HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: laut@alien.gici.com (Bill Laut)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: BRL-CAD for animation on Indigos??
Date: 9 Oct 92 18:50:34 GMT
Organization: Gull Island Consultants, Inc.



	There is a software package which is obtainable from the Ballistics
Research Laboratory of the U.S. Army, called "BRL-CAD".  We're thinking of 
using it as the foundation for an in-house computer animation system, to
make feature-length animated motion pictures.  It obstensively will be run on
either Indigos and/or VAXes or a combination thereof.

	Is there anyone out there who has experience with BRL-CAD, and would
please comment on this via e-mail?  We're looking for any technical advice,
anecdotes, etc., that you feel would be relevant.  Thanks in advance!

-- 
Bill Laut			Internet:  laut@alien.gici.com
Gull Island Consultants, Inc.	Phone:     (616) 780-3321
P.O. Box 627
Muskegon, MI  49440		>> "Usual disclaimers, apply within" <<
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: trich@crow.omni.co.jp (Timothy Richards)
Subject: Re: IP12 client nfs slow
Reply-To: trich@crow.omni.co.jp
Organization: Omnibus Japan, Inc.
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 05:58:32 GMT

> I have been somewhat suspicious of the ethernet performance on
> 4D series machines with IP12 cpus.  I decided that as we have
> quite a variety of machines it would be interesting to see the
> results of running spray from each machine to our main server.

After doing some more tests I found that there is no problem
with ethernet performance on these machines.
It turns out that spray does not give a good indication
of ethernet/nfs performance, it seems to indicate that IP12
machines' ethernet is slower but they are not.  Apologies.....
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy Richards, Omnibus Japan.		work: +81 (3) 5706-8357
[Uucp]      ccut.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp!crow!trich	home: +81 (3) 3720-4088
[Internet]  trich@omni.co.jp
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: tlynchhuw@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: XView 3.0 fonts again (help!)
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 23:49:56 GMT


Subject: Xview 3.0 fonts on SGI machines.

Has anyone come up with a patch or resource(s) to fix xview3 to read the right 
fonts on SGI machines? Other than renaming the fonts (which my sys. admin. 
doesn't like) the following every-time-you-log-in commands have been
suggested (they work) :-

		xset +fp /usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi
		xset fp rehash

There was talk of creating font alias' files. Has anyone managed to set them
up correctly? If so could you send me a copy of them?

Thanks in advance for any help you give,

Huw
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Hook SGI CD-ROM drive to Adaptec 1542/B and whimpy DOS?
Date: 14 Oct 92 05:31:56 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <1992Oct13.154054.2061@sequent.com> tima@sequent.com (Timothy Alan Anderson) writes:
| I know this one is bordering on a FAQ, but I have to ask again just in
| case any new information has developed...
| 
| I have the SGI CD-ROM hooked up to an Adaptec 1542/B. It can read the
| device type string OK, but none of the CD-ROM drivers will work at all. This
| is not too surprising, given that the SGI CD-ROM has that fantastic
| 'proprietary' EPROM stuck in it. Is there any way to get this drive to 
| respond like a CD-ROM drive? Toshiba sez "Send it to us and we will rip
| out the EPROM and give you a new one." I seemed to remember that there was
| some way that this thing could run under DOS given the correct SCSI
| incantations... I geuss a switch on the back that read 'SGI - the rest of
| the industrialized world' would have been too much to ask ;-)

The logical block size defaults to 512 bytes instead of 2048 (same
as Sun's CD-ROM drives) so that old SGI cpu PROMs can use it for
booting.  I think DEC ended up doing the same thing for similar
reasons.  Next 'solved' the problem by requiring you to boot a program
from floppy first (too bad if you don't have a floppy...).  Backwards
compatibility compels us to do some pretty ugly things, but this one
isn't *that* bad.

The only way to 'fix' it for systems that expect more common
(I hesitate to say 'standard') behavior, is to write a program
that resets the logical block size to 2048 via modeselect.  That
needs to be done every time the drive is powercycled, or there
is a SCSI bus reset.

scsicntl.exe is supposed to be able to do this, and should be
available to everybody who has an adaptec board.

--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
From: sgi.com!pdi!shoshana@BRL.MIL (Shoshana Abrass)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Yet another difference in 4.X? newaliases
Date: 15 Oct 92 19:48:09 GMT


  We have the following in our sendmail.cf file:

# location of alias file
OA/usr/lib/aliases
# wait up to x (originally ten) minutes for alias file rebuild
Oa3
# rebuild alias file
OD

  By my reading, this means that whenever a new copy of sendmail 
  starts up - for example, when outgoing mail is being processed - 
  sendmail should check the /usr/lib/aliases file and rebuild 
  the .pag and .dir files if they're out of date.

  This worked fine under 3.3.x, and I didn't notice any problems 
  under 4.0 or 4.1, but under 4.0.4 it doesn't seem to be working. 
  The alias hash tables have been found to be out of date days 
  after the /usr/lib/aliases file has changed, on systems that 
  send and receive large amounts of mail.

  Obviously a workaround exists: run newaliases by hand. I'm 
  just wondering if anyone else out there has experienced this 
  problem, whether it's a known bug and whether it's fixed in a 
  future release.

  -shoshana
   shoshana@pdi.com
   Shoshana Abrass
   Pacific Data Images, Sunnyvale, CA
From: smythe@cats.ucsc.edu (Brian Matthew Aljian)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: SZ for SGI Indigo?
Date: 8 Oct 92 00:37:57 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu


Hello,

	I'm taking a computer graphics class this quarter and we're
	programming on Indigos.  Does anybody know where I can get ZModem
	(source code or otherwise) via FTP for these machines?  Please respond
	via E-Mail as I do not read this group often.

	Thanks in advance for any and all help!

-- 
   Brian M. Aljian
   smythe@stallion.santa-cruz.ca.us
From: bls@texhrc.uucp (Brian Sumner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Exceptions and the R4000
Summary: Funny exception handling on R4000
Keywords: Exceptions, R4000
Date: 16 Oct 92 13:31:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: texhrc.1992Oct16.133154.5694
Distribution: usa
Organization: Texaco EPTD

I am having several problems with exception handling on an R4000 Indigo
or Crimson.  Consider the following code:

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

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sigfpe.h>

static void handler(unsigned exception[5], int val[2])
{
    fprintf(stderr,"Exception.  Aborting.\n");
    abort();
}

main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    float a,b,c;

    handle_sigfpes(_ON,_EN_UNDERFL|_EN_OVERFL|_EN_DIVZERO|_EN_INVALID,
		    handler,_ABORT_ON_ERROR,0);
    scanf("%f %f",&a,&b);
    c = a*b;
    printf("%g %g %g\n",a,b,c);
    exit(0);
}

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

and complile with '-lfpe'.  When I run the code, and input two small
numbers whose product underflows, the program does NOT print the
message and abort.

When I run this program under dbx (again with the small number inputs,
e.g. 1.0e-25 for a and b), the debugger reports the exception.
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| IF I THEN TYPE 'CONT' THE MACHINE DIES WITH A KERNEL PANIC! |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Additionally: I KNOW that, unlike the R3000, the R4000 can mask underflow
exceptions.  However, 'handle_sigfpes' with _OFF for _EN_UNDERFLOW
has NO effect.  My system time goes through the roof in a program that
produces millions of underflows indicating that underflows are being
trapped.

I have to conclude that the debugger and the exception library are
pretending that they are dealing with an R3000 and not the R4000.
Does anyone know this to be true?  If it is false, what am I doing wrong,
and why can I crash my machine so easily with dbx?

Brian Sumner
Texaco EPTD
e-mail: bls@texaco.com
Phone: 713-954-6235
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: dave@imax.imax.com (Dave Martindale)
Subject: Warning - loose heatsink on new R4000
Organization: Imax Corporation, Mississauga Canada
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 15:01:03 GMT

Our R4000 Indigo arrived yesterday afternoon.  While the front cover was
off the system, I opened the card cage and pulled the CPU board to look
at it.  (Don't ask why - I just like to take apart the things that I
buy, that's all.  Yes, I used a grounded wrist strap).

The R4000 chip on the daughterboard has a *big* heatsink attached, more than
twice the area of the chip itself.  The heatsink looked a bit skewed -
there was something not quite symmetric about it.  The heatsink is held
to the chip by a 4-legged spring clip that grabs the chip socket, and
closer examination revealed that one of the legs of the clip had become
dislodged from the socket, leaving only 3 legs holding somewhat precariously.
I reattached the 4th leg of the clip.

It seems that the clip was probably dislodged by a shock during shipping.
With one leg detached, I doubt if the heatsink was firmly thermally
coupled to the chip.  The R4000 might have run considerably hotter
than intended because of this.  I'm glad I took the machine apart before
I applied power.  Other new R4000 system owners might want to check
this when they receive their system.

(Everything does seem to work now that power is applied.  The colour
convergence of the 19 inch monitor leaves something to be desired though;
I'm going to have to see if there is an adjustment inside for that.)

	Dave Martindale
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: chew@macross.csd.sgi.com (Stephen Chew)
Subject: Re: Problem with resolver on R4000 Indigo on 4.0.5F
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 23:03:59 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.131437.28859@vela.acs.oakland.edu>, bbesler@ouchem.chem.oakland.edu (Brent H. Besler) writes:
|> I have an Iris R4000 Indigo/Elan running Irix 4.0.5F.  The is apparently
|> a problem with the resolver. 
|> [stuff about local not working deleted]
|> I have the "hostrorder 
|> local bind" line in the resolv.conf file.  Is this a bug in Irix 4.0.5?

I just tried this on a Crimson (r4000) running 4.0.5 and an r3000 Indigo/Elan
running 4.0.5F.  It seems to work fine for me.

I have the line "hostresorder local bind" in /usr/etc/resolv.conf and it
finds local host file specific hosts.  I am assuming that you have a typo
in your post because "hostrorder" will not work.  I would double check
the spelling anyways.  It should be hostresorder [host-res(olution)-order]

Also, verify that you don't have any leading spaces infront of any of the 
lines in resolv.conf.
--
Stephen Chew (chew@csd.sgi.com)  I don't mean to dis, but let's disperse.
SGI Product Support              I'll see you later, unless you see me first.

--
--
Stephen Chew (chew@csd.sgi.com)  I don't mean to dis, but let's disperse.
SGI Product Support              I'll see you later, unless you see me first.
From: mikes@biochemistry.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Giving the choice between twm and 4Dwm
Date: 8 Oct 92 13:35:26 GMT
X-Mailer: mail-news 2.0.3


Dear All,

I wonder if anybody has set up their SG to somehow ask the user when they
log in what they wish their window manager to be.

If so, I would very much like to hear from you :-)

Cheers

Mike
From: gints@prophet.esd.sgi.com (Gints Klimanis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Soundfiles?  How do I get from DAT to SGI?
Date: 11 Oct 92 22:54:12 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.

In article <81503@ut-emx.uucp>, menoche@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Charles Paul
Menoche) writes:
|> 
|> The answer to this question is probably very easy and I'm just
|> missing
|> something.  I want transfer (record) some sounds from a DAT to the 
|> SGI at school.  However, I want to do it through the Digital ins and
|> outs of the respective machines.  I've got the cable situation
|> working
|> ok and have done DAT to DAT transfers, so the only question is what
|> program or command is needed to do this on the SGI.  I also need to
|> be able to save each soundfile in a way that they can be transfered
|> and
|> manipulated individually. Thanks for any answers.  The e-mail
|> address
|> above works or a follow-up to this news group.  Thanks. 
Hi !

Sounds like the DAT you refer to is an audio DAT machine, rather than a
computer DAT drive  You can use 'soundeditor' or 'recordaiff' to record
the sounds from the SGI digital inputs.  Merely select digital input
using the audio control panel 'apanel' and invoke one of the
aforementioned recording utilities.  

If you monitor the input from the SGI machine, set the 'apanel' output
rate is "Input rate".  This setting slaves the output sample clock to
the digital input sample clock.  If you just monitor with, for example
44100 samples/sec instead, you will get buffer overruns every 26
seconds.  They sound like a cluster of sharp clicks.  These clicks are
corrupted output data, not corrupted input data.

'recordaiff' does not have the smarts to figure out the sampling rate of
the digital input data.  SO, before you select "Digital" input source,
set the input rate to match the output sampling rate of your DAT
machine.  

Use 'playaiff' or 'soundeditor' to play back each file.  If for some
reason, your recording utility has saved your sound files with an
incorrect sampling rate, you are hosed.  You can prevent this situation
by doing the stuf in paragraph three.  

Neither 'soundeditor' nor 'recordaiff' detect tune start/end ID's and
indices transmitted over the digital input stream.  You have to start
and stop your SGI recording utility manually.  You can save each DAT
tune as a separate file, editing each with 'soundeditor', your graphical
waveform editor.

Hope all goes well.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: Which /dev/mt device to use?
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 05:05:51 GMT

In <1992Oct6.185743.2548@phri.nyu.edu> roy@mchip00.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
| 	I have a DECstation running Ultrix that I want to back up to
| the 8mm tape drive on an Iris running IRIS 4.0.2 using rdump on the
| DECstation.  What I need to know is which flavor of /dev/mt/tps0d6* I
| should use.  There are a variety of combinations of no rewind, no
| swap, and variable block size (nr, ns, v) suffixes, but it's not clear
| which ones I want.  Also, what should I give rdump for s (tape size in
| feet) and d (density in bytes/inch) parameters?

I'd use /dev/rmt/tps0d6nsv (or tps0d6nrnsv if you want norewind).
Ultrix doesn't need length/densities (wish we didn't!).  If you don't
give them, it writes until EOT (or more likely, till write returns
an error).
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Bug in SGI's malloc?
Date: 10 Oct 92 00:14:50 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <3030@contex.contex.com> james@sam.contex.com (James McQueston) writes:
| IMHO the problem is that this "feature" is shipped on by default.  I
| see this conficting with the ANSI-C standard:

There are many reasons why it is shipped the way it is by default;
they have been hashed out here and in other groups many times, and
I'm not going to do it again.

However, it does *not* conflict with the ANSI standard, because the
*virtual address space* is in fact allocated.  The standard doesn't
say anything about memory or swap space backing it up.  They may
not have thought there was a reason to do so, but there are several
other companies besides SGI doing this kind of thing (see the recent
flaming session in comp.unix.aix).

| In SGI's default implementation, a null pointer is not returned yet the
| pointer that is returned does not point to "the allocated space."  In
| fact, under the circumstances in question, it points to _unallocated_
| space. (Or is someone going to claim that the space is allocated but
| just unusable?)

It *is* usable.  It may even *all* be usable (and in fact, normally is).
However, since the backing storage isn't all allocated, some other large
program could use it, making it non-deterministic.

| I think this mis-feature should be turned off by default, else SGI cannot
| make the claim that their library is ANSI-C compliant.

See above.

| Beyond that, why must SGI ship systems with non-standard behavior as
| the default?  There's nothing wrong with the feature for those who want
| it, but you cannot claim that this feature is transparent.  Those
| programs that decide how much virtual memory is available by checking
| the return of malloc no longer operate correctly in the SGI
| environment.

See above; there are other companies doing it also, for similar reasons.
It isn't perfect, but it works for its intended purpose (sparse arrays,
and allowing large programs to fork successfully, among others).

| When I call this into the TAC I have gotten no resolution other than
| "you can change the kernel configuration." There are other associated
| problems when this "feature" is on that are not resolved either, but are
| very important in a production environemnt.  Like when a mega-sized
| process is using 99.9% of available virtual memory (this computation
| is the one that "pays the bills") and someone starts some new process
| that is (relativly) unimportant, guess which process gets killed?
| The answer isn't (always) pretty or predictable.

You have the option of configuring the system to do what you want.
It's simple, its easy, and its documented.  You may not like it,
but there isn't much point in continuing to flame about it.
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Need information on old(er) 4D
Date: 8 Oct 92 00:11:11 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In article <1992Oct06.231454.10251@vort.cuc.ab.ca>, jonathan@vort.cuc.ab.ca (Jonathan Levine) writes:
> I've just come into possession of an old(er) 4D system, and need to obtain
> some information on it.  First, it was sold to me as a 4D/70, but the name
> plate on the box (and the serial # plate) says CS/12.  What does this mean?

The CS/12 was later known as the 4D/70S.  I think it took a while to
figure out exactly what to call no-graphics machines.

jeremy
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: oster@well.sf.ca.us (David Phillip Oster)
Subject: Re: protect except for one other person
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 05:50:14 GMT

This is exactly what the "group" field of the file protection is for, and]
has been since the birth of unix. Here is what you do:

Get your operator/superuser to create a new group consisting of just
the two of you.

use the chgrp command to change the ownership of the directory to the
new group.

use chmod to chabge the protection to isable accesss by world, but enable
it by group.

when you want to access the directory, use the setgrp command to change to the
dual group.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: Gotcha - 3.10 compilers, inst, and 4.0.x
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 17:36:20 GMT

In <1992Oct11.095000.25185@comp.bioz.unibas.ch> doelz@comp.bioz.unibas.ch (Reinhard Doelz) writes:
| Just to add, it is impossible to upgrade 4.0.4 with 4.0.5.  on an indigo.

This is *completely* untrue.  I don't know who told you that, but I've
done it myself more than once.

| You need to go back to 4.0.1 with removing the maint and resinstalling it. 

There is no easy way to do this (even if you wanted to) although you
can get sort of close by using 'set neweroverride'

| Let me emphasize that this is a shame, and definitively differs from the 
| good reputation SGI has in other areas. Being at a site where most SGI 
| sysops are non-trained staff, I am very conderned about this development!

Again, as I said, your statement is false, so there isn't anything to
be concerned about (in that area, anyway).
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
From: philip@cel.cummins.com (Philip D. Pokorny)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: DPCI and Windows 3.1
Date: 8 Oct 92 17:22:43 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

> We are using DPCI 5.1.1 to connect our PC's to our Apollo Domain
> machines (running OS 10.3.5.4). The users use it for storing files, to
> print files and for mail connection.
> 
> Some of the users (who do not now much about UNI*X, mail etc) want to
> have an icon to click on to check if there is any unread mails on the
> Apollo machine. And if there is any mail, they want to click on a second
> icon to read it. A third icon may be used to send mail (not reply). But
> to start a DOS box from windows and then start DTERM seems not to work
> very well (the user log on the machine BEFORE starting windows). DTERM
> will hang after only a few keystrokes. And the release notes say that
> DTERM won't work with Windows.
I don't have many users using Windows with DPCI.  The ones I do
have mostly use it for printing and file backup.  I have a bunch
of OS/2 users that have been using DTERM in DOS windows from
OS/2 for almost 2 years.  DTERM works when the directory and
file stuff doesn't. (due to redirector problems).  I'm surprised
that DTERM doesn't work under Windows.  Perhaps if you run DTERM
in full screen text mode.  Tell Windows to get out of the way
when it runs DTERM.

By the way, you can connect/disconnect printers and files with
the Windows network support.  DPCI is a Microsoft NetBIOS
compatible network and the Windows support "just works".  You
can't use "NET CONNECT" style services but you can use "NET USE"
style connections.

> So I wonder if someone out there has managed to get DTERM or rsh to work
> with Windows 3.1 so that the user easily check if there is any unread
> mail on the Apollo?
What about mounting the /usr/spool/mail directory as a DOS disk
drive and getting at the mail files that way?  Should be simple
to check for a zero byte file with DOS scripts or DOS program.
and even copy the file to the PC for reading on the PC?

> Is there any other way to get mail on the PC using DPCI? Or should we
> forget about DPCI and get something else?
We've been pretty happy with DPCI.

Sincerely,
Philip D. Pokorny
philip@cel.cummins.com
:)