HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
Subject: Re: Max Ram on SLC?
Organization: Inland Sea
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 03:35:58 GMT

scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) writes:

>What's the maximum amount of RAM you can put on an SLC?  We've got a
>number at 16MB that are a bit cramped with OW2 and the boss wants to
>got to OW3.  Can we go to 16MB simms in any of those slots?

Having a slip connection doesn't move data at T-1 speed, but in most
other respects it's hard to tell the diff...

Paul Eggert (eggert@twinsum.com) replied within an hour, saying he's
been told it's a 64MB max and he's currently running 24MB in an SLC
with no problem.  Two folks requested summaries, so it must be a topic
of general interest.  Enjoy.
-- 
When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: ken@cujo.curtin.edu.au (Ken Taylor)
Subject: FSys Spanning multiple drives
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 01:51:08 GMT

Is it possible to set up a filesystem which spans multiple physical disks..

The problem:

Physical configuration is 3 x external 1Gb Wrens, each formatted and
mounted seperately as 1Gb filesystems (for storage of HUGE graphics files
for processing by imagesetter)

Often, during the course of a couple of days, the 1Gb partition for storing
originals fills..

It would be great to be able to make a 2Gb filesystem spanning two of the
drives, and hence, solve the storage problem...

Please reply by email, and if there is interest, I will post a digest..

Thanks in advance

Ken
-- 
Ken Taylor        | ken@cujo.curtin.edu.au        |"Who is king over my domain?
User Consultant   | Ken_Taylor@qmcc.curtin.edu.au | What's the force that has
Computing Centre  | Snail: GPO Box U1987, Perth   | kept me sane?"
Curtin University |        Western Australia 6001 |             - Happy Rhodes
From: weisberg@ee.rochester.edu (Jeff Weisberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: SPARCstations > 2?
Keywords: SS3?
Date: 14 Apr 92 17:38:44 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Organization: Univ of Rochester, College of Engineering and Applied Science

In article <DODD.92Apr14085443@mycenae.cchem> dodd@mycenae.cchem (Lawrence R. Dodd) writes:
/* 
/* Does anyone know what machine will be the followup to the Sparc2?
/* That is, will there be a Sparc3 or will it have a different name? I
/* have heard rumors that it will be the Sparc3. What ever it will be,
/* what will be the speedup from the Sparc2 and when will they be
/* available?
/* 


Rumor has it Sun will be introducing some new h/w in ~6 (?) weeks.
My guess is something as a followup to the SS2, my guess is a 3.

-jeff
===========================================================================
                                |    n    n    n
weisberg@ee.rochester.edu       |   X  + Y  = Z
                                | I have discovered a truly marvelous
      Jeff Weisberg             | demonstration which this file is too
                                | small to contain.
===========================================================================
From: probert@orcas.ucsb.edu (Probert;Dave;;;;COMS;CS-Staff;990214;;;8-402525-19906-7;500)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Warranty blues...
Date: 6 Apr 92 17:13:25 GMT

jdeitch@baron.uucp (Jim Deitch) writes:

>I had a drive go out on a Sun IPX.  I called for Waranty support and was
>told the following:

>The warranty period is 90 days, this period starts when the serial number
>is assigned to the machine.  I took delivery of the unit 60 days after the
>serial number was assigned.  Since I have had the unit for 60 days, the
>warranty is no longer valid.  The math is quite simple:

I just purchased a SUN/IPC, and item 9. Limited Warranty in the SUN
Terms and Conditions clearly says that the 90 day warranty is from
the date of delivery.  It further states that SUN will pay the
shipping costs.

The T&C was printed on the back of the SALES ORDER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT form
they mailed me.

--
Dave Probert
probert@cs.ucsb.edu
From: rolf@davinci.ucsd.edu (Rolf Schreiber)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Emulex MT-02/Archive tape drive problem
Keywords: can't write tapes
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:42:06 GMT
Reply-To: rolf@davinci.ucsd.edu (Rolf Schreiber)
Organization: U.C. San Diego, AMES Department

I scavenged an Archive 1/4" cartridge tape drive (Model 5945C) and an
Emulex MT02 tape controller from a Sun 4/260 that we traded in. I 
set it up in an enclosure with its own power supply and SCSI connectors
and hooked it up to a SPARCstation IPC. Upon booting, the IPC recognized
the tape controller as an MT02 and assigned it to st0 as expected. 
Everything works as expected except that I cannot write tapes on this
drive. It appears that controller always reports back a write protected
status of the tape, even when it's not.

I did a quick check of the hardware to make sure that the write-protect
sensor on the tape drive itself was working properly - it is. I also
hooked the whole subsystem up to a 4/280 with the older SCSI-3 host 
adapter and a working MT02/Archive cartridge system, thinking that perhaps
this was a SCSI-1/SCSI-2 problem. Same problem.

I don't have any manuals that describe the switch/jumper settings on
the Emulex MT02 - is it possible I changed something inadvertently? Any
other thoughts on why this might be happening?

---
Rolf Schreiber                              Internet:rolf@ames.ucsd.edu
Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences  UUCP: ...!ucsd!rolf
University of California at San Diego       Voice: (619)534-5414




Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Peter L. Wargo)
Subject: Re: My 1325 is Dying....
Organization: Clarkson University
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 04:21:49 GMT

From article <1992Apr8.013619.14873@lokkur.dexter.mi.us>, by scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons):
> wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Peter L. Wargo) writes:
> 
>>Drat.  I just lost my /usr partition on my 2/120 because the Micropolis
>>1325 is doing a very strange thing - it powers up, spins for a short
>>time, then sllllowly powers back down to a non-spinning status.
> 
>>Anybody hear of this problem before?
> 
> Yes, we've seen it.  The drives are dead -- or at least, hardware repair
> cost approached the cost of a replacement drive.
> -- 
> When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?

Which is why I replaced it with a Fujitsu 2351 Eagle.

Hell, if you're gonna do it, why not use a 250 pound disk drive?

-Pete

--
----------
Peter L. Wargo        | wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu | "In other words...
Documentation         |                              |  R.T.F.M..."
Enable Software, Inc. | GEnie mail: PSYCLOPS         |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: gbass@mitre.org (Jerry Bass)
Subject: Keyboard switch for SPARCs
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 18:34:39 GMT

Hopefully someone can help me.  

We are trying to set set-up two SPARC 1+ and two SPARC 2 processors on a LAN
inside a mobile vehicle.  We would like to only have two operator positions
(monitor and keyboard, etc) which had console access to any of the four
machines (for redundancy of equipment).  Ideally we would like to set up a four
position keyboard/monitor switch for each operator position to route it to any
processor.  It was brought to our attention that unplugging the keyboard (or
switching it) would send a hardware interrupt, or the like, and halt the
processor, and we want all the processors run at once.  Can anyone suggest a
way to do this by, say, loading the keyboard port somehow?  I am fully aware of
rlogins and the like, as this will be the normal way the system is operated,
but we're also aware that Murphy's Law will cause the processor to which we
aren't attached to toss lunch first.  As a demonstration system, reliability is
Job One.

Any information or help would be appreciated.  

Thanks,
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jerry Bass                                  gbass@mitre.org
The MITRE Corporation                           Bedford, MA

Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.hardware:1627 comp.sys.sun.wanted:631
From: tim@maple_leaf.key.amdahl.com (Tim Nicholls)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.sys.sun.wanted
Subject: WANTED: Sun 2/120 SunOS 3.5 tapes
Date: 9 Apr 92 18:35:25 GMT
Reply-To: tim@maple_leaf.key.amdahl.com
Organization: Amdahl


Wanted: Sun 2/120, SunOS 3.5 Tape set (set of 5 tapes).
        SunOS 3.5 Manuals.
        Sun 2/120 4 megabyte memory cards (4 required).

   I have an old, but operational Sun 2/120 but do not have the tapes or manuals. I am also looking for 4, 4 megabyte memory boards. Functional cards are preferred but not essential. I would prefer to be contacted by someone in the South Bay area, but if the above items can not be located locally, I would except responses from anywhere.

Please Email to: tim@maple_leaf.key.amdahl.com
        or call: (510) 623-2104 from 7:00AM - 4:00 PM PDT
                 (408) 738-1513 after 5:00PM PDT

Tim Nicholls
From: jimmy@denwa.info.com (Jim Gottlieb)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: HP w/ PS or PS printer?
Date: 6 Apr 92 18:58:37 GMT
Organization: Info Connections, West Los Angeles


Well, it's finally time to get a printer for my computer.

The two options I'm considering are an HP IIIP with a Postscript
cartridge, or a real Postscript printer like the TI Microlaser PS.
Common sense would seem to say that a printer with PostScript built in
would be better, but I don't really know.

I'm not considering NewsPrint since I want this printer to be able to
print from other machines too.

Any suggestions?
-- 
Jim Gottlieb
E-Mail: <jimmy@denwa.info.com> or <attmail!denwa!jimmy>
V-Mail: +1 310 551 7702   Fax: 478-3060   Voice: 824-5454
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.sys.sgi
From: aab@cichlid.com (Andy Burgess)
Subject: SUMMARY: Does the ethernet address uniquely identify a machine?
Keywords: ethernet
Organization: SIlma Inc.
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 08:49:33 GMT

In <1992Mar25.183334.19159@cichlid.com> I wrote:

| I need to determine the identity of the machine I am running on for a
| node locked security scheme for a client of mine.
|
| It seems to me that the ethernet address is a good indicator of machine identity
| since they would never be duplicated in any given network and I don't think they
| are user alterable. Please correct me if I am wrong.
|
| The question is how to obtain this address. If no system independent way exists
| I would like to know for Sun Sparc and for SGI.
|

Here is what I learned.

In general, ethernet cards have a 'built-in' unique address
BUT systems allow the address used to be changed.

There doesn't seem to be a reliable way on Suns to get the ethernet
address as non-root anyway.

The RS/6000 has a handy ioctl() to read both the permanent and the 'in use'
ethernet addresses.

SGI's have a sysid() library function, the ethernet address is contained
in the bytes returned but its location in those bytes is OS version
dependent. Upgrading the OS changes the sysid!

Suns have their unique hostid in EEPROM BUT it is copied into kernel memory
and can be changed by a system call. There doesn't seem to be a way to
read the EEPROM directly (as non-root).

Someone also suggested the hardware doohickey that plugs into a RS-232
or parallel port as part of a license scheme. Worth looking into
but not as attractive as a software solution and possibly not worth it if
the software solution works 80-90% of the time.

Thank you all for responding!

Andy

-- 
==============================================================================
Andrew A. Burgess                  UNIX, C++, X, Motif, Programming language
Consulting Software Engineer       design and implementation, Performance 
aab@cichlid.com                    analysis & tuning, Application programming,
voice (408) 335 4779               Embedded systems
==============================================================================

Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.hardware:1591 comp.sys.sun.admin:2340
From: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Max Ram on SLC?
Date: 8 Apr 92 01:34:51 GMT
Organization: Inland Sea


I remember seeing the question here but never an answer...

What's the maximum amount of RAM you can put on an SLC?  We've got a
number at 16MB that are a bit cramped with OW2 and the boss wants to
got to OW3.  Can we go to 16MB simms in any of those slots?
-- 
When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.sys.sun.wanted
From: dyson@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu (Rick Dyson)
Subject: NEED format.dat entry for Fujitsu M2266SA 1.2 Gb drive
Organization: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 19:18:53 GMT

Greetings SunOS owners!

    I am an new SPARCstation IPC owner just about to install a Fujitsu
M2266SA 1.2 Gb hard drive and I have noticed that it is not available in
my format.dat file and figured someone out there has already solved this
problem.  Recently a format.dat was posted in one of the comp.sys.sun.*
groups but it did not contain an entry for this drive.  I have been
warned that I should be carefull with the 'extra' 0.2 Gb above the
nominal 1.0 Gb amount.  If anyone can help I would gladly summarize back
to the net to be added to the communal format.dat file floating around
somewhere.  Since I am a SunOS neophyte, I would appreciate any extra
annotation you could provide as well.  Thanks!!!

rick
-- 
Richard L. Dyson               INTERNET:  Dyson@IowaSP.Physics.UIowa.EDU
Graduate Research Assistant    NSI/DECnet:  IOWASP::DYSON or 7231::DYSON
Department of Physics & Astronomy   H: (319) 338--6117
The University of Iowa              O: (319) 335--1879
Iowa City, IA 52242-1479
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.sys.sun.admin
From: billd@fps.com (Bill Davidson)
Subject: Re: Format parameters for a Siemens Megafile Model 1300?
Organization: Cray Research Superservers Inc., San Diego CA, USA
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 02:35:36 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.064227.28772@equalizer.fps.com> billd@fps.com (Bill Davidson) writes:
>Now I've got another inheritance without documentation problem with one
>of these shoeboxes.  One has a Siemens Megafile Model 1300 and whoever
>formated it before, formated it for 1160 cylinders yet the flaw map
>that was attached to the disk claims flaws in cylinder 1208.
>Unfortunately, the Sun 4.0.3 format program knows nothing about this
>drive so I have to enter parameters by hand.  Can someone please send
>me the number of cylinders, alternates, heads, sectors and rpm's for
>this drive?

It's been 5 days since I posted that and no response.  I've been trying
to guess at it and I finally got it right (I think) late last night.

BTW 4.1.1 format also knows nothing about this drive.

I found a disk geometry database that a friend pointed me to and it
said this drive had 1216 cylinders, 12 heads and 35 sectors per
cylinder.  This information didn't help me much as trying to feed those
to format wasn't working real well.  I fought it for several days and
combed the 4.1 format manual and finally came across the part that
mentions in an example that the MD21 reserves 4 cylinders for its own
use.  This in itself was not enough because it turns out that something
in there also wants a spare sector per track.  The final numbers turn
out to be 1210 data cylinders, 2 alternates, 1216 physical cylinders
and 34 sectors per track.  It worked fine after that.  I still haven't
cobbled up a format.dat entry yet since I don't know what to set cache
to and and I'm unsure of how to properly compute bytes per track.  It
works now as it is though I don't know if setting the cache value might
enhance performance.  Any pointers from here would be greatly
appreciated.

--Bill Davidson
From: tomw@panix.com (Tom Weddell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: tapeNeed 8mm tape recommendation for use in Exabyte 8200
Date: 17 Apr 92 13:53:39 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: PANIX - Public Access Unix Systems of NY

I'm looking for experiences, advice on 8mm tapes. Are some $10.00 video
tapes just as good as the $50.00 Sony data tapes? What have been the results of
certification tests? etc.?

Thank you, tomw@panix.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: jive@spanky.ssc.gov (Jim Ivey)
Subject: Sun-2/120 Storage
Organization: SSC Laboratory, Dallas, TX
Distribution: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 22:07:56 GMT


     Yeah, it's me again.  Thanks to all the people who responded to my
question about the use of a dumb terminal as the console on a Sun-2.  I had
the procedure right, but cable problems with all 3 cables I had been using.
Thanks for everyone confirming that I was doing right, though;-).

     Now that I have the thing working again, after cleaning out the
accumulated dust and grime it picked up from sitting in a warehouse, I need
to look into disk drives.  Originally, it used Micropolis 1325's.  I
believe they were 71MB MFM.  A couple of clueless questions follow :

     1) Why does the system use non-SCSI drives?  It has an interface board
between the SCSI board and the 1325, which I assume converts between the
two formats.  Would it be possible to use a SCSI drive, connected directly
to the SCSI board?

     2) What drives _can_ I use with this thing?  I've seen them configured
with both the Micropolis 1325 and the 1355 (144 meg).  Has anyone else
succeeded in using different drives?

     Thanks ahead of time,

     Jim
From: sblair@upurbmw.dell.com (Steven C. Blair "Unix Network Services")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: New viking sparc processor?
Date: 6 Apr 92 23:46:47 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.sun.misc
Organization: Dell Computer UNIX Internetworking Services

In article <1901@ra.nrl.navy.mil>, tse@ra.nrl.navy.mil (Anthony Tse) writes:
[ irrelevant stuff delted for net.bandwidth ]
>    The issue is not moot, it's extremely important.

'specially if one uses facts, which I don't believe you're quite informed on

>    Any real operating system is going to live or die by the disk
> transfer rate.  Even with a super cache controller card, the PC
> disk transfer rate can at best be about 1/5 as fast as the Sparc. I 
> don't care how fast the 586 is, PC will still be a piece of sh*t unless
> they do something about their bus.
> 
> -Anthony

bzzt, but thanks for playing. you really shot yourself, because the disks
in MANY workstations, as well as PC's are the same ones. From the same
vendors. Gee, that means that there is the potential for them to run
at the same rate. 

I've run logic/VHDL simulations on a SS2, 64MB RAM, 2x650MB SCSI, and a
486-50 with 64MB RAM, 2x650MB SCSI, and guess what, the Intel beats
the SPARC in 90% of the tests.

BUT, I've *also* run tests that show exactly different results. It's a matter
of what the user is doing so much of the time that the mktg folks have
so many buyers so hopelessly confused that no one ever understand this.

Bus is the only effective issue, and with most w/s's running at 32Mhz
on their bus'es, then what is the difference in EISA running at 33Mhz ??

my opinions, I just keep lotsa things running around here. Please *
*DON'T CONTINUES THIS DISCUSSION HERE*.

-- 
Steven C. Blair    DELL UNIX NETWORK OPERATIONS        sblair@dell.com
==========================================================================
"One form to rule them all, one form to find them, one form to bring them"
	"all and in the darkness rewrite the hell out of them."
                       -- Sendmail ruleset 3 comment from DEC
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: awolfe@moo.princeton.edu (Andrew Wolfe)
Subject: Re: Sony 1604 16" monitor, is it compatible with SS1+?
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 15:43:57 GMT



This monitor only supports resolutions up to 1024x768.  It will not support
full Sun video output.

The NANOU Flexscan T560i uses the same tube and supports higher resolution
including Sun.  I believe a Sun cable is even available.  The NEC Multisync
5FG will also support Sun video with a Flat Square tube instead of Trinitron.


--
--------------------------------------
Andrew Wolfe
Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering
Princeton University
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
Subject: Re: My 1325 is Dying....
Organization: Inland Sea
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 01:36:19 GMT

wargopl@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Peter L. Wargo) writes:

>Drat.  I just lost my /usr partition on my 2/120 because the Micropolis
>1325 is doing a very strange thing - it powers up, spins for a short
>time, then sllllowly powers back down to a non-spinning status.

>Anybody hear of this problem before?

Yes, we've seen it.  The drives are dead -- or at least, hardware repair
cost approached the cost of a replacement drive.
-- 
When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?
From: dow@idtg.UUCP (Keith Dow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: New viking sparc processor?
Date: 8 Apr 92 19:24:06 GMT
Organization: Integrated Device Technology, Santa Clara


stuff deleted

>>If you have to rely on fast ethernet performance to do fast calculations, you 
>>are doomed.
>
>I disagree. If I want to read/write files via NFS, I don't want it to slow
>down because I also want to do file I/O to my local disk and perform screen
>operations. A lot of workstations are networked via NFS and run X11.
>So I support the argument that the speed of the Sbus is vital to get a good
>performance on every SparcStation.

Obviously you should have everything as fast as possible.  However if the
speed of your calculations relies on a fast ethernet, that means you are
getting information over the net.  This is a very slow process.  It is best
to have everything local.

>>Also, a slow disk can be sped up by getting more ram.  Eight
>>megabytes costs about $300.   
>
>That's not true, and of course you know it. With more ram, you often, but not
>nearly always, can reduce disk access.

Okay, the problems with a slow disk can be sped up by buying more ram.

>>Obviously a fast bus is good.  However a bus that is half as fast will do
>>fine for many applications.
>
>"Obviously"? But I'm under the impression that in your reaction, you want to
>deliver the message that the bus speed doesn't really matter. The speed
>difference between a 100MB/s Sbus and a 5MB/s ISA bus (and I've never even
>got 5MB/s on my PC) is more than a factor 2. The 5MB/s is below a certain
>threshold that you run into serious I/O problems. I'm not the only, first or
>last person to tell this!


Sorry, I have never used a PC.  I have two computers at home, a MAC IIci and
a Sun IPC.  Please feel free to bash DOS machines as much as you want though.

We don't have any PC's at work for the engineers here.   The machines we have
typically have 24-megabytes of memory.  So everything is local.  Since bus
speed is the limitation on everything, including on chip, I agree that more
effort needs to be made to speed them up.

Also, since PC users are being rescued from the slow world of Intel, and
being thrust into the fast world of RISC, bus speed will become even more
important.