an IDE hard
disk.  It is reported to be a Conner CD2420 and is a fairly
standardized design.  It is used in most of the higher end notebook
machines.

	It may be the case that MS-DOS 4.01 boot mangling problems
will only occur with partition sizes above 32 Meg.

      == Steven J. Edwards           Bull HN Information Systems Inc. ==
      == (508) 294-3484              300 Concord Road         MS 820A ==
      == sje@bubba.ma30.bull.com     Billerica, MA 01821          USA ==
"That Government which Governs the Least, Governs Best." -- Thomas Jefferson


------------------------------

End of Coherent Digest Vol. 91.1, No. 12
****************************************

-- 
	Scott Rose
	rose@cs.wisc.edu
	(608) 238-3801