phil@eecs.nwu.edu (08/26/89)
I just unpacked my very own Sun 3/80. I haven't gotten it up and running yet and I've already had two disappointments and two setbacks. My office is a mess, there's boxes everywhere, it's Friday afternoon, and maybe I'll come in on the weekend to finish up. Disappointments: 1) the mouse cord is too short. How can I put the keyboard in my lap now? 2) The "Small Computer Standard Interface" is only as standard as the cables it uses! Can you believe this? Sun has CHANGED THE CABLES. The shoebox tape drive that I ordered with my 3/80 (I understand that this new "sleek" design is being called a lunchbox) cannot be attached to an older machine, such as a 3/60, without a special cable! The connector is completely different. It looks better, but it is different. I wanted to use this tape drive as a "roving" drive: attach it to whatever machine needs it at any given point in time. Looks like I won't be able to do that. Unless......does anyone know if I can buy a "converter" cable? Setbacks: 1) In order to save some money, I purchased a thinnet transceiver from Cabletron rather than thru Sun. My office has thin instead of thick and I knew that the 3/80 only has a drop cable (thick) connector on the back. I figured that I could just get the transceiver and plug it straight into the back of the machine. WRONG! The machine's connector is recessed---there's alot of plastic moulding around it--- and the connector on the transceiver box does not stick out much. End result is I STILL need a "drop" cable. I suspect that Sun's thinnet box will fit there, but that no one else's will. Nice going guys! 2) When I pulled the tape drive lunchbox out of the box and installed it, it was set to SCSI unit 0. I typed "b st(0,0,0)" and it didn't work. Drive chatter, pause, then "Device not found". After much poking around, thinking, trial and error, and even a call to Sun, I realized that st0 is really SCSI unit 4 (and st1 is unit 5). You'd think it would have dawned on me earlier, but I was thinking "I'm asking for unit 0 (the middle number in the boot command), so it must want it set to unit 0!" It wasn't until after the Sun service rep asked me to try to boot off sd, and that made the tape drive actually move, that I realized my misteak [sic]. I set the tape drive to 4 and everything worked. Thanks again, Sun! Why did you pack it with it set to 0? By the way, the new lunchbox design has a selector on the back that sets the SCSI unit number. VERY easy to change. Oh well. I'll let you all know how it turns out in the end. One of the nice things about not moderating sun-spots is that I actually have the time to write articles for it! William LeFebvre Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Northwestern University <phil@eecs.nwu.edu>
poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) (09/20/89)
In article <1226@brazos.Rice.edu> phil@eecs.nwu.edu writes: >I just unpacked my very own Sun 3/80. I haven't gotten it up and running >yet and I've already had two disappointments and two setbacks. My office >.... stuff deleted.... >2) The "Small Computer Standard Interface" is only as standard as the >cables it uses! Can you believe this? Sun has CHANGED THE CABLES. The >shoebox tape drive that I ordered with my 3/80 (I understand that this new >"sleek" design is being called a lunchbox) cannot be attached to an older >machine, such as a 3/60, without a special cable! The connector is >completely different. It looks better, but it is different. I wanted to >use this tape drive as a "roving" drive: attach it to whatever machine >needs it at any given point in time. Looks like I won't be able to do >that. Unless......does anyone know if I can buy a "converter" cable? > Sun has a cable, part number X931H or X931G SCSI-1 to SCSI-2 converter cable that has standard SCSI on one end and their micro SCSI on the other. Russ Poffenberger DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen 1601 Technology Drive San Jose, Ca. 95110 (408)437-5254