HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mjr@tis.com (Marcus J Ranum)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: Unix Review review of Alpha/OSF
Date: 22 Jan 1993 14:44:32 GMT
Organization: Trusted Information Systems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.tis.com

abstine@visix.com writes:
>Again, the assumption is that we're too stupid to manage our own systems
>and need to have own hands held to the utmost.

	That's not it at all. The assumption is that you're stupid enough
to keep paying for bugfixes for something you bought that was originally
broken. That "handholding" is a profitable business.
	It bothers me a lot that vendors (any vendor, but since this is
comp.sys.dec) are willing to sell something with as many stupid, braindamaged,
un-fixed-since-N-releases-ago-but-have-been-QARred-so-often-there's-a-FAQ
bugs in it, but they want to charge an arm and a leg to fix it. I have
no problem with a vendor telling me that if I want ULTRIX4.3 I need to
pay for it, but they should *FIX* my older version for a reasonable
amount of time and they should eat the cost of the bad software, not
pass it on to the customer.

mjr.
-- 
                                                 "guns don't die. people do."
From: goeke@space.mit.edu (Robert F. Goeke)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: What is an ESAR chip
Date: 21 Jan 93 19:11:37 GMT
Organization: MIT Center for Space Research

I got an upgrade kit to convert one of our 5000/200s to a 240.  In the
instructions they tell you to remove the ESAR chip (located in a socket on the
motherboard) from the 200 and put it into the 240.  'Course there already was an
ESAR chip in the 240 motherboard as shipped. . . but that's another story.  The
physical chip (a 16 pin DIP) is labled "ENET ADRS".

So what is it, and why whould you change it out?

-- 
Robert F. Goeke   [goeke@space.mit.edu]
   MIT Center for Space Research
   Cambridge, Massachusetts  02139
617-253-1910         FAX: 617-253-8084
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.unix.ultrix
From: janick@bnr.ca (Janick Bergeron)
Subject: TCP/IP on phone lines with DS3100
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 17:11:13 GMT

I am looking for something similar to SLIP (or SLIP itself)
to get TCP/IP through a modem connection between a DECstation
(remote) and LAN.

Any help would be appreciated.

Please reply via email.


Thanks
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
From: kujala@jyu.fi (Osmo Kujala)
Subject: Re: Convincing the management
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 10:11:28 GMT

mjr@tis.com (Marcus J Ranum) writes:

>cczanj@vax.nott.ac.uk (Andy Jack) writes:
>
>>Could this be the Dave Houghton that I sat next to when at Kings College
>>Londonin the 60's?
>
>	It might just be *A* Dave Houghton, not *THE* Dave Houghton. Since
>Chips&Technologies made the basic Houghton ASICs, there's been a glut of
>cheap copies coming in from the pacific rim. I've heard horror stories of
>folks who bought Daves and couldn't get them to talk to any of the other
>Daves in their Dave-pool. Signatics makes a few pretty good ones, and
>they're surprisingly cheap!
>
Now this opens our eyes. We believed we've got the original Dave Houghton
made by natural biological method in 1955 in Liverpool. Can't believe that
this was seen at Kings College in the 60's. But at least our Dave is a very
good fake (clone?). It even knows all the Cricket Terms. Say something Dave!
(Well, maybe we should go underground, I mean email)

Osmo Kujala   VMS system mangler
              Computing Centre
              Jyvaskyla University

PS. If somebody knows where to find statistics or something, that could
    show the developement of share (circulation) of operating systems
    please mail to me (kujala@jyu.fi) or Dave (houghton@jyu.fi) (Mainly
    I want to see how much and how fast unix is pushing away VMS)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.dsp
From: jbuck@forney.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.dsp
Subject: Re: "Are DSP Chips Obsolete?" (was re: Alpha fft performance)
Date: 21 Jan 1993 21:26:15 GMT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: forney.berkeley.edu

I would have let this one drop, but since a DEC employee wants to
bring it up again ...

In article <1993Jan21.172924.1979@rdg.dec.com> jpt@salama.fno.dec.com (Jari Tavi) writes:
>As a beginning, my personal opinion: I don't think that DSP's are
>obsolete.

Good for you.

>Cost, power consumtion and such other things are something that you
>could try asking if or when they are addressed by Alpha AXP. 21064
>will not be the only implementation...

TI, Motorola, and Analog Devices, as well as several Japanese companies,
have usable products for embedded real-time DSP available now (and for
much of the last decade).  If DEC is planning something in the future,
good for you, but the paper appeared to be an effort for DEC to excuse
itself for not being in the DSP market by claiming (falsely) that current
products were obsolete and that we should all switch to the Alpha.

>There's nothing in Alpha AXP architecture itself which conflicts with this.
>I do agree that 21064 as we see it today may not be something one would use
>in cellular phone or something similar, but Alpha isn't bad in issues like
>memory bandwith, context switches or interrupt latencies either... 

Yes, you can make a hell of a workstation with a 21064.  But are you
implying that DEC plans to enter the DSP market with an Alpha-based
product?  Somehow, I doubt it, not unless DEC wishes to lose even *more*
money.  I think that, if the paper from DEC's Cambridge research lab and
your comments are any indication, I suggest that DEC stick to markets it
knows something about.  The Alpha looks like a very fine design, something
to be proud of.  But it isn't good for everything.

Embedded real-time DSP isn't about very high performance number crunching
(except, of course, when it is).  It's about just enough number crunching
power to get the job done, with a design that makes it easy to verify that
real-time constraints are met (that is, you can count cycles accurately
and know that that is exactly how many cycles the operation will take).
It's about putting the whole system on a very small number of chips, or
on one chip (example: if you make a call that goes over a satellite
link, you're probably talking through a chip that implements the LMS
echo cancellation algorithm).  Lots of times, these things are ASICs
with a programmable DSP core.

>If you have need for High Performance embedded/real Time systems, please
>contact sales for product directions. Also Aeon has already implemented
>worlds fastest single boarder based on Alpha AXP :-)

If you're after getting the job done with products that are available
today, contact Motorola, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, or any of
a half dozen other companies who understand the DSP market and don't
go around publishing poorly conceived papers like "Are DSP Chips Obsolete?".



--
Joe Buck	jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu
Xref: sparky comp.sys.dec:7024 comp.unix.ultrix:9406
From: muswick@v32.uh.cwru.edu ()
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Re: Anybody heard of an RZ73?
Date: 21 Jan 1993 06:47:13 GMT
Organization: Image Analysis Center, Univ. Hospitals of Cleveland
Distribution: world
Reply-To: muswick@v32.uh.cwru.edu ()
NNTP-Posting-Host: max.uh.cwru.edu


The RZ73-MX and RZ73-VA are SCSI-2 disk drives for the AXP BA640 and
BA350 module storage enclosures.  I do not however have any info on
whether there are problems using these in standalone cabinets.

Also, you might want to ask your sales rep about the DEC DSP5350 and
DEC DSP3160 which are 5.25 inch 3.5GByte formatted and 3.5 inch 1.6GByte
formatted disk drives.  They are supposedly to be priced at $3495 and
$1995.  Now if that doesn't put DEC into the reasonable priced SCSI
disk drive market, nothing will.  I know the next system I purchase
is going to have one of these.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.unix.ultrix,comp.os.vms
From: maklinm@cognos.com (Max Maklin)
Subject: Re: Patches online, was Re: Unix Review review of Alpha/OSF
Organization: Cognos Incorporated, Ottawa CANADA
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 01:50:58 GMT

I will assume one of those others is Gail Grant.  She has been "spear-heading"
this for quite some time through the voice of users - CAB (Customary
Advisory Board).  It was my understanding that she has already submitted
something to the "powers to be", months ago. I believe she can be contacted
at grant@pa.dec.com (or something like that:)).

Looking forward to the next CAB ....

Max
-- 
Max Maklin                                                P.O. Box 9707 
Technical Analyst	                           3755 Riverside Drive
Cognos Incorporated                              Ottawa, Ontario CANADA
Internet: maklinm@cognos.COM                 UUNet: maklinm@cognos.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
From: zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Re: Unix Review review of Alpha/OSF
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 21:50:22 GMT

In article <1jp18gINN23e@sol.tis.com>, mjr@tis.com (Marcus J Ranum) writes:
> abstine@visix.com writes:
>>Again, the assumption is that we're too stupid to manage our own systems
>>and need to have own hands held to the utmost.
> 
> 	That's not it at all. The assumption is that you're stupid enough
> to keep paying for bugfixes for something you bought that was originally
> broken. That "handholding" is a profitable business.
> 	It bothers me a lot that vendors (any vendor, but since this is
> comp.sys.dec) are willing to sell something with as many stupid, braindamaged,
> un-fixed-since-N-releases-ago-but-have-been-QARred-so-often-there's-a-FAQ
> bugs in it, but they want to charge an arm and a leg to fix it. I have
> no problem with a vendor telling me that if I want ULTRIX4.3 I need to
> pay for it, but they should *FIX* my older version for a reasonable
> amount of time and they should eat the cost of the bad software, not
> pass it on to the customer.
> 

Yeah, well said. The morality of letting people get burned or killed ( and
before someone flames, read the post from the digit on this ) is above belief.
Yes, a patch can be faulty, or can booby trap other parts of the system. BUT,
with out sources, it is impossible to tell, and current licence conditions
forbid you to look!

If the people running Dec can't see the difference between an unexpected
error causing an accedent, and the same caused by the willful withholding of
information on a known problem, I only hope that there is a second vendor
of Alpha chips REAL SOON.

Once you used to feel that Dec was on your side...

~Paul
From: titus@dallas.sil.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: ALL-IN-1 PS table w/all fonts?
Date: 21 Jan 93 12:27:34 CST
Organization: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Dallas Center

  Anybody out there have a printer table for ALL-IN-1 that
provides access to ALL of the fonts on the DECLaser 2200
series PostScript(tm) card?  There are a couple of nice
fonts (Zapf Chancery & Zapf DingBats) that are not provided
via the standard PS table distributed with ALL-IN-1.  I'm
not a PostScript programmer, so I haven't the foggiest as to
where to start to add that functionality.  (Perhaps someone
at DEC might want to consider changing the PS table that is
distributed?)
  Please reply via e-mail, and I will gladly post anything
useful I hear to this group.

  Thanks in advance.

               * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mike Titus, Programmer                  /\   Summer Institute
SIL                                    /  \        of
7500 West Camp Wisdom Road            /SIL \   Linguistics
Dallas, Texas  75236-5699            --------
U.S.A.
Voice    : (214) 709-2400             * Internet <titus@dallas.sil.org>
Facsimile: (214) 709-3387             * UUCP     ...utafil!txsil!dalsil!titus

"I can do everything through Him who gives me strength."
      Philippians 4:13 (NIV)
From: root@lyra.scg.hac.com (Dave Fisher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: Is there a way to find ethernet addresses via software?
Date: 28 Jan 93 23:11:05 GMT
Reply-To: fisher@lyra.hac.com (Dave Fisher)
Organization: Hughes Aircraft Co., Carlsbad, CA

In article <24881@hacgate.SCG.HAC.COM> I asked:
  >Is there a method to find out a vaxes hardware ethernet address(es) 
  >through a software utility or command?  I'll summarize.

The easiest way appears to be the following:

  $ mcr ncp show known line characteristics

Thanks to Rick Colombo, Dr Bernhard Fabricius, and Alan Herrlich for their
kind replies to my query.

Dave Fisher     fisher@lyra.hac.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
From: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Subject: Re: Unix Review review of Alpha/OSF
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 13:21:29 GMT

In article <C182FK.GJ9@visix.com>, abstine@toy4x4.visix.com (Art Stine) writes:
|> [...]
|>            I think DEC is assuming that all their customers are stupid and
|> can't read instructions. For those of us who know what we're doing, let
|> us have the patches over the net; for those who aren't comfortable with
|> it, wait (and wait) to get the tape or have the problem 'fixed in the
|> next major release'. And besides, anyone who trusts patches and system
|> updates on tapes that much that they don't do a full backup BEFORE applying
|> them is just asking for trouble. I don't see any diff to getting them on
|> tape or over the net, except that: 1) it costs DEC less to distribute over
|> the net 2) we can get it alot quicker...

Surely the whole problem with protecting oneself against the legal
profession is that it's only the idiots who sue?

What does one do, then?

1) Post a disclaimer with the stuff saying "if you're an idiot, don't
even _think_ about trying to use this patch"

2) Go into court saying "the plaintiff is an idiot"

I can understand DEC's position, being as they're a large corporation
hung about with a corresponding number of corporate lawyers.  I don't
like it any more than does Art, but I really don't think it's because
DEC think all their customers are idiots.
--
Robin (Keep Radio 3 != Classic FM) Fairbairns       rf@cl.cam.ac.uk
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge  CB2 3QG, UK
From: alanmoore@yang.earlham.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: DFG Part of CSLG?
Date: 22 Jan 93 17:44:26 GMT
Organization: Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana

Does anyone know if DFG, DEC's defragger, is part of the CSLG, or if it 
ever will be?  I know motif isn't because DEC didn't actually write it or 
some such thing, and I am wondering if DFG falls under the same class.

Thanks,
Alan Moore                              alanmoore@yang.earlham.edu
System/Network Manager, Postmaster      (317)983-1437
Earlham College
Richmond, IN
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
Subject: Re: Unix Review review of Alpha/OSF
Followup-To: abstine@visix.com
Reply-To: ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE
Organization: SUNET, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 00:42:41 GMT

In article <C182FK.GJ9@visix.com>, abstine@toy4x4.visix.com (Art Stine) writes:
> I don't see any diff to getting them on
> tape or over the net, except that: 1) it costs DEC less to distribute over
> the net 2) we can get it alot quicker...

This is a gratuitous statement. A small 300ft tape holds a couple dozen
megabytes of data, uncompressed. The post office will (in Europe) deliver
overnight for 3 to 10 dollars, and there are private carriers which can do
better and/or cheaper, especially in large urban areas and if you mail a lot of
tapes from the same place every day.

Now look at your "cheap and fast" Internet solution. Every day there are
hundreds to thousands of customers requesting a patch for one product or
another. Nowadays small self-documented source patches are a rarity, the normal
patch replaces a number of object modules and includes instructions and
installation procedures. If you want all these customers to be able to retrieve
this data during working hours (if they do it overnight you won't be faster
than the post office) and at a reasonable speed (say, 10 kilobytes per second,
and that's already a looooooooong FTP for my little 300ft tape), you have to
have a hell of a fast Internet connection, which you have to hire people to
take care of. Then you still have to keep a backup delivery mechanism
operational in case the Internet is down and your customers can't wait. And
when all that is ready, you'll find out many segments of the Internet aren't
quite big enough to provide decent service to your customers, and who do you
think they will complain to?

  Eric
From: ddl@burrhus.harvard.edu (Dan Lanciani)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: MicroVax 3100 questions
Date: 26 Jan 93 01:34:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: burrhus.1993Jan26.013429.22054
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Is it possible to get the single modem-control-capable port to
do RTS/CTS flow control?

What kind of memory expansion is available?  (There are currently 4MB.)

There is a small ``telco-style'' connector (not the SCSI) labeled 4-11
which seems to be for 8 more serial ports.  There is also a male DD-50
labeled B1.  These connectors appear to connect to a paddle board (and
there isn't any obvious place for an additional option board).  What are
they for?

This is an older 3100 (not 3100/xxx) and is running Ultrix 3.1.

				Thanks,
				Dan Lanciani
				ddl@harvard.*
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.dsp
From: jpt@salama.fno.dec.com (Jari Tavi)
Subject: Re: "Are DSP Chips Obsolete?" (was re: Alpha fft performance)
Reply-To: jpt@rixrax.enet.dec.com (Jari Tavi)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 10:05:06 GMT



I do not think that Digital is planning "attacking" DSP markets, but
instead there will be more applications and solutions where DSP isn't
needed anymore to get the same (or better) level of functionality.

I agree with that the title of article is quite "provocative".

Sorry I opened this rathole again ;-)

Happy Signal Processing with the solution that suits your needs best :-)

	-jari

--
===============================================================================
Full-Name:      Jari Tavi			
Organization:   DEC Finland                     Dept:           DS/OSG
Tel:            +358-0-434 5252	                Fax:            +358-0-452 1392 
E-mail:         jpt@rixrax.enet.dec.com
Address:        Digital Equipment Corporation Oy
                PL 16
                02201 Espoo
                FINLAND
===============================================================================
* All opinions are my personal, and do not necessarily represent opinions of
* my employer!
From: bjarni@diku.dk (Henrik V. Drab|l)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Creat(ed) DECW dies after 8 min.
Date: 21 Jan 93 09:27:51 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

After receiving some advice from the net, I have installed a
COMmand file under VMS, to start a DECWindow at the request of
Xcursion. The script:

$ Create/TERM alli
$Exit

Now I have an alli icon in Xcursion HOWEVER the window that is created
works fine for only 8 minutes, then it dies! without any further notice!
It just disappears! 

Can anyone help me with this?

regards, Henrik
From: doyle@freya.cs.umass.edu (Jim Doyle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: VS2000/Ultrix-4.2 : Serial Port problems?
Date: 25 Jan 93 15:52:52 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst


	Could anyone confirm problems using the on-board 
comm port on a VAXStation 2000 under Ultrix 4.2A ???

	I suspect an interrupt latency or priority problem
w/ this device in the Ultrix 4.2 implementation. Awhile
back I was testing a SLIP server by attaching a Mac to
the back-end of the VAX and logging into it to start
sessions. After a few minutes of exerting SLIP traffic
over the hardwired connection - the kernel would panic
and crash dump. The only error log messages I could find was
a SILO overflow warning. 

	SInce that point - the machine has been in service
providing dial-up SLIP service over LAT connections to our
Xyplex. There have been no panics , crash-dumps or 
slowdowns even when I saturate multiple connections with
traffic.

	Just want to confirm the suspicion if anyone 
else has observed the same problem.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Jim Doyle 	Univ. of Massachusetts - Dept. of Computer Science

Staff Programmer	PPUMA/DCC/CNET	 email:	doyle@gaia.cs.umass.edu

office:		Lederle GRC Room A203	 Tel.  413-545-3179
home  :		91 Blackberry Ln         Tel.  413-549-1409
		Amherst,MA 01002-1516	
							
Xref: sparky comp.sys.dec:7162 comp.unix.ultrix:9529
From: gary@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: What's an RC25 please??
Date: 28 Jan 93 17:53:27 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England

The title says it all.

Thanks in advance... gary
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
From: root@toneal.Berkeley.EDU (System PRIVILEGED Account)
Subject: CD-ROMs & S/W available at no cost to qualified ISVs 
Keywords:  CD free ISV DEC Digital
Organization:  DEC Independent Software Vendor Group (ISVG)
  Digital Equipment Corporation's  Independent Software Vendor Group (ISVG)
  offers assistance to the 3rd party software development community for the
  purpose of developing application software for the software marketplace.
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 19:54:16 GMT

  * Selected early releases of DEC's operating systems and development
    environments and application porting tools (See details below)

  * Significant hardware discounts

  * Digital's PartnerNetwork for technical and marketing assistance

  * Porting Centers for no-cost use of DEC systems for application development
===============================================================================
  ISVG is offering no-cost software loans to qualified ISVs.

  Current offerings include:

  *  DEC OSF/1 for Alpha AXP Operating System (beta release); and,
     all currently available Digital-developed layered products for this
     environment, e.g. compilers, etc.

  *  OpenVMS for Alpha AXP Operating System V. 1.0; and,
     all currently available Digital-developed layered products for this
     environment, e.g. compilers, etc.

  *  OpenVMS VAX (beta release, V. 6.0)

  *  RISC Ultrix to DEC OSF/1 AXP Porting Toolkit


  Eligibility:

  1) Software developers must enroll in DEC's Independent Software Vendor (ISV)
     no-cost program.
     Call 1-800-DEC-ISVN (in USA), 001-508-467-4640 (outside USA),
     or send mail to:

                 isv_support@isvnet.enet.dec.com

  2) Complete a "loan of products" form which ISVG will send you upon your
     request following your enrollment in the program as an ISV.

  Costs:  None

  Media:  All software is delivered on CD-ROMs, including most documentation.

===============================================================================
Full-Name:      Tim O'Neal 			
Organization:   DEC, ISVG
Tel:            001-508-467-3387              Fax: 001-508-467-1620
                001-800-DEC-ISVN
E-mail:         oneal@xlib.enet.dec.com
Address:        Digital Equipment Corporation 
                Independent Software Vendor Group (ISVG)
                MS: MRO4-1/H19
                4 Results Way
                Marlborough, MA
                01752-1620
===============================================================================
Xref: sparky comp.sys.dec:7055 comp.unix.ultrix:9424