HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mark@cheers.jsc.nasa.gov (Mark Manning)
Subject: Looking for someone - please read
Organization: Simulacron I
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:32:51 GMT

Hi, this is your local dopey person.  I'm the guy who posted asking
for a site for TAP (The Terminal Allocation Program) which I wrote
for NASA.  My problem is that I _HAD_ someone who was going to keep
the program at his archive site.  Unfortunately, I decided to clean
up my directory and, wouldn't ya know it, I deleted his email message
to me which contained his address.  If this kind person would take
pity on me and re-send me a letter I'd be very appreciative.  Especially
since I finally finished the upgrades and am now ready to send you
a copy of the program.  Thanks.

And to everyone else who has had to read this - I'm REAL sorry. I
only wish the SGI computers had an undelete feature or program (like
Norton's Utilities) so I wouldn't have to bother everyone.  Thanks again.
:)

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: k77print - is there a GPIB version?
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Distribution: comp
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 17:29:30 GMT

In <DWABRA.92Oct14100858@stmiris.ibm.com> dwabra@watson.ibm.com (David Abraham) writes:
| Subject line says it all.  I haven't found documentation on this
| utility yet, other than the help you get by typing k77print on the
| command line.  It seems to indicate that it's only for SCSI bus, which
| would be too bad for me!  (I'd try it but it's been 6 months and I
| don't have the GPIB upgrade for 4.0 yet...)

The original driver was written for the gpib version, but was
*much* slower, and at that time, there was no gpib for indigo
class machines.  I suspect that all gpib support was dropped
in favor of scsi (I just checked, and it no longer links with
the gpib library, so I'm pretty sure of this).  GPIB was also
more expensive in the printer.

Sorry.
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: zhou@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Tom Zhou)
Subject: GL function MAPW
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 22:58:06 GMT

Has anybody had experience using the function mapw in GL? The function
requires as the first argument a "viewing object" which contains the
viewport, viewing, perspective, and modeling transformations. But I'm
not sure how should I create such an object. Could any GL guru post an
example here? Many thanks.

-Tom
-- 

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: Why is the PATH hardcoded for rsh?
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 05:56:57 GMT

In <1992Oct7.033238.26281@ennews.eas.asu.edu> sridhar@enuxhb.eas.asu.edu (Sridhar Venkataraman) writes:

| Please excuse me if I assumed wrongly but I believe that rshd has the
| PATH env. var hardcoded in it. So what is my problem?

You need some kind of path for non-interactive rsh sessns.  Our rshd
gets it from paths.h.

| I would like my path to remain the same as it was when I am physically
| logged on. For eg: I have a /usr/local/bin and some of the mail
| checking programs that come with procmail. When I try executing the
| program through an rsh from another machine it bombs. So I tried
| strings on rshd and what came through contained:

Remember that a non-interactive rsh doesn't result in ~/.login
being run (for csh users), so perhaps you should set it in .cshrc
for non-interactive shells.
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
From: james@sam.contex.com (James McQueston)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Bug in SGI's malloc?
Date: 9 Oct 92 16:01:49 GMT
Organization: Xyvision Design Systems

In article <qrc7vb8@sgi.sgi.com> jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon) writes:
>In article <1992Oct8.173404.24957@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>, shenkin@avogadro.barnard.columbia.edu (Peter S. Shenkin) writes:
>> ... 
>> No, it "should" return a NULL pointer when physical+swap has been exceeded.
>> ... 
>> malloc() behave "normally."  SGI considers the actual behavior to be
>> a feature, not a bug.
>
>As do the people who requested it.  My understanding is that there are
>some folks out there who have huge processes that want to do a quick fork
>and exec.  With traditional memory accounting, they would have to have
>enough memory for double the process size, even though the forked process
>was only going to exec something small.  Other folks had huge sparse
>matrices that took a lot of virtual memory, but actually used very
>little physical memory.
>
>If you want to have all virtual memory backed by phycical memory + swap,
>then you can set availsmem_accounting in /usr/sysgen/master.d/kernel
>and rebuild your kernel.
>
>jeremy

IMHO the problem is that this "feature" is shipped on by default.  I
see this conficting with the ANSI-C standard:

---
4.10.3.3 The malloc function

Synopsis

	#include <stdlib.h>
	void *malloc(size_t size);

Description

    The _malloc_ function allocates space for an object whose size is specified
by _size_ and whose value is indeterminate.

Returns
    
    The _malloc_ function returns either a null pointer or a pointer to the
allocated space.
---

In SGI's default implementation, a null pointer is not returned yet the
pointer that is returned does not point to "the allocated space."  In
fact, under the circumstances in question, it points to _unallocated_
space. (Or is someone going to claim that the space is allocated but
just unusable?)

I think this mis-feature should be turned off by default, else SGI cannot
make the claim that their library is ANSI-C compliant.

Beyond that, why must SGI ship systems with non-standard behavior as
the default?  There's nothing wrong with the feature for those who want
it, but you cannot claim that this feature is transparent.  Those
programs that decide how much virtual memory is available by checking
the return of malloc no longer operate correctly in the SGI
environment.

When I call this into the TAC I have gotten no resolution other than
"you can change the kernel configuration." There are other associated
problems when this "feature" is on that are not resolved either, but are
very important in a production environemnt.  Like when a mega-sized
process is using 99.9% of available virtual memory (this computation
is the one that "pays the bills") and someone starts some new process
that is (relativly) unimportant, guess which process gets killed?
The answer isn't (always) pretty or predictable.






-- 
-----
James H. McQueston		james@contex.com
Xyvision Color Systems, Inc.	(617) 246-1776 x 5523 (office, voicemail)
Wakefield MA 01880-1291		(617) 245-4471        (lab phone direct)
From: alain@paris.asd.sgi.com (Alain Dumesny)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: changing window title
Date: 15 Oct 1992 01:37:19 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc.
Distribution: world
Reply-To: alain@sgi.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: paris.asd.sgi.com

In article <16325@borg.cs.unc.edu>, bergman@proline.cs.unc.edu (Larry Bergman) writes:
|> Is there a way to change the title in an open window?
|> 

I have this on my machine to change wsh window title

alias settitle 'echo -n "\033P1.y $hostname : $cwd \033\\"'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alain Dumesny	alain@sgi.com	(415)390-5250	    Silicon Graphics Inc.
From: maejohns@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Mark E. Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Remote cdrom mounting
Date: 15 Oct 92 22:08:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: usenet.Bw6o7B.AF2
Organization: Indiana University
Content-Type: text
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL0]
Content-Length: 298

How does one mount a remote cdplayer onto 
the local filesystem?  I have a CDROM on
a 4d35, but I want to be able to play music
out of my indigo's speaker without moving
the CDROM all the time...

Thanks for any pointers and
please respond by e-mail!

Mark Johnson
maejohns@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi)
Subject: Re: Iconifying GL windows
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 22:52:02 GMT


In article <41782@imag.imag.fr>, usson@imag.fr writes:
> May be this question is a FAQ ?
> 
> In one of my GL program I want that newly
> opened windows (using winopen) be iconified
> immediately by code. Is it possible, I tried
> to post WINFREEZE, WINTHAW with no success.
> Has anyone a trick for this (not based on an X11
> command like XIconifyWindow).

Sorry, this is not possible.  You must write an X11
program in order to iconify windows programatically.
The WINFREEZE and WINTHAW events are posted to your
program whenever the user iconifies your program
window.

--
Michael Portuesi   Silicon Graphics, Inc.   portuesi@sgi.com
From: pj@sam.wpd.sgi.com (Paul Jackson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Bug in SGI's malloc?
Date: 13 Oct 92 08:09:01 GMT
Reply-To: pj@sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Research & Development

In article <5272@bacon.IMSI.COM>, jordan@IMSI.COM (Jordan Hayes) writes:
|> Maximum process size is limited by swap space in
|> Virtual Memory UNIX.  Remember that even if you have 96Mb of physical
|> memory, if you only have 40Mb of swap you can only have 40Mb
|> processes.

Not so for many modern virtual memory systems.  They have no need
to swap out an entire image, so don't need to fit it all in swap. 
So single process size is limited to something less than total
swap+memory, or 96+40 == 136 Mb in your example.

|> What kind of "kernel mod" were you thinking of?

See the parameter availsmem_accounting in the file
/usr/sysgen/master.d/kernel.  This is a kernel configuration
parameter to choose whether you want swap space preallocated or
not.

-- 

				I won't rest till it's the best ...
				Software Production Engineer
				Paul Jackson (pj@sgi.com), x1373
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: bug in SCSI tape driver or tps man page ?
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 22:28:52 GMT

In <qrbk0kc@sgi.sgi.com> jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon) writes:
...
| I took another look at the 4.0.5 tpsc driver (I did not work on it, so there
| is no warranty on this interpretation), and near as I can tell, it should say
| the following:
| 
| 	If the first read after an open or following a FSF, FSR, or BSR,
| 	WFM, or a (SETMARK with a count of 1 done after a read in which
| 	you ended up at a filemark) encounters a filemark before transferring
| 	any data . . . .
| 
| So, you issue a read, followed by an FSF.  Then you encounter a filemark
| before transferring any data, so the read is retried and further errors
| (the EOD) get reported as they occur.

Jeremy's analysis is correct, to the best of my recollection and
looking at the code.

| I think the man page is the way it should be, and the driver is wrong, but
| that's just my opinion.

I agree with Jeremy, and this will almost certainly be fixed in the next
major release (by one of us).
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: grindley@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Robin Grindley)
Subject: Compiler or linker bug?
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 03:36:42 GMT

This bug seems to be pretty version independent - it occurs on 3.3.3, 4.0.4,
and 4.0.5 (with 3.10 compilers). Someone was trying to add one more common
block to a block data routine in f77. Compiled fine - NOTE that *all* of our 
code is compiled with -G 0. So when linking we get:

genbd.o: definition of external data gnpack_
/d/cdf1/cdfman/isajet/production/library/isajet.olb(conv.o): definition of small
 common gnpack_ size 4

Warning: gp relocation out-of-range in .text section for relocation entry 108 fo
r symbol: gnpack_
Warning: above gp relocation entry for non .sdata or .sbss symbol, symbol class(
sc) number 268442036

+ 20 more repeats of same with different entry numbers

This looks like it is actually complaining about the offset of gnpack into
the gp area during code (.text) generation, *not* that it could not fit it 
into the gp area during storage allocation. The thing is only one word long
(the "external data gnpack_" i think is just the compiler upgrading the class
of gnpack because part of the common is initialized) and we are explicitly 
not using the gp area in the compile. gnpack is *not* the new block that was
added. Take out the new block (which works everywhere else in the code) and
everything is OK.

Suppose this should be going TAC? (I hate filing a TAC if is already known
about).

robin


-- 
robin

 		iNSANITY - It's only a state of mind
From: rose@baby.swmed.utexas.edu (Rose Oguz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Recommendations for a disk
Date: 9 Oct 92 20:05:39 GMT

I'm looking for a second hard disk for my PI 4D/35 and I would appreciate any
recommendations that any of you can make.  I am specifically looking for
something to out out on the SCSI with a capacity of about 1GB.

Thanks for your time!
Rose

!!!!!!!!!!@@@@@@@@@@##########$$$$$$$$$$%%%%%%%%%%^^^^^^^^^^&&&&&&&&&&

Rose Oguz
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
rose@baby.swmed.utexas.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: tg@utstat.uucp (Tom Glinos)
Subject: Re: Indigo/r4k -- better machine, crummier monitor
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:06:58 GMT

In article <qqa2no0@zuni.esd.sgi.com> olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
>It isn't just QA, it is partly driven by prices the marketing people
>want to achieve.  The process is affected by a surprisingly large
>part of the company, not all of whom understand the ramifications,
>or at least, don't think the change is enough to matter.  Sometimes, 
>from rev to rev, the changes don't look bad, but when you look
>over the whole series of changes, it can be pretty depressing.

Does SGI want to be the best "graphics" company in the world or not?

If the answer is "yes" then it has to provide the customer
the best possible equipment on the market or the option of buying it.

We know the "best" costs a little bit more. But I bet when people
spend $100k for a reality engine they won't mind spending a few hundred
dollars on a proper monitor.
-- 
=================
No regrets, ever!			| Tom Glinos @ U of Toronto Statistics
For down that path, lies madness.	| tg@utstat.toronto.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: jpg@nrc3d.nrc.uab.edu (Jill Gemmill)
Subject: pcnfsd (sgi flavor) question
Organization: University of Alabama at Birmingham
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:30:31 GMT


The following error message shows up in SYSLOG when a PC with
SUN PC/NFS checks for SMTP mail with their Lifeline Mail
program:

	pcnfsd[703]: rpc.pcnfsd: yp_bind failed

This only happens if there is no mail to deliver.  The unix
server is an SGI (240/GTX) and the pcnfsd came from sgi.com

Curiously, we do not use yellow pages and the user's PC also
knows that no NIS services are available.  

Any ideas besides "so go ahead and turn on yellow pages" ?






-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Jill Gemmill			           INTERNET: jpg@nrc3d.nrc.uab.edu	
   UAB Neurobiology Research Center        PHONE: 205-934-7111 
   Birmingham Alabama 35294-0021           FAX: 205-934-6571
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: dave@imax.imax.com (Dave Martindale)
Subject: Stereo glasses connector on Indigo
Organization: Imax Corporation, Mississauga Canada
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 03:46:38 GMT

Is the "stereo glasses" connector on the back of an Indigo (Elan graphics)
documented anywhere?  I haven't found anything so far.

I already have LC shutter glasses and an infrared transmitter available
from another project on another system, so I'm not interested in buying
the StereoGraphics system that SGI sells.  All I want to know is what
sort of signals are on what pins, and I can figure out how to make them
drive my existing system from there.

Thanks for any info,

	Dave Martindale

(In case anyone is wondering, the glasses aren't from StereoGraphics or
Tektronix or anyone else - we build them ourselves for use in our theatres.
I can obtain less-than-perfect ones for essentially nothing.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: jhall@convex.com (Jon Hall)
Subject: Increasing buffer cache sizer
Organization: CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx., USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 20:50:14 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

I'm posting this for a friend, so please post responses and don't email me.
Thanks!!

I understand that under IRIX 4.0.5, there is a static buffer cache, which is
automatically configured to be 10% of physicallly memory (if NBUF == 0 in 
/usr/sysgen/master.d/kerel). I would like to increase this value to be greater
than 10%.

I performed these procedures
	$ dbx -k /unix /dev/kmem
	(dbx) p v.v_buf
	100

This should tell me the number of I/O buffers, so if I multiply by 1.5
and then set NBUF = 150 will this increase my buffer cache to 15%?

How can I check this??

Thanks!!
From: ttknock@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Robert Armstrong)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: impressario, printing
Summary: what is it?
Keywords: print, impressario, hp500c
Date: 7 Oct 92 15:36:53 GMT
Followup-To: nothing
Organization: very disorganized


   I've heard about Impressario and I am wondering where I can
get a copy or will it be bundled with future versions of IRIX?
I currently have an HP500C that I used with my Amiga and I would
like to be able to use it just as much with my 4D system. How
much might Impressario cost if it is not being bundled or what
other software is already available that could drive my HP500C?

ttknock@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu
From: robertl@cwi.nl (Robert van Liere)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi,comp.graphics.explorer
Subject: Re: How to run parallel jobs across a network of SGI machines
Date: 11 Oct 92 12:03:21 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.sgi
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam


>       A question for the group on parallelization...
>
>       It would be very useful to be able to run a job across
> a network in parallel.  Say you have a few R4000s, a few 420s,
> a few PI's, etc., and you have some kind of program that you
> think ought to be fairly easy to parallelize.  How might one
> attempt this over such a heterogeneous network?  I already
> know about the existence of Linda, although I haven't yet
> played with it.  Is that the best solution, or are there
> other ways to tackle this problem?  Any insights welcome!
 
 
Explorer might fit your needs. SGI markets Explorer as an environment
which provides visualizaiton functions, but can actually be used to
coordinate, distributed, non-visualization tasks as well. It certainly
provides support for the ingredients you are looking for.

Explorer is a application building environment which supports transparent 
data movement between "modules" across machine boundaries. The underlying 
execution model is based on a distributed data flow model that defines the
execution order, synchronization and looping of modules. Furthermore, 
Explorer comes with a bunch of high level tools which helps you a) package 
your program fragments into modules and b) design a user interface for your
modules.

Perhaps the best place to start would be to read the Explorer Technical
Overview (available on ftp.epcc.ed.ac.uk) and see if your application
can smoothly be mapped onto Explorer's underlying exectution model.
(I'm sure a lot of us in comp.graphics.explorer would like to know 
why if it doesn't !)

Explorer 1.0 comes bundled with any of the almost infinite versions of
IRIX 4.0.


-- Robert van Liere


-- 
Robert van Liere, Department of Interactive Systems,
Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI)
Kruislaan 413,  1098 SJ  Amsterdam,  The Netherlands
email: robertl@cwi.nl | tel: +31-20-592-4118 | fax: +31-20-592-4199
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Subject: Re: Time on SYSLOG entries
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 15:13:10 GMT

In article <Bw5FDr.IyG@bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au>, shrimpto@sgi.elec.uq.oz.au (David Shrimpton) writes:
> 
> 
> The entries in the SYSLOG on our indigo
> are 17 hours behind the time as displayed
> by date.   Sendmail entries for a user
> on the iris sending mail have the correct time
> but sendmail entries for received mail are
> 17 hours out of date.  The TZ is set to EST-10
> and correct file modification times are displayed.
> 
> Any suggestions.?


I bet sendmail is running with a different value of TZ.
Could you be setting TZ for shells directly in some place like
/etc/cshrc instead of changing /etc/TIMEZONE?

Does a reboot help?


Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sgi.com
From: alain@paris.asd.sgi.com (Alain Dumesny)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Inventor render caching and editable transformations
Date: 15 Oct 1992 01:34:52 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc.
Distribution: world
Reply-To: alain@sgi.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: paris.asd.sgi.com

In article <Bw2Lqr.6o3@vizbiz.com>, pphilp@vizbiz.com writes:
|> 
|> The simplest way to describe our performance problem is to think of our
|> application as a set of polygons.  One of the key attributes
|> of these polygons is the height, which is time variant.  My implementation
|> is to create a singe Separator node for a polygon (coordinates and a FaceSet).

Having this "polygon" node (sep + SoCoordinate3 + FaceSet) instanced 1000
times will realy hurt performance because you have so many nodes to
traverse + GL calls made, which explains why you get 1-3 frames/sec
(which is really bad when you consider that you only have 1000 polygons).

What you really should do is:

1) use only 1 node (SoCoordinate3 + FaceSet) node to contain your 1000
polygons.

2) turn GLRenderCaching OFF on the ExaminerViewer since you are constantly
changing your scene (viewer cache the entire scene by default). You may
want to turn caching on when you are not animating the heights (either
on the viewer or on your separator (easier))

3) instead of changing 1000 scale values, change the height directly
(if you are sometimes scaling to 0 (or very small values), you may want
to keep another vec3f data structure with the original values from which
you will compute rendered values).

This will make your rendering MUCH, MUCH faster and shouldn't be any harder
(actually should be simpler).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alain Dumesny	alain@sgi.com	(415)390-5250	    Silicon Graphics Inc.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi