HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Subject: Re: Launch program at boot time??
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 18:12:28 GMT

In article <1460@shrike.com>, flash@austin.lockheed.com (James W. Melton) writes:
> ...
> My problem with a turnkey system is that my system has an annoying
> tendency to come up with the "Do you want to automatically
> reconfigure the system?" prompt. NOTHING happens until this
> question is answered. How do you make it go away????


Answer the question "no" to make it go away until the next reboot,
or "yes" to make it go away forever.

That question happens only when lboot discovers that
    -hardware has been added to or removed from the system since
	the kernel, /unix, was last built, or
    -kernel softare has been added or removed from /usr/sysgen.

When lboot is right, it is generally a very good idea to rebuild the
kernel.

However, there are cases when rebuilding the kernel is a bad idea,
which is why it asks before taking the potentially dangerous step of
rebuilding the kernel.  For example, if you have written your own
driver, you may not want to add it to the kernel, in case it is not yet
ready for prime time.  If you have removed a board from the system only
to test something, you probably do not want to rebuild the kernel
without the driver, and then rebuild it with the driver.

Lboot can be wrong if the time and date on your system is or has
been whacko.  The most common problem is one or more of the files
and directories /usr/sysgen, /usr/sysgen/boot, /usr/sysgen/master.d,
/usr/sysgen/system, /usr/sysgen/boot/*, or /usr/sysgen/master.d/*
has a date in the future; January in 2031 is popular.  If this happens,
lboot is unable to make /unix "newer" than the system software.
The fix is to run the following two commands:

    find /usr/sysgen -newer /unix -print | xargs touch
    /etc/autoconfig -f.

The first command fixes any bogus dates, and the second ensures
that you actually have a newer kernel.


Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: Thomas.Weihrich@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Thomas Weihrich)
Subject: Re: Frustrated with SGI support..
Organization: University of Oldenburg, Germany
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 17:16:21 GMT

Hmmmmm ....

SGI support ? I guess it really depends on who you talk to.

Let me tell you what happened a couple of months ago ( I guess it was
late September):
I own a 4D20 G and wanted to ask about ways to upgrade the machine.
For example, I really want to upgrade to the 1.2 GR Revision.
So I phoned SGI Germany - their service center in Cologne, to be
specific.
The lady on the phone's first action was to ask me for my maintenance
contract #. I told her that I did not have a maintenance contract, since
I could not afford it (I am a student). She said: if you don't have a
maintenance contract, we won't sell you anything - no spares, no
upgrades. I told her that I only wanted to buy an upgrade (the 1.2 GR
chip to be specific). She said: no way and hung up the phone. 

On the other hand, one person at SGI Germany was particularly helpful.
His name is Mr Lanzendoerfer. He borrowed me a set of 3030 manuals
to copy them, so that I got a manual set for the old 3030 that I had a
while ago.

I know that these are the extremes. Unfortunately the first response 
(no maintenance contract, no nothing) seems to be quite popular over
here. I am certain that there are helpful support people over here in
Germany as well. It's difficult to find them though.
 
BTW: I did not get a quote for a 1.2 GR chip or an upgrade to a 4D25 or
4D30 or just a couple of additional bitplanes. If SGI USA is remarketing
used items or upgrades, I'd appreciate it if someone from SGI US could
give me a quote on these items.

Thanks
Thomas
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 23:16:19 EST
From: <SML108@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Memory Installation woes

Hi, we have just tried to install memory into our 4D/220 VGX and 4D/220 GTX.
Each of them had 24 Mbytes before we started.  When we installed 64 MBytes
into the VGX, it only recognized 32 Mbytes.  When we installed 32 Mbytes
into the GTX, it only recognized 24.  Any ideas?

Scott
From: maple@peregrine.eglin.af.mil (Raymond C Maple)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: efficient polygon clipping
Date: 21 Dec 92 17:25:13 GMT


This question is not really specific to SGI, but here goes.

I have an application that needs a VERY efficient polygon clipping routine.
The routine coded now is a recursive 3d Sutherland-Hodgeman implementation.
The application is non-graphical, and must run on machines other than an
SGI, so using feedback is out.  Some info:

The polygons are represented by an ordered list 3d vectors:
The clipping volume is always a cube, but does not have unit sides.
The clipping routine gets called umpteen million times, and accounts for
  way too large a percentage of my cpu time.

Does someone have a more efficient clipping algorithm?

Thanks in advance.

Raymond C. Maple
WL/MNAA Computational Fluid Dynamics Section
Eglin AFB, FL
maple@peregrine.eglin.af.mil
From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Hard drives...
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 22:39:41 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

In article <1hr2viINNq25@calvin.NYU.EDU>
roy@mchip00.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:

| [...]
| 	As far as I'm concerned, SCSI means Some Crappy Stupid Interface.  I
| guess it beats SMD, but it sure doesn't live up the the wonderful promises
| it made (not to mention the random connector confusion; I know of 3 commonly
| used connectors, and I havn't even mentioned the wierdo PowerBook SCSI
| connector, but I guess that's understandable).

As far as I'm concerned, "SGI = Stupid Goddamn Idiots" re: all the braindamage
on the SCSI bus per comments earlier this year.  Wrong ID for the host adapter,
use of WD chip, inability to support a 6 meter SCSI bus with 4 devices, extreme
sensitivity to cable impedance, etc.

NO such problems with HP, Sun, Amiga, DEC, and Mac equipment on any of multiple
systems (and the bad experiences with SGI SCSI is on more than one platform).

Thad Floryan [ thad@btr.com, thad@cup.portal.com ]
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: brett@surfpix.princeton.edu (Brett Borowski)
Subject: Re: Frustrated with SGI support..
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 20:48:58 GMT

My comany has not had ANY good service from SGI.  Mostly we've gotten
delays, defective equipment, and wrong software upgrade packages.  Because
they would not demo Video Creator and Video Framer for us, we had to "buy"
both of them for an in house evaluation.  (Tektronix loaned us their
Avanzar board, which, incidentally, fit better and installed easier than
Video Framer, and provided support for the product.)  When I had a problem
with Framer, I was referred to telephone tech support which wouldn't help
me because we don't subscribe.  So, after being bounced around some more,
we established that the board was defective.  But the return phone calls
never came, and the "net 30 days" came to a close and I returned the board.
(We decided that Creator was what we wanted, so getting support became
a non-issue.)  Oh, and we had to wait two months for both systems in the
first place.

But it doesn't end!  When we called about the operating system upgrades
that we hadn't received yet, we were told that they couldn't be shipped
until our outstanding balance had be settled.  According to them,
they hadn't received the returned board.  Of course, somebody on their
loading dock had signed for it the previous week....

Does my company get lousy service because it's so small?  Am I the only
one who gets lousy service?  It seems to me, that unless you pay for
phone support, the only thing SGI wants to know about are purchase
orders.

Brett

-- 
brett@surfpix.princeton.edu		(Finger for more info...)
From: karron@karron.med.nyu.edu (Dan Karron (karron@nyu.edu))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: sh/csh/tcsh and TMPDIR
Date: 3 Jan 93 23:08:21 GMT


How can I get the various shell commands to respect the value
in TMPDIR ?

sh keeps clogging up /tmp/ with
sh$PID temp files.

I prefer to use a private temp disk.

I have some scripts that sweep out the tmp dir's.

It would be nicer if sh <<heredoc
theredoc
heredoc

would put tmp files where I would expect it.

What about the tmpname (spelling?) system call ?
Cheers!

Dan.
| karron@nyu.edu (e-mail alias )         Dan Karron, Ph.D.,Research Associate|
| Phone: 212 263 5210 Fax: 212 263 7190  New York University Medical Center  |
| 560 First Avenue                       Digital Pager  <1>  212 397 9330    |
| New York, New York 10016               <2> 10896   <3> <your-number-here>  |
``ALMOST Done writing, back to doing it again!.''
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Opinion on Used Personal Iris
From: lsim@vax1.umkc.edu
Date: 24 Dec 92 00:59:16 CST
Organization: University of Missouri - Kansas City
NNTP-Posting-Host: vax1.umkc.edu

Hi!

      I was recently offered a used workstation, I would like some suggestions
or opinions from all of those who has used this machine.  The configuration is
as follows :

Iris Personal Model CMN-B001
Config 40/25 Super 380MB
Full Graphics Option
24MB RAM
760MB HD
19" 1280/1284
Runs wavefront software

       I am particularly interested in its performance, upgradability and
graphics capability.  Thank you in advance for any info.




+=============================================================================+
|                                  | Internet : <LSim@vax1.umkc.edu>          |
|  Lin-Chow Sim                    |          : <LCSim@vax2.cstp.umkc.edu>    |
|  Graduate Student                | BitNet   : <LSim@UMKCVAX1>               |
|  Comp.Science/Telecomm. Program  |          : <LCSim@UMKCVAX2>              |
|  University of Missouri          |                                          |
|  Kansas City, Missouri           |                                          |
|  United States of America        | Heartland: <lcsim@heartland.bradley.edu> |
|                                  |                                          |
+=============================================================================+


Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: u8023509@cc.nctu.edu.tw (Tison Chang)
Subject: unix: et0: packet too small (17)
Organization: National Chiao Tung University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 05:33:12 GMT

Hi netters:

   Could you tell me what does the following message mean in my
/usr/adm/SYSLOG, and how to solve it ?

 Dec 24 12:56:51 cello unix: et0: packet too small (17)
 Dec 24 12:56:56 cello last message repeated 2 times
 Dec 24 12:59:55 cello unix: et0: packet too small (17)
 Dec 24 13:00:18 cello last message repeated 3 times
 Dec 24 13:00:45 cello unix: et0: packet too small (17)
 Dec 24 13:02:11 cello last message repeated 8 times

   Thanks in advancs !!


						   Tison Chang
				gis80509@cello.cis.nctu.edu.tw
From: jonathan@vinnie.cuc.ab.ca (Jonathan Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Looking for Ciprico 9-track controller
Date: 31 Dec 92 22:52:23 GMT


I'm looking for a Ciprico Tapemaster 1000 9-track tape (Pertec) controller.
Ciprico wants too much money for a new one (after all, it's obsolete... Huh?).
Does anyone out there have one they'll swap for:

	Ciprico Tapemaster A (TMA) 9-track (Pertec) controller
	Xylogics 450 SMD controller
	Ikon 10077 DR11-W Emulators
	Qualogy 5217 ST-506 / QIC-02 controller
	Interphase Storager ESDI / QIC-02 controller
	Exos 201 Ethernet controller
	Any number of complete Intel Multibus I systems (8080 & 80286)
	The odd Silicon Graphics 1000, 2000 or 3000 spare board

or any other weird thing I might have lying around?  I should mention that
all of the above (including the one I want) are Multibus I boards.

Yours,
Covetous in Calgary

p.s. Please reply to jonathan@vort.cuc.ab.ca as address @vinnie is giving us
     some trouble.

--
Jonathan Levine: voice 403-686-0473 | Digital Alternatives      (Calgary AB)
                 fax   403-686-1254 | Virtual Universe Corp.    (Calgary AB)
      uucp: jonathan@vort.cuc.ab.ca | Survival Research Laboratories (SF CA)	
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: penev@venezia (Penio Penev)
Subject: Re: How Accurate Is The System Clock
Organization: Rockefeller University
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 18:59:31 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Reply-To: penev@venezia.rockefeller.edu
X-Posted-From: venezia.rockefeller.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

Asim Jalis (aj3u@larch.cs.virginia.edu) wrote:
: What I am concerned about is not the accuracy of the clock, so
: much as the length of the delay between calling the time function
: and getting a response.  This delay could be produced if the
: scheduler unschedules my process before the clock daemon has
: responded to its query, or it could be produced if the clock
: daemon was woken when the clock interrupt occurred because the
: cpu was doing something else that was important, or for some
: other reason arising out of the multi-process environment.
: 
: Testing could be used to get a general idea of how large this
: delay can be.  However, I want to get more confidence about this.

I just tested this with the following FORTH code:
: TARA FOR 0 DROP NEXT ; 
: CLOCK  FOR 0 TIME NEXT ; ok

COUNTER 5000000 CLOCK TIMER 51000 ok
COUNTER 5000000 TARA  TIMER 1000 ok

The numbers are miliseconds, the resolution is 1 second. Timing is the
overall timing (not user) on an unburdened system. This gives 
~ 10 microseconds per time(2) call. On my 33MHz R3000 this equivalent
to ~ 330 instructions. Subtract 10 ( the FORTH overhead). This seems
a little bit high for a decision making, address check and return of a
variable, but seems low enough for the designers of the OS to have been
tempted to multitask.

This of course does not answer Your questions.

: (1) Do the specifications of the operating system provide some
: kind of a guarantee about timing accuracy in its multi-process
: environment?  (2) Is the code of the operating system public
: domain? (3) If not, then is the scheduler's design similar enough
: to Unix so that Unix sources can be studied for an answer to my
: problem.

Suppose the following situation: The specifications of the operating
system _does_ provide a guarantee about timing accuracy. That means,
that Your time variable is accurate a few instructions after the
system time(2) of itimer(2) calls. This means nothing, because _after_
the call Your process might be suspended in favor of other processes.

What You really need (IMHO) is a specification of the occasions in
which control is switched between processes and a semaphore for the
processor, so You might say smth. like that:
PROCESSOR GET  < do time-accuracy critical job > PROCESSOR RELEASE

As far as my knowledge spreads, this has never been a design goal of
UNIX.

-- Penio.
From: wayne@s1.gov (Brett M. Wayne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Pixmode (PM_ADD24... problem
Date: 24 Dec 92 01:00:18 GMT
Organization: LLNL

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//
// I have some large scale image data which I am trying to display 
// as efficiently as possible. The data is packed as 8-bit values
// and represent offsets into an active color table.
//
// My strategy for display is to set pixmode( PM_SIZE, 8) and 
// pixmode( PM_ADD24, index ) where index represents a preset block of 
// colors on the GL color map.
//
// I am experiencing a possible incompatability between the Reality Engine
// and the VGX when trying to use that pixmode setting. On a 380 VGX, the
// following code produces the expected result. Results on a Crimson Reality 
// Engine, however, are completely different.
// 
// Does anyone have an explanation.
//
// Brett Wayne 
// Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
//
// wayne@s1.gov
//
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


#include <unistd.h>
#include <gl.h>

void main ( void )
{
   long win_id;

   foreground();

   prefposition ( 410,   1210,  600, 1000 );

   win_id = winopen ( "PM_ADD24 Test" );

   winset       ( win_id );
   drawmode     ( NORMALDRAW );
   singlebuffer ( );
   cmode        ( );
   gconfig      ( );

   clear ();

   ortho2 ( -0.5, 800.5, -0.5, 400.5 );

   int tile_size = 25*25;

   unsigned long *tile = new unsigned long [tile_size];

   pixmode ( PM_SIZE,  32 );

#if 0
   pixmode ( PM_ADD24,  8 ); 
#else
   pixmode ( PM_ADD24,  0 );
#endif

   int i,j,k,l;

   for ( i=0, k=0; i < 9; i++ )
   {
      for ( j=0; j < 32; j++, k++ )
      {
         if ( k > 255 )
            break;

         for ( l=0; l < tile_size; l++ )
            tile[l] = k;

         lrectwrite ( j*25, i*25, (j+1)*25-1, (i+1)*25-1, tile );
      }

   }
   
   pause();
}
From: karlton@fudge.asd.sgi.com (Phil Karlton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: is there a function to return the number of processors?
Date: 22 Dec 1992 20:40:14 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: fudge.asd.sgi.com


In article <1992Dec22.193509.29394@wl.com>, agrafiot@wl.com writes:

    Is there a function to return the number of processors on a system?

Try 'sysmp(MP_NPROCS)' or 'sysmp(MP_NAPROCS)'.

PK
--
Phil Karlton				Silicon Graphics Computer Systems
The Curmudgeon				2011 N. Shoreline Blvd.
					Mountain View, CA  94039-7311
karlton@.sgi.com			415-390-1557
From: philip@concave.cs.wits.ac.za (Philip Machanick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: why is malloc() core dumping me?
Date: 23 Dec 92 07:48:46 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, Wits University
X-Xxdate: Wed, 23 Dec 92 09:42:46 GMT
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12

In article <2420@sdrc.COM> Larry Jones, scjones@thor.sdrc.com writes:
>writing past the end of an allocated block.  I suggest you find a copy
>of Conor Cahill's debugging malloc library -- it's been posted to one of
>the comp.sources groups -- it's invaluable in tracking down this kind of
>problem.

Sounds useful. Is it on an ftp site?
(Articles get expired very fast here.)
--
Philip Machanick
Computer Science Dept, Univ of the Witwatersrand, 2050 Wits, South Africa
philip@concave.cs.wits.ac.za  phone: 27 (11) 716-3759  fax: 339-7965
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: ashish@eng.umd.edu (Ashish Nedungadi)
Subject: top
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 20:31:58 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity von Uniland, College Park
Originator: ashish@valkyrie.eng.umd.edu


Hello,
	I like to nice my huge batch jobs to +19. I also like other people
to do the same.  Now, when I am in top I can't find out whether a job is niced
or not.  How can I find out?  This is what I get when I do a top:

********************************************************
IRIX windward 4.0.5F 08280217 IP20 Load[6.10,6.03,6.00] 15:22:00   54 procs
    user   pid  pgrp  %cpu proc  pri  size   rss    time  command        
  ashish 24670 24667  98.2    *  119  7326  6819   20:20  gasp
  ashish 24442 24409   1.0    *   26   221    85    0:19  xclock
    root   209   209   0.4    *   26  3450  1421   27:37  Xsgi
  ashish 24718 24718   0.2    0  +65    83    83    0:00  top
********************************************************


	Can you also tell me what these individual items mean(eg. proc, pri,
size etc.)?  



When I do a top on the SUN machines I get the following:

********************************************************
last pid: 17056;  load averages:  0.25,  0.15,  0.01                 15:28:29
85 processes:  84 sleeping, 1 running
Cpu states:     % user,     % nice,     % system,     % idle
Memory: 43432K available, 42804K in use, 628K free, 3204K locked

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE   RES STATE   TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
17050 jimott     1    0  1256K 1000K sleep   0:00 26.99%  5.08% emacs
17052 ashish    28    0   776K  740K run     0:00 15.79%  1.56% top.sun4c
16750 root       1    0  4252K  724K sleep   0:14  0.79%  0.78% Xsun
15749 jimott     1    0   788K  528K sleep   0:17  0.75%  0.39% twm
********************************************************

Here, I can tell exactly which program is niced to waht level.

Thanks for answering this question for me.  You can e-mail your answer 
directly to me.

-- Ashish

==============================================================================
                  |  Dept. of Aerospace Engineering  |  (301) 405 - 1153
Ashish Nedungadi  |  University of Maryland          |  ashish@eng.umd.edu
                  |  College Park, MD 20742          |
==============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace)
Subject: Re: Question About 4.0.5 SGI Demos
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 23:38:39 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.164814.18136@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>, ttbob@raphael.lerc.nasa.gov (Robert Orszycki) writes:
> When I load eoe2.sw.demos in IRIX 4.0.5, I notice a few differences.
> 
> Loaded to an Indigo, GTX, VGX, the following files for "flight" exist:
> 
> l---------   1 root     sys           21 Sep 17 13:47 dog@ -> /usr/demos/bin/fli
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 demos    demos     299184 Sep 17 13:47 flight*
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 demos    demos     405680 Sep 17 13:47 flight_8bit*
> l---------   1 root     sys           21 Sep 17 13:47 shadow@ -> /usr/demos/bin/
> 
> On a Personal IRIX 4D/35 (all three I loaded it to) only the following appears:
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 demos    demos     405680 Sep 17 13:47 flight_8bit*
> 
> Is flight not supported on the PI?

The short answer:

flight_8bit is the version of flight that you have always had on the PI.


The long answer:

Since the GT there have been two versions of flight.

   - Color index, non-zbuffered, simple geometry.  This is now flight_8bit.

   - RGB, lighted, zbuffered, complex geometry.  This is now called flight.

It used to be that these two versions were never both shipped on one system.
As of 4.0.5 a desire arose to ship both of them.  Thus the renaming.

In the future there will be only one version of flight that will be capable
of running in the way that both of these run.

Rob Mace
From: john@sg25.aud.temple.edu (John W. Schwegler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi.apps
Subject: Finite element modeling/analysis
Date: 30 Dec 92 19:11:24 GMT


Happy New Year Folks!

I am about to start working on a problem that would probably be handled
well by finite element modeling, computation of an electrostatic solution
in a complex geometry with (assumed) known sources.

Does anyone have any suggestions about FE software for SGI machines?
Public domain would be nice, but rather unlikely I suppose. I am
interested in hearing about any commercial packages as well.

Thanks in advance!

(I will summarize if I get any replies.)
-john

______________________________________________________________________________
"Genius may have its limitations,       | John Schwegler
   but stupidity is not thus            | Temple U. Auditory Research Dept.
   handicapped."                        | john@sg25.aud.temple.edu
         - Elbert Hubbard               | (215) 221-3687 FAX 221-7523


Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi.apps