/dev/tty going away...

[sys_guy]

We are having some intermittent problems with /dev/tty going away, apparently
for no good reason.  We had a power failure a couple of weeks back, and ever
since then, our VAX 750 running 4.2 has been a bit sick.  We had our DEC FE in
here twice running complete diagnostics on the hardware, and the machine appears
to be physically fit.  

The first disappearance of /dev/tty was discovered by arff not knowing that
our floppy drives existed.  A program that does a direct write to the floppies
worked fine, so that ruled our drive/driver problems.  By chance, we noticed
that /dev/tty was gone - vanished!  Seemed pretty strange at the time, but
after recovering it, everything was fine.

The second and latest disappearance was last friday (10-may-85).  The machine
would not allow anyone with a password to login.  The login word was accepted
fine, but the password prompt would not wait for the password to be typed, 
instead just feeding itself a carraige return.  Talk about confusing.....

We compared the binary running (ra81) with a binary that booted up from
another (hp) device, and found no diff's.  More confusion.....

After scratching heads and a bit of under-the-breath swearing, the absence
of /dev/tty was again discovered.

Anyone have even the slightest idea of what might be happening?  This issue
is most confusing.  Any and all responses greatly appreciated.

Please respond to:

-- 

 john salmi    {ihnp4 | mgnetp | uwvax}!dicomed!john
 dicomed corporation
 12000 portland ave s
 po box 246
 minneapolis, mn 55440-0246
 612/885-3092

"...and if it doesn't work, there must be something wrong with it."