HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dave@doctor.chem.yale.edu (David Maxwell)
Subject: Re: How About a Word Processor with IRIX 4.0.X?
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 17:57:40 GMT

> Why not use IRIS Showcase?  I've used it regularly for years to do basic
> document processing.  It's WYSIWYG. It has a spell checker.  It has the
> ability to produce drawings, incorporate images and 3D objects.  The best way
> to do general multipage documents is to use the templates and linked-text-
> blocks mechanism.  I've written modest 25 page design documents using it.
> I've also used it for UI design and producing slide presentations.
> 
> It comes bundled with every new IRIS.  To run it from the command line,
> type "showcase".
> 
> -- 
> 
>     __   * __   _  __  ___			
>    /  \ / / /  / \/  \/   \ 	He was a man like any other man, however, not
>   /    /  \/  /  /\  /    /	quite like any other man.
>   \___/\__/\_/  /_/ / \__/	
> 	           *		

Sorry to say, but almost every time I use showcase on my indigo, I end up
getting a core dump, or a lock up on the screen.  I doesn't happen immediately.
It usually is after I have worked for a little while.  I must have something
to do with the audio part, because I seem to remember that it always seems
to fail after using the audio stuff.  I don't have the core dump files, but
I could get them easily.  When the showcase fails, it wont let me close
down the window.  The windows stay on the screen, and tend to "absorb" any
graphics that pass through.  The only way to get rid of the screens is to
do a kill.

One other comment.  When I try to use superscripts, the offset causes the whole
line to move down.  Is this correct?  Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but this
type of line spacing looks kind of stupid when it prints out.  Every other
word processor leaves the line spacing alone.

BTW, I'm using IRIX 4.0.1 on an Iris Indigo with 16 Mb of memory.

Dave Maxwell (dave@doctor.chem.yale.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: geoff@world.std.com (Geoff Collyer)
Subject: Re: (NEW OWNER): troff/tbl/eqn missing on new indigo
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 06:11:41 GMT

Lee Melvin:
>| If I can't get *roff from SGI, is there an anonymous ftp site I can grab
>| it from?

Yes, try prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/groff-1.05.tar.Z.  groff simulates
ditroff and comes with the usual macro packages and preprocessors (except
grap, at the moment).  It works well; I use it routinely.  Its tbl and
refer, in particular, work just fine and don't dump core.  James Clark
has pulled off a stunning tour de force with groff.

One minor impediment to getting groff running is that it's written in C++,
so you'll need a C++ compiler; you can get one for most popular machines
from prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/gcc-2.1.tar.Z, which includes compilers for
Classic C, ANSI C, C++ and Objective C.

Dave Olson:
>Not that I know of, although there is the 'awf' awk script; I don't
>know where you can get it.

ftp.cs.toronto.edu:pub/awf.shar.Z
-- 
Geoff Collyer		world.std.com!geoff, uunet.uu.net!geoff
From: russ@baklava.mitre.org (Russell Leighton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Exabyte Tape Drives
Date: 13 Apr 92 16:31:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: linus.1992Apr13.163104.10447
Organization: Mitre Corporation, McLean, VA


	Can anyone recommend vendors for Exabyte tape drives?
	I will summarize and repost the list.

	Thanks.

	Russ

--

  Russell Leighton                                *     *                     
  MITRE Signal Processing Center      ***        ***   ***      ***           
  7525 Colshire Dr.                 ******       ***   ***    ******
From: dong@umiacs.umd.edu (Dong Chen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: functions in library
Date: 9 Apr 92 04:29:48 GMT
Organization: UMIACS, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742

Could somebody tell me what's the command to find out the functions
defined in a library.
I used to know it, but forgot.
Thanks,
From: denise@kiltie.sgi.com (Denise Skarupski)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: mysterious ld errors: regcmp, regex -- help!
Date: 7 Apr 92 22:45:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: odin.1992Apr7.224553.8088
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA

In article <9204071923.AA07794@taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil> lombardo@TAURUS.CS.NPS.NAVY.MIL (charles lombardo) writes:
>Hi,
>  Upon compiling my application on any of our Iris' I get the following
>error:
>
>Undefined:
>regcmp
>regex
>*** Error code 1
>`all' not remade because of errors
>

You need to link with the -lPW switch...

 


------------------
Denise Skarupski
denise@csd.sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu (Nathan F. Janette)
Subject: Questions/Problems with new Crimsons
Reply-To: nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 00:56:54 GMT

We just had our two new Crimsons installed.  Where do we change
the battery when the electric paint begins to dim? ;-)

But seriously, folks...

Any known ethernet problems with the Crimsons?  I've tried
several different transceiver cables and transceiver-to-
thinnet boxes, and I'm still getting error messages about
nothing connected to the ethernet port.

I added several entries onto the end of the /etc/passwd file.
Why don't they appear in the login window?  Yes, I've rebooted
several times.

Help!  Thanks.

--
Nathan Janette		"I'm a NeXTstep man,
Dept MB&B, Yale Univ	 I'm a NeXTcube guy"
New Haven, CT
nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu (NeXT)
From: bcreedy@gideon.cs.uoguelph.ca (bcreedy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Public Domain Database?
Date: 10 Apr 92 21:24:48 GMT

I'm looking for a decent public-domain database package for an SGI 4D/20. 
It needn't be anything fancy but just something to perform basic database
functions.

Has anyone come across any software that might fit the bill? 

Thanks.

=============================================================================
Bob Creedy					bcreedy@gideon.cs.uoguelph.ca
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
=============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: brendan@illyria.wpd.sgi.com (Brendan Eich)
Subject: Re: Need directory limits help ???
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 01:20:53 GMT

In article <jcn2jc8@sgi.sgi.com>, daveh@xtenk.wpd.sgi.com (David Higgen) writes:
> In article <29993@adm.brl.mil>, fred@poly2.nist.gov (Frederick R. Phelan Jr.) writes:
> > 3. The limit to the number of characters in
> >    a file name including the path.
> 
> param.h:#define MAXPATHLEN      1024    /* maximum pathname length */
> 
> The maximum length of any individual pathname component is 255 bytes
> (imposed by efs on-disk directory structures); defined in 
> include/sys/fs/efs_dir.h

But one ought to use pathconf(2) or <limits.h> to write portable code, and
not include EFS-specific headers.

BSD folk like <sys/param.h> for MAXPATHLEN, but it's a bit of a misnomer.
<limits.h>'s PATH_MAX accurately implies that the same number is maximum
pathname *size* (the 1024 includes space for the terminating ASCII NUL).
But <limits.h>'s NAME_MAX is inconsistent: it tells the maximum filename
*length* (as in strlen(3) -- no space for the terminating '\0'), i.e. 255.
To be ultra-portable among POSIX implementations, call pathconf(2) with
the _PS_PATH_MAX and _PC_NAME_MAX commands defined in <unistd.h>.

There's a pathconf(1) command for use by scripts.

The distinction between PATH_MAX (maximum string size) and NAME_MAX (max
string length) may be a POSIX bug or a bug in many Unix versions' POSIX
implementations (ours, 4.3BSD-Reno, etc).  No kernel that I am aware of
allows a pathname of 1024 bytes not including the NUL; a valid pathname
can consist of at most 1023 non-NUL characters.

/be
From: parker@adms15.fnal.gov (Anthony Parker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Video Cable Length
Date: 8 Apr 92 14:18:36 GMT


     
      I'm not sure if this is the place to ask this, but I
   am interested in finding out the limit on the length of
   the video cable for a 4D/25. We have a situation where
   a 15ft. cable would make life much easier by letting the
   monitor/keyboard set farther away from the existing
   ethernet connection. They have told us we cannot extend
   the ethernet. I have seen premade cables available in
   lengths of 15 ft. Is it okay to use one of these cables
   on the machine, what would be the result/consequences ?
                             Tony Parker
                             parker@adms11.fnal.gov
From: k@apple.com (Keith Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Indigo - delayed echo and screen blink when typing
Date: 10 Apr 92 04:50:46 GMT
Organization: I bleed pure Indigo

In article <10511@discus.technion.ac.il>, birk@techunix.technion.ac.il (Yitzhak (Tsahi) Birk) writes:
> 
> I am thinking of buying an Indigo, and tried it out a bit.  When I type
> very fast (in a shell or editor, for example), I noticed two things that
> may be related:
> 
> - I can easily open a gap of at least half a second between the typing
>   and the screen echo
> 
> - Occasionally (as I type), a few scan lines on the screen (seems like 
>   those that include the area I am typing into) blink as if they are
>   being updated in a non-smoothe manner.
> 
> Both phenomena are somewhat annoying, and I have not encountered them before.
> More importantly, I am wondering whether they are a symptom of something
> deeper.  Any ideas?
> 
> Notes:
> 1. Occured on all machines I have tried (two or three)
> 2. The machines were not busy
> 3. At least in one case, default configuration.
> 4. Please reply by direct email and, if you wish, also post.
> 
> Yitzhak (Tsahi) Birk                 birk@ee.technion.ac.il
> Electrical Engrg. Dept.
> Technion - Israel Inst. of Technology
> Haifa 32000 Israel
> 
> 

I have one question.  What window shell (or editor, or whatever) were
you using?  I had an indigo on my desk (at SGI) for six months,
and I never noticed this phenomena.  However, I always used xwsh
for my window shell.  If you used something which was based on an
xterm, you might observe something like this since xterms are generic
and have funky "features" like jump scrolling for slower hardware.
Xwsh was written for sgi, and, IMHO, has wonderful performance.

--
keith
k@apple.com

std disclaimer: This statement expresses my personal 
                opinion, and has nothing to do with the thoughts
                of certain VERY HIGHLY paid individuals at the
                company where I am presently employed.
From: robeson@bach.udel.edu (Scott M Robeson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Indigo info/opinions sought
Date: 5 Apr 92 23:05:28 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Delaware

In article <j5552e0@zuni.esd.sgi.com> olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
>|   9. Are you happy with your set-up? What don't you like?
>
>I'll leave this for other folks.  One of the most common complaints
>seems to be that the 24 bit RGB dithered down to 8 bits often looks
>rather cheap, particularly if you are double buffering; the answer is
>to not do that (use colormap mode), or to pick your colors very carefully.

There are now true 24 bit Indigoes running around, aren't
there?  Of course this comes with a big increase in the price tag,
but...   Any opinions from those currently using the XS24?

-- 
Scott Robeson            |   Internet:  robeson@brahms.udel.edu
Department of Geography  |   Bitnet:     geo24674@udelvm.bitnet
University of Delaware   |   Phone:                302-831-8678
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: wired tape drive problem, help?
Keywords: tape drive
Date: 9 Apr 92 06:57:10 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <12025@tamsun.tamu.edu> system@silly.tamu.edu writes:

| Hi, everyone, all you gurus.
| 
| 	I have been reading news from this group for a while, but it is 1st
| time for me to post anything and asking for help.
| 
| 	We have a 4d/340 running irix3.3.2. It's tape drive is one of the pain
| in the b***. It seems like taking forever to reset the tape drive.

If it is resetting the tape drive at *all*, something is wrong. Fix it!
The minimum interval to wait before resetting the bus on tape timeouts
can be set in master.d/tpsc.  Be aware that if you make it too short,
that valid operations (block rewrites due to media problems) may fail,
even if they would succeed with the shipped values.  That is why I 
chose those values...

| 	I was trying to backup the user data on several 3M 150mgbyte tapes. It 
| happened like this: after first tape is filled up, computer asks for the second
| tape and press a return. Since I was not at the place when this happend. So I
| just did what the computer asked for. Now the drive just hangs over there and
| doing nothing. The light indicator on the drive is on, no spinning, no 
| rewinding, nothing at all. This kind of siduation happens a lot, and the only 
| way to get the drive back is REBOOTING the machine. I wonder that it is a kown
| problem or I did something wrong. Is there anyway to work around? Or the tape 
| drive is bad?

Hmm; do you have  a CIPHER 540S tape drive (look at mt stat output)?
These drives are *very* sensitive to static electricity, and tend to
hang when zapped with relatively low voltages (one of the reasons we
don't ship them any more).  Ground yourself before touching the cartridge
or tape chassis, and see if that helps.

| 	Another similar problem is also about the tape drive. It takes so long 
| to get the tape drive to react a command such as mt ret, mt rewind, etc. 
| Sometimes you just get the I/O-to tape drive error. Then you have to reboot the
| machine to get it back. What is going on here?

Definitely sounds like the static problem, except that your hinv
shows a QIC-150 drive.  I've not seen the static problem on those
drives.  Perhaps the drive isn't quite seated, and when you
change a cartridge, the bus gets glitched?
--
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: manson@bullet.ecf.toronto.edu (Bob Manson)
Subject: SCSI bus upgrade question
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 20:30:15 GMT


Hi.  I have a 4D/140 with the following devices on the SCSI bus:

	one internal 130meg drive
	one external 1.2Gb Wren VII
	one external Exabyte 

I want to buy more SCSI disks, but I'm wondering what sort of hit the
machine is going to take, performance wise.  I know that I could go for
an IO3 upgrade from SGI, but are there 3rd party solutions available
as well?


					thanks
					bob
					(manson@civ.utoronto.ca)

p.s. Any idea how much scsi cable is inside the box?
From: burow@cernvax.cern.ch (burkhard burow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: popen troubles
Date: 17 Apr 92 13:43:49 GMT
Organization: CERN, European Laboratory for Particle Physics


I've having trouble with popen(3) when /bin/sh can't execute the command
because it can't find it. 

The appended program demonstrates the problem.
Compile and execute with:

irix> cc -DBUFFER=1 -o p p.c ; echo $status

Under  'IRIX Release 4.0.1 System V lara' output will look like:

lara> p ; echo $status
 cat: f=100008B4.
fwrite returns: 1.                | This is about 9 out of 10 times.
 cat: pclose(f)=0.
 dcat: f=sh: dcat: not found
100008B4.
fwrite returns: 1.
141

lara> p ; echo $status
 cat: f=100008B4.
fwrite returns: 1.                | This is about 1 out of 10 times.
 cat: pclose(f)=0.
 dcat: f=100008B4.
fwrite returns: 1.
sh: dcat: not found
 dcat: pclose(f)=256.
fin
0

i.e. Once I popen a nonexistant command, pclose may or may not terminates the 
program with no messages, no core and status 141.
If BUFFER is bigger, fwrite can also terminate the program, again status is
141.

Under 'IRIX System V Release 3.3.1 calec.desy.de' everything's the same
except the sh: message is always on its own line, i.e. somehow the buffering
between sh and p.c is more robust. e.g.

calec> p ; echo $status
 cat: f=100008B4.
fwrite returns: 100000.
 cat: pclose(f)=0.
sh: dcat: not found
 dcat: f=100008B4.
141

N.B. If I leave out the two setbuf calls, I can fwrite more bytes without
having popen or fwrite terminate the program. i.e. Somehow the stdout/stderr
buffers seem to be mixed up in this business.


Now ideally if sh: can't find my command, popen would return NULL.
QQQQQQQuestion: Is the current popen behavior normal?

The workaround I'm going to try, is to check the output of:

 popen("whereis command","r");

QQQQuestion: Is there a better workaround?


N.B. My application reads the commands to be popened from a user file, and
it has to somehwow skip 'bad' commands robustly.



burkhard          burow@vxdesy.cern.ch

---------begin p.c showing popen trouble--------------------------
#include <stdio.h>

main ()
{
FILE *f;
char buffer[BUFFER];

setbuf(stdout, NULL);
setbuf(stderr, NULL);

f=popen("cat >/dev/null", "w");
printf(" cat: f=%08X.\n", f);
printf("fwrite returns: %d.\n", fwrite(buffer, 1, sizeof buffer, f) );
printf(" cat: pclose(f)=%d.\n", pclose(f));

f=popen("dcat >/dev/null", "w");
printf(" dcat: f=%08X.\n", f);
printf("fwrite returns: %d.\n", fwrite(buffer, 1, sizeof buffer, f) );
printf(" dcat: pclose(f)=%d.\n", pclose(f));

puts("fin");
return 0;
}
---------end p.c showing popen trouble--------------------------
From: beyer@bflsgu.fl.bs.dlr.de (R. Beyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: inst
Date: 15 Apr 92 13:02:47 GMT


Hi,

is it possible to install a regular file from a CD-ROM by means of inst
to supersede a corrupted one ? Or does inst only allow to install complete
subsystems. I'm running Indigo 4.0.1.

Thanks for any hints and best regards

Ralf Beyer

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralf Beyer				| 
German Aerospace Research Establishment | Phone:    (0531) 395-2530  
Institute for Flight Guidance		| Fax:      (0531) 395-2550
Flughafen				| BITNET:   fl17@dlrvmbs.bitnet 
3300 Braunschweig, Fed. Rep. of Germany	| Internet: beyer@bflsgu.fl.bs.dlr.de
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: paquin@kahua.esd.sgi.com (Tom Paquin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: PANIC: CPU x: KERNEL FAULT
Date: 7 Apr 92 23:31:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: zola.j8utid0
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc.

|> mikef@sarah.lerc.nasa.gov (Mike J. Fuller) writes:

|> I hate to complain like this, but just about everybody I know who has
|> upgraded multiprocessor machines to 4.0.1 and uses them heavily has had some
|> sort of OS trouble.

Hm.  I've got a 240 on 4.0.1 and a 340 on 4.0.3 and both are (and have
been) fine running 4.0.x heavily for over a year.  You should get a bug
into the system and get your problem fixed.

-- 

		-Tom
*****
Opinions are mine, etc.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: peterb@perturb.esd.sgi.com (Peter Birch)
Subject: Re: Indigo animation
Reply-To: peterb@SGI.COM
Organization: Silicon Graphics
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 19:55:46 GMT

In article <8APR92.10475727@uwpg02.uwinnipeg.ca>,
wsimpson@uwpg02.uwinnipeg.ca writes:
|> I am planning to buy an Indigo XS24 system.  It will be used in standalone
|> mode to create moving stimuli for experiments on vision.  Any help in
|> answering the following questions would be greatly appreciated.
|> 
|> 1.  Precise timing (down to ms) is important.  For example, I need to know
|> that the stimulus is moving at 60 pixels per sec (2D translational motion)
|> precisely.  I will also need precise response times (stimulus presented,
|> observer hits key when he makes sensory decision).  Is precise timing
|> possible on Indigo?

I believe this is possible, but not necessarily easy.  I'm not really an
expert on this, so maybe someone else can shed more light on this.  In the
X-server, you get a time stamp with mouse/keyboard events (sensory decision.)
To get 'stimulus' timing, you need to do something to get a time-stamp back
from the X-server, like doing a property change, and then subtract the two to
get response time.  Also, I'm not sure if you get back a default timing of 
10ms resolution or 1ms resolution.
 
|> 2.  I would like to be able to present 2D translation using hardware
|> scrolling or any other technique at 60 Hz frame rate (i.e. scroll in the
|> vertical blanking interval).  Is this possible?

There is no explicit hardware for scrolling.  However, for 8bit pixels,
XS/XS24 can get 30 Mpixels/sec., meaning that you could get a 60Hz frame rate
with an image consisiting of .5 Mpixels (1k x 512).  Probably less once you
amortize setup costs, etc.
 
|> 3.  What sort of frame rates are possible for 3D motion relative to fairly
|> simple scenes (with Z-buffer)?

60 frames/sec, assuming a simple enough scene.  The more complex the scene,
the slower the frame rate.
 
|> 4.  I do not use colour in my experiments, but I do need lots of grey
|> levels.  Would there be any performance benefits for animation of grey scale
|> images vs 24bit colour?  (i.e. would XS be better than XS24 for speed?)

XS and XS24 are basically the same performance (XS just dithers 24 bit values
into an 8 bit framebuffer.)  The issue is 8 bit vs. 24 bit.  If you
are sending images, 8 bit pixels will be faster (30M/sec vs. 12M/sec.) For
3D objects, there wouldn't be any difference.
 
peter

.....Peter Birch.....peterb@perturb.esd.sgi.com.....MTS, Graphics Hardware.....
......Silicon Graphics, Inc.....Mountain View, CA 94039.....(415)335-1512......
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.question
From: brendan@illyria.wpd.sgi.com (Brendan Eich)
Subject: Re: Socket, binding to reserve port - SGI, IRIX 4.0.0
Keywords: socket
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 04:51:28 GMT

In article <ji7gkuk@zuni.esd.sgi.com>, olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
> In <1992Apr14.220729.29242@NeoSoft.com> karl@NeoSoft.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:
> | In article <jhpcsl8@zuni.esd.sgi.com> olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
> | >As you might have guessed from one of the bug groups included, and Vernon's
> | >employer, IRIX lacks the feature.  We never picked it up when AT&T and
> | >BSD did so.
> | 
> | Well, let's give discredit where discredit is due, then, and not blame
> | "the Wizards of New Jersey".

Discredit is due to the NJ wizards as well as to SGI.  SGI's fault was in
not checking the code more thoroughly by comparing it to other Un*xes.

> No, Vernon was correct, we *did* get this misfeature from AT&T (SVR3.0).
> What we
> did *not* do (and others may also have not done) was integrate a later
> change (BSD also did this at some point) to clear those bits.

Just to set the record straight:

This fix has been in BSD since 4.3 at least.  The fix probably originated
at Berkeley.  It was only when the NJ wizards capitulated by accepting some
BSD stuff by way of Sun, in SVR4, that they apparently adopted the fix (I'm
guessing about some of this, but the appearance of the fix in BSD source
long before in SVR* source is easily verified).

> As I look through the SVR4 source, it appears to me that in fact USL
> has only fixed this for UFS filesystems, not for S5.  It was only
> a quick scan, so I won't swear to it.

It's true.  More wizardry (the sarcasm hurts only those who believe in
wizards; there are none around here!).  But who cares about a 1970's fs?

/be