HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: steve@europa.esd.sgi.com (Loopy - the spineless boy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Memory upgrades for R4000 Indigos
Date: 21 Jul 92 17:53:23 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <1992Jul21.064111.1619@microunity.com> jsw@microunity.com (Jeff Weinstein) writes:

>In article <1992Jul21.004035.27345@donau.et.tudelft.nl>, reinoud@dutecai.et.tudelft.nl (R. Lamberts) writes:
>> From article <1992Jul17.204254.6599@microunity.com>, by jsw@microunity.com (Jeff Weinstein):
>> > 
>> >   The simms used in the R4k indigo are industry standard 36-bit wide
>> > 80ns simms.  The prices quoted me by SGI are $1500 for 16Meg and $3000
>> > for 32Meg.  You should be able to get about half that price from
>> > the usual workstation memory vendors.
>> > 
>> > 	--Jeff
>> 
>> Very interesting... Considering the expensive special SIMMs in an
>> R3k Indigo, does this mean that:
>> 
>> - main memory on a R4k Indigo is slower than on a R3k Indigo, or
>> 
>> - the special SIMMs in the R3k Indigo are just to shake some more
>>   money out of us?

>  Actually neither is true.  The main problem with the r3k indigo was that
>there just wasn't room on the CPU board to put the chips that did the
>memory interleaving/control, so they had to go on the back of the simms.
>It was definitely not a conspiracy on the part of SGI marketing to squeeze
>more money out of customers.  The engineers sincerely felt bad to have
>to make that sort of engineering trade-off, and vowed never to do it
>again.  They have lived up to it in the new r4k indigo.

>	--Jeff

Well put, Jeff, and accurate, too!.  Room was found on the R4K board by offloading
the R4K and 2nd level cache on a daughter board.  I'll let the reader draw
his/her own conclusions about removeable CPU modules.

Putting the CPU and cache on a module was considered for the R3K design, but was 
rejected due to cost and complexity.  It cost more to make a separate PC board,
and all the logistics that go with it.  Where do you divide the CPU subsystem? 
If you put the R3K and cache on one board, then you would have to drag the
high speed CPU bus down the connector to the read/write buffer (5 glue chips
and a gate array).  This bus was marginal to begin with.  Putting the read/write
buffer on the module makes the module too big to fit, and also compromises the
main memory and GIO bus timing.  The R4000 CPU interface is much cleaner and
easier to deal with, so it can be (carefully) placed on a module.

It was definitely *NOT* our intent to ream the customer with custom SIMMS.  Even
SGI's lowest cost machine designs refuse to make big sacrifices on performance
in order to cut the cost a little. No one here likes to design mediocre machines!  
I'll take off my rose-colored corporate patriotism glasses now and get back to 
work...

--
Steve Valin		Silicon Graphics - Interactive Systems Division
4153901379		"Same shit, different name"
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: philip@ziggy.stanford.edu (Philip Machanick)
Subject: Re: Memory upgrades for R4000 Indigos
Reply-To: philip@ziggy.stanford.edu (Philip Machanick)
Organization: CS Department, Stanford University, California, USA
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 22:06:48 GMT

In article <nr24se4@zuni.esd.sgi.com> steve@europa.esd.sgi.com (Loopy - the  
spineless boy) writes:
> In <1992Jul27.163455.28486@cs.yale.edu> nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu  
(Nathan F. Janette) writes:
> 
> >Gee, all 90 days of it?
> 
> Yeah, it sucks doesn't it?  Engineering has been battling marketing over this
> on the r4K indigo for a while.  We think the product is reliable enough to
> warrant a 1 year warranty.  They think it will cost us too much money.
> I'm not conviced the battle is over, yet...

I once asked the export people why machines cost so much more overseas and one  
of the reasons was "you get a warrantee" as opposed to going to the US and  
bringing one back in your luggage when presumably you don't. Do you get more  
than 90 days overseas? If not, this logic is loopy to say the least because US  
customers also (presumably) pay for the warrantee as part of the price. (And I  
am surprised in any case that a warrantee doesn't cross borders).
--
Philip Machanick
philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: hammer@fmr.maschinenbau.th-darmstadt.de (Matthias Hammer)
Subject: X11R5 server for irix 4.0.1?
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 17:51:02 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: TH-Darmstadt

Dear SGI folks,

we have some trouble making X11R5 on an SGI 4D380 VGX, irix4.0.1.

All clients and Libs were made with minor problems. After we made this stuff,
we saw, that in
sgi.cf #define BuildServer was set to NO!
No server was made....
After searching in the server directories and reading again the release notes,
we found no matching server for SGI machines.

- Which server do we have to use if one works?
- Does anybody have a working sgi.cf and site.def file?
- Does anybody have the sgi server sources?
- Does anybody have the X11R5 binaries including Server and PEX?
- Can anybody put it on our university ftp server (ftp.hrz.th-darmstadt.de)
  in /pub/incoming/sgix11r5/ ? 

Thank you

Matthias Hammer and Paolo Gobbi

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthias Hammer and Paolo Gobbi
FG Flugmechanik und Regelungstechnik
FB 16 -  TH-Darmstadt
Petersenstrasse 30
6100 Darmstadt                  Germany

Tel.:  (0049)6151/166569
email: hammer@sgi1.fmr.maschinenbau.th-darmstadt.de
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthias Hammer
FG Flugmechanik und Regelungstechnik
FB 16
Petersenstrasse 30
6100 Darmstadt

Tel.:  06151/166569
email: hammer@sgi1.fmr.maschinenbau.th-darmstadt.de
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: joseph.maddry@matrix.sbs.com (Joseph Maddry)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: REMOVE name from mailing list
Date: 21 Jul 92 01:59:55 GMT

FROM: joseph.maddry@matrix.sbs.com

Hello!

Please delete my name from the iris info/SGI mail exploder list,
effective immediately.

This is my second request to be removed, and it is urgent because of
problems on my end.  PLEASE ACT ON THIS MESSAGE!

If anyone can tell me more specifically how to delete my name from
the mailing list, I would be grateful.

Thanks a lot.

Joe
---
 . SLMR 2.1a . "By their taglines ye shall know them"
           
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: Graphic-Board swap possible???
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 18:04:33 GMT

In <tl0pr*Pu0@video1.bs.open.de> achim@video1.bs.open.de (Joachim Gothe) writes:
| we have 5 Indigo/Entry and we have the Animation-software "Softimage"
| on 3 of them.
| Next month we will get 3 Indigo-SX24 with Hardware Z-Buffer.
| 
| A Softimage-licence only run on the computer, where it is installed.
| It ask for the internal machine-number.
| 
| I now want to swap the motherboards of the machines where softimage runs
| to the machines with XS24-graphicboard or swap the graphicboards.
| 
| Is it possible without problems, or must I change any settings in
| System-Software of Hardware.

Changing the graphics board should not affect the system id info
(I assume they want the info from sysinfo or sysinfo -s).
--
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: hoesel@igc.ethz.ch (Frans van Hoesel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: striking difference on floppy msdosd <---> mtools
Date: 29 Jul 92 22:31:03 GMT
Organization: University of Groningen, the Netherlands

I just ftp-ed mtools and installed it on my Indigo. What a *GREAT*
improvement. Using msdosd it takes more than 10 minutes to write
a 1 Mb file to the floppy, whereas mcopy (one of the commands that
came with mtools) takes only 38 seconds Wow...

Mtools also solved my problem with formatting disks... just do a fx, followed
by a mformat. simple and easy (but a floppy that isn't in perfectly healthy
shape, will not pass fx, but does easely pass a format on a msdos machine
(and it will almost never pass the format from softpc))

mtools should be shipped with every floppy drive! Msdosd has the advantage
that is allows programs to access files on the drive as part of the normal
file system, but in my experience the floppy is only used for transferring
files between systems, or for backup purpose, for which mtools is a much
faster solution.

It took me almost 9 months, until I heard about mtools.

--frans
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: brendan@illyria.wpd.sgi.com (Brendan Eich)
Subject: Re: What is "podd"
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 06:11:09 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.024348.10994@ringer.cs.utsa.edu>, senseman@ricky.brainlab.utsa.edu (David M. Senseman) writes:
> After upgrading to IRIX 4.0.5 (Indigo XS-24), I started getting
> error messages in SYSLOG complaining about "podd". In /usr/etc/inedt.conf,
> the last line is:
> 
> sgi_pod/1   stream  rpc/tcp wait    root    /usr/etc/podd           podd 
> 
> however, I can't find podd in /usr/etc or anywhere else for that matter.
> Can anyone tell me what's going on? Is this related to Inventor perhaps?
> 
> Thanks.

No, it's part of Impressario, the new "printing without cursing" package.
The 4.0.5 inetd.conf contains an entry for podd (printer object database
daemon) but you have to order Impressario to get the daemon itself.  The
SYSLOG entry is just an "FYI" and really ought to be suppressed, but SGI
never got around to enhancing inetd.conf with syntax to express the right
logic (you want to know about certain daemons going AWOL...).

/be
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Indigo's hidden surface removal
Date: 31 Jul 92 03:54:40 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <HINKER.92Jul30080427@twins.acl.lanl.gov> hinker@acl.lanl.gov (Paul J. Hinker) writes:
|    Hmm, I just installed an XS upgrade to my Indigo [including the
| 4.0.2 upgrade] and I'm seeing some strange behaviour.  It appears as
| if, instead of doing regular hidden surface removal, the graphics
| library is doing screen door transparency.  [Since I don't have any
| alpha bitplanes].

Perhaps your code expects a Zbuffer, and you didn't order one?
--
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: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: SCSI cable length
Date: 24 Jul 92 23:43:20 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <1992Jul24.134310.10624@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> flanigan@echo.gsfc.nasa.gov (Dennis Flanigan) writes:
| I have mentioned this SGI to before, but would'nt adding a second SCSI controller 
| and then splitting your SCSI devices between the two controllers 
| solve a lot of these problems?  Unfortunately SGI does not make the
| hardware to do this for a 4D35.  Their response was not enough
| customers would buy one, but talk to you your sales rep anyway
| and tell him/her that you want one.

That was the marketing analysis.  The hardware was in fact
designed so a second scsi channel could be added, and 95% of
the software is there (same for Indigo).

Future machines will have 2 SCSI channels available, or at least,
some of them will.  The ASD machines already give you up to 4 (built
in; with VME SCSI cards you get quite a few more), and future ASD
server configurations will almost certainly support more.

Note that additional controllers don't help cable length problems
though, unless the cable is long simply because a number of
devices are daisy chained, and the boxes were too large to use
short cables.
--
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: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Subject: Re: Serial ports on IRIS
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 00:54:05 GMT

In article <31566@adm.brl.mil>, andersen@marvin.ama.ttu.edu (Kim Andersen) writes:
> WHAT is the difference between the serial port devices -- ttym, ttyd, ttyf?
> This is (of course) not documented anywhere....


Try reading `man serial`, `man duart`, `man cdsio`, or the "IRIS-4D
System Administrator's Guide."


Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sgi.com
From: dcs@neutron.chem.yale.edu (Dave Schweisguth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Publicly available IRIX bug lists?
Date: 28 Jul 92 13:24:41 GMT
Organization: Yale University
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

Is it possible to get a list of bugs fixed in each release of IRIX, either
electronically or by talking to the right TAC person or for that matter as
samizdat? It presently requires a TAC call and some chit-chat per bug, as they
happen. I dislike wasting the TAC's time on minor bugs anyway, and doubly so
if the answer turns out to be "wait for 4.0.6".

TIA,

--
| Dave Schweisguth   Yale MB&B & Chemistry   Email: dcs@neutron.chem.yale.edu |
| Lab phone: 203-432-5208      Fax: 203-432-6144     Home phone: 203-624-3866 |
From: steve@chaos.ocean.fsu.edu (Steve Van Gorder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Fortran list directed read problem
Date: 24 Jul 92 17:14:33 GMT


This program worked under 3.3.2

      program foo

      read(*,*) i,j
      read(*,*) a,b

      write(*,*) i,j
      write(*,*) a,b

      end

but under 4.0.1 with the input.

2*50
2*50.

it produces -

      4195332           0
    50.00000       50.00000    


Any Ideas ?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Steve VanGorder                     Internet  steve@chaos.ocean.fsu.edu
 Dept. of Oceanography   B-169       Bitnet    gorder@fsu                
 Florida State University            Phone    (904) 644-2447             
 Tallahassee, Fl 32306               Fax      (904) 644-2581
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: joe@ziggy.larc.nasa.gov (Joe Clark)
Subject: 486/50 and OpenGL
Originator: joe@ziggy.larc.nasa.gov
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA  USA
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 12:42:47 GMT

Does anyone know of how the performance of OpenGL on a 486/50 will 
compare with an R3000 Indigo?

Does the video accelerators or coprocessors make any difference or
will the graphics be CPU limited? 




Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: butzer@cis.ohio-state.edu (Dan Butzer)
Subject: Optical jukebox ( Migration ) drivers for SGI Indigo
Originator: butzer@anaconda.cis.ohio-state.edu
Organization: The Ohio State University Computer & Information Science
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 16:58:06 GMT

Is anyone aware of a optical jukebox file migration system compatible
with SGI Indigo systems?  In particular system that connect directly to the
SCSI on the Indigo are needed (Network access is easy, but unfortunately
that possibility has been precluded.).  In addition, this must be a TOFS or
EPOCH style migration, not not one of the simple multi filesystem demand
loading drivers that are more common.

Please email responses and I'll summarize.

Regards

Dan
butzer@cis.ohio-state.edu



Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: matt@ssehou.houst.sgi.com (Matt Carey)
Subject: Re: Setting SCSI ID on P6-D16S
Reply-To: matt@ssehou.houst.sgi.com (Matt Carey)
Organization: sgi
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 13:57:15 GMT

In article <31534@adm.brl.mil>, johnson@euler.jsc.nasa.gov (Stan Johnson) writes:
|> We have a 1.6 GB disk (SGI P6-D16S) that I want to use as SCSI device 3 on
|> a 4D-25s.  Is there a way to change the SCSI ID of this disk?  It doesn't
|> have the pushbuttons to set the ID.  Thanks for any help..
|> 
|> -Stan Johnson
|>  NASA / Johnson Space Center
|>  Houston, Texas  77058
|>  johnson@euler.jsc.nasa.gov

Send me your fax # and I will send you a copy of the jumper settings for 
this disk drive.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|I've fallen.....    	|	Matt Carey                        |
|	         	|	Silicon Graphics - Houston, TX    |
|and I can't reach 	|	email: matt@sgi.com               |
|			|	vmail:8308                        |
|my keyboard!		|	phone: (713)293-9292              |
|			|	fax:   (713)293-0503              |
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: soltys@phoenix.radonc.unc.edu (Mitchel Soltys)
Subject: Shadows in GL
Organization: Radiation Oncology, NCMH/UNC, Chapel Hill, NC
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:01:12 GMT

Could someone tell me how to go about casting shadows as in the
"ideas" demo. Also, will the same approach be used for casting shadows
onto a set of polygons composing a curved surface?

We have an application in which we are trying to simulate light
shining through a grid onto a curved surface. (Like through a window
onto a hilly section behind your house.) So far I haven't been able to
do this without doing explicit raytracing. 

I would appreciate email to the address given above, since we are now
bordering on several hundred articles a day in comp.sys.sgi :). Thanks
in advance for any help. 

Mitchel Soltys

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi,comp.unix.programmer
From: vahe@sparcy.Stanford.EDU (Vahe Avedissian)
Subject: sockets vs. FIFOs performance
Originator: vahe@sparcy.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Robotics Lab.
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 02:14:07 GMT

I am running two independant processes on two (SGI IRIS) machines
that need to communicate.

Since the two machines share a common NFS mounted file
system, FIFOs (named pipes) may be used for the communication.
I also have the option of using sockets.

I am sending relatively small data packets across, all under
128 bytes.

My question is strictly performance motivated. Which scheme
can I expect to yield faster execution and response? I
suspect sockets will run a little(?) slower?

Any comments, suggestions, feedback ?

Thanks in advance.


Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: Problem with Tape Backup -- blocksize mismatch
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 04:26:37 GMT

In <1992Jul27.022600.7078@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> senseman@ricky.brainlab.utsa.edu (David M. Senseman) writes:
| I will confess that we have had some problems with links in the
| past since this machine also has a 1/4" Archive Viper (150 MB QIC)
| attached and we have done a number of links between the various
| drivers and drives. What is the best driver for the Viper? 

/dev/rmt/tps0d# for 'SGI' compatibility, or /dev/rmt/tps0d#ns if
you need to exchange tapes with most of the rest of the world, or
if you want an extra percent or two of tape throughput.

| BTW, this is probably a stupid question, but what is the primary
| difference between the drivers in /dev/mt/tps* and in /dev/rmt/tps* -- 
| when do you use "mt" and when do you use "rmt"?

There is no difference; they are links to each other.  Enough people
were used to using /dev/mt that we supported them via links.  At one
point, the mt/* devices were for block access (i.e., like a
filesystem), but IRIX has never (so far as I know) supported this,
althoug some other versions of unix may.
--
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: apas611@chpc.utexas.edu (David Boles)
Subject: HELP - machine refuses to power on
Organization: The University of Texas System - CHPC
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 19:29:53 GMT

Hello,

	In the recent past, someone posted asking why his machine would
not turn on when the power switch was thrown.  Unfortunately, that
posting and the replies have expired on my new machine.

I am currently having the following problem:

I switched off (after shutdown) my 4D/310 so that I could reattach
my CD-ROM drive.  I connected the drive and then turned the machine
back on.  I pressed the switch and immediately walked away to the 
console.  The power has not come on.  Power is being supplied to 
the power cable, but pressing the on switch produces _no_ effect.
There are two other switches on the outside of the machine, the reset
in front (no effect, as expected) and a breaker-like switch on the
back of the base of the small tower of this twin-tower unit.

Any suggestions?

Any help is appreciated!

David Boles
Applied Research Labs
UT Austin

apas611@hermes.chpc.utexas.edu


Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: Dr. Peter Markiewicz <peterm@inherit.mbi.ucla.edu>
Subject: HELP- problem in /debug directory
Organization: Dept. Microbiology, UCLA
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 05:33:32 GMT

1. We have a personal iris recently upgraded to Irix 4.01. For some
reason, very large binary files have been appearing in the /debug 
directory. They have names like 03312, 03313, etc., and range up
to several megabytes in size. It is like an image of the operating system
is being dumped. For example, If one types su while logged in as root or
severa times in a row, a file is created in the /debug directory about a
half-megabyte in size. 

2. These files are owned by the system, so they can't be removed.

3. I would appreciate any comments on:
          -What's causing the files to be created
          -How do I get rid of them
          -How can I prevent them from being made in the future.


Thank you very much.

Peter Markiewicz
peterm@inherit.mbi.ucla.edu
From: rconway@vax1.tcd.ie
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Fill irregular shapes using GL
Date: 29 Jul 92 10:48:16 GMT
Organization: Trinity College Dublin



I am looking for a command that will do a bucket fill.

I have an irregular shape and I want to fill it using one command once I am
inside it's bounderies. If any one has used the bucket fill in Superpaint 
(mac) you know what am I talking about.

Thank you in advance

Rory Conway

vax1.tcd.ie
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: greendog@max.physics.sunysb.edu (Michael D Fischer)
Subject: "inst" setting owner=9999
Organization: Institute for Theoretical Physics, SUNY at Stony Brook.
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 02:29:35 GMT

I've just tried to re-install my diskless share tree with "clinst" and
inst seems to be making most files owned by 9999 and group 9999!  I am
running 4.0.1, and did this just two weeks ago and it worked fine!
Any idea what could cause this??  Some of the files are "root/sys" but
most are "9999/9999" when I do an "ls -l".

Help!

Thanks in advance...

Michael
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Michael D. Fischer - greendog@max.physics.sunysb.edu - Only Amiga...  -
- System Manager - Institute for Theoretical Physics - SUNY Stony Brook -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
- "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is          -
- essential is invisible to the eye"  -- The Fox from The Little Prince -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------