pjg@solstice.unr.EDU (P. Graham) (05/16/88)
configuration: cci 6/32 (from sperry) prefatory query. is there anyone else out there who doesn't have floating point? we don't have floating point and we're thinking about getting it. two reasons come into play 1) the floating emulation (we're running 4.3beta circa aug. 87) fails under some circumstances. 2) when it doesn't it's slower than everything else on campus. my questions: Has anyone else seen this problem or does anyone know if the stuff in sys/tahoemath has been fixed by cci and kept secret? My sperry configuration guide says i have to get the third cabinet and move all my peripheral boards to it if i want to use those three slots set aside for the floating point. Is this really necessary? If so why? Anybody have a floating point set for less than $12k? (naturally this last question should certainly be answered via private mail) A little nugget of info: early this year my ce's came by and changed my cp roms. suddenly i could boot 4.3beta according to the instructions. if you are still running the old roms i'd rush right out and get the new ones. -- Paul Graham -- University of Nevada-Reno uucp - uunet!tahoe.unr.edu!pjg internet: pjg@tahoe.unr.edu (MX mailing only, we're not on the internet)
james@CSD4.MILW.WISC.EDU (Jim Lowe) (05/16/88)
> To: uwvax!csd1.milw.wisc.edu!info-tahoe > Subject: floating point woes > Date: Sun, 15 May 88 13:45:44 PDT > From: (P. Graham) <uwvax!rutgers!solstice.unr.edu!pjg@csd1.milw.wisc.edu> > > > configuration: cci 6/32 (from sperry) > > my questions: > Has anyone else seen this problem or does anyone know if the stuff in > sys/tahoemath has been fixed by cci and kept secret? > My sperry configuration guide says i have to get the third cabinet and > move all my peripheral boards to it if i want to use those three slots set > aside for the floating point. Is this really necessary? If so why? > Anybody have a floating point set for less than $12k? (naturally this > last question should certainly be answered via private mail) > We found many problems with libm.a. The stuff that is in /usr/src/cci/libM has many bugs in it, also the stuff in /usr/src/usr.lib/libm is very slow and buggy. Your problem might be here... A person here has worked on the math libs and has fixed many of the problems. We are testing the new stuff now. As far as a machine with out floating point -- I don't think it is good to run the box w/o floating point and less than 16 Meg of memory. With the floating point boards, the machine turns about 7 MWhetstones single precision and 3.2 MWhetstones double precision. Running our math libraries. I have never yanked out the floating point sum and multiply boards to see how it works without it, but it has to be slowww. For prices and configuration you can try some other vendors. There are quite a few people that sell stuff for the CCI box. Here are a couple of people I usually talk to about this stuff: Jerry Martin Paul Caliban Gary Praznik First Computer CCI Unisys Chicago Chicago Madison, WI (312) 920-1050 (312) 299-9340 (608)-221-3311 John Cimino Dave Katt InterSource Office Network Inc. Cedar Rapids, Iowa Waukesha, WI (319) 362-4007 (414) 784-6040 And I am sure there are more. > A little nugget of info: early this year my ce's came by and changed my cp > roms. suddenly i could boot 4.3beta according to the instructions. if you > are still running the old roms i'd rush right out and get the new ones. I beleive the current rev. level from Unisys is A18. A18 proms are suppose to be able to support booting from Eagles and the new tape controller available from Unisys. Unisys sells the new tape controller on their 7000/50 systems. I have heard that there is a newer version of the firmware available, but not from Unisys yet. - Jim Internet: james@csd4.milw.wisc.edu Uucp: ihnp4!uwmcsd1!james Phone: +1 (414) 229-6431