HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: eaw@alliant.com (Eric Woudenberg)
Subject: Re: Sun Classic as a Voice Information Server over PBX
Organization: Alliant Computer Systems Corp.
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 08:44:17 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.193308.20490@spectra.com> ohumukin@spectra.com (Kawika Ohumukini) writes:
>Hi,
>
>I am new to using computers as voice mail and information services
>so bare with me.
>I have a PC '386 that runs as a voice mail server and information
>service in my home and I want to expand.  I can get the next 
>model up of my board which allows 4 lines (up to 24 with additional
>boards) and software.
>
>Does the SPARCstation have telephone interface board and software
>capable of handling multiple lines (at least 12)?
>
>Specifically I am looking at the new Classic and LX just announced
>as viable options.  I will need at least 1 Gigabyte disk and ability
>to expand to 4 Gig.
>
>Please Email me any information or thoughts on this subject or
>refer me to books/publications/seminars on this subject.
>
>Cheers,
>Kawika
>
>PS: This is a free information service provided to the San Diego
>area.

Vigra Inc., @ 619 597 7080 sells a 2 line Sbus telephone interface.
I've used it, and it works well, although there is currently a noise
problem which only affects certain phone lines. They expect to have
the problem fixed within 1 month. On a sun wih an Sbus extender you
could get 6 cards or 12 lines. Price per card is $1375 in single
quantity.

Eric Woudenberg
From: pavlov@niktow.canisius.edu (Greg Pavlov)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: How does the new 2000+MIP Sun server compare against a Cray/XMP?
Date: 18 Nov 92 21:52:19 GMT
Organization: Canisius College, Buffalo NY. 14208

In article <1e9bpoINNnpl@armory.centerline.com>, matt@centerline.com (Matt Landau) writes:
> Okay, it's time to set the record straight.  
> 
> Well, I've now heard from several people inside Sun, and although the 
> reports are slightly varied, the consensus seems to be that 20-CPU models 
> are, in fact, running inside Sun, and that the delay in shipping is more
> to assure reliability and tune the OS than to actually make the basic 
> hardware work.
> 
  I'm sure that there is no question that 20-cpu systems are, in fact, running
  within the bowels of SUN's tech offices.  But whether the total throughput
  of these systems is anywhere near 20*(throughput of a one-processor system) 
  is suspect.  Maybe that's what all of this "OS tuning" is all about.  Then
  again, I would love to be proved wrong by some independently verified pub-
  lished "SPECrates"....



  greg pavlov
  pavlov@fstrf.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: harthc@ntmtv.UUCP (Howard Hart)
Subject: Re: SPARCClassic vs. 486
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 20:37:25 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.154446.5124@eng.ufl.edu>, jon@alpha.ee.ufl.edu (Jon Mellott) writes:
|> BTW, I suspect that NT will become significant in higher education. 
|> Imagine: a network ready OS with decent security (i.e., it gets along well 
|> in a lab environment, unlike the current PC OS's -- except Unix on PC), 
|> all of your favorite apps (Word for Win, WordPerfect, Lotus 123, Excel, 
|> CorelDRAW!), nice programming environment (POSIX .1 compatibility, full suite
					      ^^^^^^^^

Caught the NT demo at Interop in San Francisco this October. I was
both impressed and disappointed. I was extremely impressed with the
knowledge of the exhibitor's (for once a company stocked more techies
than sales droids for an exhibition, what a unique concept) and NT
actually looked usable, if not all that impressive.
I was severely underwhelmed by Bill Gates and crew's interpretion of POSIX
compatibility. Granted, he may be following the spec (the oldest,
least complete spec), but he's doing it to the letter. Hey, for all
I know, POSIX doesn't specify pipes and forks, but it seems a little
severe to provide them as system calls and not permit them to pass
file handles. Overall impression: many (if not most) UNIX system 
calls are there, but it's like a Hollywood stage set, there's nothing
behind the doors (with no plans to build the interiors other than 
any time soon). Too, this is definitely a VMS-based OS with UNIX-like
features as an afterthought (including the file system). Worst of all,
the shell windows all come up labeled MSDOS--that's one feature 
they'll have to fix ASAP (depending on your point of view, of course).

|> Also, the current list of processors supported by NT is x86, MIPS R4000, 
|> and DEC Alpha.
|> 

Oh, seen NT running on MIPS or Alpha platforms on somebody's desk yet?
Last I heard, DEC just announced the first Alpha workstations last week,
with NT ports to come real soon now....maybe.

I like the idea of NT if, for nothing else, it goosed the majority
of UNIX vendors into standardizing on a single flavor, but I don't
see anything but a lukewarm reception for it on server class systems.
That's my opinion though--probably not others (or my company's 
necessarily, of course).

P.S. - before I get beat up on this one, yes I know. POSIX is not
UNIX (as the Microsoft guys repeated continuously). I just thought
I had reason to hope when SunOs was labeled 100% compliant straight
out of the box.

-- 
Howard Hart		UUCP:{ames,pyramid!amdahl,hplabs}!ntmtv!harthc
System Administrator	INTERNET: ntmtv!harthc@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Northern Telecom	PHONE: (415) 940-2680
Mt. View, CA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: paulr@fulcrum.oz.au (Paul Rosham)
Subject: Re: SPARCClassic
Organization: The Fulcrum Consulting Group
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 00:09:11 GMT

NetCmmnd@boole.uucp (System Administrator) writes:

>How does a 50MHz chip achieve 59.1 MIPS?
>I thought the (never achieved without superscalar) holy grail
>of RISC design was 1 instruction per cycle.  If they are getting
>better than 1 instruction per cycle on the microSPARC(tm) that is
>as exciting engineering news as the prices are business news.

>II
>I know that MIPS is about the sloppiest term around, but what
>can they possible mean when they use it here?

>John Ahlstrom
>Boole & Babbage
>408-524-3307

Not really sure yet, but memory banks have to be filled with _pairs_ of 33
bit wide SIMMS (parity) in either 4 MB or 16 MB configs. Wide memory access,
separate instruction and data caches (very small), etc, etc. Some really
funky engineering has gone into both the processor complex and the system
overall.

-PaulR.
From: sm@g2.ph.man.ac.uk (Steve Mowbray)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: SPARCClassic
Date: 17 Nov 92 11:52:05 GMT
Reply-To: sm@g2.ph.man.ac.uk
Organization: University of Manchester, UK

In article 11266@aber.ac.uk, roh8@aber.ac.uk (Richard Owain Hughes) writes:
>I have seen several articles quoting the prices of these machines (Classic
>and LX). Does anyone know the UK price?

Here are the basic prices (without VAT @ 17.5%). All come with 16Mb memory.

SPARCclassic:
19" greyscale,       207Mb  #4225     ND
19" greyscale,       424Mb  #4650     ND
15" colour,          207Mb  #3650     ND
15" colour,          424Mb  #4060     ND
16" colour midrange, 207Mb  #4255     ND
16" colour midrange, 424Mb  #4650     ND
16" colour,          207Mb  #5055     ND
16" colour,          424Mb  #5490     ND
19" colour,          207Mb  #5955     ND
19" colour,          424Mb  #6330     ND

SPARCstation LX (all with 424Mb):
19" greyscale               #7060     (A)
16" colour midrange         #6895     (A)
16" colour                  #7940     (A)
19" colour                  #8830     (A)

Note floppy drive is #130(B) extra on all systems.
A Speakerbox/AUI adaptor (they come with twisted pair ethernet) is #70(B),
speakerbox (LX only) is #270(B).



---
Steve Mowbray, Physics Department, University of Manchester, U.K.
-  Janet: sm@uk.ac.man.ph.g2  /  Internet: sm@g2.ph.man.ac.uk  -
From: adam@endor.uucp (Adam Shostack)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: What good are VME boards?
Date: 18 Nov 92 20:11:26 GMT
Article-I.D.: das.1992Nov18.201126.2086
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard University

In article <1e0u4nINNot8@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> philb@cats.ucsc.edu (Philip Brown) writes:
>So , the basic question is..
>What DO folks use those VME slots for? I know there are cases for 6 and
>twelve slots... WHY?!!!

We still use a TAAC board from Sun.  To connect to a Connection
Machine, you need a VME board.  VMIC produces a reflective memory
product which works via the VME bus, but Don Turrel was to polite to
mention it. :)

Adam


Adam Shostack 					adam@das.harvard.edu

What a terrible thing to have lost one's .sig.  Or not to have a .sig
at all because of elections.  How true that is.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: eaw@alliant.com (Eric Woudenberg)
Subject: Re: FSBE/S experiences?
Organization: Alliant Computer Systems Corp.
Distribution: comp
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 08:48:44 GMT

In article <JCH.92Nov18190713@mitchell.cit.cornell.edu> Jeffrey C Honig <jch@nr-tech.cit.cornell.edu> writes:
>Can anyone with a Sun S-bus Fast SCSI-2/Buffered Ethernet Card comment
>on it?  We would be using with with SCSI-1 devices (HP 97548 793M
>disks), I've read about the problems with SCSI-2 devices, but we don't
>have any yet.  Is the Ethernet performance noticably better than the
>SBus Ethernet controller?  Does it create an le device or some other
>name?
>
>Our S-bus SCSI Host Adapter died and the repair is basically to buy a
>new one.  Buying an FSBE/S is only a couple of hundred dollars more.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Jeff


I'd like to talk to anyone using this card (mail or post
your phone number). I've been told this card is not out yet
and will be available in Feb '93.

Eric Woudenberg
(eaw@alliant.com)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: billp@Syntex.COM (Bill Putney)
Subject: Re: SPARCClassic vs. 486
Reply-To: billp@Syntex.COM
Organization: Syntex U.S.A. - Palo Alto, CA
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 00:07:16 GMT

In article C44@pgroup.com, lfm@pgroup.com (Larry Meadows) writes:
>I agree that the prices are competitive between sparc and 486 systems,
>but I think the dearth of user-level software is still a problem.  Does
>anyone have info on cost of things like Lotus, Microsoft Word (if available),
>accounting software, etc. for sparcs vs. PCs.
>
>Of course, Macs are better anyway :-).
>-- 
>Larry Meadows		The Portland Group
>lfm@pgroup.com

On the software I have found (Lotus 123, WordPerfect, ...) software vendors
are pricing it very close to their windows prices.  The additional benefit
is that some are now supporting the license server so that you only need to
buy the number of licenses that will be in simultaneous use.  Of course if
you're using this at home that may not be as big a drawing card.

The other item for consideration is that if you think you're going to want to
use Windows NT ("... may be almost as good as unix.") when (if) it gets here 
there are noises being made that it is taylored to run on fast '586 and RICS 
(Sparc) systems.

- Bill


---
=====================================================================
#  Bill Putney                     |  billp@Syntex.COM              #
#  Syntex U.S.A.                   |  {oliveb|decwrk}!synseer!billp #
#  M.S. A5-6                       |--------------------------------#
#  3401 Hillview Ave.              |  P.O.T.S.  (415) 855-1259      #
#  Palo Alto, CA  94303            |  FAX       (415) 855-5301      #
=====================================================================

Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.hardware:5653 comp.periphs.scsi:5477
From: mcneill@devon.co.uk (Keith McNeill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: Problems with Fast SCSI-II on Sun Sparc 10 (long)
Date: 16 Nov 92 13:09:49 GMT
Organization: Devon Systems International

From article <1992Nov15.121008.12717@pt.com>, by jjg@pt.com (John Grana):
> In article <MRD.92Nov13160506@morsel.stdavids.picker.com> mrd@morsel.stdavids.picker.com (Michael DeCorte) writes:
>>
>>As long as you are terminating everything correctly and your external
>>cables are shielded and you don't have very long cables then active
>>termination will solve your problems.
>>

Ok...novice question.  What is the difference between active and passive
termination?  Does the active termination have a power source?

Keith

-- 
    Keith D. McNeill              |  Devon Systems International
    +44 071 499 8381              |  14 Old Park Lane
    mcneill@devon.co.uk           |  London W1Y 3LH     UK
From: books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: SPARCclassic vs. 486 (Was Re: SPARCClas
Date: 17 Nov 92 17:26:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: fsunuc.books.111.0
Organization: FSU nuclear physics

In article <Bxt4I6.JEI@micromuse.co.uk> dj@micromuse.co.uk (DJ Walker-Morgan) writes:
>>books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books) writes:
>>
>>what does a good laser printer cost?  for the sparc you get a sparcpritner
>>for $2500.  For the Gateway you get a TI Microlaser for $1200ish.
>>The Sparc now costs you in the area of $8500.  The Gateway in the area of
>>$6000. 
>
>Er... and what stops you putting a TI microlaser on the back of a Classic?
>Theres a parallel port on the back. SPARCprinter is *not* the only option.
>
>Your analysis is flawed too.... B)
>
>---
>

My analysis may be flawed, how can I take everybodies variables into account?

Please be careful to whom you attribute posts. I didn't put the bit about 
the TI Microlaser not being usableon the SPARC.  I did post a follow up to 
that person that did saying basically what you said.

Roger
books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: paulr@fulcrum.oz.au (Paul Rosham)
Subject: Re: Sparc 10's are 10BASE-T
Organization: The Fulcrum Consulting Group
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 23:59:20 GMT

henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

>"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."

>I haven't seen the Sparc 10 hardware, but most any modern system designer
>will try hard to get the guts of the system onto a single board, and this
>makes board-edge space very precious.  That AUI connector plus slide lock
>is big, and if you figure that most of your (big) customers are going to
>be using 10BaseT like sensible people (it really is the *right* way to
>Ethernet individual offices and workstations, except in special cases),
>then it makes sense to banish the AUI connection off the edge and require
>an extra cable to bring it out.

>The stupidity comes in when you neglect to tell people about it.

In SunFLASH Vol 41 #36 in May 1992, i.e. when the machines were _announced_
the "Adapter Cables" section states:

   Audio/AUI Adapter Cable          X987A

   Note:  For AUI Ethernet support, the SPARCengine 10 requires an Audio/AUI
	     Adapter cable.  This allows for both an audio and an AUI
	     connection.

-PaulR.
[No snappy .sig today, sorry]
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: scs@iti.org (Steve Simmons)
Subject: Re: SPARC market share
Organization: Industrial Technology Institute
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 14:52:38 GMT

rburns@key.COM (Randy Burns) writes:

>[Wall Street Journal was] criticizing Sun
>for having lost 2% of the workstation market compared to significant
>increases by IBM and SGI(Dec and HP have been pretty stagnant in terms of
>market share).

>The problem is that they were looking at Sun's market share, _NOT_ Sparc's
>market share. None of the other companies they looked at have any serious
>clone makers. Now I know the Sparc clone industry hasn't taken off wildly,
>but I would guess they have increased their market share a bit more than
>2% since last year. Does anyone have any good figures on this?

I have no hard numbers, but recall reading that the sparc clone market
was about 1% of the total sparc market, ie, 99% Sun, 1% clone.  That's
not 1% of the *total* market, but 1% of the *sparc* market.

Losing 2% of the workstation market is a sigificant loss for Sun.  It
means that in spite of the largest installed base and massive software
availability (much of which runs exclusively on SunOS), they still
aren't holding their own.

Every time Sun does a massive brain-damaged OS upgrade requiring
difficult ports or conversions (see commentary in comp.sys.sun.apps and
comp.sys.sun.admin) they open the door for vendors to convert to a
different vendor's OS.  Every time a *smart* application vendor does
a port, they make things more and more general, making it easier and
easier to go to non-Sun platforms.  Every time an admin has to treat
a new SunOS release as if it were a new workstation, they're going to
sit back and consider a non-Sun solution as well.
-- 
scs:  Currently tied for 2536th on the Zwicky list with `zwicky'.  The
      list was compiled by Elizabeth Zwicky (not Fritz, not Arnold),
      zwicky@erg.sri.com.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: tamir@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Yuval Tamir)
Subject: Dead SPARCstation 2 -- LED pattern 1000
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 03:02:45 GMT

We have a SPARCstation 2 that suddenly died and refuses
to boot.  When power is turned on, it begins with the power-on
tests but never reaches the boot stage.
The final LED pattern is  ON OFF OFF OFF
The installation guide says that this code is "reserved".

If you know (or have a good guess) what this code means,
please let me know.

			   Yuval Tamir

Internet: tamir@cs.ucla.edu
    UUCP: ...!{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!cs.ucla.edu!tamir
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.hardware:5655 comp.periphs.scsi:5483
From: michaelm@pike.ee.mcgill.ca (Michael Moscovitch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: Problems with Fast SCSI-II on Sun Sparc 10 (long)
Date: 16 Nov 92 17:32:18 GMT
Organization: McGill University

In article <1992Nov15.121008.12717@pt.com> jjg@pt.com (John Grana) writes:
>In article <MRD.92Nov13160506@morsel.stdavids.picker.com> mrd@morsel.stdavids.picker.com (Michael DeCorte) writes:
>>
>>As long as you are terminating everything correctly and your external
>>cables are shielded and you don't have very long cables then active
>>termination will solve your problems.
>>
>I agree with Michael!
>
[lots of stuff deleted]

I have been having a problem with 2 external 1.2G disks on a sparc 2
which also has an internal 424M and 2 external tape drives (QIC and 8mm).
Thus a total of 5 scsi devices.
The external disks are both SEAGATE Wren VIII ST41650N


Every week or so we would get an error message like the following.
It always occurs when accessing sd2 under heavy io.
Although it may be that it happens when both drives are active.
It only happens when both drives are on the bus.
In this case, I was doing a restore onto sd2..

 vmunix: esp0: Current command timeout for Target 2 Lun 0
 vmunix: esp0:    State=SELECT (0x20), Last State=FREE (0x0)
 vmunix: esp0:    Cmd dump for Target 2 Lun 0:
 vmunix: esp0:    cdb=[ 0xa 0xc 0x41 0xb0 0x10 0x0 0x0 0x0 0x0 0x0 ]
 vmunix: sd2:    SCSI transport failed: reason 'reset': retrying command
 vmunix: esp0:    Target 3 now Synchronous at 4.0 mb/s max transmit rate
 vmunix: esp0:    Target 3 now Synchronous at 4.0 mb/s max transmit rate
 vmunix: esp0:    Target 1 now Synchronous at 4.0 mb/s max transmit rate
 vmunix: esp0:    Target 1 now Synchronous at 4.0 mb/s max transmit rate

With all the talk of active termination, I was wondering if
this would help my problem. Also, I'm curiuos as to the 
practical limits of how many disks can be added.

------
Michael Moscovitch
michaelm@pike.ee.mcgill.ca
-- 
<Mike>
michaelm@pike.ee.mcgill.ca
From: johnn@eskimo.com (John Navitsky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: How does the new 2000+MIP Sun server compare against a Cray/XMP?
Date: 17 Nov 92 01:01:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: eskimo.1992Nov17.010158.11296
Organization: =>ESKIMO NORTH (206) 367-3837 SEATTLE, WA.<=

In article <1e0mq4INNil7@armory.centerline.com> matt@centerline.com (Matt Landau) writes:
>In <1e0f40INN65d@milk.Warren.MENTORG.COM> tal@plts.uucp writes:
>
>>Another difference is that you can buy a Cray today.
>
>Yeah, I was pretty surprised when I read the fine print of the announcement
>and found that the 20-processor version of the SparcCenter-2000 was slated
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>for delivery "2H93".  In other words, Sun preannounced the high-end of the 
>product line something like a year in advance.  
>
>Gee, I used to work for a company whose hardware division did that with 
>its new products (long before the products actually existed -- I wonder 
>how many processors they've got working in the biggest *existing* version
>of the SparcCenter-2000).  

I didn't catch the shipping dates, but did catch that the limit for some
time will be 8 processors.  I suspect that this is a software limitation,
not a hardware one.  I suspect 8 processors is the cut off point where
Solaris 2.1 will not be able to gain significant performance from more
processors.  I would guess to see the 8 processor limit removed with
Solaris 2.2 or 3.0.  2H93 sounds about right if they are talking Dec 7
for Solaris 2.1....


-- 
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ||   John Navitsky   `,`,`,`,   e-mail >>  johnn@eskimo.celestial.com  || 
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: alawa@gna.axis-design.fr (Allaoua Bouabdallah)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Problems whith Cgfour card (Grapphic card) on Sun3/80.
Date: 22 Nov 92 18:21:38 GMT
Organization: GNA c/o Axis Design 119 rue de Flandre, 75019 Paris, France



 From time to time, when i boot up, my screen stay dark (exept some flashes),
 but i hear my disk booting. 
 If i switch off the power and then switch on after a while it sometimes
 works (not always).
 It seems that the problems comes from the Video card since i change the
 screen and get the sames results.

 Does anyone have an idea of what is going on ? 

 Thanks.

-Alawa

PS: I have to mention that i am testing HDs so i often switch on and switch off
    the power.
From: sbeland@nrao.edu (Stephane Beland,,,)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: LOOKING for Fujistu MD244x 1/2" Tape DRIVE
Date: 23 Nov 92 17:42:17 GMT
Reply-To: sbeland@nrao.edu
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory


We are looking to get our hands on a Fujitsu MD244x 1/2" tape drive. 
These were sold under Sun labels before they were replaced by the 
HP 88780 "desktop-autoloading and way too clever for it's own good"
drive.  Unfortunately these (Fujitsu) drives are discontinued even
if they were cheap and very reliable.

I KNOW some of you people out there are just waiting to upgrade those
slow drives.

Also does anyone know of companies that buy and resells used equipment.

Thanks

Stephane Beland
NRAO-AOC
Socorro, NM 87801
(505) 835-7335
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
From: thigpen@lambda.msfc.nasa.gov (Keith Thigpen)
Subject: HELP! Need jumper settings for Sun2 Shoebox
Summary: Looking for the jumper settings for Sun2 Shoebox
Keywords: jumper sun2 shoebox
Organization: NASA/MSFC
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:25:34 GMT

I have a second shoebox that is configured as sd2. What are the jumper
settings so that I can switch it to address 1?

TIA,
Keith
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Keith Thigpen          thigpen@lambda.msfc.nasa.gov      (205)461-4936   |
| New Technology, Inc.   Marshall Space Flight Center     Huntsville, AL   |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.hardware:5721 comp.periphs.scsi:5537