HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kohjin@marina.prug.or.jp (Kohjin Yamada JR1EDE)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Help for 3rd vendors CDROM
Keywords: Sun CDROM drive
Date: 17 Apr 92 13:19:58 GMT
Organization: I am alone...

Thanks for your input, Yaosen.

In article <1992Apr16.124013.5790@acsu.buffalo.edu> yaosenko@acsu.buffalo.edu (Yaosen Ko) writes:

>Recently I connected a Toshiba XM3201B CD-ROM drive to a SparcStation1+.  The
>drive was originally for Macintosh.  Running a piece of code which 
>modifies the expected block size of /dev/sr0 makes it work fine.
>
>No booting from this CD-ROM drive, though.
 ^^ ^^^^^^^!! Gee..., booting is the *must* for me, sigh.

>If you already have a Toshiba CD-ROM drive, you can do it too.
>If you don't, then buying one for Sun is the best way to go.  You can
>boot from a Sun CD-ROM only from a CD-ROM drive for a Sun.

Are you sure there are no ways to boot from a non Sun's CDROM?

	Kohjin
-- 
      *---/---*         E-mail: {uunet}!reseau!sting!jh1ynw!marina!kohjin
    *----/----*         CIS: Kohjin Yamada, JR1EDE [76662,111]
  Q-----T------H        AMPR: kohjin@jr1ede.marina.ampr [44.129.20.128]
*------/|-------*       PBBS: JR1EDE@JR1EDE.11.JNET1.JPN.AS "Share and Enjoy!"
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us (Nick Sayer)
Subject: Sun 4/110 memory?
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
Date: 14 Apr 1992 23:01:10 UTC

On Thursday, I hope to pick up a 4/110 with no memory. Half of the
people I have asked have said that I have to buy funny SIMMs for it.
"Funny" is left undefined, but one person said "Static Column"
memory was required. The other half said that any old 1Mx9 @ 80ns
would do (256Kx9 does not particularly interest me).

Who is right? If the SIMMs are funny, in what way? What do I tell
the salesdrone when I go buy them?

If they're not funny, is there a place in the Bay Area that can beat
$30 (each) for 1Mx9 @ 80ns (new or used, quantity=16 or 32)?

-- 
Nick Sayer <mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us> | "Don't touch it! It's the 'history
N6QQQ @ N0ARY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NA       | eraser' button, you fool!"
37 19 49 N / 121 57 36 W             | 
+1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'   | 		 -- Captain Hoek
From: rcs00455@zach.fit.edu (Kevin Anderson / Lazlo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Need help accessing serial ports.
Date: 15 Apr 92 21:47:21 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne USA

We have here at school a couple of Sun SPARC IPC's that we are doing
a programming project on.  What I need to be able to do (being the lead
design and implementation engineer) is to be able to write to one of the 
RS-423 ports to communicate to a device we have hooked up to the port.
I WOULD LIKE to do this from assembly code (actually the teacher wants us
to).  I have a number of questions: 1) Does the Sun send start & stop bits
with the data outputed to the serial port?  2) What is the address of the
serial port (A)?  3) What ASI (address space indicator should I use when
accessing the port?  Anyway, does anybody out there have some code which
would do this in assembly (prefered) or any other language?
Any help would be appreciated.

Kevin Anderson
kevin@calvin.se.cs.fit.edu
rcs00455@zach.fit.edu
From: john@aplcomm.JHUAPL.EDU (John Hayes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: dd/Exabyte weirdness
Keywords: exabyte dd
Date: 6 Apr 92 21:27:00 GMT
Reply-To: john@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (John Hayes)
Organization: JHU/APL, Laurel, MD

Hello,

I am trying to connect an Exabyte tape drive to an embedded computer
via SCSI bus.  To learn how to control the tape with SCSI commands
I hooked a SCSI bus analyzer between our Sun3 and its Exabyte.
I used dd with several different block sizes to write a tape; 
there were no surprises.  But when I use block sizes greater than or
equal to 64k, something interesting happens.  For example,
	dd obs=64k of=/dev/rst1
produces a block of 65534 (64k - 2) bytes followed by a 2 byte block,
followed by a 65534 byte block, etc.  If I do
	dd obs=128k of=/dev/rst1
two 65534 bytes blocks are produced followed by a 4 byte block, etc.

Can anyone explain this to me?

John R. Hayes			john@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu
Applied Physics Laboratory
Johns Hopkins University
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: kwthomas@nsslsun.nssl.uoknor.edu (Kevin W. Thomas)
Subject: Re: Will SunOS 4.1.1 handle Fujitsu 2.0 Gb drive?
Organization: National Severe Storms Laboratory
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 03:27:21 GMT

In article <WCS.92Apr16211036@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> wcs@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (Bill Stewart 908-949-0705 erebus.att.com!wcs) writes:
#In article <1992Apr2.181105.11366@cichlid.com> aab@cichlid.com (Andy Burgess) writes:
#>   I recall all the discussion about SunOS not handling a 1.2 Gb drive
#>   and I believe the solution was to use only part of the drive.
#>   I don't recall discussion about larger drives.
#>   Will SunOS (and what version) work with this drive?
#
#I don't know whether SunOS will support that drive, but the >1GB drive
#problem was fixed by a patch-CD for SunOS 4.1.1 and is fixed in 4.1.2.
#If you're stuck with pre-4.1.1, you've got to upgrade the OS.

The problem only exists on a Sun4c system.  There are no problems with large
disks on a Sun4 system.

	Kevin W. Thomas
	National Severe Storms Laboratory
	Norman, Oklahoma
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Thursday, 16 Apr 1992 14:16:44 CDT
From: Chuck Metalitz <U13272@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Script to control HP DAT (model 480?)

As delivered, the drive is installed in a box.  Inside the box, there are a
couple of switches that control whether it writes compressed or uncompressed.
Once it's installed, you can't get at the switches without major hassle.
If the switches are off it writes only uncompressed.  If they are on, it
writes only compressed but that can be over-ridden by software.  The problem
is that this particular vendor can't supply the software.

One would guess that a simple script would solve the problem, but then why
is the vendor reluctant to supply it?

I would appreciate hearing from someone who is familiar with this drive, as to
whether this script is a big deal or something a novice could write (or maybe
find somewhere).

I was about to buy the drive when this came up, but I am holding off until
I understand the situation better.

Chuck Metalitz   312/454-0400
Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission
In Chicago but not flooded
From: andrew@highland.oz.au (Andrew Morton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Sun 4/110 memory?
Date: 16 Apr 92 00:31:41 GMT
Organization: Highland Logic, Moss Vale, Australia

mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us (Nick Sayer) writes:
: On Thursday, I hope to pick up a 4/110 with no memory. Half of the
: people I have asked have said that I have to buy funny SIMMs for it.
: "Funny" is left undefined, but one person said "Static Column"
: memory was required. The other half said that any old 1Mx9 @ 80ns
: would do (256Kx9 does not particularly interest me).
: 
: Who is right? If the SIMMs are funny, in what way? What do I tell
: the salesdrone when I go buy them?
: 
: If they're not funny, is there a place in the Bay Area that can beat
: $30 (each) for 1Mx9 @ 80ns (new or used, quantity=16 or 32)?

We did this recently, going through several types of
SIMM before we finally decided that there wasa problem
with the 4/110 motherboard.  Turns out that there's
a revision which was not done to the board, so watch
out for this.

Once we had got a revised board from Sun it happily
ran with standard 1Megx9 80 nSec SIMMs (standard PC memory).

The hardware manual which we have had a mistake in it
concerning the memory jumper settings: I suggest that you confirm
this with Sun if there's any problem.

During all this fun we were told (by one of our many unreliable sources)
that the 4/110 didn't like the SIMMs which have three chips on them
(1Mx4, 1Mx4, 1Mx1) so you need to find the SIMMs with 9x1Mx1 chips.
Not sure I believe this though.

Summary: upgrading 4/100 memory is a complete pain: be prepared
to make 20 'phone calls and to have the machine down for four two
hour sessions over several days.
From: geertj@ica.philips.nl (Geert Jan de Groot)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: 386i console
Date: 10 Apr 92 23:32:24 GMT
Organization: Philips Consumer Electronics, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

In article <1992Apr10.164516.19967@uwm.edu> jake@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Joel Jacobson) writes:
>Im not sure if this is exactly the right group for this or not, but i'll
>try it anyway.  I have a sun386i that Id like to bring up network.  at
>present, its sitting in my basement, so Id have to bring the machine down
>to campus and attatch it to the ethernet line in the office.  however, i
>DONT particularly want to haul the 90 pound monitor around.  my question
>is:  how do I tell the machine that it shouldnt look for console in the
>normal spot, and to check like the serial port or something (which is how
>it works on a friend of mine's sun)?

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work. When I tried this, I found:
1. If you don't connect the keyboard, the SUN will hang in it's selftest
   printing 'no keyboard' on it's serial port. Thus, the keyboard must be
   attached for the machine to come up at all;
2. I attached the keyboard, changed the console settings in the eeprom,
   and the machine would boot using the serial port, *but* it crashes
   somewhere during boot-up (don't remember where anymore).

A sun386i can't tell if the monitor is attached. If you get around problem
2, and leave the keyboard attached, it might work by changing the eeprom.

Test it, I'm afraid this won't work...

Good luck,
Geert Jan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: gar@spiff.UUCP (Gordon Runkle)
Subject: Re: 4.1.2 cron and daylight savings time
Organization: Runkle Research: Arlington, VA
Distribution: usa
Date: 6 Apr 92 21:05:43

We're running 4.1.1b on our 470s and SS2s (Hey, Sun, where's our
upgrade?) and cron became catatonic.

--
-=gordon=-
--
Gordon A. Runkle,  Runkle Research
UUCP: uunet!cmi486!spiff!gar   INTERNET: gar@spiff.cminc.com
PHONE:  703-522-0825  202-955-8412

  'I wish life was not so short,' he thought.  'Languages take
  such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
             --J. R. R. Tolkien,  _The Lost Road_
-- 
-=gordon=-
--
Gordon A. Runkle,  Runkle Research
UUCP: uunet!cmi486!spiff!gar   INTERNET: gar@spiff.cminc.com
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.admin:2297 comp.sys.sun.misc:1745
From: jms@romana.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.misc
Subject: Daylight Savings Time causes cron to hang.
Summary: Kill and restart the cron daemon.
Keywords: cron, hourly, Standard Time, Daylight Saving Time.
Date: 6 Apr 92 20:13:42 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.sun.admin
Organization: BT Tymnet, San Jose, CA

Oops, I meant to repost this article several weeks ago to warn people about
the unfixed cron bug.  As of 6-Apr-92, I have not received a patched version
of cron for SunOS-4.1.1.  That's 3 years in a row that cron has screwed up.

>Subject: Re: Check your cron jobs for failure at switch to Daylight Saving.
>Keywords: cron, hourly, Standard Time, Daylight Saving Time.
>Message-ID: <1688@tardis.Tymnet.COM>
>Date: 3 Apr 91 11:22:06 GMT
>
>I posted the following article last year at this time.  The warning is
>still valid for anyone running SunOS-4.0.3.
>
]  I have a cron job that is supposed to go off every hour at 23 minutes past
]  the hour.  It last ran 1-Apr-90 at 1:23am Pacific Standard Time.  It did
]  not run 60 minutes later at 3:23am Pacific Daylight Time.  My guess is that
]  it was still waiting for 2:23am to occur, which never did.
]
]  To restart it, I used "crontab -l | crontab" on all systems, for all users
]  who have files in /var/spool/cron/crontabs.  (Rebooting all the file
]  servers and all the clients also works.)
]
]  It is possible that cron has failed on every Sun running 4.0.3, workstations
]  included.

One of the programmers here came up with this PERL script to restart cron:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
#
# cron.restart - find, kill, and restart the cron daemon
#

open(PS, "ps -auxg|") || die "ps: $!";

while (<PS>) {
	($user, $pid, $cpu, $mem, $sz, $rss, $tt, $stat, $start, $time, $cmd) =
	    unpack("A9 A5 A5 A5 A5 A6 A3 A4 A7 A7 A99", $_);
	if ($user eq 'root' && $cmd eq 'cron' && $tt eq '?') {
		$pid = int($pid);
		if (defined($cron_pid)) {
			print "More than one cron found -- fix by hand!\n";
		} else {
			$cron_pid = $pid;
		}
	}
}
if (defined($cron_pid)) {
	print "Cron is pid $cron_pid\n";
	$killed = kill 15, $cron_pid;
	if ($killed != 1) {
		print "error killing $cron_pid: $!\n";
		exit 1;
	}
	#
	# Give cron one second to die.  If it still accepts signals,
	# it ain't dead!
	#
	sleep(1);
	$killed = kill 0, $cron_pid;
	if ($killed != 0) {
		print "Process $cron_pid wouldn't die!\n";
		exit 1;
	}
	print "Process $cron_pid killed.\n";
	system "cron";
	print "New cron started.\n";
} else {
	print "No cron process found!\n";
}
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: haines@pixel.nhn.uoknor.edu (Mark Haines)
Subject: No graphics screen on my 3/60 (A virtual X server) HELP!
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 12:01:02 GMT

I just finished compiling X11R5 for my Sun 3/60 and the problem I was hoping
would go away doesn't. Ever since I started way back when with the
installation of SunOS 4.1.1 on the 3/60 when I first got it, I haven't gotten
anything graphical to work on it. No sunview, no openwindows, no X11R4, and
now no X11R5. The kernel is generic and includes the drivers for everything.
	Now here's the wierd part. I can run anything on it. It just never shows
up. That's right, X runs and I can open xterms,etc on the display. I just can
see the "display". It's still stuck in text more. Anyone have any ideas?
If so, send them to


haines@phyast.nhn.uoknor.edu

Thanks in Advance,
Mark


Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: bmedley@hounix.org (Bert Medley)
Subject: Re: UUCP on SunOS
Organization: Houston Unix Users Group
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 21:19:08 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.142544.23269@ngala001.nt.com> user@hostname writes:
>
> 
> Anyone using UUCP ? I am attempting to connect 
> over a modem from a sun Sparc 2. Uutry -r host
> succeeds in connecting to the host and logging 
> in, but the connection then fails after 10 tries
> of:
>
> pkcget: alarm 1
> alarm while looking for SYN -- request RXMIT
> send CNTL, INITA, val 7
>  ...and thats it !! Is there a stty setting 
> I need ? Something specific to SunOS 4.1.2
> uucp?  Any Ideas appreciated.
> Peter  

Flow control is probably enabled on one or both modems or one or both serial
ports.  This was my experience recently.  Good luck!

-- 
Bert Medley                            | HOUNIX:  bmedley@hounix.org
2476 Bolsover #293                     | Work:    medley@synercom.hounix.org
Houston TX 77005                       | Home:    bert@medley.ssdl.com
From: jel8@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Jason E Levine)
Subject: SCSI drives for Sun 3/60
Organization: _Spectator_, Columbia University
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 07:11:16 GMT

A question related to my one about SunOS 4.1.1 -- I have a SCSI drive in
that machine right now (it's somewhere between 100 and 120 Mb, although
I can't really say exactly where... I believe it is 117).  I think that
I will need to get a new drive to expand the capacity on that machine.
In this vein, I need to ask a few things:

1) Am I right in thinking that I can just `daisy-chain' another SCSI drive
   off of the one currently in the machine?  (There is a SCSI out port on
   the back of the shoebox; I am somewhat familiar with PC SCSI drives, but
   I am not sure if the same theories hold true.)

2) Would anyone out there like to recommend a SCSI drive?  I think that my
   goal capacity on that computer will be about 225-300 Mb.  Thus, any 
   drive from about 100 Mb to 200 Mb would be about right.

3) What are the prices on these drives?  I have never had to buy hardware
   for Suns; if you remember my post yesterday about the position I'm in
   with this Sun, you'd realize why.  What are ballpark prices for drives
   in general?

Thanks for any help; if there's sufficient interest, I'll post a compilation
on the net.  Have fun.

				/ Jason Levine

P.S. I've realized, from some preliminary responses, that it could be
     helpful to describe how we have the Sun 3/60 running.  Basically,
     it is a server for PC-NFS (about 10 PC terminals).  It is not
     connected in any way to any other UNIX system, or any other NFS,
     mountable systems.  It is, in other words, self-sufficient; I cannot
     depend on outside resources to help me out.

  ____/|   +-------------------------------+  California: Every couple of
  \ o.O|   |  Jason Levine                 |   years, God tips America on
   =(_)=   |  jel8@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu  |   its side, and everything not
     U     +-------------------------------+   bolted down slides there.
From: chris@chinook.atd.ucar.edu (Chris Webster)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: OW3.0 installation is not funny (nor is
Date: 14 Apr 92 15:41:20 GMT
Reply-To: chris@chinook.atd.ucar.edu
Organization: Research Aviation Facility, NCAR, Boulder, CO

In article 17460@dartagnan.rutgers.edu, trudel@dartagnan.rutgers.edu (Jonathan) writes:
>In article <1992Apr13.195939.13032@ncar.ucar.edu> chris@chinook.atd.ucar.edu (Chris Webster) writes:
>
>> We also received no documents on how to install 4.1.2 or OpenWin 3.0
>> just CD's.  We were definatly not happy about it.
>
>If you check the shipping order, you'll see that they're backordered.
>I got the manuals a month before I saw any CDs.


We had upgraded the processor to 6/690 (or whatever) which does not run
4.1.1, we had half a day to get the machine up and running with only CD's,
no Release notes or Installation instructions.  

--Chris
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
From: twm3@world.std.com (Thomas W Moore)
Subject: OpenView 2.0 Calendar Manager RPC
Keywords:  OpenView, Deskset, RPC, Calendar 
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 13:08:22 GMT

When I haven't had anything better to do, I have been spending my time 
exploring all the "free" goodies that Sun was kind enough to give me with
OpenWindows 2.0.  Because in all of my free time :-), I frequently forget
appointments, the idea of using the calendar manager sounded appealing.

When the manager comes up in the large window (after tapping on the month
icon), the current month is displayed.  However at the bottom of the month
display there is a message to the effect of "Can not find rpc.cm -- have you
run install_cm.rpc" (sorry not the exact wording, but should be close enough).
I have run install_cm.rpc in /bin & /usr/openwin/bin and it does not *appear*
to help.

Where should the script be run?  And do I need to modify any of my OpenWindows
startup scripts or need to reboot the IPC to have the change take effect?

E-mail responses are fine to twm3@world.std.com   If there is sufficient 
interest, I shall post a summary here.

TIA,

-Tom
twm3@world.std.com
From: hgschulz@cs.umass.edu (Henning Schulzrinne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Shareable library setup problem?
Date: 12 Apr 92 02:39:35 GMT
Reply-To: hgschulz@cs.umass.edu (Henning Schulzrinne)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

[SunOS 4.1.1]
When linking a program which includes -lsunwindow, the error

ld.so: Undefined symbol: _mem_ops

appears. There are no warnings about undefined symbols at link time.
Adding -Bstatic "fixes" the problem and the program runs
fine. running ldconfig doesn't help. What am I missing?
---
Henning Schulzrinne  (hgschulz@cs.umass.edu)
Dept. of CS and Dept. of ECE; Univ. of Massachusetts at Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003 - USA === phone: +1 (413) 545-3179 (EST); FAX: (413) 545-1249
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.admin:2348 comp.sys.sun.misc:1801
From: jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.misc
Subject: Re: Daylight Savings Time causes cron to hang.
Summary: Ask your Sun rep for patch 100520-01
Keywords: cron, hourly, Standard Time, Daylight Saving Time.
Date: 8 Apr 92 08:41:40 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.sun.admin
Organization: BT North America (Tymnet)

Here is the README file that I received today.
		-Joe

	-----------------------------------------------------

Patch-ID# 100520-01
Keywords: cron, die, daylight, savings, time
Synopsis: SunOS 4.1.1: Cron dies when daylight savings time STARTS/STOPS
Date: 2/Mar/92
 
SunOS release:  4.1.1
 
Topic: daylight savings time causes problems for cron
 
BugId's fixed with this patch:  1031907

Architectures for which this patch is available: sun3 & sun4 (all)

Patches which may conflict with this patch: n/a 

Note: 

Obsoleted by:

Problem Description: 
   If there are cron events scheduled for the time that will disappear
   when daylight savings time starts, they will be scheduled for a time
   practically in future infinity.  This is because timelocal() returns
   -1 if given a gmt that falls into the 'non-existant' time period.
   This value of -1 was being used as the 'next time' of the event.
   As far as time values go, it's either a very long time ago or some
   time far into the future.

   Note that 'at' will not allow you to schedule jobs during this
   time period.

   With this patch, jobs that would fall into this 'offset' period are
   scheduled `later', e.g. the daylight-savings-time offset is added
   to their event time. If the offset is one hour, for example, then
   one hour is added.  If there are cron jobs scheduled for the
   hour following the 'offset' period, those jobs will also be run
   during the same hour.


INSTALL:

1) Login as root

2) Kill cron:
   a) ps -aux | egrep cron
   b) note the process ID (pid) of cron
   c) kill -TERM <pid>

3) cp /usr/etc/cron /usr/etc/cron.FCS

4) cp `arch`/cron /usr/etc/cron

5) restart cron

-- 
Joe Smith (408)922-6220  | SMTP: jms@tardis.tymnet.com  DIALCOM: J.SMITH
BTNA Tech Services TYMNET| CA license plate: "POPJ P," PDP-10, 36 bits forever
PO Box 49019, MS-C51     | Married to the LB, Quantum Leap's #1 net.fan
San Jose, CA 95161-9019  | humorous disclaimer: "My Amiga 3000 speaks for me."
From: simon@lia.di.epfl.ch (Simon Leinen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: Request for Info, re: SUN + SGI network
Date: 14 Apr 92 10:20:18 GMT
Organization: DI-LIA -- Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
In-reply-to: nassio@cfa.harvard.edu's message of 13 Apr 92 22:08:44 GMT
X-Md4-Signature: 6ddf5749f4a90ebfbf044a3e6f9d80d6

In article <1992Apr13.220844.26252@cfa203.harvard.edu>
nassio@cfa.harvard.edu (George Nassiopoulos) writes:

   Can anyone offer me any information/advice as
   to what I would have to look forward to if we
   wanted to add a couple of SGI's to this network?
   Is anyone currently managing such a mixture?

Look forward to few problems and a lot of fun.  We've got two Indigos
three weeks ago and they integrate really well into our hitherto
homogenous Sun-4 net.

   How well would NFS work mounting the SUN filesystem
   on the SGI and vice versa?

Very well in both directions -- no noticeable difference in speed.

   Is there any problem accessing the SUN NIS master
   databases from the SGI's? Would SUN's NIS work on
   the SGI's?

We access the NIS database on our Sun server from the SGIs with no
problems.  The only thing that slightly disturbs me is that some IDs
have different meanings (UID 3 is "bin" on SunOS, "uucp" on IRIX and
so on).

   Does SGI have an automounter program, or would i
   have to obtain amd off the network? Does amd work
   on the SGI's?

IRIX comes with automount, but we use AMD traditionally.  The latest
version (5.3beta) from usc.edu works like a charm on both Suns and
IRISes.

   Can anyone think of anything that I should be aware
   of that I haven't asked?

Yes, audio compatibility; you can play telephone-quality SPARCaudio
files on an Indigo, but you can't play CD- or DAT-quality Indigo sound
on a SPARCstation :-)
-- 
Simon.