From: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal)
Subject: November CACTUS Newsletter
Organization: Unicom Systems Development, Austin, TX
Distribution: austin
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 18:36:44 GMT

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                        CACTUS Newsletter

             Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society

              Volume 8, Number 11  -  November 1992


         ------------------------------------------------
         |                Next Meeting                  |
         | Time:     Thursday, November 19 at 7:00p.m.  |
         | Place:    Dell Computer Building  Arboretum  |
         | Agenda:   The Robot Group                    |
	 |           The RT Project (Unix for Kids!)    |
         ------------------------------------------------


                        In this Issue...
                      This Month's Program
                      Last Month's Program
                       September's Program


           The CACTUS Newsletter is published monthly.
           Your comments and submissions are welcome.
           Our email address is newsletter@cactus.org.

   UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX System Laboratories.

































CACTUS Newsletter            page 2                 November 1992


This Month's Program

    Our next meeting will be Thursday, November 19th, in the Dell
Computer Building at the Arboretum.  The meeting is free and open
to the public.  Doors will open at 6:30pm, and the meeting will
begin at 7:00pm.  Our main topic will be a presentation of some
fantastic robotic creations.  The meeting will begin with a
discussion of an exciting project CACTUS is investigating that
aims to bring UNIX computers to thousands of Austin students.

    The Robot Group is an Austin-based organization that has
received national media attention for some of their strange and
wondrous machines.  Glenn Currie of the Robot Group will give us
a live demonstration of one of the groups gizmos, and a video
presentation of some of their more grandiose projects.

    CACTUS is developing a plan that could save hundreds of old
IBM RT workstations from the scrapyard and get them into the
hands of Austin school students.  We are planning to place the
RTs in local high schools and set up a UNIX network.  It will
take a lot of work to get the machines configured and installed,
support the students and teachers, and provide ongoing software
and hardware maintenance.  We will need a slate of committed
volunteers to assure the success of this project.  If you know
about these machines, we need your expertise.  If you are
interested in learning more about UNIX administration,
particularly in a large-scale network environment, have we got a
great opportunity for you!  Our main presentation will be
preceded by a discussion of this project and volunteer
recruitment.


Last Month's Program

    The October CACTUS meeting was held on Thursday, October 15,
1992 in the Dell Computer Building (at the Arboretum).  The main
topic for the evening, The BSD/386 Operating System, was
presented by Tony Sanders of Berkeley Software Design, Inc.  A
tutorial Through the Monitor Glass (or Marc's Adventures in Clone
Land) by Marc Wiz preceded the main presentation.

Through the Monitor Glass

    Marc set out on a quest many months ago to design a high-end
Intel-based Unix computer system.  He spent a lot of time
researching products, talking to both manufacturers and users.
This tutorial presented some of his findings, and provided some
good guidelines for selecting a desktop Unix system.

    Computers aren't cheap.  When it's your money, you want to
make an informed decision.  You can never have too much
information.  Marc suggested several sources of information:  the
Usenet and email, magazines, friends, and manufacturers.  The
Usenet newsgroups Marc found most helpful were
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware, comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,
comp.unix.sys386, comp.unix.sys5.r4, and comp.unix.misc.
Although magazines can be a good resource, Marc suggestion
caution.  They don't always know, and biases can often creep in.
Friends can be an excellent resource, particularly if you can
take their system for a test drive.  The equipment manufacturer



CACTUS Newsletter            page 3                 November 1992


can be an important resource, but there are some caveats.  Learn
to separate marketing truth from real truth, be prepared to spend
a lot of long distance dollars listening to music-on-hold, and be
prepared for tech support people who wouldn't know a Unix if it
bit them.

    These days it isn't enough to say, ``I want to run Unix.''
Which Unix do you want?  There are a lot of choices.  Pick your
software first
 hardware compatibility might be an issue.  Not only do you need
to choose what you want for a base Unix (System V Release 3.2?
Release 4?  Berkeley?), but also what additional packages you
might need (networking?  X Windows?  etc.)  Do you want access to
source code?  Is the software stable?  Is their a reasonable
selection of supported hardware?  How is the vendor's support?
These questions will have different priorities for different
people, and the answers will suggest the proper package.

    There are going to be price versus performance tradeoffs to
be made all along the way.  Do you need and can you afford the
latest and greatest?  While 486/50 EISA machines are still
pricey, 386/33s are dirt cheap.  The current generation video
adapters have workstation-class performance, but the older video
cards are very inexpensive.  Newer may be faster; it certainly is
more expensive.  If you plan to do heavy duty work or run a lot
of X, you might need the performance the more expensive
components provide.

    One item which doesn't get much attention in PC systems is
the power supply.  This can be important in a Unix machine with
lots of power hungry peripherals.  For peace of mind, insist on a
UL listed power supply.  Also, a good on-line, uninterruptible
power supply (UPS) can protect your investment.  A cheaper
standby power supply (SPS) is not as good, but might be adequate.
Don't forget to take the complete system power consumption into
account (including peripherals) when sizing up the supply.

    There are two popular backplane technologies for PC systems.
The older ISA bus is mature, stable, common, and cheap.  However,
it isn't particularly fast, and sometimes you can't get more than
16MB memory into it.  The newer EISA bus is much faster and 32-
bits wide.  It's also a lot more expensive.  Further, because
it's somewhat new there might be some risk in going with no-name
clone EISA systems.  Some systems are coming out with a VESA
local bus, a high speed backplane primarily for display devices.
There are, however, some questions about how these devices might
impact a multi-tasking system such as Unix.

    You will probably need to buy serial ports.  These will
support terminals, modems, printers, and mice.  If you need
four-ports or less, you might consider a nonintelligent card,
particularly if you can get one with the buffered 16550AFN chip
instead of the more common 16450.

    There are a number of choices for storage.  The first
question is, ``SCSI or not?''  SCSI is a lot more expandable, but
a bit more expensive than IDE disk drives.  Make sure you
consider your future needs when specifying disk size.  Don't get
suckered by cheap tape drives.  They are not a bargain.  If your
information is important to you, you need something like a



CACTUS Newsletter            page 4                 November 1992


quarter inch cartridge tape drive or maybe 4mm or 8mm if you've
got that much disk.

    Once you've decided on the pieces, you need to decide how
they get turned into a system.  Do you want a dealer to configure
the system, or do you want to do it yourself?  The premium for a
dealer-assembled system is probably less than $100, and that
might be worth the peace of mind.  Insist upon getting what you
want, not simply what the dealer has in stock.  Find out if the
dealer has any experience with Unix.  Do you want to buy local or
mail order?  If you go outside Texas you might save on sales tax,
but how do you handle support and returns and who pays for
shipping?

The BSD/386 Operating System

    Tony gave us a tour of BSDI's BSD/386 operating system.  BSDI
is committed to providing a truly open operating system.  Not
only is BSD/386 a complete and stable operating system, but also
it includes the system source code as part of the standard
distribution.  BSD/386 is a complete POSIX-compliant operating
system for the PCs you already own.

    BSD/386 supports the multi-user, multi-tasking capabilities
you'd expect.  It runs on both 80386 and 80486 architectures.  It
provides full networking (TCP/IP, OSI, SLIP, and PPP) and
comprehensive set of tools (vi, EMACS, yacc, awk, perl, and a
host of others).  The system includes the MIT X Window System
(X11R5); ANSI C and C++; a re-implementation of Sun's Network
File System (NFS); text processing software (groff, TEX); DOS
execution mode; and more.

    BSD/386 is based on the NET2 release from the Computer
Systems Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley.
BSDI combines this base with a wide variety of publically
available tools and custom engineering, to provide a complete,
fully-featured operating system.  The result is the only product
of its kind, a full POSIX-complaint operating system unencumbered
by external license fees.

    The basic system requirements are an 80386/80486 computer
with keyboard and monitor, 4MB of memory, 3.5" 1.44MB floppy
disk, and 100MB of hard disk.  At least 8MB of memory and a mouse
are recommended for X.  You'll need at least 300MB to hold the
full set of sources on-line.  Distribution is available on both
CD-ROM and quarter inch cartridge tapes  but not floppy disk.
8mm Exabyte tape drives and a number of Ethernet adapters are
supported.  SCSI adapters are supported.  EISA systems with over
16MB memory are supported.  Full support for EISA peripherals
will be provided in a future release.

    After the presentation Tony had a system running BSD
available for attendees to take for a test drive.

    BSD/386 comes with 60 days of support and a 90-day money back
guarantee.  If you would like to receive further information from
BSDI on their software send email to info@bsdi.com, call 1 (800)
800-4BSD or write to,





CACTUS Newsletter            page 5                 November 1992


    Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
    3110 Fairview Park Drive   Suite 580
    Falls Church, VA 22042

    Request their Questions and Answers and Technical Feature
Guide and of course any marketing info they would pass your way.

    Special thanks to Ron McDowell and Terry Essler (of Dell) for
their efforts to provide BSDI and CACTUS with a demonstration
machine.


September's Program

    Southwestern Bell (SWBT) made a presentation on the
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), the new telephone
network.  ISDN provides end-to-end digital communications over
existing telephone lines.

    The new ISDN technology brings some exciting advancements.
First, since it is end-to-end digital transmission, data
transfers can operate at higher speeds and reliability than
conventional modems.  It also supports simultaneous transmission
of voice and data, including digital packet transmission.  This
means your existing phone wire could be used for two voice lines,
or one voice and one data line, both working simultaneously.

    Since ISDN is still in its infancy, there are still some
limitations.  You can use the ISDN features only when you are
connected to somebody else who is also ISDN capable and reachable
from your ISDN service area.  Unfortunately, few people have ISDN
service right now, and the areas that provide ISDN are not well
connected For example, although you can get ISDN service in
Austin and San Macros, there is no ISDN link between the two.

    Currently only the Fireside central office has ISDN service
available.  If you live within the Fireside service area you can
get it at normal cost.  If you live outside Fireside you have to
pay additional mileage charges.

    ISDN is not for heavy LAN type transmission.  It is not, at
least not currently, designed to replace T1 lines.  Also, special
devices are required to connect to ISDN lines.

    For more information on how to get an ISDN line from your
home or office, contact SWBT.  Ask for information on their
Single-Line ISDN Digiline service, or if you're a big time player
look into Plexar Custom.















CACTUS Newsletter            page 6                 November 1992


CACTUS Membership Information

    CACTUS membership is open to all people interested in Open
Systems such as Unix.  We meet the third Thursday of every month.
Meeting topics and locations are announced in the newsletter.  We
currently offer members access to the cactus.org computer system,
that includes electronic news and mail capability.  CACTUS
Membership/Account forms may be obtained at the meetings or by
request.  Please send your request to:

    CACTUS
    P.O. Box 9786
    Austin, TX 78766-9786

or via electronic mail to membership@cactus.org.  Please be sure
to include your USPS mail address in your request.  Annual dues
are $20 for regular memberships, $96 for sponsor memberships.

    Note:  Please examine the upper-right corner of your mailing
label.  It shows your membership status and will note when your
membership expires.


CACTUS Contacts

    Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.  Electronic mail
may be directed to the following addresses.

    officers@cactus.org     Comments to CACTUS officers.
    programs@cactus.org     Meeting ideas, suggestions and comments.
    membership@cactus.org   Membership questions and suggestions.
    staff@cactus.org        cactus.org questions and suggestions.
    newsletter@cactus.org   Newsletter submissions and comments.


CACTUS Officers

President    Tom Painter        painter@cactus.org          835-5457
Publicity    Jim Baty           baty@cactus.org             837-7539
Scribe       Robert Felps       felps@cactus.org            873-9060
Finance      Mike Cato          mikec@amd.com               837-2916
Programs     Ray Schafer        schafer@cactus.org          823-9968
Membership   Michael Cheselka   cheselka@cactus.org         452-9412
Newsletter   Chip Rosenthal     chip@chinacat.unicom.com    482-8260
Members      Michael Cerda      cerda@bongo.cc.utexas.edu   471-3241
  at Large   Jim Knutson        knutson@cactus.org          338-3362

















CACTUS Newsletter            page 7                 November 1992


CACTUS Sponsors

American Interface Computers
  Wolf Metzner        327-5344

Applied Formal Methods, Inc.
  Susan L. Gerhart    794-9732       gerhart@cactus.org

Austin Code Works
  Scott Guthery       258-0785       acw!info

Clinical Resource Systems, Inc.
  Andy Galewsky       258-1977       andy@crs.com

Computation Center
  Mike Cerda          471-3241       cerda@bongo.cc.utexas.edu

Control Data
  John Herczeg        467-0588

Data General
  Jana Stein          835-9771

Dell Computer Corporation
  Charlie Sauer       338-4400

Hewlett Packard
  Bill Sumrall        338-7221

Interactive Systems
  Jim Kelsey          343-0376       jimke@itx.isc.com
  Network technology, software development, consulting.

Majec Systems Inc.
  Maryanne Moore      452-1138
  Contract programming services, multimedia development.

O'Keefe & Assoc.
  John O'Keefe        343-1134

Objective System Solutions
  Charles A. Richter  219-5182       richter@cs.utexas.edu
  Consulting and training in object oriented systems.

Pencom Systems Inc.
  Tom Morgan          343-1111       pencom!psitx!tom
  Recruiting, programming, software development, test services.

Pencom/IBM
  Steven P. Talmage   838-8613

Power Assist
  Leigh R. Power      219-9215       leigh@power.com
  Consulting, training, evaluation, and programming services.

Schlumberger
  James Johnson       331-3781
  Technical services and products in over 100 countries.





CACTUS Newsletter            page 8                 November 1992


Sun Microsystems Computer Corp.
  Roger Waak          343-0293       roger.waak@central.sun.com
  Supplier of Unix client-server computing solutions.

Silicon Graphics
  Don Williams        459-0994

Tandem Computers
  Steve Senator       244-8000

Texas Internet Consulting
  Smoot Carl-Mitchell 329-1047       smoot@tic.com
  TCP/IP networking, Unix, and open systems standards.

Unicom Systems Development
  Chip Rosenthal      482-8260       chip@chinacat.unicom.com
  Unix business and technical system sales, support, engineering.

VideoTelecom Corp.
  Marian Keith-Stasney               834-2700











































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-- 
Chip Rosenthal  512-482-8260 | I got the blues so bad one time
Unicom Systems Development   | it put my face in a permanent frown.
<chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM>   |   - Taj Mahal