Sun-Spots Digest, v6n69
William LeFebvre
Sun-Spots-Request at RICE.EDU
Tue May 3 06:08:32 AEST 1988
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Monday, 2 May 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 69
Today's Topics:
Re: Clients not responding immediately
Re: SUN screendump to Apple laserwriter?
Re: using line drawing characters?
Re: Need suggestions about graphics software
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS -- SUN USER'S GROUP
Sun386i Details corrected
Memory for a Sun 3/60
SLIP for Sun
QIC-150 (or 120) SCSI driver wanted
exceptional conditions in select(2)
Questions concerning streaming 9-tracks tape decks on Sun-4/280's
Query on Fujitsu M2246 Disks
Mouse problems
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 88 14:06:55 PDT
From: Brent Chapman <capmkt!brent at cogsci.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Clients not responding immediately
Reference: v6n61
> Yes, another simple question with simple answer: Simply, when our 3/260
> server reboots, our 3/160 and four 3/50 clients fail to notice that the
> server is once again available. They insist that the nfs server is
> unavailable. After waiting approximately 1/2 hour, then they see the
> server. Another department here is having the same problem. Has anyone
> else experienced this problem? All suggestions, etc., etc. are more than
> welcome. We are running SunOS 3.4.
It could possibly be that the "timeo" (timeout) parameter for that
filesystem (specified in /etc/fstab) is set to some unreasoably large
value. According to the manual page for 'mount', when an NFS request is
made, the kernel waits 'timeo' tenths of a second for a response; if none
is received, it sends the request again and doubles the timeo parameter.
It continues to alternate this "resend and wait twice as long as before"
until it either gets a response or the number of retransmissions passes
that set by the "retrans" parameter. By default, timeo is 7 and retrans
is 3, meaning that you should have to wait at most .7 + 1.4 + 2.8 + 5.6 =
10.5 seconds before it gives up. If someone has changed the 'timeo'
parameter to something larger on the clients, that might be the problem.
-Brent
Brent Chapman Capital Market Technology, Inc.
Senior Programmer/Analyst 1995 University Ave., Suite 390
{lll-tis,ucbvax!cogsci}!capmkt!brent Berkeley, CA 94704
capmkt!brent@{tis.llnl.gov,cogsci.berkeley.edu} Phone: 415/540-6400
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 88 07:32:15 EDT
From: Chuck Musciano <chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com>
Subject: Re: SUN screendump to Apple laserwriter?
There is no need to download anything in order to print rasters on your
LaserWriter. We use the pssun command, which (I believe) was supplied on
the TransScript tape supplied with the LaserWriter from Sun. A typical
invocation to print your screen:
screendump | pssun -l 1.5 1.5 -2 -r | lpr
We find it convenient to put this in your root menu, allowing quick and
easy screen dumps. The resulting PostScript file is about 151K. The
pssun options move the lower left corner to the point 1.5" from the left
and bottom edges, replicate all the pixels to increase the image size, and
rotate the page into landscape format. You wind up with a 7.68" x 6"
image that takes about five minutes to print.
Whoever installed your printer software should have installed the pssun
man page, so see it for more information.
Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(305) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 88 07:42:49 EDT
From: Chuck Musciano <chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com>
Subject: Re: using line drawing characters?
> I am new to the sun world (sun-light?) and am trying to port a program
> over from the pc to the sun. The program uses pc line drawing characters
> quite a lot....BUT - a little test program that displays all characters
> from 0-255 shows nothing above 0x7f...The question is how can I make the
> line drawing characters show up!!!
As all Sun users are leaping to the keyboard to say the same thing, I'll
try to get there first. The PC character set is just that, the PC
character set. The Sun character mapping has no characters above 0x7f
(DEL). However, if you are enterprising, you could use fontedit(1) to
draw them all, in all of the screen fonts (in /usr/lib/fonts/fixedwidthfonts).
Others porting PC software might be interested in using the results of
your efforts.
Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(305) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 88 07:56:57 PDT
From: danny at ford-wdl1.arpa (Daniel Abramovitch)
Subject: Re: Need suggestions about graphics software
All the abilities that you mentioned are pretty much standard in
Pro-Matlab. (Matlab stands for Matrix-Labaratory.) You can do your
graphics in a Sun window and print it out on a variety of laser printers.
Versions exist which run on PCs, MacIIs, MicroVaxes (both Unix and VMS),
Appollos and Suns. The Postscript file can be saved and then included
into a LaTeX document using the \special command and dvi2ps. (I've done
this quite a bit.) The wire frame graphs are done via a command called
`mesh'. On a color screen, there are color lines (which can be output to
an HP-Pen plotter). When going to a black and white device, these colors
are translated into different line types. Finally, Matlab is a lot more
than just a graphics package: it is a mathematical too which allows you
to code your matrix equations (e.g. Kalman filters, control systems
designs, statistical problems) the same way that you would write them on
paper.
The phone number is:
The Mathworks 617-65\pi (617-653-1415)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 88 22:47:15 EST
From: bzs%bu-cs.bu.edu at bu-it.bu.edu (Barry Shein)
Subject: CALL FOR NOMINATIONS -- SUN USER'S GROUP
Nominations for the Board of Directors
Bim Toth
President, Sun Microsystems User Group
Each member of the Board of Directors of the User Group volunteers to work
hard to build a strong organization that is a constructive, intelligent,
and vigorous agent for Sun users worldwide. Of the seven voting User
Group board positions, three (currently occupied by Gilmore, Morin, and
Weiser) are subject to election this spring. A Director's term is two
years. The election procedure is governed by Article VI, Section 1 of our
bylaws. We presently solicit nominations for these positions from our
members.
Please send your nominations in writing via US mail to the User Group's
accountancy firm: Sun User Group Nominating Committee, c/o Bendall, 5120
Campbell Avenue, Suite 501, San Jose, CA 96130. Nominations should be
postmarked no later than midnight, April 30. A nominating committee,
whose membership will be published, will see to it that ballots are mailed
to all members by May 15. Closing date for receipt of ballots will be
June 30. Our accountant's tabulations will be announced by July 15.
------------------------------
Date: Sun Apr 24 18:09:49 1988
From: portal!cup.portal.com!jxh at sun.com
Subject: Sun386i Details corrected
As I feared, my earlier comments reporting on my first experience with a
Sun Roadrunner (Sun386i) were slightly inaccurate. I have since received
messages from people at Sun's East Coast Division (the origin of the RR)
clarifying certain features. Fearmongering was not my intention, but I
may have caused consternation in certain circles with my earlier posting.
(If Sun-spots were less delayed, the damage might have been less.)
Well-behaved MS-DOS programs will run, BUT SO WILL SOME OTHERS. I stand
corrected. Display adapter writes are, indeed, trapped and emulated IF
they are for CGA, Hercules, or "one other" (identity unclear). EGA and
VGA require additional hardware. This extra "display hook" board uses
only one slot for one to four "adapters" (I gather that memory can be
added to achieve this multipicity), and will be available from a third
party, not Sun.
I/O instructions can be executed by Virtual-8086 tasks (MS-DOS windows)
owing to the amazing feature of the I/O bitmap in the 80386. I had not
done my homework, and I dared not imagine that this was actually done. A
given process can be given direct access to a set of ports; other
attempted INs and OUTs will be trapped. This access is set up by reading
a file called boards.pc which identifies which I/O addresses are required
by a given task. Of course, sharing these is another matter; I don't know
how the contention is resolved. I/O devices are considered "resources"
just as are drives A:, etc. I think (it's not clear from my information
to date) that there are PC-like peripherals inside the box (8237, 8259A)
that can be accessed in this manner to achieve remarkable PC
compatibility. I have yet to try this, but it seems that an attempt was
made to support programs that use I/O Channel DMA channels, IRQ lines,
etc. I doubt that there is any memory out there that is refreshed by DMA
channel 1, but there's no need to carry things so far that ugliness is
duplicated for the sake of compatibility.
As I said, I wish some Sun employee would post the facts so that
inaccuracies in my understanding of these details do not get taken as
Gospel, causing people to avoid buying the machine on the basis of my
postings. I hope no one is doing *that*. My intention is to spread
knowledge so that people will join me in porting things there, so I may
benefit from their experience. Further clarifications as they transpire.
Jim Hickstein, VSAT Systems, Inc. San Jose, CA (408) 435-8016
jxh at cup.portal.com -or- ...!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!jxh
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1988 08:25:23 LCL
From: Philip Green <PMGREEN at suvm.acs.syr.edu>
Subject: Memory for a Sun 3/60
try Clearpoint Research Corp.
99 South St.
Hopkinton MA 01701
1-800-CLEARPT
We received ours in approx. two weeks.
Phil Green
Syracuse University
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 88 12:02:10 PDT
From: roode at orc.olivetti.com (David Roode)
Subject: SLIP for Sun
Where are some good on-line distribution centers for the latest SLIP
source code such as will run on a Sun which does not have SunOS source?
[[ The sun-spots archives has the source to a serial line IP driver. It
claims to include support for generic 4.2BSD and Suns running 3.x.
Standard 4.3BSD already has SLIP in it. NOTICE TO EVERYONE WHO HAS
ALREADY RETRIEVED A COPY OF slip.shar: if you retrieved it before 11:23
CDT on May 2, then get yourself another copy. The shar file that
origially appeard in the archives had some bad bytes in it. You can tell
it's bad because it reports error while being unpacked. The copy
currently in the archives is correct. It is called
"sun-source/slip.shar" and can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from the
host "titan.rice.edu" or via the archive server. For more information
about the archive server, send a mail message containing the word "help"
to the address "archive-server at rice.edu". --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 88 14:09:52 +0200
From: Richard Niklasson <rn at tts.lu.se>
Subject: QIC-150 (or 120) SCSI driver wanted
I am trying to use a Tandberg Data TDC 3660 with my SUN 3/50. The problems
is that the SUN st (scsi-tape) driver is only supporting QIC-11 or QIC-24
format.
Anyone out there who having a QIC-150 st driver or knowing how to make
one? It doesn't have be a public domain ......
Richard Niklasson ! INTERNET: rn at tts.lu.se
Dept of Communication Systems ! ARPA: rn%tts.lu.se at ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Lund Institute of Technology ! UUCP: ...!{uunet,mcvax,munnari}!enea!tts.lu!rn
Box 118 ! EARN/BITNET: erlangrn at seldc51
S-221 00 LUND, Sweden ! PHONE: +46 46109008 FAX: +46 46145823
------------------------------
Date: 21 Apr 88 19:25:17 GMT
From: lloyd!wse%hscfvax at husc6.harvard.edu (Bill Edwards)
Subject: exceptional conditions in select(2)
We are currently developing an application that implements inter-process
communcation using sockets in the UNIX domain as STREAM sockets. We have
certain requirements that dictate we identify particular "exceptional
conditions" during communications. The documentation on select(2) says
that it can identify which socket descriptors have any pending
"exceptional conditions". However we have not been able to find any
documentation that describes what the "exceptional conditions" are or how
they are identified. Is there anybody out there who can shed some light
on this problem? We are using Sun UNIX release 3.2
[[ "Out of band" data, perhaps? --wnl ]]
Thanks in advance,
Charlie Garcia
Bill Edwards wse%lloyd at husc6.harvard.edu ARPA
Camex;75 Kneeland St. ...!{harvard,husc6}!hscfvax!lloyd!wse UUCP
Boston, MA 02111 edwards@{harvunxu,harvunxw} BITNET
------------------------------
Date: 21 Apr 88 13:39:27 GMT
From: trw at hrc63.co.uk (Trevor Wright "Marconi Baddow")
Subject: Questions concerning streaming 9-tracks tape decks on Sun-4/280's
I'm likely to have a pair of Sun's 9-track streaming tape decks on a
Sun-4/280 (I think the decks originate from Fujitsu). Main use of these
will be to backup local discs and those across the network.
Can any users of the same hardware setup confirm a) that the decks stream
flat-out OK and b) with two drives can we get dump to move to the 2nd
drive when it's filled up the first.
Also, can anyone recommend a neat disc backup package with all the right
admin features to handle automated incremental/full backups of a large
community of Sun's (25+) - I've seen Reel mentioned in Catalyst..
Thanks TREVOR WRIGHT, GEC-Marconi Research Centre, Chelmsford UK
Arpanet: yc23%a.gec-mrc.co.uk at nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 88 09:17 CST
From: <KUSALIK at SASK.BITNET>
Subject: Query on Fujitsu M2246 Disks
We are thinking of buying some Fujitsu M2246 ESDI disks to hang off of
SUN-3/50's. Does anyone have experience with these disks on SUN
configurations they could share? Any compatability problems? Any
problems formatting? Reliability?
Tony Kusalik
kusalik at sask.bitnet
kusalik%sask.bitnet at relay.cs.net
..!{alberta,ihnp4}!sask!kusalik
kusalik%sask.bitnet at jade.berkeley.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 88 11:07:45 EDT
From: "Pawel Stefanski" <stefan at gmuvax2.gmu.edu>
Subject: Mouse problems
We have such a problem: old-type mouses (black with grey keys) which were
connected to our SUN-2 gradually refused to work (when plugged, there is
no light from any of the two small lamps on the bottom). However, when we
substituted them for IBM-PC mouse (or mouse taken from SUN-3) the new one
works fine. Also the old one sometimes works, but only if it is plugged in
and the machine is rebooted, if we change (unplug) the mouse later, it
'hangs'. Any suggestions?
Pawel A. Stefanski, Phone (703)764-6057, (703)323-2713,
(stefan at gmuvax2.gmu.edu)
Machine Learning Laboratory, Department of Computer Science,
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030.
------------------------------
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