HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ib@ivan.asd.sgi.com (Ivan Bach)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: font problems with 4.0.5A
Date: 6 Oct 92 16:54:05 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA

In <1992Oct5.061307.2116@tamsun.tamu.edu> vamsee@bioiris.tamu.edu (Vamsee 
Lakamsani) reported problems with fonts after installing IRIX 4.0.5A.

I asked him to enter the command:

    versions -Inv | grep font

to see which font subsystems he has installed on his system.  He got the
following list:

    eoe2.sw.Xasianfonts 1006000406 Asian Language X11 Fonts
    eoe2.sw.Xfonts     1006000406  X11 Fonts
    eoe2.sw.fonts      1006000406  Standard Font Manager Fonts
    eoe2.sw.optfonts   1005000064  Optional Fonts

The subsystem eoe2.sw.optfonts shown above was from a 3.X.X release.  It was 
installed on June 1, 1990.  It contained font files in the old FM (Font 
Manager) format that is no longer supported.  It was not replaced by the 
corresponding subsystem in IRIX 4.0 or 4.0.1 that contains the optional font 
files in the compressed PCF format.

We have specified appropriate replacement rules for the old subsystems, but
you need to install a new version of a subsystem for those replacement rules
to take effect.  The problem with eoe2.sw.optfonts is that it is an optional
subsystem that is not installed by default.  I think that the program inst
should warn you when you don't install a new version of an installed subsystem,
and you should not ignore such warnings.

The font subsystems:

    eoe2.sw.optfonts
    NeWSfonts.sw.fonts

cannot be used with IRIX 4.0.5 and higher.  As explained in the Chapter 12 
("Fonts") for the product eoe in the IRIX 4.0.5 Release Notes, these two 
subsystems are obsolete.  They contain fonts from the NeWS windowing system.  
If you intend to upgrade your system to IRIX 4.0.5 and higher, you should 
login as root, and enter the commands:

    versions remove eoe2.sw.optfonts
    versions remove NeWSfonts.sw.fonts

to avoid problems.  This will work if you installed these subsystems by using 
inst.  If you copied some old font files to the directory /usr/lib/fmfonts, 
you should remove them from that directory before installing IRIX 4.0.5.

The subsystem eoe2.sw.Xasianfonts currently contains only 3 Kanji (Japanese)
fonts.  If you don't need Kanji fonts, you should also remove that subsystem
to save on disk storage.  Most people need just the font subsystems:

    eoe2.sw.Xfonts
    eoe2.sw.fonts

If you install Display PostScript, you will also have the font subsystem:

    dps_eoe.sw.dpsfonts 

Ivan Bach, ib@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi,comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
From: waddell@firnvx.firn.edu (Kathy Waddell)
Subject: Re: Simple database/forms-generator for SGI wanted
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   
Reply-To: waddell@firnvx.firn.edu
Organization: Florida State University Computing Center
Distribution:  world
Date:  4 OCT 92 09:32:19    

In article <1992Oct4.112542.12630@ulrik.uio.no>, toreh@bootes.sds.no (Tore Haraldsen) writes...
>In article <1992Sep24.083745.24483@sniap.mchp.sni.de> mike@bastet.ap.mchp.sni.de (Mike Hoffmann) writes:
>>Hello!
>>
>>I am looking for a simple easy-to-use DBMS w/ screen-forms, that allow
>>functions such a record adding/deleting/editing/searching and printing.
>>...
>>I have written some perl scripts, that I intend to use as back-ends to create
>>the named (hosts, rev...) files and the aliases/generics lists. This runs
>>fine, but a nice screen form (maybe even X11 based?) is required.
>>...
>>-- 
>>Mike Hoffmann, Siemens-Nixdorf AG, SNI AP 712  
>>INTERNET: Mike.Hoffmann@ap.mchp.sni.de
>>...
> 
>We here at SDS have developed a free-text search system with a
>structured dataentry top named SiftPlus that thould accommondate all
>your needs. We are ISV to most of the vendors (including your company).
> 
>SiftPlus runs on any platform except MAC and DOS.
>... 
>-- Tore Haraldsen
> 
>PS. I tried to mail you privately, but I could not get through...

I also tried to e-mail you, but could not get through.

I am interested in your perl scripts, if they are available, and also any
other recommendations you receive for a data base.

Thanks

   =-Kathy->                                         waddell@firnvx.firn.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: trich@crow.omni.co.jp (Timothy Richards)
Subject: Re: Remote backup h/w and the guest account
Reply-To: trich@crow.omni.co.jp
Organization: Omnibus Japan, Inc.
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 02:34:08 GMT

"Scott J. McCue" <scotty@eos-prog.whoi.edu> writes ..
>  So, it appears that 3 choices are available to me...
   .......
>
>  3. Give guest a password, and put all potential user hosts in the accounts 
>     .rhosts file. Note: the other machines are not especially secure as they
>     will have users other than those allowed access to the fileserver h/w.

The easiest way to control access to the guest account is to use
/etc/netgroups and make two groups `untrusted' and `allusers'.
I have another group called `allhosts'.  I also have NIS running which
supplies my /etc/netgroups database, but I think it will work without
NIS.  Read the man page for netgroups for more info.

Anyway your guest account's .rhosts file can have an entry something
like the following.

+@allhosts      -@untrusted
+@allhosts      +@allusers
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy Richards, Omnibus Japan.		work: +81 (3) 5706-8357
[Uucp]      ccut.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp!crow!trich	home: +81 (3) 3720-4088
[Internet]  trich@omni.co.jp
From: jeff@hobbes.contex.com (Jeff Carey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: bug in SCSI tape driver or tps man page ?
Date: 1 Oct 92 20:24:54 GMT
Organization: Xyvision Design Systems


I have been doing some tests to chase down a problem that has arisen in
some ancient ANSI tape writing applications.  In doing so, I have
discovered that the tape driver, when doing the close, after writing to
an Exabyte or a 1/2 inch reel-to-reel tape, does not act consistently with
what the "man tps" man page says at note 4 under "TAPE MOVEMENT CRITERIA."
(I have seen this on both IRIX 4.0.4 and 4.0.5a.)
I quote:

>...
>TAPE MOVEMENT CRITERIA
>...
>     4.  On close, if the last tape movement operation was a successful write
>         (NOT a write filemark), the following will happen:
>
>         a)  Half-inch tape drives will write two filemarks, and then
>...
>         b)  Other tape drives will write one filemark.  No backspace will be
>...

What I have seen is inconsistent with the parenthetical "(NOT a write
filemark)"; no matter how many filemarks I write at the end of a tape,
just before close, the close appends two filemarks to half-inch tapes
and one on eight millimeter tapes.

The most curious thing about all of this is, I had updated the
previously mentioned "ancient" programs when we first upgraded our machines
to 4.0 (or was it 4.0.1) and the described filemark action seemed to
be an actuality.  (We have no machines older than 4.0.4 around anymore,
so I haven't gone back and proven it.)  Now I have to change the programs
again.  Something either:
1.  broke in the tape driver between 4.0 and 4.0.4; or
2.  was fixed in the tape driver between 4.0 and 4.0.4, but not updated in
    the man pages.
The release notes make no mention of the change.

Which leads me to the most important of all questions: Is there a document
that I could get (maybe from Sun) that describes how this tape driver
should be expected to work; how "most BSD derived UNIX system tape drivers"
work?  I can not tell if the 4.0 or the 4.0.5 behavior is the correct
behavior.

Thanks-

jeff


PS
Either way, it sure is a pain to have to keep changing the number of
backward space file marks I have to do to leave the tape at a desired
position.


-- 
Jeff Carey
jeff@contex.com       (or: contex!jeff@uunet.uu.net)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: fouts@exacto.dallas.sgi.com (Christopher Fouts)
Subject: Re: Indigo/r4k -- better machine, crummier monitor
Organization: Silicon Graphics (Dallas, TX)
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 21:07:15 GMT

In article <2AD09968.15164@news.service.uci.edu>, fredv@abba.acs.uci.edu (Fred Velijanian) writes:
|> In article <BvnDxw.1pu@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> mark@cita.toronto.edu writes:
|> >So, what's going on, SGI?  Isn't this a bit of bait-and-switch, to ship
|> >a system with a monitor that nearly everyone (at least, nearly everyone
|> >who I've talked with) feels is inferior to the ones that travel around
|> >with the demo systems?  Anyone care to comment?
|> >
|> Anyone I know also prefers the SONY Trinitron monitors to any other 
|> type of monitor. However the Indigo R4000 seems to have a monitor using
|> the Trinitron "technology" but build by another vendor (Hitachi?), it
|> seems to be much better than previous monitors, but I haven't compared
|> it against a real SONY yet.

I, too, like the Sony monitors, but a few customers locally have gotten
fairly upset over the 2 faint horizontal lines that are noticeable on light
backgrounds.  Sigh.

Besides, the new ones weigh a ton, which I guess is only of concern to those
of us who frequently haul them around setting up demos....

-- 

Chris Fouts				Email:  fouts@dallas.sgi.com
Systems Engineer			Phone:  (214)-788-4122
Silicon Graphics Computer Systems	Vmail:	8714
Dallas, TX

   "Can you say `hernia'?  Sure, I thought you could."  - Mister Rogers
From: sysmark@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Bartelt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Multiple ethernets & serial ports on indigi ??
Date: 2 Oct 92 14:22:05 GMT
Reply-To: mark@cita.toronto.edu
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA

[ Len Zaifman ]

|     A colleague at a nearby university is buying a Sparc server because
| he needs two ethernet connections  and up to 8 serial connections. He
| claims this cannot be done cost effectively, if at all, on an Indigo. Is
| this correct?? How much would an extra ethernet board and a port serial
| I/O board be for an indigo?? Are they even available ??

Dunno about how to deal with the need for a second ethernet, but there are
a couple companies around which make multiport serial devices that live on
the SCSI bus.  However, I've heard strongly conflicting reports about how
well these things work.  Caveat emptor.

Mark Bartelt                                                  416/978-5619
Canadian Institute for                               mark@cita.toronto.edu
Theoretical Astrophysics                             mark@cita.utoronto.ca

"Clothes not busy being worn are busy drying."   -   Dylan, on laundry day
          [ singing "It's all right, ma (I'm only bleaching)" ]
From: rainer@spot.Colorado.EDU (Rainer Malzbender)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Indigo/r4k -- better machine, crummier monitor
Date: 6 Oct 92 22:53:15 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder

In article <2AD09968.15164@news.service.uci.edu> fredv@abba.acs.uci.edu (Fred Velijanian) writes:
>Anyone I know also prefers the SONY Trinitron monitors to any other 
>type of monitor. However the Indigo R4000 seems to have a monitor using
>the Trinitron "technology" but build by another vendor (Hitachi?), it
>seems to be much better than previous monitors, but I haven't compared
>it against a real SONY yet.

I guess you guys are talking about the 19" monitor. My R4000 has a 16"
monitor made by Mitsubishi which I'm becoming quite fond of, in spite of
the two little black lines holding the shadow mask on (or at least that's
what I think they are). After using 19" monitors on PI's, I was worried
that the 16" would be too small, but it's great. Of course, you can't really
use the standard fonts (try an 18pt bold screen).

-- 
Rainer Malzbender
Fyzzics
U. of Colorado, Boulder (303)492-1366           rainer@boulder.colorado.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: prevost@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Michael Prevost)
Subject: Re: Need help in Showcase II
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 18:40:48 GMT

cychong@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Chi Yin R Chong) writes:

>HI, every comp.sys.sgi subscriber,

>     Need help in Showcase again!! Besides connecting the text blocks from
>two or more different pages, I would like to know also if anyone knows how
>to put the page number on each page in the same position. Would it be possible
>to just put the page number on one page and then Showcase will automatically
>paste the page numbers in the next pages?
You would think this would be possible.
 But Showcase is pretty weak in the more advanced word processing features.
The only way I've found to place something in the same spot on each page
is to make a template or "pin" something down and copy it from one page
to aother. I'd like to see some improved word processing capabilities 
in the future. If anyone at SGI would like a wish list let me know.

mp...
-- 
Michael Prevost
Sterling Software
moffett Field Ca.
prevost@eos.arc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: flynn@kalamazoo.eecs.wsu.edu (Patrick J. Flynn)
Subject: Adding a second swap partition at boot time
Reply-To: flynn@eecs.wsu.edu
Organization: School of EECS, Washington State University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 23:20:29 GMT

Hi.

I recently added a Fujitsu 1.2GB disk to my stock Indigo XS24Z.
Since the default 40MB of swap on my root disk isn't sufficient
for my needs, I added a 128MB swap partition to the Fuji.

How do I make IRIX add this swap space at boot time?  I can manually
/etc/swap -a /dev/dsk/dks0d5s1 as root, but would rather the system
do it for me.  The manual page for swap(1M) sez:

>Swap areas are normally added by the system start up routines in
>/etc/rc2.d when going into multi-user mode.

But none of the scripts in rc2.d seem to have anything to do with
swap partitions.  Do I need to hand-craft one? (eek!)
I recall that Suns specify additional swap partitions in /etc/fstab,
but the IRIX manual page says nothing about that.

No, we don't have site admin manuals.  They are on order.

Ciao.
-- 
Patrick J. Flynn, School of EECS, Wash. St. Univ.    (flynn@eecs.wsu.edu)
"...A just machine to make big decisions
 programmed by fellows with compassion and vision..." -- Donald Fagen
From: kevin@tamri.com (Kevin Dalley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: GNU gcc Compiliation
Date: 28 Sep 92 19:28:48 GMT
Reply-To: kevin@tamri.com
Organization: TOSHIBA America MRI, South San Francisco, CA

>>>>> On 25 Sep 92 19:18:43 GMT, zoo@cygnus.com (david d 'zoo' zuhn) said:

david> If you have the CD-ROM distribution of the OS, you do have the
david> include files.  They're in a package which isn't normally
david> installed by default.  I wish I knew the name of the package,
david> but I don't.

david> Once you have those files installed, the rest of the
david> installation should go just fine.


It's the "dev.cmplrs_hdr" package.  Specifically, the
"dev.cmplrs_hdr.internal" package.

--
Kevin Dalley
Toshiba America MRI, Inc.
kevin@tamri.com
From: neafie@maxum.dallas.sgi.com (Terry Neafie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Advise on a paintjet printer
Date: 30 Sep 92 14:02:16 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics Computer Systems - NAFO Division, Dallas, Texas

Can anybody recommend a Paintjet printer for an Indigo?

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
					Terry Neafie	(neafie@sgi.com)
					System Support Engineer
					SGI - Dallas, TX
					(214) 788-4122

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: andreas@awstar.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (Andreas Wierse)
Subject: Re: Math symbols in showcase - bullet
Organization: Visualization Group Comp.Center (RUS) U of Stuttgart, FRG
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 08:30:19 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.204422.10843@odin.corp.sgi.com> ib@ivan.esd.sgi.com (Ivan Bach) writes:
>In article <1992Oct1.173957.5020@uc.msc.edu>, Wes Barris (wes@uf.msc.edu)
>wrote that his version of Showcase could not find the bullet character in 
>New Century Schoolbook fonts.  He has IRIX 4.0.1 and Showcase 2.0.  The
>article I posted applies to IRIX 4.0.5 and Showcase 2.0.3.  Showcase started 
>using the New Century Schoolbook fonts from the X Window System in IRIX 4.0.5.
>Those fonts have the bullet character.
>
>Ivan Bach, ib@sgi.com

I'm not quite sure about what a bullet is :-), but I assume You talk
about a dot that is a little thicker, right? (Wes said something about a
bullet looking like, but not being a filled circle). I just tried
Showcase 2.0 on IRIX 4.0.1 and succeeded in getting the bullet character
(as I hope it is) by typing <Ctrl>-<Alt>-8. By additionally pressing the
<Shift> key You get a smaller bullet. (I just had a look into my
dictionary and it says that we seem to talk about the same thing :-)

Andreas

-- 
 Andreas Wierse              | Institute for Computerapplications II
                             | Dep. Computersimulation and Visualization
 wierse@rus.uni-stuttgart.de | Computer Center University of Stuttgart
 Tel.: ++49-711-685-5796     | Allmandring 30
From: trump@i33s3.ira.uka.de (Wilfried Trump)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: MOTIF Construction Set ?
Date: 30 Sep 1992 18:35:03 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: i33s3.ira.uka.de
Keywords: MOTIF

Is there any Public Domain Resource Construction Set for MOTIF ?

Thank you in advance,
Wilfried

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: kempinsk@bhpmhaw.bhp.com.au (Peter Kempinski)
Subject: Re: Does Explorer work with 8bit Iris Indigo?
Organization: BHP Minerals International Exploration
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 05:38:26 GMT

bogstad@blaze.cs.jhu.edu (Bill Bogstad) writes:

>	I'm trying to install 1.0 IRIS Explorer on an Indigo with a basic
>8 bit display and whenever I try to start it up I get:

>Prompt> explorer 
>User interface: killed -- Bus error, core dumped

We tried running explorer on:

IRIX ruby 4.0.1 11150233 IP6

1 20 MHZ IP6 Processor
FPU: MIPS R2010A/R3010 VLSI Floating Point Chip Revision: 2.0
CPU: MIPS R2000A/R3000 Processor Chip Revision: 2.0
Main memory size: 16 Mbytes
Graphics board: GR1.2 Bit-plane, Z-buffer options installed

... with very similar results, we got segmentation violation instead!
Apparently it should work on the hardware we've got.

>If not, any ideas on what I did wrong when installing it.  (FYI, I'm
>running OS version 4D1-4.0.1)

We have re-installed it 3 times and I am convinced it is ok!

>					Thanks,
>					Bill Bogstad

Any help would be equally appreciated.

   /\/\     :  Peter M. Kempinski  BHP Minerals International
  / / /\    :                      Exploration Department, Australian Region
 / / /  \   :
/ / / /\ \  :  801 Glenferrie Rd,  Hawthorn, Vic. 3122. Australia
\ \/ / / /  :  FAX:+61 3 810 7722  Phone:  +61 3 810 7777
 \  / / /   :
  \/\/\/    :  E-mail  :  kempinsk@bhpmhaw.bhp.com.au
From: mikes@biochemistry.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Sun CDs in SGI CD player
Date: 1 Oct 92 10:59:11 GMT
X-Mailer: mail-news 2.0.3

The subject pretty much says it all ... we have Suns without CD players
and an SG with one - so can I read a CD designed for a sun?

Cheers

Mike
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: trich@crow.omni.co.jp (Timothy Richards)
Subject: Re: Re: inst making GID 9999
Reply-To: trich@crow.omni.co.jp
Organization: Omnibus Japan, Inc.
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 07:48:07 GMT

Sorry this is longish but it is a real problem.

In article <1992Sep29.022012.9260@odin.corp.sgi.com>, pj@sam.wpd.sgi.com (Paul Jackson) writes:
> In article <1992Sep28.080140.18887@crow.omni.co.jp>, trich@crow.omni.co.jp (Timothy Richards) writes:
> |>
> |> Occasionally I have a problem with inst where it makes millions
> |> of files with GID set to 9999.
> 
> Must be something amiss with the /etc/group file on the target
> system receiving the installation. Inst keeps the desired
> user/group to own each file as the string names in the
> distribution. For example, a file might be marked as owned
> by "root"/"sys". Inst then uses the /etc/passwd and /etc/group
> files on the target system to translate to numeric uid/gid.
> If it can't translate one of them, it uses 9999 by default.
> 
> So I'd guess your /etc/group file was missing or messed up.

Well it turns out that inst when started from a shell it
ignores the NIS database.  Maybe this is reasonable when
installing from within miniroot in which case inst can use
the miniroot version of the /etc/group file.  But when inst
is run from a shell I expect it to use NIS (if it is running).

The NFS and NIS Administration Guide says that it is possible
to have a /etc/group file that entirely relies on the NIS
version as follows:
+:

But on reading the O'Reilly book "Practical Unix Security"
I decided to change my /etc/group file as follows:
+:*:*

When I do a ypcat group I see all the normal system groups plus
my local stuff.

Now I start inst from a shell and install some software
( japanese_sys ), and lo and behold everything is installed
with group id 9999

Now I change my /etc/group file to

sys::0:root,bin,sys,adm
root::0:root
daemon::1:root,daemon
bin::2:root,bin,daemon
adm::3:root,adm,daemon
mail::4:root
uucp::5:uucp
rje::8:rje,shqer
lp:*:9:
nuucp::10:nuucp
user::20:
other::995:
demos:*:997:
guest:*:998:4Dgifts,guest
+:*:*

and inst now installs everything with the correct group name.

Apart from my wasting a lot of time this is actually a BIGGER
problem than you might think.  There is a good reason why I
wanted /etc/group to be entirely NIS based.
It turns out that if I have duplication between the NIS data and
the local /etc/group file then when I run multgrps I get those
duplicated groupname twice over.  Here is multgrps for root:

uid=0(root) gid=0(sys) groups=1(daemon),2(bin),3(adm),4(mail),1(daemon),2(bin),3(adm),4(mail)

THEN on certain machines ( old suns and old sgis ) I can not
mount nfs filesystems because root is in more than 8 groups.
I can see there are workarounds, but they shouldn't be necessary.
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy Richards, Omnibus Japan.		work: +81 (3) 5706-8357
[Uucp]      ccut.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp!crow!trich	home: +81 (3) 3720-4088
[Internet]  trich@omni.co.jp
From: jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: bug in SCSI tape driver or tps man page ?
Date: 6 Oct 92 00:09:18 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In article <3007@contex.contex.com>, jeff@hobbes.contex.com (Jeff Carey) writes:
> 
> Thanks for the reply...
> 
> Is there, in fact, a comprehensive document describing expected behavior?

The man page is it for now.

> For example, here is another unexpected...
> 
> If I have an ANSI-type tape with:
> 
> seven 80-byte blocks,
> a filemark,
> ten 16K-byte blocks,
> a filemark,
> six 80-byte blocks,
> and two ending filemarks,
> 
> where should I expect for the tape to end up if I, from the BOT,
> read seven 80 byte blocks, then forward space three (3) filemarks.
> 
> Logically, it seems I would end up between the last two ending filemarks.
> But, in practice it seems I am after the last of both filemarks.
> Does this make sense...?

I would have said between the last two filemarks.  How do you determine
that it is after the last two filemarks?  I refer you to the man page:

     1.  If the first read after an open or following a BSF encounters a
         filemark before transferring any data, and the tape was not known to
         be at the top of a filemark or BOT, the filemark will be skipped, and
         the read retried.  Any further errors will be reported exactly as
         they occur.

That said, there is a bug in the tpsc driver (fixed in the next major release)
that makes the behavior more like the following (oops):

     1.  If the first read after an open or following a BSF encounters a
         filemark before transferring any data,                              
                                             the filemark will be skipped, and
         the read retried.  Any further errors will be reported exactly as
         they occur.

I.e. It doesn't check for BOT of Top of Filemark.  Perhaps this is what
     you are seeing.


> On another note, does SGI support any Cipher-made half inch, 9 track tape
> drives?

We did at one time sell Pertec interface Cipher tape drives.  I don't
remember the model, though.  It has been at least four years since these
were shipped.

jeremy