HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: brad@optilink.COM (Brad Yearwood)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Old Sun question - HELP!!!!!
Date: 11 Jan 93 03:26:09 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <C0JoJ6.LG6@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <DERAADT.93Jan7120536@newt.newt.cuc.ab.ca> deraadt@newt.cuc.ab.ca (Theo de Raadt) writes:
> >Why the heck did Sun not put better serial chips in their new machines??
> >Isn't it obvious by now that the Zilog chips SUCK?
> 
> Probably because Sun no longer has any competent device-driver writers...

How competent can a device-driver writer be if their job is to stick themselves
between a rock (interrupt-per-character serial chip) and a hard place (long
interrupt latency, expensive context switches, complex environment)?

The real problem is that most serial chips are still late 1970's creatures,
designed to work with 8-bit microprocessors in bottom-dollar applications.

If the bloody things had some decent buffer ring management in them (Cirrus
Logic has some multi-serial chips which do), then they could be made to work
nearly as well as Ethernet controllers do.  Except of course for the fact
that most serial interfaced devices are cheap and un-designed junk, so people
expect feats of miraculous intuition in flow control to keep them from
overrunning each other.

Ethernet: the only decent low-speed serial interface.  Give a design you love
an Ethernet port today.

Brad Yearwood   brad@optilink.com    {uunet, pyramid}!optilink!brad
Petaluma, CA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri)
Subject: Re: HOW TO USE AN EXABYTE 8500C ON A SUN ?
Organization: Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton (Plainsboro), NJ
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 02:21:00 GMT


>I've already a 8500 on my Sun but , with the same configuration , the 8500c 
>doesn'twork !! Is there anything to add in /sys/scsi/targets/st_conf.c  to 
>declare the type  ??

You found the right place; I'm suprised that you didn't figure it out.

>Jan  8 14:51:06 srtp vmunix: st2: <Vendor 'EXABYTE ' Product 'EXB8500CMTBANXC0'>

Just duplicate the existing entry and modify the vendor/product string and
the comparison byte count, getting rid of the silly "8mm Helican Scan":

/* Exabyte 8mm 5GB cartridge */
{
        "Exabyte EXB-8500", 15, "EXABYTE EXB8500CMTBANXC0",
        ST_TYPE_EXB8500, 1024,
        (ST_VARIABLE | ST_BSF | ST_BSR | ST_LONG_ERASE),
        5000, 5000,
        { 0x14, 0x00, 0x8C, 0x8C },
        {  0, 0, 0, 0 }


The 15 is the number of chars in second string to compare to the concatenated
vendor and product strings that the device actually returns.
-- 

======================================================================8--<
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: kindred@telesciences.com (David L Kindred (Dave))
Subject: Re: Standing the pizza box on end
Organization: Telesciences CO Systems, Inc.
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 21:05:03 GMT

In article <C0Io11.My9@ccu.umanitoba.ca> mdoob@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Michael Doob) writes:

   Are there any problems running a sparc2 with pizza box in vertical
   position? Presumably the fan exhausting out the top would satisfy the
   cooling requirements. What about the hard disk? Anyone tried it?

   Michael

All of the disk drives that I have seen specify that they should not
be run in the cable-end up orientation.  Most (if not all) should also
not be run in the cable-end down orientation.  Some will also specify
that they not be run with one of the long sides up.  This won't cause
a problem, since that orientation would be the one you get with the
pizza box upside down.

The result of all of the above is that the 3/80 pizza box can be stood
on it's feet, or on either side, but not on it's front or top.  I have
not seen the Sparc 2 pizza box, but assume that the disk orientation
is the same.  If they are, the fan exhausting out the "top" is not a
good position.

						- Dave
--

EMail: kindred@telesciences.com
CI$: 72456,3226 (72456.3226@compuserve.com)
Phone: +1 609 866 1000 x222
Snail: TeleSciences C O Systems, 351 New Albany Rd, Moorestown, NJ 08057-1177
From: wilko@russia.idca.tds.philips.nl (Wilko Bulte)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Old Sun question - HELP!!!!!
Date: 7 Jan 93 08:44:21 GMT

jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost) writes:

>earle@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Greg Earle - Gainfully Unemployed) writes:
>>Your Sun-2/120 contains a Motorola MC68010 processor, running at 10 (?) MHz.
>because back then the kernel was a sane size).
 .....

>In a previous life I used a Sun-2 on a day-to-day basis.  I even tried
>running NeWS on it (bad idea :-).  They made pretty good X servers
>although I think you'd have a hard time getting newer X releases to
>run on them.

I have seen several of them running X11R5 with no problems. And the
speed of X is even workable (OK, it's no Sparc..)

>They make pretty good tables.  I once used one as a stepladder when
>running cables through the ceiling -- the case is *strong*.

But beware, they have wheels ;-)

Wilko
--
 |   / o / /  _   Wilko Bulte               Domain: wilko@idca.tds.philips.nl
 |/|/ / / /( (_)  EasyNet: HLDE01::BULTE_W  uucp  : [mcsun,sun4nl]!philapd!wilko
|d|i|g|i|t|a|l|  Equipment  Enterprise  -  IISS/SE   voice: +3155-432372
fax: +3155-432103 DTN: 829 2372 PO Box 245 - 7300 AE Apeldoorn - The Netherlands
From: jh@cadre.com (Joe Hartley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Why is Sun abandoning SunOS4.1.3?
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:44:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: fripp.1993Jan5.174441.22800
Reply-To: jh@cadre.com
Organization: Cadre Technologies, Inc.

In article 27767@afterlife.ncsc.mil, dpkemp@afterlife.ncsc.mil (David P. Kemp) writes:
>In article <1993Jan1.212558.22201@siemens.com> aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri) writes:
>
>>>	HP gives you several OS's, all incompatible with each other.
>>
>>Huh?  There's HPUX, and the MPE stuff which I don't think ever had much of a
>>market share anyway.
>
>Huh? You've already forgotten Domain?  Try complaining about the Solaris
>1 -> 2 transition to a Domain user and see how much sympathy you get.
>

This isn't really fair.  Domain was never really an HP OS, it was the Apollo
OS.  HP did its best to kill it as soon as possible, but the Domain users
rebelled.  HP tried to placate them with a longer lifespan to Domain, but it
was never HP's real intention to keep Domain (or any of the Apollo line)
around for very long after the takeover.  Your point is well taken, though.
Apollo users *really* got the shaft from HP.

---
===============================================================================
Joe Hartley          | jh@cadre.com  -  Whenever you find that you are on the
Cadre Technologies   | side of the majority, it is time to reform. - M. Twain
222 Richmond St.     | --------------------------------------------------------
Providence, RI 02903 | Overman 1st Class - the Kilgore Trout Memorial Clench
(401) 351-5950 x266  |            of the Church of the SubGenius  
===============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: dianee@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Diane Eyre)
Subject: Question about SparcClassic
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1993 22:23:33 GMT
Organization: Colorado State U. Engineering College


Forgive me, but a lot of your discussions are a little over my
head.  It sounds to me like the general idea is that a lot of 
software doesn't run on a SparcClassic.  Is this correct?  The
company I work for is considering buying a few Classics.  Could
someone give me a brief explanation of what the problem appears
to be with the Classics?  Do you think it would be unwise to purchase
the SparcClassic?

Diane Eyre
dianee@longs.lance.colostate.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: joem@alw.nih.gov (Joe Maisog)
Subject: please help: bitpads and Sun SPARCstation
Keywords: bitpad driver Sun SPARC
Organization: National Inst. of Health, DCRT, CSL
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:08:56 GMT



Our lab is using a Sun SPARCstation for much of our image-processing
and we would like to use a bitpad (aka "digitizing pad") and stylus
("pen") instead of a mouse to draw our regions of interest.

There are several bitpads which can attach to the Sun SPARCstation,
including the Microgrid III and the SummaSketch II Plus by
Summagraphics, but we have not been able to find *any* software to
drive any bitpad for a SPARCstation.  Does anyone out there know of
any bitpad drivers for SPARCstations?

Please send any information to joem@alw.nih.gov or diane@alw.nih.gov.
Or call (301) 402-1737, and ask for Joe or Diane.  We would very much
appreciate any help.


-- 

	-------------------------------------------------------
	Jose' Ma. Maisog, M.D.		phone: (301) 402-1737
	Building 10, Room 6C414		uucp: uunet!nih-csl!joem
	National Institutes of Health	Internet: joem@alw.nih.gov
	Bethesda, MD 20892
From: cogan@merlin.anu.edu.au (Bruce Cogan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Why LX?
Date: 7 Jan 1993 03:28:35 GMT
Organization: Mt. Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.89.37

Looking through the current Australian Sun price list, I see that the 
Sparcstation LX is priced at A$3000 more than the  IPX (each with
16MB of memory, a 424MB disk, and the same monitor.) The CPU
performance of the LX is specint92 = 26, specfp = 21. Comparable
figures for the IPX are 22 and 22.

Can anyone provide a good reason why I should pay the extra money
for an  LX to be used in a scientific/engineering environment?

Bruce Cogan                                      Bruce.Cogan@anu.edu.au
Mt Stromlo Observatory				 Tel. +61 6 249 0232
Australian National University                   Fax  +61 6 249 0233
Private Bag
Weston Creek P.O. , ACT 2611, Australia
From: ddj@gradient.gradient.com (david johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Sun's ZS chips (was Re: Old Sun question - HELP!!!!!)
Date: 10 Jan 93 21:20:55 GMT
Organization: Gradient Technologies Inc., Hudson MA

lindh@uhasun.hartford.edu (Andrew Lindh) writes:


>In article <1993Jan9.022926.26234@siemens.com>, aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri) writes:
>> 
>> >Why the heck did Sun not put better serial chips in their new machines??
>> >Isn't it obvious by now that the Zilog chips SUCK?
>> 
>> What's so terrible about the Zilog chips?
>> ======================================================================8--<

>On a Sun the highest standard speed is 38.4K!!!
>You can't get to 57.6K......

That's not a limitation of the Zilog SCC; the problem is the tty
driver only using 4 bits to represent possible baud rates under
SunOS.  Not to mention Sun's non-implementation of hardware flow
control (that has been hashed over many times in this group).
If the TIOCSET* ioctls were finally obsoleted, and the baud
rate could specified as an integer, the SCC could be programmed
for much faster rates.

>-- 
>Andrew Lindh, a student at the University of Hartford -- Computer Science
>INTERNET: lindh@uhasun.hartford.edu | NOTE: All views here are MINE!!!
>BITNET:   lindh@hartford.bitnet     | SuperBeta SL-HF2100      N1MTD
>UUCP:     lindh@uhasun.uucp         | ---- When will I graduate???

Dave Johnson
ddj@gradient.com
uunet!gradient!ddj
From: aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Sun's GUI and OS mistakes (was Re: LX a
Date: 1 Jan 93 21:12:11 GMT
Organization: Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton (Plainsboro), NJ


>If you had a useful program that used the Motif widget set would you REFUSE
>to use it?

How's about an additional one:

  o Would you mind paying thousands of dollars for the OSF's source to get
    that wiget, or paying hundreds for an untractable binary-only copy?

-- 

======================================================================8--<
From: mueller@cs.unc.edu (Carl Mueller)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Sun 3/80 ttyb pinouts?
Date: 5 Jan 1993 16:00:21 -0500
Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: oscar.cs.unc.edu


Could someone please tell me the pinouts for the ttyb
serial port on a Sun 3/80?  It's a DB-9 connector.  While
I'm at it, could you tell me about the parallel port too?
I really wish I hard a hardware manual and didn't have to
bother everyone with these requests!

-Carl (mueller@cs.unc.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.sys.sun.admin,alt.sys.sun
From: robert@triton.Jpl.Nasa.Gov
Subject:  Large Monitor Info Request
Reply-To: Allen_Van_Sickel.LAX1B@xerox.com
Organization: JPL
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:23:40 GMT

Hello,
	Is there a third party vendor that anyone knows of that sells
monitors larger than 21 inches that work on a SPARC???  Please reply
to Allen_Van_Sickel.LAX1B@xerox.com .

thanks

-ra
From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Question about SparcClassic
Date: 7 Jan 93 21:34:51 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara

>correction: fm3.0 doesn't, fm3.1a *does* [from the net].

fm3.0X is statically linked with "libc", fm3.1a is, apparently,
dynamically linked with "libc".
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri)
Subject: Re: Sun3 questions
Organization: Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton (Plainsboro), NJ
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 01:30:18 GMT

>so I posted and so far the best offer is for a Sun3/80 motherboard with
>16M RAM.

>cost to do this? All that I can think of that we need is a case, powersupply,

Actually, if you're that poor, you could just rest the board on a convenient
insulating surface.  I believe that the power supply is plug-compatible with
that for an SS[12], which you should be able to find easily enough.

>need this one for the CPU. Is that really all we need? someone mentioned that
>we'd also need an I/O board, but they werent certain of this.

It'd be tough to add a board to a machine with no expansion bus.

Beware that the 3/80 has a "sun3x" kernel architecture, so if you don't have
3x os media you won't be able to boot it.

-- 

======================================================================8--<
From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: Is it Sunset yet?!?!
Date: 7 Jan 93 21:34:02 GMT
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara

>Dhrystone always used to be "copy null terminated string" intensive.
>(I think it was worse than that as the string being copying was a
>constant string). if you put in hardware support for strcpy then
>you got great results.

There's no "hardware support [specifically] for 'strcpy()'" in the SPARC
V8 architecture, which microSPARC implements; unless they've added some
such hack to microSPARC, that wouldn't explain it.

There may be some *other* feature of the Classic/LX that speeds it up,
e.g. an on-chip instruction cache, or something (*all* the caches
are on-chip on microSPARC, as far as I know).

>hence very fast when compared with C strcpy which had to
>read each byte and compare against 0!

Actually, the SunOS 4.x, and probably SunOS 5.x, SPARC version of
"strcpy()" doesn't read each byte; it moves 4 bytes at a time when it
can.
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.hardware:6766 comp.dcom.modems:19226
From: tibbs@math.uh.edu (Jason L Tibbitts III)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Is the Sun serial interface THAT bad?
Date: 10 Jan 93 02:15:07
Organization: Blob Shop Programmers
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu

I work with two Suns which are attached to modems: a SparcII hooked to a
Telebit T1600 and an old Sparc VME cage hooked to a T2500.  When I try to,
say, download some files with Zmodem (though spoofed Ymodem has the same
problem) I get bad packets and timeouts like crazy.  On the SparcII every
sixth 1K packet gets mangled, and on the old sparc it's every 13th packet.
Without fail.  If I require that each packet be individually ACKed, things
work and the transfer slows to glacial speeds.  Both machines are unloaded.
This suggests to me that a buffer somewhere is filling and flow control is
breaking down.

Is there any way to get a high speed transfer out of these machines?  If it
helps, at home I have a Worldblazer, but I never have any other problems
with it.

Thanks!

--
 Jason L. Tibbitts III - tibbs@math.uh.edu - 713/743-3466 - 685PGH
System Administrator:  University of Houston Mathematics Department
 Houston Centers for Advanced Scientific and Molecular Computation
Blob Shop Programmers: Database consulting and graphics programming
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: des@inmos.co.uk (David Shepherd)
Subject: Re: Is it Sunset yet?!?!
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 10:47:50 GMT

Guy Harris (guy@Auspex.COM) wrote:
: Maybe, maybe not.  Those are, I think, Dhrystone MIPS; the SPEC92
: numbers for the LX and Classic are closer to those for the SS2.  I'm
: curious whether Dhrystone is multiply-intensive or divide-intensive, in
: which case the microSPARC may be faster because it has multiply and
: divide instructions that run faster than the software version, or
: whether it's due to compiler differences, or library differences, or
: what.

Dhrystone always used to be "copy null terminated string" intensive.
(I think it was worse than that as the string being copying was a
constant string). if you put in hardware support for strcpy then
you got great results. when the t414 transputer came out some
one here coded the dhrystone benchmark in occam to give some
feel of the performance and got enourmously good figures (for that
time that is) - the reason? occam represented (constant) strings
using a representation that consisted of length and data so the
string copy was handled purely by telling the transputers move instruction
how many bytes to moves, which it would do at a rate of one word per
cycle - hence very fast when compared with C strcpy which had to
read each byte and compare against 0! great benchmark figures, but
in this case fairly meaningless.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
david shepherd: des@inmos.co.uk                     tel: 0454-616616 x 625
                inmos ltd, 1000 aztec west, almondsbury, bristol, bs12 4sq
                New Year Resolution for 1993: Start using capital letters.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.sys.sun.nets
From: kja@stekt5.oulu.fi (Kari Alakuijala)
Subject: Screen Sparc & Transceiver Cable Problem - pin #4
Reply-To: kja@stekt.oulu.fi
Organization: University of Oulu, Dept. of EE, Finland
Distribution: comp
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 20:52:39 GMT

We've had this setup working between a 386 PC and a Sun 2/120 for ages.

How come the transceiver ethernet connector of ELC doesn't work
normally according to spec.?  Sun ELC (4/25) and 386 PC won't talk via
Transceiver ethernet null-modem cable anymore like in Sun 2.

The error message in boot is simply 'le0 -no carrier.  Transceiver
cable problem'.  Nothing helps - we've tried to hardwire differential
signal 'Collision detect' both to 'no collision' & 'collision' too.

The only difference to standard ethernet is ****pin 4****?? on Sparc
Ethernet connector that is wired in addition to the usual pins
2,5,6 (gnd), 10, 13.

I wonder what signal goes on that pin 4?  The sparc works well when
brought into usual network.


-Kari
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: peter@tu-graz.ac.at (Peter Resele)
Subject: NEC CRD-74 on Sparc 2 Problems
Organization: Technical University of Graz, Austria
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 15:30:26 GMT

Hi there,

We are just trying to connect a NEC-CDR-74 to our Sparc. However we 
got problems when mounting the drive (using the command:
mount -r -t hsfs /dev/sr0 /cdrom
). We always get a data overrun error. Our Sun support engineer indicated
that it might have to do with block sizes (Sun expects always 512 bytes and
the NEC delivers 1024, he says.)

Has anybody experienced this problem and solved it?

Thank you very much in advance for your help!      

Peter Resele

e-mail: peter@piassun1.joanneum.ac.at 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: aad@siemens.com (Anthony Datri)
Subject: Re: formating a Micropolis 1375 with a Sun 3/80
Organization: Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton (Plainsboro), NJ
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 02:00:55 GMT

>I have some problems when trying to format a Micropolis 1375

It's the same as the 1355, which is in format.dat, but with a SCSI interface.


><Micropolis 1375 cyl 1022 alt 2 hd 8 sec 35>


disk_type = "Micropolis 1355" \
        : ctlr = MD21 \
        : ncyl = 1018 : acyl = 2 : pcyl = 1024 : nhead = 8 : nsect = 34 \
        : rpm = 3600 : bpt = 20832



>When I format it I get the following:

Why are you formatting it?  I had a bunch of these go through my hands, and
never found one that wasn't formatted.

I used to work for a vendor who only stopped shipping them when Micropolis
discontinued them.  They're slow and don't hold much, but toward the end I
was getting drives with *0* media defects on the factory's list.
-- 

======================================================================8--<
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: zippy@cs.brandeis.edu (Patrick Tufts)
Subject: Re: Old Sun question - HELP!!!!!
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:40:18 GMT

earle@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Greg Earle - Gainfully Unemployed) writes:

>In article <rcaldwel.726296968@ponder> rcaldwel@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Roger Caldwell) writes:
>>I have a old Sun Microsystems machine, model number Sun-2/120
>>
>>Could some kind soul PLEASE tell me what I have, is it good for anything.
[....]
>The memory boards have to be adjacent to the CPU board in slot 1, and they
>can go in slots 2, 3, 4 and 5, yielding a maximum of 4 Mb.

I believe the Sun 2/120 could also take a 4M board, yielding a maximul
of 7M with graphics display board, or 8M if you didn't want the nice
monitor.

>Your Sun-2/120 contains a Motorola MC68010 processor, running at 10 (?) MHz.

The 68010 differs from the 68000 in at least one neat way.  It could
sorta kinda cache a small number of instructions, making *very* tight
machine code loops (a few bytes long) run faster than usual.

[....]

>Basically, any modern PC will run rings around your old, tired warhorse.
>Seriously, ditch it and get a 486DX2/66 or 486DX/50-based PC clone system and
>run 386BSD (4.3BSD++ based) on it instead.  Send your Sun-2/120 to a museum ...
Nah.  Send it to me.  I'd love to have one up and running, for old
times' sake.

--Pat
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware