HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mcg@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Bug alert : RO3.1 corrupts DOS files
Date: 10 Nov 92 11:34:18 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <1992Nov9.002405.5422@cs.utwente.nl>, kortink@cs.utwente.nl (John Kortink) writes:
> Serious RISCOS 3.1 bug alert !
> 
> This concerns copying files to DOS floppies with background operations on,
> which can corrupt files.

> 
> The resulting JPEG files, after copy from Arc to floppy and then from floppy
> to PC, were all correct, except two, which showed a strange 'Premature EOF'
> error. Checking the lengths on both sides confirmed they were exactly equal
> size. Then *DUMPing revealed that the last few bytes of the resulting DOS
> files were definately corrupted.

{massive cut>

a) Have you experimented with ADFSbuffers on/off?

b) Have you tried the same thing under !PCem (> vrs 1.7)?

c) Has anyone else (non-RO2 converted machine) experienced this problem?

d) What other hardware/apps were you running at the same time (I might of 
missed this in reading your message)?


Note: I experienced this on your RO2 designed (pd) apps for saving the status,
one extra byte was added to the file and your check was, say, <>120 bytes 
(i.e. your apps wrote out 120 bytes and the filer (??) added 1 byte to it 
effectively stuffing the status). 

		From Martin Glanvill	(mcg@waikato.ac.nz)

   -----------*********======| Have a nice day |======*********-----------
							              ######## 
	 			    ^				      #####/|#
University of Waikato		    0  				      ####/.|#
Hamilton			   -|-	 			      ###/__|#
New Zealand			    ^				      ##/   |#
				  _/ \_				      ########
                      
----------------****=====| A quote to make your day |======****-----------------
As ceremony is the invention of wise men to keep fools at a distance, so good
 breeding is an expedient to make fools and wise men equal.
                                        -- Steele
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: sdaveyj@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: VIDC20!!
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 02:05:01 GMT

Hey! Has every body read acorn.sys.announce! VIDC20

Wow, just what I have always wanted. 32Bit! suck eggs PC's cheap per chip
too, 28bit pallete!

That's the way to go Acorn. So when can I start de soldering my old
VIDC? gimme gimme gimme...

100Mhz pixel rate, that equals, errmmm 1280x1024 at 100Hz!!!!!!!!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

            Yours Drooling,    John Davey
From: lichtenw@guug.de (Klaus Lichtenwalder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
Subject: Re: Serial Communication on RS2030
Date: 8 Nov 92 12:32:18 GMT
Organization: Technical University of Munich, Germany

Hi everybody,

i'm using a 2030/4.52 with a modem with only a few caveats:

Speed must not be higher than 9600 baud (in fact, sometimes you
can get trouble at 9600, too).
I think the most sincere problem for using a modem (at least when
allowing remote access to the machine) is the missing DCD support.

When using zmodem on the remote host, i use the following options:
-e -l 1024 -w 8192 (i didn't experiment too much with theses values,
i now get satisfactory results).
A greater problem is uucp, i get lot of alarms. But as i use uucp
very seldom, i didn't try to look for the cause (maybe the modem
still is set to software flow control, it was once).

klaus
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
Klaus Lichtenwalder, Dipl. Inf.                 Tel: +49-89-986929
Datapat GmbH                                    FAX: +49-89-988014
Mauerkircherstr. 31                             email: lichtenw@guug.de
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: peter@merlin.acadiau.ca (Peter Steele)
Subject: Re: Where is wait3?
Keywords: wait3
Organization: Acadia University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 20:55:13 GMT

>wait3 is in the BSD side of things.  There are several ways
>to get at it.  If you got through the compilation ok, you probably
>just need to add -lbsd to your link.

Curiously wait3 is not in /usr/lib/libbsd.a, whereas it is in
/bsd43/usr/lib/libc.a. So doing a -lbsd doesn't do the trick.
You have to use /bsd43/bin/cc which looks in /bsd43/usr/lib/libc.a
instead of /usr/lib/libc.a. I would think that libbsd.a should
include everything extra that /bsd43/usr/lib/libc.a defines.
--
Peter Steele        Unix Services Manager            peter.steele@acadiau.ca 
Acadia Univ., Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P 1X0  902-542-2201  Fax: 902-542-4364
From: skip@taygeta.oc.nps.navy.mil (Skip Carter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
Subject: UUGETTY problems
Date: 9 Nov 92 20:15:45 GMT
Reply-To: skip@taygeta.oc.nps.navy.mil (Skip Carter)


	I am having a couple problems with uugetty on my MIPS worstation.
	When I try to grab the modem with cu, the modem transmit and receive
	lights start flashing very rapidly (even though I am not typing anything).
	It then takes a while for cu to see me typing to it because it is apparently
	busy talking to itself.  This makes a cu session useless.

	Also the /dev/ttym1 becomes owned by uucpadm (with permissions 622)
	after uugetty releases it (even if it was something else before) so that no
	one else can get to the device again.  This is a real problem since I have 
	programs other than cu that want access to the modem.


	Does anyone have any solutions ?


	I think I have everything set up properly:
		The cable is straight through except pins 5 and 8 are swapped, 

                                         I am using modem control, so the inittab entry looks like,

                                        t1:234:respawn:/usr/lib/uucp/uugetty -r -t 60 ttym1 co_19200

	The modem is a Telebit WorldBlazer.

	I have a MIPS 3230 running RISC/OC 4.52.



	I have had my machine a couple of years with very few complaints, but modem control
	is one place where it just doesn't seem like things are as easy as they should be.


	
-- 
 Everett (Skip) Carter             Phone:  408-646-3318 FAX: 408-646-2712
 Naval Postgraduate School         INTERNET: skip@taygeta.oc.nps.navy.mil
 Dept. of Oceanography, Code OC/CR  UUCP:     ...!uunet!taygeta!skip
 Monterey, CA. 93943               TELEMAIL: s.carter/omnet
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: rms@fssun09.dev.oclc.org (Russ Schnall)
Subject: MIPS RISC Processor Family
Keywords: MIPS, RISC, Processors, Tandem
Organization: OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 12:29:21 GMT

We are using Tandem computers at OCLC, some of which are based upon the
RISC chips from MIPS.  I am interested in getting a comparison of the
family of processors that are available from MIPS (now and in the future).
I'm curious about what Tandem might be considering adopting in the future.

Thanks.


-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nature and nature's laws lay hidden in night,
                  God Said 'Let Newton Be!', and all was light"
                                                    Alexander Pope
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: rogerk@queernet.org (Roger B.A. Klorese)
Subject: Re: Where is wait3?
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 22:11:09 GMT
Organization: QueerNet
Keywords: wait3

In article <peter.721428913@merlin> peter@merlin.acadiau.ca (Peter Steele) writes:
>I would think that libbsd.a should
>include everything extra that /bsd43/usr/lib/libc.a defines.

You would think wrong.

The bsd43 systype was developed to support BSD programmers and users; it
contains a reasonably full implementation of 4.3BSD.

The libbsd in systype sysv was developed to support BSD networking
programs ported to an SVR3 machine.  (Arguably, it should have been
called "libnet"; it is the "BSD networking compatibility library."

If you wish to port a BSD program to RISCos, you should use systype bsd43.
(Note that this is "BSD" and not "SunOS"; functionality like shared
memory which is available in SunOS but not in 4.3BSD is not available in
systype bsd43, other than via indirection using syscall().)

If you wish to add networking to a program developed in SVR3, you might
choose to use "-lbsd"...
-- 
ROGER B.A. KLORESE                                              +1 415 ALL-ARFF
rogerk@unpc.QueerNet.ORG              {ames,decwrl,pyramid}!sgiblab!unpc!rogerk
"Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from."
                                                                   -- J. Foster
From: lgy@landau.phys.washington.edu (Laurence Yaffe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
Subject: Re: MAGNUM 4000 systems?
Date: 9 Nov 92 20:10:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: landau.lgy.721339831
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Washington

brian@dweomer.org (Brian Taylor) writes:

>Anyone else out there besides me have a MIPS MAGNUM 4000 system? If so,
>please shout and maybe we can compare notes :-)

Yes, but I'm still struggling (unsuccessfully so far) to get it working
with an HP C2247 (1Gb) drive.  It hasn't been fun...

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Laurence G. Yaffe		Internet: lgy@newton.phys.washington.edu
University of Washington	Bitnet:   yaffe@uwaphast.bitnet
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: chris@bclwn.wn.bcl.co.nz (Chris Mackerell)
Subject: Who provides support for RISCos now?
Organization: Business Computers Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1992 20:43:40 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

Is there an email address for RISCos problems? We used to use csmail@mips.com
but that bounces now.

Thanks.

Chris


-- 
    _     _
 / /_) / /   / /  / Chris Mackerell <chris@bcl.co.nz> [a/h chris@owdjim.gen.nz]
/ /_) / /_  / /_ /  Ph: +64 (4) 801-6716  Fax: +64 (4) 385-2752
Business Computers Ltd, Box 3236, Wellington 6000, NEW ZEALAND.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: pod@sour.sw.oz.au (Paul O'Donnell)
Subject: Re: Who provides support for RISCos now?
Organization: Softway Pty Ltd
Date:  9 Nov 92 22:53:08 GMT

In <1992Nov09.204340.24756@bclwn.wn.bcl.co.nz> chris@bclwn.wn.bcl.co.nz (Chris Mackerell) writes:

>Is there an email address for RISCos problems? We used to use csmail@mips.com
>but that bounces now.

Ditto, I mailed postmaster@mips.com who told me that most addresses
that were user@mips.com are now user@mti.sgi.com.  csmail is apparently
one of them and he forwarded it for me.  I have had no response.

Paul
-- 
Paul O'Donnell - Softway Pty Ltd         |"You're just saying that because
Internet: pod@softway.sw.oz.au           |you don't understand art."
Phone: +61 2 698-2322 Fax: +61 2 699-9174|     - Jeremy Fitzhardinge
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: haidl@cs.uregina.ca (Mark Haidl)
Subject: comp.sys.mips archive site location
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 19:10:53 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Regina

Comp.sys.mips messages used to be archived on mips.com but as a few
previous postings have indicated mips.com seems to no longer exist
and has been moved into the sgi.com domain. Is there a site
where old comp.sys.mips messages can be retrieved?
--
Mark Haidl, Systems Manager, Dept of Computer Science, U of Regina, Canada
haidl@cs.uregina.ca,  regina!mercury!haidl
Phone: (306)585-4977, Fax: -5205
From: milton@teal.csn.org (Milton Scritsmier)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
Subject: Re: Serial Communication on RS2030
Date: 5 Nov 92 02:46:04 GMT
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.

In article <Bx5M22.BEK@news.cso.uiuc.edu> yates@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Kent Yates) writes:
>>In article <MexHghOSMUE2RcXKEd@transarc.com> Bill_von_Hagen@transarc.com writes:
>>>Having gotten my machine up and running (thanks to many readers of
>>>this group!), I naturally want to be able to upload/download stuff to
>>>it, rather than writing tapes and using the tape drive.  I've compiled
>>>two different versions of kermit for it, but I've had the same types
>>>of problems with both.  I'd appreciate any help anyone could give me.
>>>The same problems occur at 2400, 4800, and 9600.  My modem is a
>>>
>[bunch of stuff omitted here]
>>>
>>>I'd appreciate any help anyone could give me.  Actually, if anyone has
>>>a working version of kermit for this machine and could send me a
>>>uuencoded binary, along with their .kermrc file, I'd be ecstatic.  I'm
>>>running Risc/OS 4.52.  
>>>
>
>to which, milton@teal.csn.org (Milton Scritsmier) replies:
>
>>I hate to disappoint you, but the RS2030 cannot properly support
>>modems as the proper control signals are not provided. For example,
>>there is no RTS/CTS for hardware flow control, among other signals.
>>The serial ports are meant for terminals only.
>
>>I know how you feel, I wanted to run a modem from my RS2030 too. :-(
>
>
>You shouldn't need RTS/CTS to do flow control, since software flow
>control will do the trick. The other control signals are not pertinent to
>data transfer itself, so aside from CTS/RTS, what is it about these
>ports that would make them fail to do a Kermit transfer, even at
>lower baud rates?

I don't know how kermit handles binary file tranfers, but I do know that
to use zmodem with binary files you really do need RTS/CTS flow control,
or else have the modem transfers locked at a speed that both computers
can handle. The reason is that the Cntrl-S/Cntrl-Q characters will often
show up in a binary transfer (consider compressed files), and lock up
the transfer.

It's not just the RTS/CTS signals. Several months ago I went through
connecting up a V.32 modem to my home computer, and had to go get a
7-wire serial cable to fully support it. Unfortunately, I can't off
the top of my head remember which 7 of the RS-232 signals are essential.
I do know that the RS2030 serial ports don't support all these signals.
There was a table in the release notes for RISCos 4.50 which showed
which signals are supported by the RS2030 and other Mips machines.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: fischer@lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de (franz fischer)
Subject: Re: UUGETTY problems
Organization: Lehrstuhl fuer Prozessrechner, TU Muenchen (Germany)
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 11:20:59 GMT
Reply-To: fischer@lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de

In <6930@taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil> skip@taygeta.oc.nps.navy.mil (Skip Carter)
writes:


> I am having a couple problems with uugetty on my MIPS worstation.
> When I try to grab the modem with cu, the modem transmit and receive
> lights start flashing very rapidly (even though I am not typing anything).
> It then takes a while for cu to see me typing to it because it is apparently
> busy talking to itself.  This makes a cu session useless.
>

I am using uugetty and cu, too, and haven't have any serious problems so far.

> Also the /dev/ttym1 becomes owned by uucpadm (with permissions 622)
> after uugetty releases it (even if it was something else before) so that no
> one else can get to the device again.  This is a real problem since I have 
> programs other than cu that want access to the modem.

Make them set-uid uucpadm if this is no security hole.  E. g. kermit allows
to fork a subshell, which gets the effective userid, so do __not__ make
kermit set-uid uucpadm...
I am not shure, but I think uugetty only changes the owner, not the
permissions.  So, another solution could be changing modes to 666.

> Does anyone have any solutions ?
>
> I think I have everything set up properly:
> The cable is straight through except pins 5 and 8 are swapped, 
> I am using modem control, so the inittab entry looks like,
>	t1:234:respawn:/usr/lib/uucp/uugetty -r -t 60 ttym1 co_19200
> The modem is a Telebit WorldBlazer.
>
> I have a MIPS 3230 running RISC/OC 4.52.

Exactly as you, I have a RS 3230 running RISC/os 4_52B and the inittab entry
I use looks pretty much the same as yours, except the last item.  I think you
should use du_xxxx as the speed argument to uugetty a dialup line.  This
affects the terminal settings before and after a login.  Consult your
/etc/gettydefs for details.

I currently use a BEST EC 2400, but fortunately I upgrade to a ZyXel 1496E+
soon...		:-)
With the BEST, I use a straight through caple, no pins swapped or shortened.
Be shure your modem is properly set up for full modem control, since RISC/os'
tty driver needs this, i. e. DCD, DSR/DTR __and__ RTS/CTS.

I hope the above will help you, but in general I think your problem is not
with RISC/os.

Yours sincerely
	\franz
--
franz g. fischer --------------- fischer@[gavia.]lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
Lehrstuhl f"ur Proze"srechner, TU M"unchen      __o   Phone: +49-89-381619-26
W-8000 M"unchen 40, Germany                   _ \<,_  Fax:   +49-89-381619-60
\input{disclaimer}___________________________(_)/ (_)________________________
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips,comp.arch
From: ulf@wilmer.dit.lth.se (Ulf Andersson)
Subject: Need details on Idt R3082 mips implemmentation.
Reply-To: ulf@dit.lth.se
Organization: Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden
Distribution: comp
Date: 9 Nov 92 16:34:33

Hello.

I need some information on multiply and divide instructions
on the Idt 3082 implementation of the mips processor.

The hardware manual for the 3082 processor say that the
pipeline stalls on a multiply or divide instruction if
I try to read the High or Low register before completion.
The manual also recommend the compiler to place as many
unrelated instructions as possible immediately after a
multiply or divide. What the manual does not tell me is
how many cycles a multiply or divide actually takes.

If somebody know something about this I would appreciate
some enlightenment.

To avoid uneccecary network noise please send direct E-
mail to me.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ulf Andersson  	Student, Computer Engineering	 Ack ja, livet er svaert,
	     	Lund University  (LTH)		 men matematik er svaerere.
		Lund, SWEDEN			                 (Storm P)

Phone:          +46 (0)418-22992
Snail mail:     Skolallen 13                     E mail:   ulf@dit.lth.se
		S261 32
                SWEDEN
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ulf Andersson  	Student, Computer Engineering	 Ack ja, livet er svaert,
	     	Lund University  (LTH)		 men matematik er svaerere.
		Lund, SWEDEN			                 (Storm P)

Phone:          +46 (0)418-22992
Snail mail:     Skolallen 13                     E mail:   ulf@dit.lth.se
		S261 32
                SWEDEN
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: brian@dweomer.org (Brian Taylor)
Subject: MAGNUM 4000 systems?
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 05:33:03 GMT
Organization: My own li'l home computer...

Anyone else out there besides me have a MIPS MAGNUM 4000 system? If so,
please shout and maybe we can compare notes :-)

I'm particularly interested in exploring ways to get my Telebit
WorldBlazer connected properly to the system under RISC/os 5.0B.
It appears that the stock ports cannot properly handle bidirectional
traffic or (consistently) RTS/CTS.

I thought about hooking up a PC serial card with NS16550AFNs in it, but
haven't found a driver that wasn't built for a 486 brand of SVRx. Anyone
else taken a stab at one of these on a MIPS platform?

Regards,

Brian
-- 
Brian Taylor				UUCP:		uunet.ca!dweomer!brian
62 Derry Street				Internet:	brian@dweomer.org
Guelph, Ontario, CANADA			Voice:		(519) 824-0884
N1E 2C1
From: pho@dde.dk (Peter Holm)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
Subject: Re: Who provides support for RISCos now?
Date: 11 Nov 92 08:27:29 GMT
Organization: Dansk Data Elektronik A/S
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Paul O'Donnell (pod@sour.sw.oz.au) wrote:
: In <1992Nov09.204340.24756@bclwn.wn.bcl.co.nz> chris@bclwn.wn.bcl.co.nz (Chris Mackerell) writes:
: 
: Ditto, I mailed postmaster@mips.com who told me that most addresses
: that were user@mips.com are now user@mti.sgi.com.  csmail is apparently
: one of them and he forwarded it for me.  I have had no response.
: 
I've tried that a few times with the following result :

Trying to create lock file '/usr/mail/csmail.lock'
mail: Creation of lockfile failed after 10 tries
554 <csmail@mti.sgi.com>... unknown mailer error 15
-- 
Peter Holm                        Tel: int +45 42 84 50 11 (UTC + 1)
Dansk Data Elektronik A/S         Fax: int +45 42 84 52 20
Herlev Hovedgade 199              Telex: 35258 dde dk
DK-2730 Herlev, Denmark           E-mail:  pho@dde.dk





-- 
Peter Holm                        Tel: int +45 42 84 50 11 (UTC + 1)
Dansk Data Elektronik A/S         Fax: int +45 42 84 52 20
Herlev Hovedgade 199              Telex: 35258 dde dk
DK-2730 Herlev, Denmark           E-mail:  pho@dde.dk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: guest@sal.reading.sgi.com ("Guest login.")
Apparently-To: comp.sys.mips@news.demon.co.uk
Subject: None (mail relay)
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 14:37:52 +0000

test. Sorry
From: jsalmi@da_vinci.it.uswc.uswest.com (John Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips,list.epixinfo
Subject: Re: Where is wait3?
Date: 9 Nov 92 20:06:26 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.mips
Organization: US West Information Technologies, Devner

In article <peter.721318682@merlin> peter@merlin.acadiau.ca (Peter Steele) writes:
>I am compiling a package (CAP) that uses a routine called
>wait3. During the link phase it complains that wait3 is
>undefined. Man wait3 does describe such a routine, but
>I can't find it in any of the libraries. There is a wait
>routine, as well as a wait2, but no wait3. I presume that
>since it is described in the man pages this routine does
>exist somewhere. Can any one tell me where it is?
>
>Thanks.
>--
>Peter Steele        Unix Services Manager            peter.steele@acadiau.ca 
>Acadia Univ., Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P 1X0  902-542-2201  Fax: 902-542-4364



Peter, the man page describes wait3 as a bsd-ism...

bugs) /usr/people/jsalmi> man wait3

WAIT(2-BSD)         RISC/os Reference Manual          WAIT(2-BSD)

NAME
     wait, wait3 - wait for process to terminate


so, that points me down the /bsd43 tree.  in /bsd43/usr/lib/libc.a, wait3
is defined...

bugs) /bsd43/usr/lib> nm libc.a | grep wait3
Symbols from libc.a[m_wait3.o]:
m_wait3.s           |00000000|File    |ref=5             |      |  0|Text
mips_wait3          |00000000|Proc    |end=4 btNil       |      |  1|Text
mips_wait3          |00000056|End     |ref=1             |      |  3|Text
m_wait3.s           |00000000|End     |ref=0             |      |  4|Text
mips_wait3          |00000000|Proc    |ref=1             |      | 15|Text
Symbols from libc.a[wait3.o]:
wait3.c             |00000000|File    |ref=4             |      |  0|Text
wait3               |00000000|Proc    |end=3 int         |      |  1|Text
wait3               |00000032|End     |ref=1             |      |  2|Text
wait3.c             |00000000|End     |ref=0             |      |  3|Text
wait3               |00000000|Proc    |ref=1             |      |  8|Text
mips_wait3          |00000000|Proc    |                  |      |  9|Undefined


have you tried linking in the /bsd43/usr/libn/libc.a ?  give that a shot.  
a hack that was done locally was to create a local lib via extracting the
necessary cruft from /bsd43/usr/lib/libc.a and creating libwait3.a ...

just more noise from:
-- 
John Salmi		<jsalmi@uswest.com>		(303) 595-2863

   "Politically correct?  Me?  HAR HAR HAR HAR!  Don't kid yourself."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: chopper@gumbytsg.tandem.com (Michael Chop)
Subject: Problems with root passwd!!!!
Organization: Tandem Computers, Inc.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 21:35:21 GMT


One of our mips machines is experiencing the following problem

The user(also a super user) couldnt log in as root as his root passwd was
not being accepted.  He tried su but that was of no help.

So I went down to single user and removed the root passwd. I then tried to
set a new root passwd. 

Everytime I did a 
# passwd 

I would get,

New passwd:
Re-enter new passwd:

# 

I would be dropped back to the root prompt before I could enter the new passwd.
The passwd field in the /etc/passwd file would then be filled with some 
garbage passwd.

I also tried to login as a normal user but was facing the same problem. 

Any suggestions on what possibly went wrong and where???

Thanks in advance...
harini chandra
tandem computers
oltp unix-support.