From: bob@dalek.mwc.com (Bob Hemedinger)
Newsgroups: comp.os.coherent
Subject: Re: Coherent 4.0.1; some bad things
Date: 12 Aug 92 16:16:07 GMT
Reply-To: "Coherent operating system" <COHERENT@indycms.bitnet>

> 4) The installation failed repeatedly on my machine with the cryptic:
>
> prepare_gift: not enough memory for parameters (?)
> only 496 bytes are sent (?)
>
> I was rather surprised at the failure as this machine had had multiple
> successful OS installations (Coherent, MS-DOS, DR. DOS) before and
> never had any problems.  After some assistance from MWC tech support,
> I was able to complete an installation only after extensive diddling
> with the CMOS parameter settings.  What a pain!  Among other things, I
> turned off the external 64 Kbyte cache, the internal 8 Kbyte cache,
> and both video and BIOS shadowing.  Why?  There was no need for any of
> this with earlier OS installations!  Even with 4.0.1 installed, the
> "prepare_gift" diagnostic now flashes on a semi-random basis (max once
> per boot).  The settings of caches do not appear to have a predictable
> effect on this.  Furthermore, the install fails with the message "you
> have to type either 'begin' or 'install'"

Of the equipment we've worked with... our stuff at mwc, our beta testers',
our personal home systems... no one experienced these problems. To see
problems arise that we had no way to anticipate is not surprising, in
many respects, we've been through before... with IDE drives. We're
doing our best to work these problems out, but it is difficult to do so when we
can not duplicate the problem in house.

We aren't making excuses, we are working on resolving this.

> 7) The binary of the elle editor failed spectacularly; I assume that
> this is becouse of IPC update compatibility.  Does anyone know for
> sure?  Microemacs worked, even on large files, but it no longer read
> my version of /etc/termcap.  (I prefer, nay require, that stand out
> "so" be set to "\E[1m" instead of "\E[7m".)  I assume that Microemacs
> was looking at terminfo, but I am not sure.

If Elle uses IPCs, then it must be recompiled to run under 4.0. MicreEmacs
is now a terminfo based editor, not termcap.

> 9) CURSES failure; some PD software (chess from mwcbbs) that uses
> curses will run properly only if it is NOT recompiled under 4.0.1; the
> recompilation reports no errors but produces bizzare output.

4.0 has 2 curses libraries. libcurses.a is terminfo curses, libtermcap.a
is termcap based curses. Try to compile this with -ltermcap.

> 10) Although advertised as "32 addressing compatible", 4.0.1 only
> handles 24 bits and will not access above 16 Mbyte no matter how much
> memory your system has.  This has been discussed before, but I thought
> it might be fixed by now.  For those with doubts about the need for
> fat memories, I suggest a review of the last decade's history and the
> growth in PC memory capacity.  My machine allows for 32 Mbytes without
> any expansion cards (another 32 Mbytes there), and many motherboards
> allow from 64 to 256 Mbytes.

IBM designed their (ISA) hardware such that DMA above 16Megs isn't possible,
hence, Coherent 4.0 has this limit. EISA machines are a different
story. We hope to have this limit removed for EISA machines for 4.1.

> 12) The terminfo subsystem is introduced; a good idea.  But where are
> the tic source files?  How can I modify the terminfo for ansipc if I
> can't find the source?

The terminfo entries were built from the termcap entries in /etc/termcap.
You can decode a terminfo file with infocmp and, of course, rebuild
one with tic.


> 14) There are a lot of grammatical errors in the manual, subject/verb
> mis-agreements mostly.  Although minor, these errors appear there even
> more frequently as they do in my posts.

PLease let us know where you found them and we'll update them for future
manual revisions.

--
		   MWC Technical Support (bob@mwc.com)
(====================]          _____	      My friends, the great experiment,
         \\             (===================) the USS Excelsior.
   (======\\======]         /// ~~~~~
           \\/             ///	 She's said to have transwarp drive.
    ===========================	 Aye, and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd
     =========================(	 be a wagon.
Newsgroups: comp.os.coherent