Sys V/AT 2.4

[Steve J. Rudek]

In article <645 at wa3wbu.UUCP>, john at wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) writes:
> 
> update and can comment on it ?  Im running 2.3U with the HoneyDanber
> uucp and Everex tape drive and it works *VERY* solid.  I would hope


To: pacbell!ames!ucsd!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!wa3wbu!john
Subject: Re: Sys V/AT 2.4
References: <645 at wa3wbu.UUCP>

I find your statement that you have found 2.3U "*VERY* solid" very
intriguing; I've found it to be abysmally buggy!  Didn't you
have obvious problems with vi and terminfo?  Doesn't your system
do a "double panic" and die if ANYONE on your system compiles and runs
the following program?

/*------------------------*/
#include <stdio.h>
int x;
main ()
{
	x = 42; 
	printf("%f", x);
}
/*------------------------*/

I use V/AT to run a public access bbs with two call-in modems.
During the year and a half I've owned V/AT I've had regular (daily)
, "double panics" which kill the system and sometimes destroy large
sections of the file system.  Because the problem is so fatal and
so obvious, I am nonplussed when I encounter a happy V/AT customer.

I'm new to the net.  Quite likely, this subject has been beaten to
death; in that case, perhaps someone could email me a summary of
conclusions.  When call-in users disconnect from my system (possibly
this only occurs when they simply hangup without an orderly logout)
my modem will often get hung.  Once the modem hangs the game is over;
any attempt to reset the modem, respawn the getty or shutdown the
system will "double panic" the system and produce file damage.

For the first year and a half that I had V/AT microport (including,
of course, my initial 90 day period when I had an option of
returning the product as defective) Microport denied any knowledge
of such a bug in their software; they repeatedly told me it was a 
problem in my hardware.  As a result, I spent a LOT of money and
--piece by piece-- replaced practically every component of the 
system.  Two months ago, they acknowledged a problem and told me
I could download a fix from their bbs (mind you, they didn't 
send me a fix -- even though I had an upgrade contract which
supposedly called for them to issue periodic "bug fixes").  Well,
I've downloaded the "fix" and it doesn't fix anything.

This is a serious question and I seriously would like a response:
Does ANYONE out there have a way to stop the serial port panics?
If I could just stop the continual serial port problems I could
live with the other problems.  Would buying a "smart" serial port
card solve the difficulty?  Since Microport's "bug fix" doesn't
appear to work I am not hopeful the the 2.4 release will signal
an end to my difficulty.

-- 
#############################################################
#         PRIVATE             #  Serving The State Capitol  #  
#         PARKING             #  Of California: sactoh0     #
#############################################################