HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: BrianW@SoundS.WA.com (Brian Willoughby)
Subject: nbuf > 255 == panic (was Re: Nitro)
Reply-To: BrianW@SoundS.WA.com
Organization: SoundSoftware, Bellevue, WA, USA
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 03:01:55 GMT

andrew@cubetech.com writes
|  bense@heart4 (Booker C. Bense) writes:
| >-I've found 64 to work fine for me on a 20meg '040 Mono NeXTstation. 
| 
| I use 64 on my workstation (NSC 32/400) and 128 on my server (NSC
| 20/big_drives) and performance is just really zippy.  Only the system,
| tmp, and paging ocurrs on the local machine.  My home-directory,
| /usr/local, and /Local* are all on the server.  The server also is the
| mail and news host, and the compile server...
| 
| works great.

I can't remember how this thread started, but I assume that the numbers 64 and  
128 refer to values for the nbuf parameter when booting the NeXT.

In any event, I'd like to share the solution (at least it seems to work so far)  
to a problem I've had ever since installing Release 3.0: namely, I had been  
booting with nbuf set to 359 on my 28MB NeXTcube.  A local Unix-head suggested  
that NeXT's cache limit of 10% of the installed RAM was far too small - and  
therefore recommended the maximum setting possible.  For 28MB RAM, 2.79MB was  
the highest amount I could allocate using nbuf=359

All was well until I installed 3.0 and starting experiencing at least one  
system panic per day.  Each time, the line in /usr/adm/messages read something  
like this:
Sep 29 09:39:05 sounds mach: panic: (Cpu 0) No more room in kernel map

At least one other Usenet posting mentioned trouble with system panics which  
logged this same message.

A call to NeXT Systems Support was returned the next business day with the  
suggestion that I either get more RAM, or reduce nbuf below 256.  The engineer  
stated that the 3.0 kernel was now larger and that there were known problems  
with high nbuf values, but that 255 had been verified as safe to use.

If you have less than 19.9MB of System RAM, the kernel will limit the cache to  
10% of your RAM regardless of your setting and you'll probably be safe.
-- 
Brian Willoughby	Software Design Engineer, BSEE NCSU
BrianW@SoundS.WA.com	Sound Signal Processing Software and Consulting
NeXTmail welcome	- NO EMAIL SOLICITATION without prior permission
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: rcd@cs.brown.edu (Robert C Duvall)
Subject: Dead NeXT :(
Organization: Brown Computer Science Dept.
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 04:31:57 GMT

A friend of mine was working with Mathematica on my '040 cube.  After finishing 
his session he tried to close one of the windows.  My machine's cursor starting 
spinning and never stopped.  After letting it spin for 45 minutes, I unplugged
the machine (the keyboard power key did nothing and the mouse was useless).

After 30 seconds or so, I turned the machine back on and watched it try 
unsuccessfully to boot.  I looked at the machines progress in the ROM monitor -
all of the system tests checked out, but it could not seem to find my HD :(
The error messages reported by the ROM monitor when I tried to boot were:

   sc: selection failed
   ...<lots of these>
   no SCSI device

Is this a fried chip problem or a messed up file table problem?  After 45 
minutes of silence (no disk accesses), I thought that it would have flushed 
its chaches.

In general, where do I go from here?  I have no means (either optical, CD,
or floppy) of booting my machine and no way of doing diagnostics.

Please reply by email to rcd@cs.brown.edu.
Thanks in advance :)
rcd
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: jmd@cube.handheld.com (Jim De Arras)
Subject: Re: Nitro
Organization: Hand Held Products, Inc.
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:01:57 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.152211.20694@news.th-darmstadt.de>  
uli@kino.intellektik.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (Ulrich Grepel) writes:
> In article <1992Oct6.133611.6559@cube.handheld.com>, jmd@cube.handheld.com  
(Jim De Arras) writes:
> |> 
> |> I'm afraid you are not in touch with reality, here!  Even the current NeXT  
> |> apologists admit it's slower.  I have 32 meg of ram, and do not normally  
swap  
> |> to disk.  And a 1.4 gb harddisk, and do not usually access data from the  
> |> network.
> |> The same setup as before, only 30-50% slower in the user interface.
> |> 
> |> Jim
> I don't think that 32 meg of ram is really enough to stop any swapping. Do a  
ps xua and
> add the vsize values - you will get a result that is much higher than ram  
size plus
> swapfile size. Partly that comes from executables (not only) that are loaded  
directly, without
> copying them to the swapfile, the other parts I would love to know about. So  
sure
> you have less swapping, but not none.
> 
> Uli

I don't beleive I said 'none'  I said my system does not normally swap, perhaps  
that was not clear, but I mean that in operating most apps, there is normally  
no disk activity after the program and files have loaded.  There is, of course,  
no amount of ram that will fit a NeXT that will stop swapping completely.

Jim
From: cooper%midkemia@plains.nodak.edu (Jeff Cooper)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: 14.4 FAX modems
Date: 8 Oct 92 16:01:45 GMT
Reply-To: cooper%midkemia@plains.nodak.edu (Jeff Cooper)
Organization: North Dakota State University

I'm going to be upgrading to a better modem soon and I've pretty much  
narrowed the field down to a Supra or a Zyxel (sp?).  I want to be able to  
FAX with the modem and was wondering if the NXFax software is the only FAX  
software on the market right now?  Does anyone know if it works with both  
modems or only the Zyxel and how much it is?

I'd like to hear from anyone who has used either type of modem and any  
problems you might have had with it.  I'd like to know a good place to buy  
from (someone that will be around in the next couple of years and has  
decent tech support and good prices).

Thanks for any information.

-- 
Jeff Cooper
NeXTmail: cooper%midkemia@plains.nodak.edu
	  uunet!plains!midkemia!cooper
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware,comp.sys.next.misc
From: erland@spock.physik.uni-konstanz.de (Erland Wittkoetter)
Subject: E-mail adress of   Dove Computer Corporation
Reply-To: erland@spock.physik.uni-konstanz.de (Erland Wittkoetter)
Organization: Uni Konstanz
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 08:02:37 GMT


Hey

I can remember, that I have seen the Email Adress of Dove Computer
Corporation. (They produce the DoveFAX !) 

I remember only:
           support@....

I am looking for the E-mail Adress.
The  Fax-Number would also be helpful.

Does anyone know this ??

Thanks 

Erland
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++ Erland Wittkoetter ++++++++++++++++++++++++
Uni Konstanz, Dept.of Physics, LS Dehnen, PO.Box 5560, W-775 Konstanz
 Phone: +(49) 7531-88-3747	 FAX. +(49) 7531-88-3888
(priv.) Abendbergweg 7, 775 Konstanz, Germany,     Phone :07531-43078
E-mail: erland@spock.physik.uni-konstanz.de
        phwitt@nyx.uni-konstanz.de
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: mroosen@prl.philips.nl (Monique Roosen)
Subject: Which PC Configuration for running NeXT Step ??
Reply-To: mroosen@prl.philips.nl
Organization: Information & Software Technology, Philips Eindhoven
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 12:38:02 GMT

Hello,

I'm asking this on behalf of a friend of mine who has no access to News.
Please send all responses to his e-mail address : vdaele@ieper.lhs.be

************************************************************************
Which PC configuration is needed to run NeXT Step on a PC.
I want to buy one right now, but I want to be able to run  NeXT Step.

Many thanks in advance !!

Regards,
Marc van Daele

***********************************************************************
-- 
+-----								         -----+
| Monique Roosen          		"It's not that I'm afraid to die.     |
| Internet: mroosen@prl.philips.nl    	 I just don't want to be there when   |
+----- 					 it happens"     -- Woody Allen. -----+
From: sasha1@cats.ucsc.edu (Lars Elias Pave)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Toshiba CD Player Works
Date: 13 Oct 1992 17:03:00 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: si.ucsc.edu



	To add to the list of CD Players that work with NeXT, the Toshiba 
TXM3301E1 works great. It's slow as a dog, but that goes for all of them.

				
					Sasha Pave
					"computers of color"

Xref: sparky comp.sys.next.hardware:2052 comp.sys.next.misc:20842
From: ronchet@itnsg1.cineca.it (Marco Ronchetti)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware,comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: HELP! My station died...
Keywords: help
Date: 12 Oct 92 08:34:04 GMT
Organization: Laboratorio di Fisica Computazionale, INFM. Trento Italia

I have a 25 Mhz station (8/400) which suddenly died right after installing
3.0.
While I was working, the whole screen went white (it actually repeats over and over a stripe of the "monitor" screen). I could not even turn the 
machine off, neither would alt-command-' do anything. So I detached
the power cable. When I turned the machine on, at first it tried fsck
finding that the filesystem was badly damaged (I guess from the sudden
death), and then again I had the white screen.

I thought it might have been something with the disk, so I changed it
(I just had an additional new 400 Megs disk).
The machine booted nicely. I re-installed 3.0, loaded a handful of PD
programs to let the system use all its (little) memory and do lots of 
paging for a few hours.

Happily I started to work again, and after a few hours the same story
again: white screen...

Any idea of what can be wrong? Thanks

Please answer to me (ronchet@itnsg1.cineca.it)

	Marco Ronchetti
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: todd@liveware.com
Subject: Re: High Availability for NeXTs
Keywords: Redundancy
Reply-To: todd@liveware.com
Organization: Liveware Corporation   Fort Collins, CO.  USA.
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 19:54:46 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.210010.8108@almserv.uucp> rmcghee@fnma.com(Rich McGhee)  
writes:
> Has anybody spent anytime thinking about or working on a High Availability  
> solution for NeXT machines?  That is, redundant disk drives, two machines  
> that switch over when one goes down?  Any ideas?
> 
> --
> Rich McGhee
> Federal National Mortgage Association
> 3900 Wisconsin Avenue, 4S-2H
> Washington DC 20016
> NeXTMail: rmcghee@fnma.COM

When I talked to next about fault tolerance in their systems,
meaning I was interested in redundant disk drive and down
time they said "Why you asking?".  Finally I was told that RDD
was not supported and would not be in the near future.

I too would like to know if anyone is interested in these
topics and have discussed it with NeXT/3rd parties and
what was said.  Again, NeXT gave me the feeling (about
8 months ago) that they didn't care.  I wonder if this
has changed any since they are focusing in MCCA and
this is a prime location for such issues.

Todd Nathan
Liveware Corporation
-- 
--
Todd Nathan			Voice: (303) 484-7607 (w)
Liveware Corporation		Email: <todd@liveware.com>

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: nevin@dtint.dtint.com
Subject: Re: connecting HP48SX to NeXTstation turbo
Reply-To: nevin@dtint.dtint.com
Organization: Digital Technology, International
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 20:05:47 GMT

In article <BvtztK.19E@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> klenfest@cerberus.UWaterloo.ca  
(Kurt Lenfesty) writes:
> Is it possible to connect a NeXTstation turbo to a
> HP48SX calculator?  I know there is a Mac cable kit
> out there for it, but I believe the interface would
> be for RS-422 and not RS-423.  Will it work?
> Also, is there a Kermit program for the NeXT?
> Please let me know.
> 
> Thanks.		klenfest@zeus.UWaterloo.ca
> 	or	kdlenfesty@1308.watstar.UWaterloo.ca

I used to have an HP-48SX.  Hooked it up to a Sun Sparc 1+ (at work), and to my  
NeXT Cube (at home)-- no problem.  You just need kermit on the computer, plus  
the right cable.

Since the cable has a weird connector on the calculator-side, buy the cable  
from HP (or just buy their IBM interface kit, which includes the cable).   
Kermit for the NeXT can be had from the purdue server (send 'help' as subject  
in an email message to 'archive-server@cc.purdue.edu').


--
NeXTmail preferred, but ONLY at my REAL email address: nevin@dtint.dtint.com

-- 
---
root	                               root@dtint.dtint.com
Digital Technology Int.                (801)226-2984	
500 W. 1200 South, Orem UT, 84057      FAX (801) 226-8438
From: ngan_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Attaching third party drives - how?
Date: 14 Oct 1992 17:18:17 GMT
Organization: Wellington City Council (Public Access), Wgtn, Nz
Reply-To: ngan_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
NNTP-Posting-Host: kosmos.wcc.govt.nz

Our group is looking to add a large hard drive to onto a 040 cube. The  
drives of interest are:

Manufacturer  capacity  access time
Toshiba       1.2 GB    12.5 ms
Maxtor        1.2 GB    13   ms
Seagate       1.2 GB    16   ms

Has anyone successfully used any of these drives? If we are to break new  
ground, what information regarding the drive do we need to do the job?  
Does a step-by-step recipe exist for the adding of untried disks?

Regards
Phillip

--
Phillip M Ngan, Research Associate
Biomedical Information Communication Center
Oregon Health Sciences University
3181 S.W. Sam Jackson Park Road             Tel (wk): (503) 494-6056
Portland, OR 97201-3098                     Fax:      (503) 494-4551
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA                    Email:    nganp@ohsu.edu
From: Antoine@osd.ulaval.ca (Antoine Gautier)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Setting the mouse response
Keywords: mouse
Date: 7 Oct 92 22:36:27 GMT
Reply-To: Antoine@osd.ulaval.ca    (Antoine Gautier)
Organization: Universite Laval

Is there a way to get the mouse to react like a mac mouse, without the strange  
acceleration stuff (i am developing tendinitis)?
I tried MouseAccel, but the pointer jumps by 1/4 in when i set on high speed, so I  
loos all accuracy.

Thks for your answers

+---------------------------------------------+
| Antoine Gautier                             +
| De'partement O.S.D.                         +
| Faculte' des sciences de l'administration   +
| Universite Laval                            +
| Quebec.                                     +
+---------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: tilley@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Richard Tilley)
Subject: Re: Printer Offset problems
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 06:53:58 GMT

In <92286.144154U12688@uicvm.uic.edu> e-Floyd B. Hanson,  UIC <U12688@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:

>The offset on my NeXtPrinter suddenly changed for whatever print jobs I have
>tried.  In addition, the test page also comes out badly shifted.

>How do I reset the printer offsets for all printing?

Check that the little green tab on the paper tray is set to "letter".

If that doesn't help, try cutting the Blue wire that attaches to the micro-switches
that the little green tab presses. Leave the Red, Green, and Black wires intact.
-- 
This space is not blank!
From: bill@mathnx.math.byu.edu (Bill Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Re: NeXT dimension prices
Date: 16 Oct 1992 14:40:14 GMT
Organization: Brigham Young University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: mathnx.math.byu.edu
Keywords: board, monitors

Re: NeXT dimension board -
A number of people sent (edu) pricing information when I asked about it here.
Some at least were not clear about whether the (median) price of 
$3,500  included a monitor or whether that (as I assume) is another
$2K.   $5,500 is a bit more than I can get support for at this point.
-Bill

--
Professor William V. Smith
Phone: 1-801-378-2061 Fax: 1 801 378 2800
email: smithw@hamblin.math.byu.edu  or  uunet!hamblin.math.byu.edu!smithw
NeXTmail: bill@mathnx.math.byu.edu
SMail: Math Dept. -- 314 TMCB; BYU; Provo, UT 84602 (USA)
From: lee@pipe.cs.wisc.edu (Soo Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Re: Two OD drives on one cube?
Date: 14 Oct 92 18:09:11 GMT
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept

In article <1992Oct14.144034.28012@imagine.com> Harold Brokaw <harold_brokaw@imagine.com> writes:
>When the original cubes were shipped, the cable to the Optical Disk drive
>had a connector for a second drive attatched to it. Is it possible to
>connect up two Optical Disk Drives to a cube using this cable? Has
>anyone ever done this?
>
No problem. But don't try it with extra FH HD. If you have to connect all
three drives, 2 ODs and 1 HD, use a big fan to cool them down.
BTW, I tried it with NS 1.0a only.

Soo	lee@cs.wisc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn)
Subject: ADB options for current NeXT owners
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 22:45:04 GMT

In the thread on:
   Re: Yet another confirmation of the demise of the '040 cube
       (was: Re: keyboard/mouse question)

cain@silverblue.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Sebastian Nightingale Cain) writes:
> gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) writes:
> > jeffo@uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens) writes:
> > > Is buying a Turbo board possible (just the board for the cube, not
> > > the cube shell itself)?  If so, how much is list price on that?
> >
> > It isn't on our price list (the price list for the store), but it
> > might be available from someone who is certified to do NeXT
> > hardware servicing.
> 
> Lest we forget, putting a turbo board in an older cube renders your OD  
> unusable, even though the software still supports it. (am I wrong here?)

I am pretty sure you are correct.  You can't keep your internal OD drive if  
you move up to the Turbo board.  This might be an awfully good reason to  
*not* upgrade by buying a Turbo board, even if that did give you the ADB  
keyboard option...

What I'd like to see is some kind of converter, such that you could plug in  
an ADB keyboard on one side and take the other side and plug it into the  
plug (on the NeXT) for the old-style keyboard.  Does anyone know if this is  
feasible, or how much it would cost?  I already know a few people who would  
be interested in such a gadget, if it could be made.

For my purposes this gadget would not have to work with "any old" ADB  
device.  It would be fine if all the gadget could support was the new ADB  
keyboard and mouse that NeXT is selling.

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =     gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer            (handles NeXT-type mail)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;           Troy NY    USA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: jchin@prodigy.bc.ca (Joe Chin)
Subject: Re: Incomplete transfers on the SCSI bus
Reply-To: jchin@prodigy.bc.ca
Organization: Prodigy Technologies Corp.
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 10:49:48 GMT

In article <e6so02jx24js01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> kls30@cd.amdahl.com (Kent L. Shephard) writes:
>I have a Micropolis 1588 - 669MB drive.  I have a problem.
>When this drive is sharing the bus I get incomplete transfer error messages.
>This also hoses the UNIX file system on the disk during boot.
>If the drive is on the bus by itself I don't get any problems.
>If the onther device is on the bus alone I don't get any errors.
>
>ANyone have any idea of the problem and/or how to solve it.
>This happens no matter what the second device is.  It has happened
>with just about every device I've tried.  These devices include a SUN CD-rom,
>Quantum LPS-105, and a PLI CD-rom.  THe only device that has been able
>to work with the drive has been a Maxtor 200MB hard drive.
>
>BTW - The system is a NeXTcube with 16MB of ram.
>

The problem is with the 1588's firmware. Just contact Micropolis tech support (a bunch of very nice people) and ask for a firmware upgrade. This will fix your problem.

Joe
---
Joseph Chin				Prodigy Technologies Corp.
jchin@prodigy.bc.ca (NeXTmail welcome)	Vancouver, British Columbia
phone 16046874636 / fax 16046871671	Canada  V6Z 2H6
 **** "Heaven won't take me and Hell's afraid I'll take over!" ****
From: ns111310@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Nate Sammons)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: ****WANTED****  USED NeXT PRINTER
Date: 12 Oct 92 03:29:53 GMT
Organization: Colorado State U. Engineering College


Hello,

I am looking for a used NeXT printer.  Hopefully low use,
please email if interested


+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|   Nate Sammons                                                   |
|   PLEASE EMAIL at <ns111310@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu>           |
|                                                                  |
|  "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work.           |     
      
|   I want to achieve immortality through not dying." -Woody Allen |
|                                                                  |
|  "We are the children of concrete and steele....                 |
|   ..everything is possible, but nothing is real." -Living Colour |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: nevin@dtint.dtint.com
Subject: Re: Nitro (medium - long)
Reply-To: nevin@dtint.dtint.com
Organization: Digital Technology, International
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 14:36:15 GMT

In article <BvysJq.32x@access.digex.com> hacker@access.digex.com (Dark Hacker)  
writes:
> 
> My biggest complaint are the new icons.  GOD those things are ugly.  And not
> just a couple of them.  EVERY SINGLE ONE is hideously rendered.  I thought
> the old "folder" icon was dumb looking but the new one is just plain stupid
> looking.  And the mailbox.  Yuk!  It looks like they were trying for some  
kind
> of enhanced perspective effect but it comes off really bad.  Please oh
> please oh please NeXT PLEASE bring back the old icons and ditch these  
turkeys!
> 

You must have a grayscale monitor.

> -- 
> Dark Hacker @ Black Silicon, Fortress Of Computation
> Phone: (703) 356-6514    Internet: hacker@black-silicon.mclean.va.us
> 
> "I am the very instantiation of object oriented evil!"

--
NeXTmail preferred, but ONLY at my REAL email address: nevin@dtint.dtint.com

-- 
---
root	                               root@dtint.dtint.com
Digital Technology Int.                (801)226-2984	
500 W. 1200 South, Orem UT, 84057      FAX (801) 226-8438
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: avery@cmn7.Stanford.EDU (Avery Wang)
Subject: disk access bandwidth
Reply-To: avery@ccrma.Stanford.EDU
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 21:19:11 GMT

Hi NeXTies-
I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of some  
information regarding the speed of the NeXT disk accesses.  I remeber that  
the NeXT040 cube had a really miserable disk transfer rate of about  
400K/sec.
Has that number improved in the newer machines?  If so which ones? And  
what are the transfer rates nowadays?

Thanks,
-Avery Wang
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson)
Subject: Re: Ethernet?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 22:29:31 GMT

fo6r@ellis.uchicago.edu (Eric 'Bird' Fortune) writes:


>Oh, and when comparing NeXT's to SUN's, perhaps you should also remember the
>obvious. SUNs smoke NeXTs in terms of raw horsepower.  Give me a NeXT

(not a flame at all)
Not always... depends on what models you're talking about.  Someone
posted some numbers a while back that indicated that a NeXT Turbo is
just a bit slower than a Sparc 2, and faster than a Sparc 1+.  When
you take cost into consideration, you realize that NeXT kills in the
$/mips battle right now.
Of course, if you're talking about a Sparc 10, it's a different
story.  
-- 
David Lemson                                                (217) 244-1205
University of Illinois NeXT Campus Consultant / CCSO NeXT Lab System Admin
Internet : lemson@uiuc.edu                UUCP :...!uiucuxc!uiucux1!lemson 
NeXTMail accepted                                  BITNET : LEMSON@UIUCVMD
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware