HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: acb@Ziggy.csl.ncsu.edu (Andrew C. Burnette)
Subject: Re: SPARCclassic vs. 486 (Was Re: SPARCClassic (and other Sun announcments))
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 19:08:20 GMT

Geeze.  You're comparing a computer to a PC?  gimme a break.
No comparison needed.  Then again,  I could have an error in my extended
memory,  or expanded(whatever that pc garbage is),  or god forbid,  
one of my expansion cards.
-- 
******************************************************************************
Andrew C. Burnette  acb@ncsu.edu 
Computer Systems Laboratory 

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: jburne@spock.uucp (John Burnette)
Subject: Trouble with CD
Organization: Choate Rosemary Hall
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 04:09:02 GMT

I wonder if someone could suggest something to try next.

Our CD drive suddenly doesn't want to respond (sr0 isn't 
recognized as valid device.)  SCSI setting is 5.          

Not only will it not mount the CD, it will not boot from it either.

Just what can go wrong with a CD drive and how does one troubleshoot.

-- 
John Burnette           // The Opinions expressed above are shareware, they //
Choate Rosemary Hall    // are <<not>> freeware. If you like them and use   //
203-949-0914            // them please send $5 for documentation.           //

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: kzin@terminus.gatech.edu (John Rudd)
Subject: Re: SPARCClassic
Organization: Georgia Tech College of Computing
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 02:34:37 GMT

rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner) writes:


>Both prices are *non-discountable*. That means, if you're an edu-
>cational institute used to getting whopping discounts off Sun purchases, you
>won't get it on this one.

>-- 
>Ruth Milner                          NRAO/VLA                  Socorro NM
>Computing Division Head      rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu

This is Wrong.  There are educational discounts available.
For example, the base SparcClassic system that costs $4295 will
cost $3356 with eduational discount.  This isn't as big as the
"as much as 40%" educational discounts of the past.  However,
it's around 22%, and that's greater than 0.

John Rudd
John Rudd  --  kzin@cc.gatech.edu         ex- kzin@ucscb.ucsc.edu
All opinions expressed here are my own, and no one elses.
--If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, leave the area immediately,
  seek shelter, and cover your head.  Do NOT Taunt Happy Fun Ball.
From: rburns@key.COM (Randy Burns)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Diskette Drives for Sparcstation 1+
Date: 10 Nov 92 22:43:49 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Advanced Systems, Fremont CA

I'm using a SPARCstation 1+ that has no floppy drive. I'd like to
add a 3 1/2 inch diskette drive.  I'm wondering
whether I can use a stock 3 1/2 disk drive within this machine 
(like you would get for any PC) or do I  need to get a   
diskette drive that has special prom's to make it useable
with a SparcStation. Thanks.


Please respond to me via e-mail.
From: ram@shukra.Eng.Sun.COM (Renu Raman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: SPARCClassic
Date: 11 Nov 1992 07:35:37 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: shukra

In article <1dpbvnINN1j5@almaak.usc.edu> ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
>harthc@ntmtv.UUCP (Howard Hart) writes:
>
>>Just caught the official announcement this morning. $3995 for
>>a 15 inch color, 200MB SPARC (Tsunami). Did I just hear
>>a collective heart attack at Intel and Microsoft?
>
>I'm a bit puzzled (only read wall street jnl so far).
>
>The price is $4k "in qtys of 12+".  Does that mean the list price
>is $4.5k or so?  What would the academic price be?  ($4k with 40% off
>would be quite attractive at $2400).

This is like the 'no dicker sticker' price i.e. no discounts on this
pricing. All others - you can negotiate to your hearts content :-)

For quantities < 12 - its $4.2K.

>I don't like the 15" color screen -- would have far preferred a bigger
>mono screen.  I do nothing with colour :-(
>Is there a 17+" mono option to replace the 15"?  (Is the ELC still
>what it used to be?)

ELC continues to be ELC - i.e. no new ELC based on this chip set.
The move is towards color across the board - since that's what seems
to sell or wanted most.

>
>Is Solaris 2 now standard with all these systems?

Yes Solaris 2.X

>        -ans.
>-- 
>Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@usc.edu

On why Intel is selling at $450 - Monopolies can afford to do that.
I believe their manufacturing cost is a fraction of that (in the 2 digit
$$ figure). For $450 - one can buy the entire chip set going into
SPARCclassic and SPARCstation LX. - not just the processor.
--
--------------------------------
   Renukanthan Raman				ARPA:ram@sun.com
   M/S 16-11, 2500 Garcia Avenue,               TEL :415-336-1813
   Sun Microsystems, Mt. View,  CA 94043
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.hardware:5360 comp.sys.sun.misc:5105
From: rhoward@matd.gatech.edu (Robert L. Howard)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.sys.sun.misc
Subject: Re: SparcStation 10 and multiprocessing
Keywords: Sparc10 Multiprocessing
Date: 5 Nov 92 17:32:46 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Organization: Georgia Tech Research Institute

montjoy@thor.ece.uc.edu (Robert Montjoy) writes:

>If you buy a Multi-processor Sparc 10 you will have to run 
>SunOS 5.0(Solaris 2.0). 

Actually, I think you need Solaris 2.1 to use multi-CPU SS10s...

>Only single processor versions can run 4.1.3.

Correct.

Robert
--
| Robert L. Howard              |   Georgia Tech Research Institute     |
| robert.howard@matd.gatech.edu |   MATD Laboratory                     |
| (404) 528-7165                |   Atlanta, Georgia  30332             |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| "See, when the GOVERNMENT spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when |
| the money is left in the hands of TAXPAYERS, God only knows what they |
| do with it.  Bake it into pies, probably.  Anything to avoid creating |
| jobs." -- Dave Barry                                                  |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: broe@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu (Bruce Roe)
Subject: Will SUN o/s 4.1.1 pgms run OK under Solaris?
Originator: usenet@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 13:38:00 GMT
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Oklahoma - University Computing Services

 \  Bruce A. Roe               Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry /
 /  University of Oklahoma     INTERNET: BROE@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu  \
  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - -
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner)
Subject: Re: How does the new 2000+MIP Sun server compare against a Cray/XMP?
Reply-To: rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner)
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 22:33:09 GMT

Douglas W. Forehand (dwf@doug.Eng.Sun.COM) wrote:
: The following announcement was made today, November 10, 1992.
: 
:              SMCC INTRODUCES WORLD'S FASTEST UNIX SERVER
: 
: UNIX server available today. In its 20-way configuration, it 
: delivers 2.19 GIPS (giga {billion} instructions per second) and 269 
: MFLOPS (million floating point operations per second)...

This is rather an odd combination of performance figures. The 2.19 GIPS is 
an aggregate number of the performance of all 20 processors using the
SPECrate_int92 benchmark. The MFLOPS figure, on the other hand, comes from 
using parallelized Linpack across 20 processors. These are very different 
types of numbers. I find it strange that the two are being quoted together 
like this.

If you simply added the FP performance of all the processors together, you
would have a figure around twice that.

I suppose this was originally written by marketing types who were just copying
the numbers from the performance brief ...
-- 
Ruth Milner                          NRAO/VLA                  Socorro NM
Computing Division Head      rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,alt.sys.sun,um.sun
From: roten@CUBA.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Roten)
Subject: Problems with a Maxstor XT 8760 S SCSI drive ... help !!
Organization: /cuba_b/dirbe/roten/.organization
X-Newsreader: GNU Emacs 18.57.1, GNUS 3.13, NNTP 3.10
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:47:44 GMT


Last week, I purchased a Maxstor XT 8760 S, as a replacement for a 
dead CDC Wren IV.  It was to be installed on a Sun 386i/250, running 
SunOS 4.0.2.

The 'format' command performed a surface analysis successfully, and 
reported the disk had no defective sectors.  It formatted just fine.  

But when I tried to make a filesystem ... :-( 

{vulcan:5} newfs /dev/rsd0c
preposterous size 0

I have tried two different sets of formatting parameters, one from 
the Maxstor tech. support folks, and another from a Sun 4 format.dat 
file.  Same bad news both times.  

Can someone tell me what gives ?  I am at my wit's end !  

--
Charles Roten | Hughes-STX, Incorporated | 
  roten@cuba.gsfc.nasa.gov               | 'Use the Source, Luke!'
  7601 Ora-Glen Dr., Greenbelt, MD 20706 | 
  301-513-7805 (w),  301-317-0872 (h)    |            Obi-Wan Stallman
From: robinson@stout.geo.brown.edu (Darrin Robinson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: SS10 Network Connection
Date: 10 Nov 92 18:04:13 GMT
Organization: Brown University, Providence RI 02912
NNTP-Posting-Host: stout.geo.brown.edu

In article <R.EVANS.92Nov3172940@afs1.ic.ac.uk> r.evans@ic.ac.uk (Rob Evans) writes:
>In article <1992Nov2.162018.6006@rs.com> horen@rs.com (Jonathan B. Horen) writes:
>
>   I can't believe it -- we just received five SS10 workstations, but we can't
>   connect them to the network with our *other* 45 SPARCstations because the
>   network is coax-cabled but the SS10 only offers built-in connection to a
>   twisted-pair network!
>
>   Does anybody know where we can find adapters/transceivers from twisted-pair
>   to AUI, in the SF Bay Area?
>
>The SS10 does in fact have an AUI connection, cunningly labelled as a
>headphone socket. Look at the back and next to the `speaker' symbol, you
>will see the infamous `<...>'. For a small fee, Sun will quite happily supply
>you a `splitter' that will give you a 15 pin D-type connecter for your
>favourite transceiver.
>
>Robert


I think that this is a total marketing FOUL-UP by Sun.  Having an AUI
"adaptor" as an "option."  When I received my SS10-30 this happened to me...
when I went to put it directly on my 10BASET network, it wouldn't work 
because of SQE.  Oh well... so I call Sun and tell tehm that I don't have
the cable to connect the AUI to my machine,... lo and behold they tell me
that "the Speakerbox/AUI splitter cable is an option..."  

Wow!  I mean... let's think about this... they include this monstrous
speakerbox for free, but not the AUI cable connector?  Somethings wrong
here!  At least they could inform their SaleDroids to tell people ordering
SS10s that there is an AUI OPTION and you have to order it... nevertheless
the Sun Rep sent me the cable at N/C... I eased off after that.

Darrin
 .  Darrin E. Robinson (DER31)         Hamnet   N1LLV  146.700-, 146.880= MHz
/|  Systems Programmer II              Internet darrin@mit.edu
\|  Dist. Computing & Network Services          robinson@porter.geo.brown.edu
 |\ MIT Information Systems            ICBMnet  41 29 24 N  71 18 48 W (NPT)
 |/ 1 Amherst St. - Rm E40-338         NASAmail derobinson@nasamail.nasa.gov
 .  Cambridge, MA 02319                AT&Tnet  (617) 253-0131
From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: An Xy450/Xy451 in a Sun4/110
Date: 9 Nov 92 00:12:40 GMT
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara

>The board also
>lacks some ICs that I think may be neccessary for it to function correctly. The
>question is if getting those ICs will remove the error reported above. The
>ICs missing is the big square IC that is supposed to sit below the SPARC
>CPU chip and the two smaller square ICs right besides it (in another 4/100
>CPU board one is labelled "Weitek", the other I don't know).

In the case of at least some of those chips, I think the symptom you
will see if they are missing is absolutely crappy floating-point
performance.

I.e., I suspect the chips are a Fujitsu MB86910 floating-point
controller chip and two Weitek floating-point arithmetic chips; if
they're missing, floating-point instructions will get illegal
instruction traps, and the floating-point emulation code in the kernel
will emulate them - slowly.  Those chips were, at least for a while,
optional on the 4/1xx machines.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: westes@sti.com (Will Estes)
Subject: Re: sparc workstation product information?
Keywords: Workstation Purchase Sparc Information
Organization: Mail Group
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 06:12:18 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.202525.25731@fx.com> hahn@fx.com (Tim Hahn) writes:
>
>What are reliable sources of information regarding various sparc
>workstation (1, 1+, 2, etc) pricing and configurations?  I'm tired of
>the "leave-the-message-at-the-beep-but-never-get-called-back"
>foolishness from Sun's telemarketing 'droids.

I'd like to ask the same question.  If someone knows of an anon ftp
source for a document that discusses the evolution of Sun's product line
over the last four years please post.   I'd like something that
documents general differences between Sun3/4 (Sparc 1/2), etc., and also
gives a good idea what the various systems go for on the used
market/software/hardware limitations of the older technology, etc.

-- 
Will Estes		Internet: westes@netcom.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books)
Subject: Re: SPARCclassic vs. 486 (Was Re: SPARCClassic (and other Sun announcments))
Organization: FSU nuclear physics
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 15:31:31 GMT

In article <books.98.0@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu> I wrote
>johnn@eskimo.celestial.com (John Navitsky) writes:
>>  Gateway 2000 66MHz 486DX2 EISA*     Sun SPARCclassic
>>  66MHz Intel 486 ("double clocked")  50MHz TI microSPARC
>>  8MB RAM                             16MB RAM using 16MB sims (to 96MB)
>
>   +$50 to gateway

OOPS, should be +$400.

>
>>  340MB SCSI disk                     207MB SCSI-2 (to 22GB)
>
>					+70 to Sun
>					(If you count SCSI-2 as $0.00)
>
>>  ??                                  8 bit audio
>
>   +$80.
>
>>  not included                        twisted pair ethernet (10mb/sec)
>
>   +$130
>
>>  2 serial ports                      2 serial ports
>>  1 parallel port                     1 parallel port
>>  ?xEISA slots (32MB/sec)             2xSBus slots (100MB/sec)
>
>Have to make your own judgement on this one.
>
>>  16bit SVGA w/1MB                    8 bit color, 1024x768 or 1152x900
>>  14" CrystalScan                     15" color 1024x768, 76Hz refresh, 
>100dpi
>
>   +$70
>
>>  5.25" & 3.5" floppys                3.5" optional
>
>					+$100  (I know, no 5 1/4)
>
>>  DOS 5.0                             Solaris 2.1
>
>   How much is Unix worth to you?
>
>>  MS-Windows 3.1                      Open Windows 3
>
>  How much is a decent windowing system worth to you?
>
>>  Choice of application               not included 
>
>??
>
>>  Tower case                          IPC style box
>>                                      64bit memory bus
>>  $3,995                              $4,295

    +$700				+$170
  
Total $4,695				$4,465
>
>The question, is Solaris and a multi-user machine worth more than $120
>to you?  That's an easy one for me.
>

New question, compare prices.  Are the EISA slots and piece of free 
software worth $230.00 to you.

>Roger
>books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: jeffj@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (jeffrey.n.jones)
Subject: Where to find audio and graphics files?
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 23:15:11 GMT

Where could I find audio and graphics files that I could ftp
for my SPARCstation 1+? Thanks for any and all help here!

Jeff
-- 
 Jeff Jones  AB6MB         |      If we do not succeed,
 jeffj@seeker.mystic.com   |      then we run the risk of failure.
 Infolinc BBS 415-778-5929 |      Vice Pres. Dan Quayle
From: cew6@po.CWRU.Edu (Carlin E. Wiegner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: More new user questions?
Date: 10 Nov 1992 18:30:13 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: thor.ins.cwru.edu


What is a Sparcstation 4? Is it an IPX,IPX,SLC?
Why are the Sparcstation 6/xxx? and what are there prices?
Are they servers? What is the difference between servers and
stations? Please email replies and I appreciate all the help....
CW
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.hardware:5505 comp.periphs:1507
From: ddl@burrhus.harvard.edu (Dan Lanciani)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.periphs
Subject: interesting tape interaction
Date: 12 Nov 92 01:31:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: burrhus.1992Nov12.013140.21432
Followup-To: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA


	I observed an interesting problem the other day and, though
it may be related to partial faults in some of the components involved
(and while it certainly depends on a specific combination of components),
a description might possibly save somebody some time.  My configuration
consists of a Sun 3/260 with a Xylogics 472 controlling a CDC (Keystone?)
9-track 1600/6250 bpi drive using the buffered Pertec interface running
at 500kBps.
	Having a file which was just a little too large to fit on one tape
at 1600 bpi with a 20k record size, I decided to try a 40k block.  The write
operation failed with (according to the error code) a data-late condition.
This didn't seem totally unreasonable since I don't know the 472's sustainable
data rate and 500kBps might be marginal depending on the exact buffering/DMA
interactions.
	I decided to check into this in detail later but switch to 6250bpi
for the current tape.  However, upon starting the copy, I noticed that the
drive was doing an unreasonable amount of repositioning and remained near
BOT.  Soon the Sun timed out and aborted the copy, but the drive continued
to thrash.  Eventually the drive stopped but the Sun was clearly confused
and would not allow further access to the device.  Thinking that the
driver might have been confused from the original data-late condition,
I power-cycled everything and started over.  Same result.  I repeated
this a couple of times.
	At this point I was beginning to worry that something had happened
to the drive or controller and I ran some diagnostics on the drive.  All
seemed fine.  And after the diagnostics (which, important point, write
on the tape) the copy from the Sun worked.  To make a long story short
(yes, I know, too late) the CDC drive behaves very oddly when trying
to write at 6250bpi to a tape with a long 1600bpi record size.  I don't
know if the process would eventually succeed, because the Sun gives up
too soon.  I do know that first overwriting with a short 1600bpi record
avoids the problem.  I also note that the thrashing looks suspiciously
like the drive's normal auto-density-on-read-determination sequence,
even flashing the density light once or twice.  Why it would be doing
this on a write-from-BOT is beyond me...

				Dan Lanciani
				ddl@harvard.*
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: astels@fsd.cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Dave Astels)
Subject: Carrera serial port problems
Organization: University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Distribution: comp
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 17:28:07 GMT

Hi, I have a question about the serial ports on Sun's Carrera CPU
board.  All serial ports have died (both the RS-423 ports and the
kbd/mouse interface).  When I try to log on though port A, or use port
A during the diag mode tests all I get is garbage.  Also on pwr-up it
complains that it can't find the kbd and uses port A.. which gives
only garbage.  It looks like a bad baud rate, and I have tried all
baudrate settings on the terminal hooked to port A with no change
(just different garbage).  The failure occured overnight, and
everything else seems to work ok (self tests and boot).  It would seem
to me that there is a chip failure in something common to both SCC
chips.  There is a socketed chip (24 or 28 pin) marked ICM7170IPG that
I'm not familiar with.  Any idea what it is?

BTW I've already resocketed the chips in the area to no avail.

Also, if anyone has some good hardware tech docs on this CPU board
that they would like to donate to a needy PhD student, I'd be happy to
relieve you of them :-)... a schematic would really help at a time
like this :-(

Thanks,
Dave
--
astels@cpsc.ucalgary.ca    (Dave Astels)
2401 3500 Varsity Dr. NW | Comp. Sci. University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, Canada | "Why are we here?... Because we're here"
T2L 1Y3                  |       - RUSH: Roll the Bones

	 
	 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: tagoldth@tagsun.med.utoronto.ca (Thomas A. Goldthorpe)
Subject: hardware cursor
Organization: University of Toronto
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 01:07:15 GMT
Summary: turn it off!
Keywords: can't stand things I can't get at

I have misplaced the article from awhile back that contained code to
turn off that silly hardware cursor (why it's even there is beyond me,
takes no time to draw with your own code!).  Could someone with that
code please mail it to me.

Thanks

tom
From: rburns@key.COM (Randy Burns)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: SPARC market share
Date: 11 Nov 92 20:14:00 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Advanced Systems, Fremont CA

I read yesterdays Wall Street Journal article on Sun and the other
workstation makers yesterday. The WSJ was strongly questioning Sun's
ability to compete in the market they pioneered. What bothered me about the
article was the fundamentally sloppy analysis. They were criticizing Sun
for having lost 2% of the workstation market compared to significant
increases by IBM and SGI(Dec and HP have been pretty stagnant in terms of
market share).


The problem is that they were looking at Sun's market share, _NOT_ Sparc's
market share. None of the other companies they looked at have any serious
clone makers. Now I know the Sparc clone industry hasn't taken off wildly,
but I would guess they have increased their market share a bit more than
2% since last year. Does anyone have any good figures on this?

Sounded to me like the WSJ was playing favorites and trying to make the future
they at some level want to see happen.

Thanks.
From: db74+@andrew.cmu.edu (Derrick J. Brashear)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: SBus product list
Date: 12 Nov 92 06:07:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.Ef0c5PO00WCSNgLFcs
Distribution: world
Organization: Sophomore, Civil Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Does anyone have a similar list of available VME-bus products?

Post here or email me

-D
<db74@andrew.cmu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: philb@cats.ucsc.edu (Philip Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: drives and 3/50 case for sale
Date: 12 Nov 1992 12:07:12 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: si.ucsc.edu



Oops.. I posted this to some other newsgroups, and forgot this one. 

I have a 3/50 case I want to sell for $50.

I also have:
1 quantum prodrive 40s (40 megs, SCSI) $100+shipping
1 Fujitsu 2446E with SCSI adaptor 130 megs formatted, $200+shipping.
  Also, case &ps for fujitsu (it's a full-height monster) for extra $50

-- 
  --------------------------------------------------
"How do I love sea? Let me count the waves.." |philb@cats.ucsc.edu
P.Anthony, "The Colo(u)r of her panties"      |philb@soda.berkeley.edu