Sun-Spots-Request@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (10/21/88)
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Wednesday, 19 October 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 265
Today's Topics:
Re: NFS mount mail
A fix for pty/suntools problems
Sun announces price increases across the board
multiple NFS mounts under 4.0
SunView questions on video retrace and color icons
RGB monitor for 3/150G?
3.4 vs 4.0 mail spooling?
Photographic output devices connected to Sun RGB?
SL/IP links to SUN 4/100?
NeXT
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Date: Thu, 13 Oct 88 19:45:22 EDT
From: dms@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (David M Siegel)
Subject: Re: NFS mount mail
> From: Wayne Folta <folta@tove.umd.edu>
> ...
> As I remember it, we solved the problem as follows:
> 1. All users must be known to the NFS server. For us, this was easy,
> since all users were already in the Yellow Pages passwd file.
> 2. All users are mail-aliased to reside on the NFS server. That is,
> user 'usera' was aliased to 'usera@nfshost' in the Yellow Pages
> mail aliases file.
> 3. NFS mount the /usr/spool/mail from the NFS server to all the other
> hosts.
While this scheme works, I don't believe it is a great solution. A major
problem is that if the NFS server with the shared mail spool directory
goes down, all users on your system will hang (for saftey, the mail spool
directory must be hard mounted). Since shells typically stat the mail file
now and then, users will hang even if they are not reading their mail. In
addition, keeping the Yellow Page alias database up-to-date is a hassle.
A better solution would be for Sun to support storing mail spool file in
user home directories. The way the scheme should work is for sendmail to
forward mail to the server machine that the user's home directory is NFS
mounted from. The server machine would then invoke a modified local mail
delivery program to deliver the mail to the user's home directory.
An added benefit is that mail spool files would be included under a user's
disk quotas.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 88 08:29:49 CDT
From: Len Evens <len%rufus.math.nwu.edu@eecs.nwu.edu>
Subject: A fix for pty/suntools problems
The following problem has been reported:
> all input on pty0 is converted to ^D's after a suntools has exited.
> This happens on our 3/50's and 3/60's. I don't really want to try it
> on one of our larger file servers.
We have encountered a related problem on a Sun 4/260. Echoing and other
terminal features are lost on a pseudoport, but one can enter commands
followed by ^J. stty -a does not report anything unusual. We can't
recreate the problem but it appears sporadically and may be related to one
long running program which is often started on the pseudoport. We can fix
it as follows. Create two programs called push and pop with source
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/stream.h>
#include <sys/file.h>
#include <sys/stropts.h>
main( )
{
int fd;
fd = open( "/dev/pty0", O_RDWR);
if ( fd > 0 )
ioctl(fd, command, "ldterm");
exit( 0);
}
where "command" is respectively I_PUSH or I_POP. Then running push
followed by pop restores the pseudoport /dev/pty0. This is an ad hoc
solution, and we don't really understand what is causing the corruption of
pty0 or exactly why the above process should fix it.
There are some patches to the serial drivers and related programs provided
by Sun which have been installed but they didn't fix this problem.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 88 21:30:08 PDT
From: John L. Shelton <jshelton@ads.com>
Subject: Sun announces price increases across the board
I received word from my SUN salesperson today that most SUN prices are
going up effective immediately. Basic summary is that prices are
increasing on many SUN products an average of about 10% each. DRAM
pricing is cited as the primary reason, yet prices increased for
non-memory products (like software, manuals) as well.
The minimum increase on a workstation (3/50) is $500. If you need
specific pricing, contact your SUN representative.
If Apple and DEC can do it (within the last month) so can SUN.
=John=
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 88 19:33:57 EDT
From: ekrell@ulysses.att.com
Subject: multiple NFS mounts under 4.0
I've got used to type "mount -a" to try to mount all the file systems in
/etc/fstab. Under 4.0, however, (on a 3/60) the NFS file systems which
were already mounted get mounted AGAIN each time I do this. I looked at
/etc/mtab and, sure enough, the entries are duplicated.
This doesn't happen to 4.2 file systems, fortunately, but it is still an
annoyance. Can anyone replicate this and is there a fix?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 88 03:27:37 EDT
From: Robert Mollitor <odin@media-lab.media.mit.edu>
Subject: SunView questions on video retrace and color icons
I have written a micro-movie player to work under SunView that displays
192 by 128 images, each with their own 128 entry color maps, at
essentially 30 frames per second. However, I cannot seem to find a way to
sync to the monitor's vertical retrace. My question: Does anyone know of
a SunView retrace event, attribute, or register which I can use?
Alternatively, is there a sleazy unsupported way to do it, maybe accessing
the frame buffer directly? (The ioctl FBIOVERTICAL is a write, but gives
an ENOTTY errno anyway. The <pixrect/cg2reg.h> shows where the bit is for
a cgtwo, but I'm using a cgthree and I don't know how to set up the memory
mapping properly.)
Also, has anyone been able to have icon's with a depth greater than one
bit. I've tried:
pixrect = mem_point(192,128,8,array);
icon = icon_create(0);
icon_init_from_pr(icon,pixrect);
The width and height are carried over, but apparently not the depth. (The
icon_set(icon,ICON_IMAGE,pixrect,0) truncates to one bit.) Since an icon
has a pixrect and not a pixwin associated with it, there doesn't seem to
be an obvious means of reserving a color map segment for it.
Thanks,
robt
Robert Mollitor (odin@media-lab.media.mit.edu)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 88 10:11:15 CDT
From: cthombor@cola.d.umn.edu (Clark Thomborson)
Subject: RGB monitor for 3/150G?
I recently inherited a grayscale Sun, which I'd like to convert to a Sony
16" (or is it 15"?) color Sun for VLSI design work. My local Sun sales
rep suggested I buy a color monitor from an outside vendor, since Sun
sells monitors only in conjunction with color boards -- and any grayscale
Sun already has a color board.
I remember some discussion on this bboard about whether Sun modifies the
Sony monitor before shipment...did this question ever get resolved? More
to the point, how do I specify a Sun-compatible color monitor for a
competitive bidding process? Does anyone out there know the sweep
frequencies, sync pulse conventions, plug geometries and pin assignments,
line levels, etc?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 88 22:15:56 PDT
From: adgrover@hac2arpa.hac.com (A. Dean Grover)
Subject: 3.4 vs 4.0 mail spooling?
I have a Sun 4/260 fileserver running 4.0 and serving a number of clients.
All of the clients mount /var/spool/mail from the server. I also have a
Sun 3/260 fileserver running 3.4. My question is: Can I mount
/var/spool/mail from the Sun 4 on /usr/spool/mail on my 3.4 machine?
I am also interested in creating 1 yp domain between 4.0 and 3.4. Can I
make the 3.4 machine a yp client (or slave server) of the server running
4.0 ?
Thanks in advance.
Dean Grover
Hughes Aircraft Co.
adgrover@hac2arpa.hac.com
------------------------------
Date: 14 Oct 88 09:20:44 GMT
From: munnari!natmlab.dms.oz.au!neilc@uunet.uu.net (Neil Crellin)
Subject: Photographic output devices connected to Sun RGB?
We are looking to purchase an output device capable of making 35mm slide
photographs (and Polaroids if possible) from the RGB outputs of our Sun
workstations.
Polaroid attempted to demonstrate their FreezeFrame product to us, but
were unable to get it to work, the problem apparently being the high video
rate of the monitor. (66-70 Hz?).
Sun (Australia) suggested we contact a company listed as making such a
device in their Catalyst catalogue, Dunn Instruments, but when I rang
their number I was told they had been subsumed into a bigger company, (I'm
fairly sure they said Matrix). Anyway I told them our requirements and
despite assurances, have received no information from them since August.
I would appreciate suggestions of devices known to work with Suns to
produce 35mm slides and/or polaroids. Please contact me if you have any
experience of such beasties or suggestions which may be useful to us. An
Australian, American, or even European company or supplier would be just
fine.
Thanks in advance,
--Neil Crellin, CSIRO Maths and Stats, Sydney, Australia. (neilc@natmlab.oz.au)
------------------------------
Date: Fri Oct 14 01:43:12 1988
From: sir-alan!mikes@vax.cs.pittsburgh.edu
Subject: SL/IP links to SUN 4/100?
I am bringing up the KA9Q TCP/IP package on a RS 6000 under XENIX 3.2.
This might allow linking the 6000 with a 4/100 under 4.0 using SL/IP. I
remember seeing notes that SL/IP under SUNOS was a problem. I know
something about serial links, a fair amount about XENIX, but not very much
about SUNs. Any pointers would be appreciated.
Incidentally, I run an anonymous uucp archive for comp.sources.unix and
comp.sources.misc at 814 337 0894 (login of "pdsrc"; list of files in
/usr/spool/pdsrc/all.subjects or all.subjects.Z; modem is a TB+ cycling
2400-9600 FAST-1200 except 4-7:30 A.M. when it cycles 9600-2400. All of
mod.sources/comp.sources.unix is on-line; all of comp.sources.misc, and
some of net.sources.
[[ Once again: the SLIP implementation in the Sun archives cannot be
easily modified to work under 4.0. It would probably be easier just to
start all over again. I have heard from one Sun-Spots poster that there
is work being done on a 4.0 SLIP, but it isn't ready yet. NOTICE: I will
post no more request for a 4.0 SLIP in the digest. Interested readers
should look at Sun-Spots volume 6 issues #79, 89, 95, 194, 200, and 211.
--wnl ]]
Michael L. Squires uucp: {necntc,cwjcc,hoptoad}!ncoast!peng!sir-alan!mikes
Department of Political Science .!{pitt,uunet!convex}!sir-alan!mikes
Allegheny College BITNET: mikes%sir-alan@pitt.UUCP (VAX)
Meadville, PA 16335 MIKES AT SIR-ALAN!PITT.UUCP (IBM)
Office: 814 724 3360 Internet: sir-alan!mikes@vax.cs.pittsburgh.edu
Home: 814 337 5528 Data: 814 {333-6728,337-3159} login of "ubbs" for BBS
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 88 11:01:06 PDT
From: frame!troy!drf@sun.com (David Fuchs)
Subject: NeXT
Well, one might argue that SunSpots is the wrong place for a recap of
today's NeXT announcement; but it's very likely to be of strong interest
to much of the readership, so here goes (and all from memory, so any
errors are my own)...
[[ And this will (very likely) be the last message about the NeXT machine
that I out in a Sun-Spots digest. The information is interesting, but
further discussion would be too far off the track. --wnl ]]
Today Steve Jobs spent 3 hours reviewing the hardware, software, and general
philosophy of the new NeXT machine, in a very well-done presentation in
San Francisco's Davies Hall that featured a lot of live demoing (with only
one apparent crash, in a random demo application).
Each of their "Personal Mainframe" machines has:
68030 CPU 25Mhz
+ 68882 Floating Point Processor 25Mhz
+ 56001 Digital Signal Processor 10Mips
+ 12 channels of zippy DMA (via custom VLSI) for sound, ethernet, etc.
+ 8Meg of RAM (expandable to 16Meg; and eventually to 64Meg)
+ thin ethernet + "megapixel" 2-bit deep mono display (nice greys!)
+ 2-button mouse (which was not even mentioned!) + SCSI port (Mac-like)
+ microphone input + stereo output (44kHz, 16bit, 2 channel) + headphone jack
+ 256Meg Read/Write removable optical disk (!!!)
all in a black 1 square foot cube with a 3 meter cable to the screen
and all for $6500 to "higher-education".
Its got even more thru-put than the specs show, because the CPU, DSP,
disk, ethernet, etc. are all sitting at the end of "channels" into the
RAM (remember the IBM 370?) that mitigate memory bandwidth problems.
The claim is that you can have ethernet, disk, sound, and CPU activity all
at the same time without swamping anything.
The 256Meg optical disk drive is perhaps the single most impressive aspect
of the whole deal. It seems to use disks about the size of a CD, enclosed
in a rectangular case. The media cost is $50 for a 256Meg floppy ("opti?")
There's also room in the cube for two full-height devices. A 330 Meg
Winchester disk costs $2000; 660 Meg is $4000. Presumably the average
access time is somewhat faster than for the optical disk (but it didn't
seem to be much of a slouch, either).
A new 400dpi laser printer is optional, but everyone will want one at $2000.
(The trick is that the printer has no CPU or memory, just a high-bandwidth
wire back to the cube, where all the PostScript imaging is done. I'm happy
to give up 2Meg to the printer when it's printing, in return for getting it
all to myself when it's not.)
The claim was that the fast DSP allowed you to do a modem in software; and
with the addition of the laser printer, you could also do FAX in software.
All you need is a cheap hardware box to hook you to a phone line.
The CPU takes up a single slot on the four-slot backplane. It's NuNuBus;
like NuBus, but 25Mhz and CMOS only. There's a custom VLSI chip that handles
all bus interface, and it's available to other manufacturers for $25. There's
a hefty power supply that can handle all the disks and boards you can add.
It's all put together untouched by human hands (well the CPU board, anyway)
in a highly automated factory in Fremont California. Surface-mount technology
figures in heavily (though not exclusively). It ships to a lucky few this
quarter with version 0.8 of the software; next quarter 0.9; 1.0 is slated
for 2nd quarter '89.
Yes, it has Mach + NFS + Display PostScript (running plenty fast!) The desk-
top looks like the Mac's, if you squint your eyes and shake your head a little,
but on closer inspection you see that they've redesigned it from the ground up.
Menus tear off and move around like windows. Scrolling is real-time. Special
magic keeps critical icons visible. And, most importantly, the trashcan is
replaced by a black hole.
Program in Objective-C. The "Application Kit" handles the whole main event
loop for you; it sends your objects messages. There's also a neat "Inteface
Builder" that lets you put together dialogs and such by cutting and pasting
buttons, sliders, etc.; and then you can interactively hook it all up to
methods in your (or someone else's) program. They claim that this cuts way
down on the time it takes to create applications, and even allow reasonably
unsophisticated folk to hook up libraries of objects supplied by others.
On-line you'll find Websters dictionary, thesarus, a dictionary of quotations,
and the complete works of Shakespeare with some magic cross indexing that
lets you find all instances of any word in no time flat.
Sybase, Mathematica, Franz, WriteNow will all be built-in. "We're trying to
raise the lowest common denominator" said Jobs. All applications can assume
that the services provided by these programs are available to be called upon.
The IBM rumors are CORRECT! IBM licensed everything from the window system on
up to put on top of their AIX system. The claim was that applications should
be runnable with a simple recompile. Nothing was mentioned about how this fits
in with AIX and X windows, or AIX and OSF, not to mention OS|2 and PM and SAA
and Topview and etc. Maybe it's the old IBM we'll-try-eight-things-and-maybe-
one-of-them-will-work-out trick.
-David Fuchs (of course, FrameMaker is running on the machine (plug, plug))
sun!frame!drf or "frame!drf"@sun.com
------------------------------
End of SUN-Spots Digest
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