HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: andrew@cubetech.com
Subject: Re: Nitro
Organization: Cube Technologies, Inc.
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 06:48:26 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.030838.9785@u.washington.edu> basiji@stein.u.washington.edu (David Basiji) writes:
>andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew Loewenstern) writes:
>
>>If you have a Turbo, try turning on the "swaptimizer" (see the swaptab
>>man page).  The swaptimizer compresses pages before they go out to
>>disk to reduce disk IO.  This works great (I use it on my 25mhz
>>machines) since you can't use the processor much during a page-fault
>>(since normally the windowserver causes the page-fault, and you must
>>wait to draw...), it makes sense.  It probably doesn't make sense on a
>>machine where you have a bunch of people logged in on ttys.
>
>
>I just checked the man page (NeXTSTEP 3.0.1) and it seems that compression
>is on by default. Now, regarding the number of buffers...I have 32 Meg of
>RAM in my 25MHz slab but the thing still churns like crazy when task 
>switching.  What do I put in my (I assume) /etc/rc.local to increase
>the number of buffers?

Has to be done in the monitor.  Put this in with the 'p' command for
your boot command at the NeXT> prompt:

sd- nbu=xxx

where xxx is the number of buffers you want.  I'm using 64 right now
and it seems to work OK.  There isn't a really big qualitative
difference.  I haven't had to reboot the file-server, so I don't know
if it will help there...


andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com     | "We shall not cease from exploration
Andrew Loewenstern      |  And the end of our exploring
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  Will be to arrive where we started
                        |  And know the place for the first time." -T.S. Eliot
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: eboltz@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Eric Scott Boltz)
Subject: Fujitsu M2266-SA
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:18:42 GMT

What is the deal!
One mail order place says this drive has 14.5ms access times, and
another says 11.5ms.

Which is it? 

Also, how difficult is it to format etc?

Anybody have any other recommendations on Gig drives?

Eric


Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: andrew@cubetech.com
Subject: Re: Nitro
Organization: Cube Technologies, Inc.
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 21:41:11 GMT

In article <2189@deadmin.ucsd.edu> bense@heart4 (Booker C. Bense) writes:
>
>-I've found 64 to work fine for me on a 20meg '040 Mono NeXTstation. 

I use 64 on my workstation (NSC 32/400) and 128 on my server (NSC
20/big_drives) and performance is just really zippy.  Only the system,
tmp, and paging ocurrs on the local machine.  My home-directory,
/usr/local, and /Local* are all on the server.  The server also is the
mail and news host, and the compile server...

works great.


andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com     | "We shall not cease from exploration
Andrew Loewenstern      |  And the end of our exploring
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  Will be to arrive where we started
                        |  And know the place for the first time." -T.S. Eliot
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: otto@tukki.jyu.fi (Otto J. Makela)
Subject: Adding RAM, what's all this with exception 2 and 3 ?
Organization: The Crimson Permanent Assurance Company
Distribution: comp
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 15:43:03 GMT

I've been mucking around with my mono NeXTstation, trying to add memory.
I initially had eight 8bit x 1M 100ns SIMMs in there (I was a bit surprised
to notice the 100ns bit -- I thought one should have 70ns to get max speed
from the speed-detecting memory system).

I removed all SIMMs, then put in four 9bit x 4M 70ns SIMMs.  All is well,
16M of memory.  I add in four of the old SIMMs to get an even 20M of memory.
It works, but the memory test says 100ns.

I guess it has to run all banks at the same speed.  I pull the old SIMMs
to see if this is true.  Exception 2.  Exception 3.  What's all this ?
I put the old SIMMs back in place.  20M of 100ns memory, again.

So, how the %$*#@! is one supposed to configure this thing ?
What's supposed to work, and what's not ?  Is there a section in the
built-in manual (or NeXTanswers) that deals with this ?

PS. For some reason, the power key doesn't work from the ROM monitor.
It tries to shutdown, then dies with some obscure exception.
-- 
   /* * * Otto J. Makela <otto@jyu.fi> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
  /* Phone: +358 41 613 847, BBS: +358 41 211 562 (V.32bis/USR-HST,24h/d) */
 /* Mail: Kauppakatu 1B18/SF-40100 Jyvaskyla/Finland, ICBM: 62.14N25.44E */
/* * * Computers Rule 01001111 01001011 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: jfr@RedBrick.COM ()
Subject: Re: High Availability for NeXTs
Keywords: Redundancy
Organization: Red Brick Systems, Los Gatos, CA
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 04:26:45 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.195446.8138@liveware.com> todd@liveware.com writes:
>In article <1992Oct5.210010.8108@almserv.uucp> rmcghee@fnma.com(Rich McGhee)  
>writes:
>> Has anybody spent anytime thinking about or working on a High Availability  
>> solution for NeXT machines?  That is, redundant disk drives, two machines  
>> that switch over when one goes down?  Any ideas?
>
>When I talked to next about fault tolerance in their systems,
>meaning I was interested in redundant disk drive and down
>time they said "Why you asking?".  Finally I was told that RDD
>was not supported and would not be in the near future.
>
>I too would like to know if anyone is interested in these
>topics and have discussed it with NeXT/3rd parties and
>what was said.  Again, NeXT gave me the feeling (about
>8 months ago) that they didn't care.  I wonder if this
>has changed any since they are focusing in MCCA and
>this is a prime location for such issues.
>
>Todd Nathan
>Liveware Corporation
 
  High availability is usually (not always, but usually) associated with
  file or database servers, and occasionally high performance compute 
  servers.  NeXT workstations mostly serve the purpose of front-end
  application or personal workstations, neither of which generally are
  considered requiring high availability since bringing one unit down
  doesn't effect a large number of users or any significant amount of
  persistent data.  

  There are off-the-shelf RAID (redundant arrays of inexpensive disk)
  clusters which are SCSI and can be plugged into a NeXT without any
  trouble which will give you high disk availability.  These clusters
  can usually operate with a disk down (power out or serious electronic
  malfunction) and can even be hot-fixed with a new drive.  The system
  will reconfigure itself when the drive comes back on-line, restriping
  data across the new disk configuration if necessary.  RAID technology
  is clearly the coming thing in database servers and could be easily 
  and effectively used in small-scale file servers as well (as one might
  use a NeXT "server" workstation).  They are not inexpensive compared
  to typical SCSI disks (about $7,000-10,000 for a gigabyte or storage 
  vs. $2,000 for a regular gigabyte) but the benefits of high availability
  may justify the cost in many applications.  The beauty of these systems
  is that they are transparent to the main processor and operating system,
  looking exactly like a normal large SCSI disk device.  Drivers generally
  require little or no modification to work with RAID clusters.

  Dual processor systems with high availability are not likely to be
  seen in the NeXT family for quite a while, IMHO.

  Jon Rosen
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware,comp.sys.next.sysadmin
From: petrilli@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Chris Petrilli)
Subject: Re: NeXTdimension Speed Problems
Organization: Department of Redundency Department
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 02:15:45 GMT

I think I need to clarify my earlier post.  Many people have sent me
suggestions consisting of 'use ps -aux' to find the problem.  The
problem is that I tried that weeks ago (I've been programming in Unix
for 8 years) and the only oddity that I can find is init using 12% of
the CPU time, which since I have only one NeXTdimension, it's hard to
find out what the noraml is for a ND machine (it's .1% or so on my
NeXTcube).  I know this has something to do with the problem (I meant to
mention it int the last post), but I can find absolutely NO reason for
this machine to be doing that kind of loading.  

For what it's worth, the machine uses NFS to mount 2 other machines (4
partitions total), and is a NetInfo client, and uses NTP for time
service.  None of those should have anything to do with the problem.

On a slightly unrelated note, I upgraded the ND board to 20Mb and it
slowed down even more.  I was told by NeXT that it didn't matter what
order the SIMMS went in (since we have no documentation, and never got
any,even after harassing them for it), but apparantly something doesn't
like 4x4+4x1.

I am NOT a happy NeXT customer right now, I've gotten nothing but the
runaround even getting what I consider to be "normal" information that
should be in the manuals, (some of which we have been unable to get out
of NeXT even though we should have gotten them with our machines).  As
someone doing research and development work for a major university (The
University of Texas at Austin) it would be hard for me to suggest anyone
buy a ND machine at this point.  The concepts are great, someone needs
to teach NeXT how to support a machine.  I can't even get them to answer
a simple question (like SIMM order) wihtout going through my "official
support person".  This is NOT a company I want to deal with.

Chris
-- 
| Chris Petrilli                                             ____
| petrilli@gnu.ai.mit.edu             ``Quayle is a bozoe.'' \  /
| I don't even speak for myself.                              \/
Organization: Senior, Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Date: Wed,  7 Oct 1992 15:42:34 -0400 
From: Charles William Swiger <cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Virtual memory, was Re: Nitro
	<1992Oct7.152211.20694@news.th-darmstadt.de>

Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.next.hardware: 7-Oct-92 Re: Nitro Ulrich
Grepel@kino.intel (829)

>I don't think that 32 meg of ram is really enough to stop any swapping.
>Do a ps xua and add the vsize values - you will get a result that is
>much higher than ram size plus swapfile size. Partly that comes from
>executables (not only) that are loaded directly, without copying them
>to the swapfile, the other parts I would love to know about. So sure
>you have less swapping, but not none.
>
>Uli

True.

The vsize values do not tell you how many memory pages have actually
been *allocated*.  You can allocate a large amount of memory, but no
actual pages will be allocated until you first cause a page fault to
that page.  Only then does a "real page" get allocated (either in memory
on in the swapfile) for that section of the process's virtual memory
space.

Furthermore, there seems to be a confusion between swapping and paging. 
Most of the activity (particularly in a system with lots of memory) is
paging.  Paging means that 8K chunks of memory that have not been
recently used will be paged out to the swapfile so that a page needed to
satisfy a page fault can either be allocated or paged in from the
swapfile.  Paging does not cause a major performance impact; it's
normal.  NeXT's 3.0 seems to do a lot more paging than 2.x; perhaps
because 2.x had better "locality of virtual memory referencing."

Swapping is what occurs when *all* of the pages associated with a
process get paged out.  This is know as swapping the process out.  this
can cause the system to thrash, as it swaps one process out entirely,
then has to reload many pages back again in order to allocate a time
slice to the process, thus swapping another process out.  Swapping is
bad; it causes a serious loss of performance.  Under bad situations,
swapping may cut the useful work done by a machine down by a factor of
10 or more.

The virtual memory system tries hard to page rather than swap.  You can
check the system header files in /usr/include/vm/*.h for some
interesting things that may help you understand the virtual memory
system on the NeXT.

-Chuck

+---------------------------------------------+ 
|  Charles William Swiger -- CMU sucks rocks  | "The television screen is the
|   AMS & normal mail: cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu   | retina of the mind's eye."
|    NeXTmail: <temporarily out of order>     |           
+---------------------------------------------+            --Videodrome
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: andrew@cubetech.com
Subject: Re:  Nitro
Organization: Cube Technologies, Inc.
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 09:47:02 GMT

In article <dillon.0ox5@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:
>In article <1992Oct6.160854.19152@cubetech.com> andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew Loewenstern) writes:
>>In article <BvnJ4A.pL.2@cs.cmu.edu> nash+@cs.cmu.edu (Richard Nash) writes:
>>>>In article <dillon.0oq2@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US
>>>>(Matthew Dillon) writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>	 The main problem with 3.0 is in paging from disk, a faster processor
>>>>>	 will not help at all in that area.
>>
>>GET MORE MEMORY!
>>
>>You are using more memory than you have, that is why you are paging.
>>
>>If you have a Turbo, try turning on the "swaptimizer" (see the swaptab
>
>    Simply put, that's an answer that is not an answer.  I should not have
>    to put 256MB of memory in a machine to make it useable.  If a 16MB
>    machine is not usable, THEN NEXT SHOULD NOT SELL A 16MB MACHINE.

It depends on what you call usuable.  I used a 16mb color 3.0 machine
for about a week while waiting for some more memory to come in.  It
was plenty usuable and I abuse the hell out of my machines.  I
certainly wouldn't want to print to the Iris on it (now you know why I
have a 600mb swap drive...  :-), but it was fine.  For the vast
majority of users it would be more than adequate.  What I'm getting at
is that a usuable configuration is relative to how the user uses it.
If you find that the performance is unacceptable due to paging, then I
would reccommend getting more memory.  If you run out of memory, you
page.  It doesn't matter what operatiny system you are on.  If you
can't deal with that, either use less memory, or get more RAM.

NeXT shouldn't sell 8 and 12mb RAM configurations; and they don't
anymore.

>    The NeXT has some *serious* problems with it's paging and file caching
>    (and I've mailed bug_next with specific examples).  Adding so much
>    memory to your machine that you are essentially completely defeating
>    demand paged virtual memory is not a solution.  No matter how much
>    memory you have, when the NeXT eventually pages something it usually
>    pages the WRONG something and the machine hicups.

Like what??  Mach has a *killer* VM system.


andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com     | "We shall not cease from exploration
Andrew Loewenstern      |  And the end of our exploring
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  Will be to arrive where we started
                        |  And know the place for the first time." -T.S. Eliot
From: andrew@cubetech.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Re: High Bandwith and NeXT cubes
Date: 9 Oct 92 19:54:59 GMT
Organization: Cube Technologies, Inc.

In article <1992Oct8.042109.6044@cs.odu.edu> basil@aelle.cs.odu.edu (Keith Basil) writes:
>
>	I'm considering using a Turbo Cube for a network and was
>	wondering if someone can give me some insight on its 
>	ability to handle a 56Kbps connection with about 30-40
>	shell level users.  Ideal configuration would be 64M ram.

NeXTSTEP only ships with 32 pseudo-terminals.  I think this is
hard-wired too.


andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com     | "We shall not cease from exploration
Andrew Loewenstern      |  And the end of our exploring
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  Will be to arrive where we started
                        |  And know the place for the first time." -T.S. Eliot
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Monday, 12 Oct 1992 14:41:54 CDT
From: e-Floyd B. Hanson,  UIC <U12688@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Printer Offset problems

The offset on my NeXtPrinter suddenly changed for whatever print jobs I have
tried.  In addition, the test page also comes out badly shifted.

How do I reset the printer offsets for all printing?
From: mark@wupost.wustl.edu (Mark Pohlman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Next software for controlling Laserdisc Play/Rec
Date: 7 Oct 1992 15:55:13 -0500
Organization: ONC - Washington University in St. Louis
NNTP-Posting-Host: wugate.wustl.edu
Summary: Next software for Laserdisc Play/Rec

Does anyone out there know where I might find software info on controlling Laserdisc (Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer) Player/Recorders from a Next computer.

You can post any info to this newsgroup or e-mail me directly.

Thanx, 
-- 
mark@wugate.wustl.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: steve@snoopy.tamu.edu (Steve Rikli)
Subject: internal/external CD-ROM, '040 turbo upgrade
Organization: College of Architecture, Texas A&M University
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 21:04:53 GMT

Is it possible to obtain an internal cdrom drive for the NeXTcube?  The only
option our campus microcomputer center has is the external.

Given my choice, I would like to pull the floptical drive entirely, and just
replace it with either the 2.88MB floppy disk or the cdrom drive, preferably
the latter.  Is this at all possible?

Also, my cube has one of the first '040 boards in it, I'm assuming therefore
that it's 25MHz.  Is there an upgrade path to migrate to the 33MHz?

cheers,
sr.
--
|| Steve Rikli 	           |||  Visualization Lab               ||
|| steve@archone.tamu.edu  |||  Texas A&M University            ||
|| (409) 845-3465          |||  College Station, TX  77843-3137 ||
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: rcd@cs.brown.edu (Robert C Duvall)
Subject: Re: internal/external CD-ROM, '040 turbo upgrade
Organization: Brown Computer Science Dept.
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 03:35:09 GMT

I have talked to both NeXT and NeXTConnection and neither offers an
internal CD-ROM drive.  In fact, the drive that NeXT makes has a larger
footprint than the cube!

rcd
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: wkwong@kalman.eng.ohio-state.edu (Waihon Andrew Kwong)
Subject: Fax modem Problem
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Electrical Engineering
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 04:22:11 GMT

I have just bought a ZyXEL U1496E modem for me 030 cube. I have the
following problems which I hope somebody can give me a clue:
1. I can't config the modem as 9600bps
2. The fax function does not work (I have NS 2.0 and I use the
Interfax driver now)

Thanks in advance,
Andy

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: gtoews@ugly.UVic.CA (Greg  Toews)
Subject: RE: HP48SX Connection to NeXT
Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 21:27:08 GMT

I am using the Mac cable to connect my HP to my NeXT since the serial
ports are identical.

You need to type in the following in Kermit or else include in the
.kermrc file.

set line /dev/ttya         ! for serial port A
set speed 9600
set flow none              ! won't work otherwise
set file type text
or
set file type binary

With this setup I can connect my HP, run Kermit and immediately send
and receive files.

To send from the HP to NeXT:

type server on the NeXT
send 'variable' on the HP
hit the 'finis' button on the HP

(by send 'variable' I mean have the var. name on the stack 
and hit the 'send' button)

To send from the NeXT to HP

hit the 'serve' button on the HP
type 'send filename' on the NeXT

type finish on the NeXT


To display the directory name on the command prompt in Kermit put
the following in the .kermrc file: 

define \%d "Kermit\v(directory)> "
set prompt \%d
define cf cd \%1, set prompt \%d

(You must use cf to change directories for this to work)


Just for interests sake you can accomplish the above for
your Terminal prompt by adding the following to the .cshrc file

set host 'hostname'
set prompt="! ${host}$cwd> "
alias cd 'cd \!*;set prompt="! $host$cwd> ";ls'

(if this didn't work you may have used the wrong single quote
mark, try ` instead of ' or a combination {it is very picky})

the above also adds a history number to the front of the quote
(I mean prompt) and does an 'ls' of the directory.

feel free to mail me any questions, it took me about five hours
to get all this working, and it DOES work.

Greg 

D
mark, try ` instead of ', or
From: cain@silverblue.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Sebastian Nightingale Cain)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Re: Yet another confirmation of the demise of the '040 cube (was: Re: keyboard/mouse question)
Date: 7 Oct 92 19:08:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BvrMIo.70F.2
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <_-tz6ck@rpi.edu> gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn)  
writes:
> jeffo@uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens) writes:
> > Garance A. Drosehn writes
>     [on the question of upgrading a NeXTcube to support the new
>      ADB keyboard and mouse]
> > > I believe the official word (for the moment, at least), is "No".
> > > That's an answer that applies to almost every NeXT that was sold
> > > before before these ADB options were announced.
> > Is buying a Turbo board possible (just the board for the cube, not
> > the cube shell itself)?  If so, how much is list price on that?

[...]
 
> It isn't on our price list (the price list for the store), but it might  
be  
> available from someone who is certified to do NeXT hardware servicing.
> 
> --
> Garance Alistair Drosehn     =     gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
> ITS Systems Programmer            (handles NeXT-type mail)
> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;           Troy NY    USA

Lest we forget, putting a turbo board in an older cube renders your OD  
unusable, even though the software still supports it. (am I wrong here?)
From: ssarmast@ucdacm.denver.colorado.edu (Sam Sarmast)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: DSP interface info
Keywords: dsp info hardware
Date: 7 Oct 92 22:30:34 GMT

I'm beginning a project using a NeXTstation for real time digital
signal processing and I'm having a little trouble finding information
on how to interface an A/D board to the DSP port on the back of the  
machine.  Anyone have any thoughts on where I could find such information?

Thanks,
Sam

please reply here or by e-mail.......
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: jfreem@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Joe Freeman)
Subject: SCSI floppy mech (which one works?)
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 22:32:46 GMT

Does anyone know what kind of SCSI 3.5" floppy drives work with
the NeXT?  I would like to buy a bare mechanism to put in my
drive cabinet.  (2.8 meg drive would be best)

I think I remember someone posting a Toshiba part number a while
back.

Thanks,

-- 
Joe Freeman	jfreem@uncecs.edu
		jfreeman@next.com (NeXT Mail)
The opinions espressed here are my own and are not shared by my employer  or
anyone else I know of.  Flames can be mailed to me or routed to /dev/null.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware,comp.sys.next.misc