tss@beta.lanl.gov (Timothy S Sullivan) (09/18/89)
The system: An Everex 386/20 with a CDC Wren III 165 MB, 16.7 ms, ESDI hard drive, 2 MB RAM, ATI VGAWonder card, NEC Multisync 2A monitor, 2 floppies. The purpose: Primarily a single user system to control experiments using IEEE-488 and a video image capture card (neither board purchased yet). Secondarily to connect with an existing Sun network over Ethernet (board also yet to be bought). The angst: All of the above could be done under DOS with existing, spiffy products, but I hate to see the potential of such a machine wasted on a single process operating system. Besides, I like to use UNIX. The questions: 1) Is there anything about the above configuration that would prevent me from choosing SCO Unix or ISC 386/ix? 2) One of the big worries about choosing Unix is the availability of device drivers especially for devices that don't have anything to do with business systems. Does anybody know of existing device drivers for IEEE-488 cards or image capture cards for either SCO or ISC? 3) For instrument control it would be extremely handy to have real time extensions. VenturCom produces such a package for 386/ix. Is there such a package for SCO Unix/Xenix? Does anyone have experience with the VenturCom package? 4) Is it realistic to run X Windows as the window system for this machine? Can one pop-up a VP/ix window under X (like one can under Suntools on the Sun 386i)? 5) I expect to be doing a lot of C programming to automate the experiment I'm running. Is there a big difference in the programming environment between SCO and ISC? 6) Is this possible? Lets imagine that I can't find a device driver for the image capture card, but that I buy 386/ix with VenturCom's real time extensions. Could I write a program using the DOS device driver, and run it under VP/ix and give it real-time priority with the VenturCom extensions? (When I asked somebody at VenturCom about this he hemmed and hawed quite a bit.) Is VP/ix a task just like any other Unix task? 7) I consider myself a reasonably competent Unix user, but my system administration experience to date has been to figure out UUCP on a HP9000/520 and get it to talk over a modem to a Sun 3, to add users and other minor things like that. Am I crazy to consider getting so involved with Unix? Thanks for taking the time to get this far. Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated. Please post responses to the net if you think this is of general interest. Otherwise I would appreciate Internet email at tss@lanl.gov . Tim Sullivan
herbert@ektools.UUCP (Tom Herbert) (09/27/89)
In article <32258@beta.lanl.gov> tss@beta.lanl.gov (Timothy S Sullivan) writes: > >2) One of the big worries about choosing Unix is the availability of >device drivers especially for devices that don't have anything to >do with business systems. Does anybody know of existing device drivers >for IEEE-488 cards or image capture cards for either SCO or ISC? > There is a German board, called ines with a driver for Interactive 386/ix version 2.0.x. I do not know who is the US distributor for this board for we purchased it through a German subcontractor. Here is their address: ines - Innovative Elektronik-Systeme Neuenhofer Allee 45 D - 5000 Koln 41 West Germany This board should coexist with an intelligent ethernet controller board such as the Micom np600 running DECnet or TCP/IP. We run ours with DECnet. >4) Is it realistic to run X Windows as the window system for this >machine? Can one pop-up a VP/ix window under X (like one can under >Suntools on the Sun 386i)? Yes, vpix can run on any terminal, a "real" terminal, a virtual pty such as an xterm window or a rlogin or telnet session. You may be limited to text only output since it is running under terminal emulation when it is running in an xterm window. Putting up vpix on your 386/ix system with NFS running, provides a DOS server for any user on any other system on the network that is running from the same NFS server. > Tim Sullivan Also Tim, you will like Unix alot better than DOS for running multi-protocals such as tcp/ip and IEEE488 simultaneously. --TFH herbert@kodak.com ..!rochester!kodak!herbert Tom Herbert Signal Processing Dept. MS 35908 Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, N.Y. 14653
tss@beta.lanl.gov (Timothy S Sullivan) (10/02/89)
First I want to thank all of you who took time to respond to my inquiry about controlling experiments with UNIX and a 386. I will attempt to summarize the information received. The first concern is choosing the operating system. UNIX itself has the problem of not guarenteeing that it will get around to any particular task in any particular time, so it is necessary to have real-time extensions. I knew about VenturCom's VENIX/386 version 3.2. (VenturCom, Incorporated; 215 First Street; Cambridge, MA 02142; (617)661-1230). This product incorporates real-time capability with ISC 386/ix 2.0.2. This would appear to do the job at a cost of (operating system + development system, 2 user) $1643. Unfortunately, VenturCom was unsure of whether the system would work with my hardware. The concern centered around my Data Technology DTC 6280 ESDI controller with its CDC Wren III hard drive, and my ATI VGAWonder card. That they coudn't guarentee it would work is not surprising considering the large number of boards out there. But they also wouldn't let me have a no-risk trial. I can't afford anything like $1600 without assurances that it will even run. Can anyone explain why this is a sensible policy? Seems to me that they would want to know of additional systems that the software would work with? (ISC said no problem for 386/ix, but I didn't get the impression that the person I talked to thought about it very much and the hardware is not on their 386/ix compatible devices list I got from VenturCom. Has anyone used either of these boards with 386/ix?) As a result of my posting, Vik Sohal (voder!lynx!vik@apple.com) of Lynx Real-Time Systems contacted me about LynxOS. (Lynx Real-Time Systems; 550 Division Street; Campbell, CA; (408)370-2233; FAX (408)370-2456). LynxOS is a "clean room" re-write of UNIX and has real-time capability. Mr. Sohal didn't seem to think that my hardware was a problem. The price quoted for the LynxOS development system was $1495 (which appears to include TCP/IP and no mention of the number of users). Mr. Sohal was very helpful and sent along a packet of information including a book of example applications code called "Developing Real-Time Applications with LynxOS". I'm exploring this further now. The next problem is drivers for IEEE488 boards and a video capture card. The IEEE488 card is easy and I rate a RTFM at least when it comes to VENIX. I didn't know that you should try the board vendors. Anyway, National Instruments ( (800) IEEE488 (!) or (512) 794-0100 thanks to fritzz@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu for the numbers) has a UNIX System V 3.2 driver available for one of their boards. (National also has Xenix drivers according to Jan Parcel (jan@orc.olivetti.com) as does IOTech (216) 439-4091). There also exist converters from RS232 to IEEE488 available from Black Box (?) according to Scot E. Wilcoxen (sewilco@DataPg.MN.ORG) Bill Hatch (uunet!bts!bill) has actually used such a device from IOTech. The video capture card is more difficult. If you have a lot of money there is the Parallax board (reportly about $8000) which is supported on many different platforms including ISC 386/ix. (Thanks to Rick Chimera carm@umd5.umd.edu for this information. I've heard about this board for Sun's. It can put live video into your X-windows system.) Vik Sohal tells me that Lynx is working on a driver for a Data Translation 2853 frame grabber, about $1700. Tom Herbert (herbert@kodak.com) told me about a German board called ines that works with 386/ix, but didn't tell me if it was an IEEE488 board or a video board. (ines - Innovative Elektronik-Systeme; Neuenhofer Allee 45; D - 5000 Koln 41; West Germany). Chris Barr (frog!barr@harvard.harvard.edu) saw ISC display a video demo at UNIX Expo in NYC almost a year ago, but doesn't remember the name of the video board vendor. In case there is anyone out there looking for other drivers, VenturCom knows of drivers for Analog/Digital I/O boards from Data Translation and Stepper Motor Controllers from Scientific Solutions. Everyone was in agreement that I needed at least 4 Megs to run X Windows and preferably 6. I also asked a question about using using DOS device drivers under VP/ix to get around the device driver availability problem and then use real time extensions to make the VP/ix task a high priority. The answers were mixed. Some thought it was possible but very slow, others thought it was possible, but had some limitations on what could be done, others thought it was impossible. Thanks again for your help. Tim Sullivan
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (10/03/89)
In article <33152@beta.lanl.gov>, tss@beta.lanl.gov (Timothy S Sullivan) writes: | card. That they coudn't guarentee it would work is not surprising | considering the large number of boards out there. But they also | wouldn't let me have a no-risk trial. I can't afford anything like | $1600 without assurances that it will even run. Can anyone explain why | this is a sensible policy? Seems to me that they would want to know | of additional systems that the software would work with? (ISC said no | problem for 386/ix, but I didn't get the impression that the person I | talked to thought about it very much and the hardware is not on their | 386/ix compatible devices list I got from VenturCom. Has anyone used | either of these boards with 386/ix?) Consider it from their point of view. Once you get the software they have no way of knowing if you will keep a copy of the disks or not. You could make the copies and return the product, buy a cheap set of SysV manuals to go with photocopies of the changes in their manual... In general companies will do something like that for a large company byt not an individual. There is less chance of theft and more chance of a big order with the big company. I'm not defending it, you wanted to know why it was a sensible policy, and I gave you my opinion. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon