HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dkinney@chilidog.bothell.sgi.com (Dan Kinney)
Subject: Re: Cannot logout from IRIX 4.0
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 00:06:34 GMT


If you use a .xsession file, you must also be sure that the last 
line is...

/usr/bin/X11/reaper

...otherwise, you could be hosed.  You can get out only by killing the
X server (always desirable) with the Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F12+Numeric-"/"
combination.

-- 

- Dan Kinney                 Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Seattle, WA
                             dkinney@bothell.sgi.com 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: R4000 compiler directive, is there one ???
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 04:43:12 GMT

In <1992Aug16.210505.18316@megatek.uucp> rgs@megatek.uucp (Rusty Sanders) writes:

| From article <oisl0q0@zuni.esd.sgi.com>, by olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson):
| > In <1992Aug14.180101.14529@megatek.uucp> rgs@megatek.uucp (Rusty Sanders) writes:
| > | Net result; if you're using floating point on an R4000 you probably
| > | should use -mips2 -r4000 to get best performance. Does MIPS/SGI
| > | actually support (i.e. accept bug report calls) on the undocumented
| > | -r4000 switch?
| > 
| > I don't think so.  If so, we would have used it in the specmark
| > tests, more than likely.  I don't know why it isn't supported;
| > it may be for lack of testing, or introduction of bugs.
| 
| It's my understanding that MIPS specifically did NOT want to use
| code optimized specifically for the R4000 in the Specmark suite.
| To wit: I believe the code wasn't even compiled -mips2 (which
| is clearly supported), much less with -r4000.

I can't speak for MIPS, but SGI definitely used -mips2 on most
of the SPEC benchmarks, see the forthcoming SPEC newsletter, and
the preliminary Crimson results in the last one.

| I have been lead to believe this is because MIPS wanted to
| accurately represent processor performance with code compiled
| to run on any MIPS machine, hence the -mips1 compile switch.

Again, somebody from MIPS will have to comment.

| I don't believe I've ever seen Specmark numbers for an R4000
| with the code compiled -mips2 -r4000, or even just -mips2
| (although I would dearly love to).

See above.

| One would think it prudent marketing for MIPS/SGI to release
| both sets of numbers. One for compatibility mode (useful for
| software houses, which will compile -mips1), and one for raw
| "fast as we can get it" mode, which is the most useful number
| for the embedded market and end-users. Not that Spec is terribly
| useful as a performance indicator in the embedded market, but
| it would make my discussions with management SO much easier.

You may think it prudent, but as one of the people who had to run
them, I would politely say "no thanks!".  There would be a difference,
but I don't think it will be all that huge, except perhaps for
some of the floating point runs that do lots of loads and stores,
since -mips2 enables [ls]dc1 as 64 bit loads and stores.

Note that -mips2 still doesn't do everything the r4k is capable
of, just those in the r6k.  -mips3 will turn all the r4k stuff in
a future compiler release (and presumably enable 64 bit ops, pointers,
etc.)
--
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: hari@robios.me.wisc.edu (Kambainathan Hari)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Slow C compiler??
Date: 12 Aug 92 18:51:05 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: U. Wisconsin-Madison, Robotics Laboratory


I have a Personal Iris and about a couple of months ago we upgraded
the Op. System. Before the Upgrade the compilation was *slow* and
after the upgrade it has gotten *even slower*. 

Is there anything I can do about it like setting flags while using cc,
or using a different compiler ?? Or is just a case that linking the
X11 library and using graphics takes so much time  and nothing can be
done about it since there is graphics in the code and hence the
executables produced  are much longer?? Sorry I don't know enough
about compilers to figure it out myself.

Any suggestions will be welcome.  

Thanks

- Hari

K.R.Harinarayan
Robotics Lab., Dept. of Mech. Engg.
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

Fone  : (608) 262-7463, (608) 262 - 9056
e-mail: hari@robios.me.wisc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: sysmark@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Bartelt)
Subject: Re: 4.0.5 A/B/C/D ???
Reply-To: mark@cita.toronto.edu
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 18:56:06 GMT

[ Bob Green ]

|	4D1-4.0.5
|		<combine all 4D1-4.0.X releases>
|		<fix more bugs>
|		<fix on fail>
 [ ... ]
|	4D1-4.0.5C
|		<fix two nasty but very isolated bugs (NFS lockd and R4K chip
|			bug on Crimson)>
|		<fix on fail>
|
|	4D1-4.0.5D
|		<port of 4D1-4.0.5C to RealityEngine and R4K Indigo hardware>
|		<fix bugs as they relate to these platforms>
|		<does not support other platforms>
|		<shipped on new systems and hardware upgrades>

Gack!  If I read this correctly, this means that I'll need to keep *two* sets
of CDs kicking around, one for my R4K Indigos, and one for everything else.
(And I clearly need/want 4.0.5 for all my systems, since it fixes bugs that
I've been bitten by.  I logged calls to TAC quite some time ago to be put on
the 4.0.5 distribution list, but no joy yet.  Soon?)

And not only will I have to keep track of what's what, but I presume that I'll
actually have *three* things to deal with:  The full 4.0.5D release for the R4K
Indigo we recently ordered; the 4.0.1=>4.0.5 maintenance release for our PIs and
R3K Indigos; and a different 4.0.1=>4.0.5 maintenance release for the R3K=>R4K
Indigo upgrade that we ordered.

Anyway, is there any particular reason that 4.0.5D couldn't have been made to
support the old hardware, so that a common set of CDs could be used for all our
systems?  When *will* there be a common release that supports both R4K Indigos
and the older stuff?  4.0.5E?  4.0.6?  Any time estimate?

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
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: schieb@shark.gsfc.nasa.gov (Brian D. Schieber)
Subject: WILDCARD expansion in FORTRAN
Reply-To: schieb@shark.gsfc.nasa.gov (Brian D. Schieber)
Organization: Oceans & Ice Branch, NASA/GSFC/GSC
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 19:50:35 GMT

Hi,
 I'm porting a VAX FORTRAN program to UNIX that uses VAX library 
calls to expand a wildcard for filenames into an array of strings.
Is there any such capability for UNIX FORTRAN? Short of doing
a SYSTEM call and running 'find' I don't know how this would be
done.

Suggestions appreciated.

Thanks,


--Brian

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^ Brian D. Schieber            NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center ^
^ schieb@shark.gsfc.nasa.gov   Laboratory for Hydrospheric      ^
^ DECnet: urchin::schieb        Processes                       ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: todd@pi.eai.iastate.edu (Todd Teske)
Subject: Would it be wrong?
Organization: Engineering Animation, Inc.
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 20:48:14 GMT

Would it be wrong to post a message referring interested persons to
a job offer for C programmers with gl experience in this group?
This seems like a good place to get the attention of the sort of
folk we are looking for.

Just in case it isn't wrong, the posting for the job is in
misc.jobs.offered.entry or misc.jobs.offered.

Keywords: get a job, be gl programmer, use C
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Problem reading a tar file on exabyte
Date: 14 Aug 92 20:56:25 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <1992Aug14.164602.19232@morgan.ucs.mun.ca> agouldng@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (Allan Goulding) writes:

| In article <ohrdrt0@zuni.esd.sgi.com> olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
| >In <1992Aug13.181143.3629@morgan.ucs.mun.ca> agouldng@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (Allan Goulding) writes:
| >| I am having a problem reading a tar file on an exabyte tape. 
| >| % tar xovqqbf 10240 /dev/exabnrnsv
| >| myio(read): wanted 5242880 bytes, got -1
| >|         errno is 12: Not enough spacetar: tape read error: Not enough space
| >| exiting myio, firsttape 1
| >| exiting from done, n 2
| >
| >Since for some reason tar doesn't seem to be figuring out
| >the block size correctly, try specifying it explictly (10240
| >is wrong, that is 10240*512, you want 20).
| 
| Thanks Dave, 20 is indeed the correct blocksize. The correct incantation is
|   tar xovfb /dev/exabnrnsv 20
| 
| I'm guilty of assuming that the b argument to tar and bru are the same.
| bru b is bytes by default, tar b is blocks. I also just noted in the tar man
| page the caveat of the argument order, f before b. It is amazing how you
| can still miss these little details after reading them so often.
| 
| BTW, mt -t /dev/exabnrnsv blksize says:
|  Recommended tape I/O size: 131072 bytes (256 512-byte blocks)
|  Minimum block size: 1 byte(s)
|  Maximum block size: 245760 bytes
|  Current block size: Variable

Interesting.  That means it wasn't able to figure it out from
reading the tape.  I have seen this from time to time, but I
don't think I ever pinned down the cause.
--
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: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: help in understanding tape blocks: dd, bstream, tar
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 20:24:47 GMT

In <16hugoINNr9s@agate.berkeley.edu> bartlett@violet.berkeley.edu (Paul Bartlett/Gary Shea;Lat 841;;;MV86) writes:

| Situation: Machines: Indigo, 4D70/GT  Running 4.0.5
|            Tape drive (4D70/GT, from SGI): ARCHIVE: VIPER 150  21247-005 VP1
| 	   Tape drive (ditto, from ANDATATO): EXABYTE: EXB-8200        2618
|            Tape drive (Indigo, from SUN): ARCHIVE: VIPER 150  21531-004
| 
| The following happens on all three combinations.
| 
| What I'm trying to do:
| use tar with bstream as per the bstream man page to make backups
| and distribution tapes for customers to use.

The problem is that bstream defaults to 64Kbyte blocks if -b isn't
used, and for non-tape devices, tar defaults to 20.  The net result
is that bstream sees a 0 returned before tar quits having seen
its internal end of archive record, so bstream prompts for an
additional tape.  Specify the same blocking factor to tar and
bstream, or at least make tar's blocksize a multiple of bstream's,
and the problem will go away.

I.e., it isn't a bug, but a (subtle) user error.

By the way, I seldom see much advantage in using bstream with SCSI tape.
SCSI tape does readahead typically when reading, and does double
buffering in the tape drive with our driver.  Using bstream also
makes error recovery more problematical.  In some cases, bstream
will actually slow things down with SCSI, since there is more
data movement going on.

Finally, you can see similar problems under 4.0 using just tar,
if you specify a different blocking factor when reading than
when writing, for similar reasons.  (tar gets a 0 read back from
the tape driver before seeing the end-of-archive record, because
of the way the buffering works.  I've thought of trying to special
case this, but the way the buffering code is done in tar makes
this less than clean, and may introduce some subtle bugs.)

| (1) tar cf - Mail | bstream -o/dev/tape
| 
| and then, I do
| 
| (2) bstream -i/dev/tape | tar tf -
| 
| and get a listing of most of my directory, then a message:
| 
| </dev/tape> Change tape and type RETURN or "quit":
| 
| and if I hit return, I get the rest of my directory, and the
| message again.
| 
| If I try 
| 
| (3) tar t
| 
| directly, I get some of my directory (less than before), then 
| a message
| 
| Change tape and press the Enter key:
| 
| and if I hit return, I get the rest of my directory.
| 
| If I do
| 
| (4) dd if=/dev/tape | tar tf -
| 
| *then* I get the whole directory. This also works if I put a 
| bstream into the pipe.
--
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: ian@falcon.Centric.Com (Ian Macky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: 4D/440 with 256M of memory?
Summary: 256M working now!
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:45:55 GMT
Organization: Centric Engineering Systems

SGI finally got our machine to work with 256M after replacing both CPU boards
with a more recent revision.  It WASN'T the memory board, backplane, I/O board,
power supply, or 3rd-party SIMMs, all of which were replaced in vain.

We had a problem with 3rd-party memory on our old 4D/220 and again it was the
CPU which was the problem.

The moral: suspect the CPUs when your Power Series doesn't like new/more
memory, whether 3rd-party or SGI-official.

--ian
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: niblett@lodi.csd.sgi.com (Ray Niblett)
Subject: Re: mac network copy from 4ddn 4.0.4 fails - machine type "dec" ?
Keywords: dec macintosh network copy 4ddn 4.0.4
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 22:53:42 GMT

In article <1230@ki.com>, dwatts@ki.com (Dan Watts) writes:
|> In article <1992Aug11.220507.26055@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> raymond@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz ( Raymond W L Martin) writes:
|> |raymond@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz ( Raymond W L Martin) writes:
|> |
|> |>Has anyone noticed that 4ddn on irix 4.0.4 advertises itself as a system type
|> |>DEC.  When using "network copy" from a macintosh a users reports that he
|> |>can list and select files on our 4d/240D but the copy fails. 
|> |
|> |THIS IS NOT CAUSED BY kinet lat v4.3 R11 beta as I previously thought.
|> |
|> |OK for the sake of honesty I must now eat crow.  We have removed kinet lat R11 
|> |v4.3 form our 4d/240 and the problem still stands.  However we are leaving it
|> |off because it corrupted our /etc/wtmp file.  So the only factor to change was
|> |IRIX 4.0.1 to IRIX 4.0.4.  We hope the upgrade to IRIX 4.0.5 will fix it.
|> |
|> |    Ray Martin
|> |    Computer Centre
|> |    University of Auckland
|> 
|> 
|> As a further followup to this posting, Ray Martin, Jim Greenslade and I have
|> determined what the real cause of his problem is.  The MAC NetCopy software
|> [DECnet sold by DEC] is incorrectly identifying the Irix system as a VMS
|> system.  Because of this, it creates VMS style pathnames for it's file
|> requests.  The SGI 4DDN product however can't handle VMS pathnames.  It
|> appears that something in 4DDN changed in the upgrade to 4.0.4.  If Ray had
|> been using the kiNET DECnet product [openDNA] on the Irix system, he would
|> not have had this problem.  openDNA supports VMS pathname syntax in addition
|> to standard Unix pathname syntax and would have worked just fine with the
|> MAC NetCopy software.
|> 
|> -- 
|> ######################## Have A Nice Nude Day #########################
|> # CompuServe: >INTERNET:uunet.UU.NET!ki.com!dwatts  Dan Watts         #
|> # UUCP      : ...!uunet!ki.com!dwatts               ki Research, Inc. #
|> # The Bill Of Rights: Void Where Prohibited by Law. Vote Libertarian ##


4DDN does support VMS path names.  I can do this on my system:

lodi 223% dnls 'lodi::usr:[bin]'

Directory LODI::/usr/bin/

CC           ct           fsplit       ndx          regcmp       under         
X11          ctags        fx           neqn         rpcgen       uniq          
apropos      ctrace       getopt       newform      rup          units         
ar           cu           grap         news         rusers       unpack        
as           cut          groups       nl           sar          uucp          
asa          cxref        hyphen       nm           sdiff        uulog         
at           dbx          id           nroff        size         uuname        
awk          dc           infocmp      oawk         soelim       uupick        
.
.
.
Or from a vax: COPY LODI::USR:[TMP]FILE.DAT *

I'd be curious to see the format of the VMS file names that the MAC uses.

-- 

Ray Niblett  

PSE, Silicon Graphics
niblett@sgi.com
From: najork@src.dec.com (Marc Najork)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Capabilities of OpenGL
Date: 17 Aug 92 22:27:01 GMT
Organization: DEC Systems Research Center

I have access to a Personal Iris 4D/25 with Turbo Graphics option.

Am I right in assuming that even under OpenGL, neither alpha buffers,
nor stencil buffers, nor blending, nor auxiliary buffers will be supported?

Which machines WILL support the above?

How does this all go together with Allen Akin statement:

        "In contrast, all OpenGL implementations are required to support
        all the functionality described in the specification. Even the
        advanced rendering features are guaranteed to be present."

Thanks for any info!

-- Marc Najork  (najork@cs.uiuc.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: R4000 compiler directive, is there one ???
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 05:25:57 GMT

In <1992Aug12.195518.12380@megatek.uucp> rgs@megatek.uucp (Rusty Sanders) writes:
| From article <ob1oc18@zuni.esd.sgi.com>, by olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson):
| > One thing to add to John's response.  -mips2 is the way to
| > turn on some of the r4k features (more specifically, those
| > in the r6k, such as hardware squareroot).
| > [more about -mips2]
| 
| I seem to remember seeing in some version or other of the compiler
| (sorry, I don't know if it was beta, release, or what) that there
| was a switch -r4000. The switch had no effect on the output code,
| but was used by the instruction scheduler in the assembler.
| To check to see if you have it (other then just trying it) you can
| do a strings /usr/bin/cc|grep 4000 and see what shows up.

It is passed on to the assembler untouched, and the comments there
lead me to believe your recollection about instruction scheduling
is correct, but I don't know enough about compilers to know what
exactly (if anything!) it is doing.
--
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: heathman@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Michael Heathman)
Subject: HPGL viewers
Originator: heathman@troon.ncsa.uiuc.edu
Organization: Nat'l Ctr for Supercomp App (NCSA) @ University of Illinois
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 15:22:20 GMT

	Has anyone developed a HPGL viewer for the SGI?  This would be a 
program to interpret the commands in a HPGL file and interactively plot
them to the screen.  An application written in X11 would be preferred,
for portability, but GL would be OK.  Anyone have any leads?

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 -  Mike Heathman           XV920 - Jezebel           DoD #0284               -
 -  Lilly Research           T500 - Titan (Awaiting Resurrection)             -
 -  Indianapolis, IN        "Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far?    -
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: fish@daacdev1.stx.com
Subject: Re: Tape partitions on a DAT and un-manned backups
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 16:04:32 GMT

esrma@warwick.ac.uk (Mr P M Jones) writes:

>1) is this possible and if so how do I do it as it does not seem to be
>   covered in the manuals.
i believe only two partitions are available

>2) if (1) is true, is there a nifty script to queue the backups each day
>   or an ftp site etc with an example of this
put your Backup commands in a cronfile is probably the most straight-forward

>3) if the backup is greater than the partition, will there be any
>   disasterous consequnces or will the backup exit cleanly and leave
>   appropriate warning messages.
i'm not sure

		fish
--
John R. Vanderpool                INTERNET: fish@daacdev1.stx.com
NASA/GSFC                         VOX: 301-513-1683                
Hughes/STX Corporation            FAX: 301-513-1608
"arcadian driftwood, gypsy tailwind; they call my home, the land of snow" -jrr
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu (Nathan F. Janette)
Subject: 4.0.5 A/B/C/D ???
Reply-To: nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 16:11:22 GMT

4.0.5A arrived yesterday.  My local rep says the current
release is 4.0.5D. Could someone comment on the
differences, and whether I should stick with what I have
and be happy or call SGI and complain. 


--
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)

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: cychong@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Chi Yin R Chong)
Subject: Need the code for converting tiff to gif
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 11:46:20 GMT

Hi, every comp.sys.sgi subscriber,

     Does anyone has the program that can convert tiff file to gif file, or
tiff file to rgb file? Please send it to me thru email if you have one.

     Thank you so much for your great help.


Robert Chong
From: frank@marvin.contex.com (Frank Perdicaro)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Crimson vs. R4000 Indigo. What's the difference?
Keywords: Crimson, Indigo, R4000
Date: 17 Aug 92 19:52:58 GMT
Organization: Xyvision Design Systems

In article <oj4pqts@zuni.esd.sgi.com> jeffs@soul.esd.sgi.com (Jeff Smith) writes:
>>| Can someone summaries the differences between a SGI Crimson and a R4000
>>| Indigo workstation assuming they both have the Elan graphics package.
>
>>Expandability and I/O.
>
>The Crimson can also hold the high-end graphics boards,
>which for a fully loaded Reality Engine is 5 large boards.
>
The Crimson is a bit faster, but has no Centronics port!  It sure
would be nice if a slower Centronics port did not cost a few grand...
( compared to the IP12 ).

F
i
l
l
e
r
F
i
l
l
e
r

-- 
	 Frank E Perdicaro, Systems Admin, etc.		Xyvision Color Systems
      Legalize guns, drugs and cash...today.		101 Edgewater Drive
   inhouse: frank@marvin, x5572				Wakefield MA
outhouse: frank@contex.com, 617-245-4100x5572		018801285
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: WCHAN numbers in ps - what do they mean?
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 02:11:04 GMT

In <1992Aug20.131815.6424@ohm.york.ac.uk> lgt1@ohm.york.ac.uk (Laurence Tyler (Guest - CompServ)) writes:

| Can someone explain how to get more information on WCHAN addresses
| as displayed by the 'ps -l' command? I gather they represent system
| events that can be waited for, but there is no indication in human
| terms of what these events might be.
| 
| Some versions of 'ps' on other systems (eg SunOS) put a mnemonic
| in this field which is far more useful most of the time. Can this be
| done under Irix?

It is theoretically possible, but not very likely, since many (most?)
of the wait chans are on dynamically allocated semaphore structures.

As far as I know, nobody at SGI has places to allow symbolic names
to be printed for wchan.  It is a nice feature at times, but a royal
pain to maintain.

A sometimes useful trick, for processes sleeping for any length of
time, is to do this:
	dbx -k /unix /dev/kmem
	set $pid = PID_you_want_to_check_on
	t
	quit
--
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