Info-3b2 Digest, Number 29

[Info-3b2 Mailing List]

                           Info-3b2 Digest, Number 29
 
                           Friday, October 21st 1988
 
Today's Topics:
 
                         Re: Info-3b2 Digest, Number 26
                              Re: various 3B2 stuff
                                     Delays
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Subject: Re: Info-3b2 Digest, Number 26
Date: 21 Oct 88 04:18:17 GMT
From: !les at chinet.chi.il.us

In article <340 at mccc.UUCP> pjh at mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes:
>
>I've run into the problem that rn won't work over a STARlan network
>also.  I can invoke it and it shows the first screen, but then it
>freezes.  Anyone have a clue or a fix?  Vnews and readnews don't seem to
>have this problems.

I ran across this problem with GNU emacs also.  Starlan on the 3B2 is a
STREAMS device and if a non-blocking read is done by setting O_NDELAY
if no data is present the read will return -1 where a tty device will
return 0 (this is true even when the pseudo-tty emulator is pushed on
the stream by the login mechanism).  Check for places that take the
value returned from read() as the number of characters read.  The
quick fix is to adjust any negative number to 0.  The right thing to
do would be to check errno on a negative return and do something
appropriate.

Les Mikesell

------------------------------
 
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 88 17:54:10 BST
Subject: Re: various 3B2 stuff
From: hoptoad!quaduk!graham (Graham Glen)

> 
> *    Does anybody know for *certain* that the idtools software
>      will not format a drive with > 1024 cylinders?
> 
Well, purely by coincedance, I today received a piece of mail from someone
who is ex-Olivetti (AT&T distributor over here), he is a person who knows
what he is talking about, so here's what he had to say:

> From: mikep at xisl1 (Mike Pellatt)
> 
>    Graham,
> 	Saw your posting on the net about formatting 3b2 drives beyond
> 1024 cylinders. Unfortunately, the problem is in the hardware, not the
> devtools (or its successor) program. 1024 cylinders is 10 bits (if my
> maths is right..). 
> 	If my memory serves me right (!!) the HD controller will support
> more cylinders - the limitation's in the registers around it. Much like
> the IBM PC - after all, who could POSSIBLY need more than 140MB of disk
> storage ?? (Well, that's what they thought in the early 80's).
> 
> --
> Mike Pellatt, Director, Xi Software Ltd., 47, Cedarwood Drive, St. Albans,
> Herts., AL4 0DN, England.     Tel- (+44) 727 57267   Home Tel- (+44) 1 394 1080
> Car phone- (+44) 836 535861   Fax- (+44) 727 42199
> Tlx- 265451 attn: 74:SKK279   BT Gold- 74:SKK279     uucp- xisl!mikep    
> 

We had been discussing this in the office here, and came to the conclusion
that the 10 bits was probably highly significant, but couldn't fathom out
why.

Graham

------------------------------
 
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 88 14:15:47 edt
From: len at netsys.COM (Len Rose)
Subject: Delays

Those people whose routes go through rutgers will
be experiencing some delays getting the last 2-3
messages from info-3b2. It seems their incoming
mux is on the blink.. We have not been able to 
sustain a login for the last 2 days.

An explanation.

-- 
Len Rose - Netsys,Inc. 
len at ames.arc.nasa.gov  or len at netsys.com

 
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