Sun-Spots-Request@RICE.EDU (William LeFebvre) (08/10/88)
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Tuesday, 9 August 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 177
Today's Topics:
Re: the name server patch tape
Re: Manual Binders for the Sun
Re: Microsoft windows on Sun 386i
Re: "Standard" disk controller
Re: screenblank on a color 3/60
SunOS 4.0 blues
Sun's Public Image
Another fix for porting 4.3bsd timed to Suns
Sunspots: SunView problems
Problems with Fujitsu M244x tape drive
Modem signals on tty-lines, ALM-2, and DECserver 200MC
flush on an icon?
4.3 learn or equivalent vi tutorial on Sun/OS?
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 08:37:05 MDT
From: cpw%sneezy@lanl.gov (C. Philip Wood)
Subject: Re: the name server patch tape
It's better than nothing. But, wait until your name server becomes
unavailable. Then, try to boot your server or client.
Phil Wood, cpw@lanl.gov
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 08:45:37 PDT
From: texsun!sun!jhm@sun.com (you don't want to know)
Subject: Re: Manual Binders for the Sun
>For manuals intended for public or personal use, one might consider
>purchasing what some call a "docu-box": metal posts similar to that found
>within individual binders, except without the plastic cover & with smaller
>rings. These posts can be linked in series to contain an entire box of
>manuals in the space of a Sun 4/110 cpu.
This is what we use here internal to Sun. They are document binder racks,
and come in various sizes, They can be found at most stationary/office
supply stores, and are similar to what you see on the counters at the
local auto parts store. The sections come out of the rack easily, which is
handier than toting the entire thing to where you happen to need it at the
moment.
John Mc Cartney
Repair Center
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 11:58:44 EDT
From: shenkin@cubsun.bio.columbia.edu (Peter Shenkin)
Subject: Re: Microsoft windows on Sun 386i
I attended a 386i demo/dog-and-pony show, and was told that Sun would be
coming out with a special VGA/EGA board that plugs into an AT slot and
puts its output back into the 386i in a form that allows it to be
displayed in a window. I believe that Microsoft Windows was a particular
application they mentioned. I also seem to recall that my Sun salesman
told me that the board is scheduled to be released this fall. The
conversation took place in early June.
In fact, I have a 386i on order, and I'll ask my salesman about this again
the next time I speak to him, but in the meantime if someone else has
more current or more correct info, I (and presumably other Sun-Spots
readers!) would like to hear it.
*******************************************************************************
Peter S. Shenkin, Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University,
New York, NY 10027 Tel: (212) 280-5517 (work); (212) 829-5363 (home)
shenkin@cubsun.bio.columbia.edu shenkin%cubsun.bio.columbia.edu@cuvmb.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 13:01 CDT
From: linimon@killer.dallas.tx.us (Mark Linimon)
Subject: Re: "Standard" disk controller
Reference: v6n160
Alan Stebbens:
> The best thing would be if Sun were to continue its previous policy of
> providing at least consulting services to 3rd-party vendors in order to
> develop alternative boot subsystems....They've taken a good step
> towards generalizing their "format" program...If they continue the
> generalization a little further, it should be possible to develop a
> program to drive any reasonably standard SMD controller.
:From my own experience with SCSI and ESDI disk controllers, I feel that
"reasonably standard (disk) controller" is probably an oxymoron. I don't
know if SMD is any better but intuition would lead me to doubt it.
This is probably why they're not real interested. Understand that I'm not
defending them, but from their point of view there is most likely a very
high hassle/return-on-investment ratio.
Mark Linimon
Mizar, Inc.
uucp: sun!texsun!mizarvme!linimon
------------------------------
Date: 5 Aug 88 00:04:51 GMT
From: tekbspa!tss!joe@uunet.uu.net (Joe Angelo)
Subject: Re: screenblank on a color 3/60
Reference: v6n159
> What is the proper way to run screenblank on a color Sun 3/60? Whenever
> the screenblank program blanks out the screen, we can't get the console
> back. Does suntools need to be run in a special way to allow this?
In order to save our monitors, all company machines startup screenblank
from /etc/rc.local, such as:
echo -n ' screenblank'
screenblank -d 3600 </dev/console >/dev/console
Yes, we have lots of 3/60s.
[[ But are they *COLOR* 3/60s? --wnl ]]
Joe Angelo -- Senior Systems Engineer/Systems Manager
at Teknekron Software Systems, Palo Alto 415-325-1025
joe@tss.com - uunet!tekbspa!joe - tekbspa!joe@uunet.uu.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 17:16:16 PDT
From: Paul Turner <pturner@ogcese.ogc.edu>
Subject: SunOS 4.0 blues
Help,
We're having some problems with SunOS 4.0 on our Sun 4/260.
1. Several of our fortran programs that worked nicely under 3.2 with 1.05
are now dying at the link phase with an unresolved reference to '_units'.
I searched the fortran libraries and found _units (a berkeley style C
name) in libU77.a. A temporary fix has been to add the declaration to the
library - nothing has broken yet - it would be nice to know what's
missing. Are there any other known bugs in this version of Sun Fortran
(1.1)?
2. The major problem is with lpr/lpd. When spooling to /dev/lp (which is a
link to /dev/mcpp0 - the parallel port on our ALM-2 board) lpd crashes the
system as follows. Things worked just fine under 3.2 (which I think I'd
be using right now if 3.2 had support for subnets). We are using the same
printcap entries as before as follows:
# lp - parallel printer
# hp - 7550A HP-plotter
# changed /usr/spool to /var/spool
# for 4.0
lp:\
:lp=/dev/mcpp0:\
:sd=/var/spool/lpd:
hp:\
:lp=/dev/hp:\
:br#9600:\
lf=/var/adm/hpd-errs:\
:xs#040:\
sd=/var/spool/hpd:
Both these entries worked just fine under 3.2 but now the HP-plotter is
dropping characters and lpr to the parallel printer crashes the system.
This occurs with the GENERIC kernel shipped with the OS and any custom
kernel I've generated. 'Cat'ting a file to /dev/mcpp0 results in the file
being printed up until the last few characters, which then disappear. The
plotter tries desperately to XOFF, apparently ignored as we get io buffer
overflow messages from the plotter. Stty claims that the line is ixon.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Here is the message from the system crash after using lpr:
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: BAD TRAP
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: lpd: Data fault
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: kernel write fault at addr=0x0, pme=0x0
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: Bus Error Reg 80<INVALID>
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: pid=346, pc=0xf8097230, sp=0xffffe6c8, psr=0x8c1, context=6
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: g1-g7: 4008e2, 4008e2, ffffffff, 0, 0, 0, 0
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: Begin traceback... sp = ffffe6c8
.
.
trace back stuff deleted
.
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: End traceback...
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: panic: Data fault
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: zs2: silo overflow
Aug 1 23:03:34 ogcese vmunix: syncing file systems... [13] 4 [13] 4 [11] [4] done
Any help would be appreciated.
Paul Turner Department of Env. Sci. and Engineering
tektronix!ogcvax!pturner Oregon Graduate Center
pturner@ese.ogc.edu (CSNet) 19600 NW Von Neumann Dr.
(503) 690-1043 Beaverton, OR 97006-1999
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 13:14:03 EDT
From: csrobe@icase.arpa (Charles S. (Chip) Roberson)
Subject: Sun's Public Image
Over the past year I have noticed what I perceive to be a change in Sun's
image on the net (sun-spots, sun-nets, etc). It seems that cheers are
down and jeers are way up (RARP, YP, Academic Source Licenses, AT&T,
unbundling software, host tables vs. name servers). Does anyone else
share this contention or is the mist just clearing from my eyes.
If this is true, what does this imply for the future?
just wondering,
-chip
Charles S. Roberson ARPANET: csrobe@icase.[arpa|edu]
ICASE csrobe@[128.239.1.30] (cs.wm.edu)
MS 132C BITNET: $csrobe@wmmvs.bitnet
NASA Langley Rsch. Ctr. UUCP: ...!uunet!pyrdc!gmu90x!wmcs!csrobe
Hampton, VA 23665-5225 Phone: (804) 865-4090
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 09:40:59 CDT
From: Jim Knutson <knutson%sw.MCC.COM@mcc.com>
Subject: Another fix for porting 4.3bsd timed to Suns
The timed patches in the archive worked well enough to get timed running
on our suns. However, timedc wasn't able to use the clockdiff command to
compare the clocks of a remote and local host. I have included a small
patch file below to fix this. At this point timed works well but we can't
seem to get it to work like we want on gateway machines (i.e. being a
master on more than one net). If anyone has any experience with timed on
gateways, please drop me a note.
*** measure.c.orig Tue Aug 2 14:32:33 1988
--- measure.c Tue Aug 2 17:56:22 1988
***************
*** 113,119 ****
--- 113,121 ----
(void)gettimeofday(&tv1, (struct timezone *)0);
if (cc < 0)
return(-1);
+ #ifdef vax
icp = (struct icmp *)(packet + (ip->ip_hl << 2));
+ #endif
if((icp->icmp_type == ICMP_TSTAMPREPLY) &&
icp->icmp_id == id && icp->icmp_seq == seqno)
break;
Jim Knutson
knutson@mcc.com
cs.utexas.edu!milano!knutson
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 88 16:56:49 PDT
From: ho@tis-w.arpa (Hilarie K. Orman)
Subject: Sunspots: SunView problems
I have had tremendous problems with mouse events under cgipw, and the
behavior is similar to what has been described by Scott Johnson using cgi.
In particular, I have a service order that has been open since early May
about these problems. The problem I first reported was that signal
handling didn't work. By following the instructions in the manual I could
get a signal caught and serviced, but the return caused everything to die.
At the same time I noticed that mouse events seemd to "get stuck" in the
event queue randomly. I would like to hear from anyone who has managed to
get this stuff to work. Other applications that I have written that do
not rely on cgi handle signals and mouse events correctly.
------------------------------
Date: Thu 4 Aug 88 10:32:11-PDT
From: Dick <MEAD%hamal.usc.edu@oberon.usc.edu>
Subject: Problems with Fujitsu M244x tape drive
We've have two instances of the dreaded "xt:command sync error" here on
two different 3/280's. The first case was caused by a bad cable in the "A"
set between the drive and controller. Now we have one where we
'sometimes' get the error when a short file is written at BOT. Otherwise
the drive works fine. All components have been verified good with another
system, different slots have been tried. Our last try is to replace the
CPU card, in the idea that perhaps it has developed some sort of timing
problem. I'd accept any better ideas. Aren't computers wonderful!
;^)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 09:22:17 CDT
From: Stephan Wasserroth <wasserroth@fokus.berlin.gmd.dbp.de>
Subject: Modem signals on tty-lines, ALM-2, and DECserver 200MC
Hello, out there!
Here comes a note about the SUN ALM-2 16-lines Multiplexer, and a strange
problem with modem control.
First the configuration:
Our SUN has one MCP-board (for X.25 access) and one ALM-2 board. The lines
of that ALM-2 are connected to a DECserver 200/MC terminal-server, which
is operated as reverse LAT. The DECserver offers a service to our
ethernet, namely to connect to the SUN from every terminal all over the
ethernet.
The DECserver is set up for a non-LAT host as described in the documentation.
That means: It has DTRwait and MODEM CONTROL and INPUT FLOW control enabled.
The other side (the SUN ALM-2) has a flags word of x0ffff specified during
kernel build (saying that it has to look for hardware carrier detect).
Now the note regarding the ALM-2: It should have full modem control on all
lines (at least SUN says so). But if we enable all lines in /etc/ttys, the
following happens:
an init process is spawned for all enabled lines (this is ok).
A getty is executed if a terminal accesses a line (this is ok).
For tty-lines 0..3 the login prompt is displayed and everything runs,
for lines 4..15 NO prompt is issued and the getty terminates after
about 30 seconds. A RS232 line spy told us that on these lines pin
4 is not asserted. SUN has been notified about this behavior (no
answer up to now).
And last: the strange problem. The lines 0..3 seem to work as expected,
but if I connect to the SUN from any terminal on the net via the reverse
operated DECserver, I cannot use GNUemacs and the unix command "script".
Both will not work due to loss of characters (looks like a flow control
problem). Maybe any program using the raw mode on the tty-line will not
work (I didn't figured out) ? But the vi-editor works fine!
Any hints, comments welcome!
Regards, Stephan
DFN-EAN: <wasserroth@fokus.berlin.gmd.dbp.de>
ARPA: <wasserroth%fokus.berlin.gmd.dbp.de@relay.cs.net>
GMD-FOKUS
Stephan Wasserroth Hardenbergplatz 2
System Manager for D-1000 Berlin 12
VAXes and Sun-WS Fed. Rep. of Germany
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 88 14:54:35 SET
From: Danielle Heinzer <ESC1298@ESOC.BITNET>
Subject: flush on an icon?
I have a display window on which data are displayed from time to time.
Normally the window is closed (iconic form).
I would like to know that new data are displayed. I don't like opening
the window and just have a look !!! For instance a way would be: flushing
the icon.
Can anybody help me for doing that, or knows somebody another way ???
Danielle HEINZER
ECD/CS
European Space Operations Centre
Robert-Bosch-Str. 5
6100 Darmstadt
West-Germany
(49)-6151-886540
ESC1298%ESOC.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
[[ Not quite sure what you mean. Are you writing the application or only
running it? If you are actually writing the program, then changing the
structure used for the icon will change the icon as it appears on the
screen. But if that capability was not written into the program, then
there is little you can do. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 88 15:04:26 PDT
From: Abby Hossein <abby@math.ucla.edu>
Subject: 4.3 learn or equivalent vi tutorial on Sun/OS?
I am interested in information on an interactive vi tutorial to help
students in introductory programming classes get familiar with the vi
editor as quickly as possible. On our 4.3 machines, we have the
user-contributed version of vi tutorial (part of the BSD learn program)
but, legal issues permitting, there seems to be some non-portable code in
the program which makes it non-portable to 3.5 Sun/OS. So, I would
appreciate your comments, ideas or any product information you may have
regarding this. Thanks.
abby@math.ucla.edu
------------------------------
End of SUN-Spots Digest
***********************