ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair) (04/15/91)
(1) How careful does one have to be about power surges. EG, should a next be unplugged during a thunderstorm. (I can't fit the plug from my Next into a surge protector. Is this intentional?) (2) Is there any way to initialize a floppy in DOS format? (3) Can one execute the ``eject diskette'' from Terminal?
dejnsen@caen.engin.umich.edu (Nik Anthony Gervae) (04/15/91)
In article <1991Apr14.204737.25075@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair) writes: > > (1) How careful does one have to be about power surges. EG, should >a next be unplugged during a thunderstorm. (I can't fit the plug >from my Next into a surge protector. Is this intentional?) ALWAYS be careful about power surges. Check as much as you can your local electrical supply--they can vary markedly over a few city blocks. Also, since NeXT is a UNIX box, it may do a lot of caching before writing to disk. Consequence: lose power, lose the file you *thought* you saves 5 minutes ago. And the outlet on your surge protector--is it 3-prong? (You never know.) The NeXT plug seems a standard 3-prong to me.... I do highly recommend getting a UPS--I ordered one the day after I ordered my slab, and it was 3 months before I saw the slab! > > (2) Is there any way to initialize a floppy in DOS format? > Check out /NextAdmin for an app called BuildDOS. > (3) Can one execute the ``eject diskette'' from Terminal? There should be one. Try unmount in the man pages for some cross refs. Good luck (and buy that UPS!). Nik. PS UPS=Universal Power Supply (battery backup for power failure--gives you 5 or more minutes to do a graceful shutdown). -- / Nik Gervae aka dejnsen@caen.engin.umich.edu | "It'll be finished next week, \ | CS/Linguistics stud. & NeRD at UM (go blow) | I promise!"--me | | | | | **When all else fails, bug someone who | "Just say an iguana chewed | \ knows (not me!). | up your textbook."--Jason Fox /
bchin@umd5.umd.edu (Bill Chin) (04/15/91)
In article <1991Apr14.233319.3123@engin.umich.edu> dejnsen@caen.engin.umich.edu (Nik Anthony Gervae) writes: >In article <1991Apr14.204737.25075@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair) writes: >> >> (1) How careful does one have to be about power surges. EG, should >>a next be unplugged during a thunderstorm. (I can't fit the plug >>from my Next into a surge protector. Is this intentional?) > > ALWAYS be careful about power surges. Check as much as you can your local >electrical supply--they can vary markedly over a few city blocks. Also, >since NeXT is a UNIX box, it may do a lot of caching before writing to disk. >Consequence: lose power, lose the file you *thought* you saves 5 minutes ago. >And the outlet on your surge protector--is it 3-prong? (You never know.) The >NeXT plug seems a standard 3-prong to me.... I'm thinking of getting a NeXT soon, so I was wondering if there are any UPS's that can notify the NeXT its connected to that power just went out and start a shutdown script. I know of UPS's that do this with Novell servers, so are there any for NeXT's or UNIX boxes in general? -- Bill Chin internet:bchin@umd5.umd.edu MS-Windows Programmer[ignore this :-)] NeXTmail:bchin@is-next.umd.edu PCIP, Computer Science Center CompuServe:74130,2714 University of Maryland, College Park *Standard Disclaimers Apply*
izumi@mindseye.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) (04/15/91)
In article <8431@umd5.umd.edu> bchin@umd5.umd.edu (Bill Chin) writes: >I'm thinking of getting a NeXT soon, so I was wondering if there are >any UPS's that can notify the NeXT its connected to that power >just went out and start a shutdown script. I know of UPS's that do >this with Novell servers, so are there any for NeXT's or UNIX >boxes in general? I saw this quite recently in "comp.sources.misc". It may be useful if you want to do automatic shutdown for power outages that lasts a little too long. There have been two patches to this. ---- begin forwarded article --------------------------------- From: art@pilikia.pegasus.com (Authur W. Neilson III) Newsgroups: comp.sources.misc Subject: v18i005: upsd - UPS monitor daemon, Part01/01 Message-ID: <1991Apr9.044203.8382@sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM> Date: 9 Apr 91 04:42:03 GMT Sender: kent@sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM (Kent Landfield) Organization: Sterling Software, IMD Lines: 686 Approved: kent@sparky.imd.sterling.com X-Checksum-Snefru: 93736b6d fe6ddccc 02693e2a a5e6707a Submitted-by: Authur W. Neilson III <art@pilikia.pegasus.com> Posting-number: Volume 18, Issue 5 Archive-name: upsd/part01 The UPS monitor daemon or "upsd" watches the serial port connected to an UPS and will perform an unattended shutdown of the system if the UPS is on battery longer than a specified number of minutes. Upsd needs to watch a tty with modem control properties, and expects the UPS to raise DCD when it switches to battery backup and drop DCD when it goes back to online. Upsd was developed and tested under ISC with the FAS 2.08 driver and an American Power Convon SmartUPS 600, your milage may vary on other OSes and UPSes. Art ----- end of fowarded header/read me section from comp.sources.misc ---- Izumi Ohzawa [ $@Bg_78^=;(J ] USMail: University of California, 360 Minor Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720 Telephone: (415) 642-6440 Fax: (415) 642-3323 Internet: izumi@violet.berkeley.edu NeXTmail: izumi@pinoko.berkeley.edu
guru@buhub.bradley.edu (Jerry Whelan) (04/15/91)
bchin@umd5.umd.edu (Bill Chin) writes: >I'm thinking of getting a NeXT soon, so I was wondering if there are >any UPS's that can notify the NeXT its connected to that power >just went out and start a shutdown script. I know of UPS's that do >this with Novell servers, so are there any for NeXT's or UNIX >boxes in general? There was a UPS daemon posted to alt.sources recently. Apparently the way these guys work is that they plug into your serial port too. When external power goes off, it just asserts one of the lines in the serial connection (DTR?, I forget), so all you have to do is watch for that line to come up and then start your shutdown procedure. -- "I'm not sure what I mean, so I'm going to listen to what I say." guru@ (buhub.bradley.edu || bucc1.bradley.edu)
waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu (04/16/91)
In article <8431@umd5.umd.edu>, bchin@umd5.umd.edu (Bill Chin) writes: > In article <1991Apr14.233319.3123@engin.umich.edu> dejnsen@caen.engin.umich.edu (Nik Anthony Gervae) writes: >>In article <1991Apr14.204737.25075@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair) writes: >>> >>> (1) How careful does one have to be about power surges. [...] >> ALWAYS be careful about power surges. Check as much as you can your local >>electrical supply--they can vary markedly over a few city blocks. Also, >>since NeXT is a UNIX box, it may do a lot of caching before writing to disk. >>Consequence: lose power, lose the file you *thought* you saves 5 minutes ago. >>And the outlet on your surge protector--is it 3-prong? (You never know.) The >>NeXT plug seems a standard 3-prong to me.... > > I'm thinking of getting a NeXT soon, so I was wondering if there are > any UPS's that can notify the NeXT its connected to that power > just went out and start a shutdown script. I know of UPS's that do > this with Novell servers, so are there any for NeXT's or UNIX > boxes in general? I bought a Clary SL-800 (I think that's the model...I'm sure about the manufacturer) and it contains an 8-pin (I think) connector that you could cable to a serial port on your NeXT. Clary's manual describes the pinouts and how the UPS uses them in the event of a power disturbance. I haven't tried it yet (I need both serial ports for other things) so I can't say that it can be done for sure. But I believe that other UPS manufacturers provide a similar interface and some of them provide software packages for various platforms for monitoring the UPS. A daemon for monitoring a UPS was recently posted to comp.sources.misc (I believe). Perhaps it could be adapted to whatever UPS you got. BTW, my UPS is probably overkill...appears to be only a one quarter load. Don't know whether this would translate into 60 plus minutes of battery backup instead of 20 minutes or not. If it does, I don't mind the overkill. I bought a UPS because I believe clean power greatly extends the life of a system. I also believe that keeping equipment that you use daily running continuously rather than turning it off and on extends its life too. These may all be my versions old wives' tales (I also believe in old wives) and I have no credentials as a power engineer and only anecdotal evidence that causes me to hold these views so I don't offer them as recommendations. c.f.waltrip Internet: <waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu> Opinions expressed are my own.exit
scott@texnext.gac.edu (Scott Hess) (04/16/91)
In article <1991Apr15.134627.1@capd.jhuapl.edu> waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu writes:
I bought a Clary SL-800 (I think that's the model...I'm sure about the
manufacturer) and it contains an 8-pin (I think) connector that you
could cable to a serial port on your NeXT. Clary's manual describes
the pinouts and how the UPS uses them in the event of a power
disturbance. I haven't tried it yet (I need both serial ports for
other things) so I can't say that it can be done for sure. But I
believe that other UPS manufacturers provide a similar interface and
some of them provide software packages for various platforms for
monitoring the UPS. A daemon for monitoring a UPS was recently posted
to comp.sources.misc (I believe). Perhaps it could be adapted to
whatever UPS you got.
Hmm. I'm interested in purchasing a UPS so soon as I'm both ready,
and have the money availiable (probably later this month - before
more RAM, for certain). If anyone's had experience with this
or that UPS - send me email. I'm most interested in UPS's of
the type described above - with a serial-style connector that
I can either hook up upsd or a homebrew daemon to, so that I
can have semi-orderly shutdown (If I can find a woman with an
English accent, we'll even problem have "you computer is out
of power" . . .).
Anything you send in, combined with some selective calls, will
be put into some sort of summary. Well, that's what should
happen. I'm willing to do something like the infamous RAM/HD
lists going about ($650==16M from ship merchant, including
shipping to me. That's $159/simm), at least for the next month
or so, at which point I leave school, and presumably the fast
net connection I currently enjoy. But will that stop me?
Later,
--
scott hess scott@gac.edu
Independent NeXT Developer GAC Undergrad
<I still speak for nobody>
"Simply press Control-right-Shift while click-dragging the mouse . . ."
"I smoke the nose Lucifer . . . Banana, banana."eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (04/23/91)
There are several UPSes with serial ports (my cohorts recommend the "Best" product line--USA customers can order these from UUNET). The "problem" (of course) is that it takes over half the serial ports on your machine. :-( UPSes aren't cheap... plan on spending $1000 or more on a decent one. If you don't need uninterruptable power, Tripp-Lite makes some nice power conditioners (Elek-Tek in Illinois has great mail-order prices--an 1800w model sells for around $200). The next level down is Tripp-Lite Isobars; I wouldn't bother with anything less sophisticated. We had a campus-wide power outage about a week ago; various attempts to get generators started and more problems when the "real" power came back fried a bunch of PC power supplies. My department's NeXTs are all plugged into "paranoia" boxes, and survived unscathed. sutro.sfsu.edu isn't, and it didn't come back to life... the cube itself was undamaged, but its external SCSI disk blew its fuse, setting off a mad scramble to find a replacement. -=EPS=-
paul@cgh.cgh.com (Paul Homchick) (04/24/91)
I have a DataShield SS700 UPS running my NeXT. I have seen it run the
cube on battery power for 45 minutes. It is a true UPS (not an SPS),
and I am sure it was less than $1000. (~$790 sticks in my mind).
--
Paul Homchick :UUCP {rutgers | uunet} !cbmvax!cgh!paul
Chimitt Gilman Homchick, Inc. :Internet paul@cgh.com
259 Radnor-Chester Rd, Suite 140 :MCI PHOMCHICK
Radnor, PA 19087-5299 :GEnie HOMCHICKrich@VAXKILLER.AGI.ORG (Richard E. Showalter) (05/18/91)
Hello all, Back in april several people were interested in UPS systems that would talk to their NeXT via a serial port to start a shutdown when the UPS went on battery power. I downloaded the software for the upsd - UPS monitor daemon written by Authur W. Neilson III but it was written for a SysV system. I am not a programer so I haven't a clue what needs to be changed to port this program to the NeXT. (I do know that it will not compile as it stands because I tried). Has anyone ported this or any other similar program to the NeXT? Please E-mail me as I get this list from archives. Rich Showalter SysAdmin Agouron Institute rich@vaxkiller.agi.org