Sun-Spots Digest, v6n124
William LeFebvre
Sun-Spots-Request at RICE.EDU
Wed Jun 29 06:55:25 AEST 1988
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Tuesday, 28 June 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 124
Today's Topics:
Re: Sun 3/50 eyestrain
Re: writemasks and retained pixwins
Re: cshrc prompt
Office lights
Program to examine your SUN display mode
New telebit setup guide
Uucp does not work on SUN-4 (with Sys4-3.2).
4.0 vs kill -HUP 1
4.0 SOS questions
SUN OS 4.0 disk space?
PC/NFS?
Why is my 3/60 so slow - and why is mine unuseable?
How do I make an IBM readable tape on a SUN?
A tool to draw structure charts?
Problems with Apple Laser-writer and Sun
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 88 13:38 EST
From: Dick St.Peters <stpeters%dawn.tcpip at csbvax>
Subject: Re: Sun 3/50 eyestrain
> Do some people have non-linear eyes?
*Everybody* has non-linear eyes - or perhaps it's better to say people
have non-linear visual responses, since not just the eye is involved.
"Linearity" isn't even well-defined. Perceived brightness is highly
non-linear as a function of physical brightness - ask anyone who has tried
to uniformly illuminate an image digitization table.
Visual response is complex; there is a short-term dynamic range around a
long-term bias level. The long-term bias level adjustment is easy to
detect; e.g., going into or out of a dimly-lit building on a bright sunny
day. Non-linearity of the short-term response is more subtle; its whole
purpose is to make you unaware of it.
The eyestrain problem comes from the 66Hz Sun screen refresh mixing with
the 60Hz light flicker to create a 6 Hz beat frequency. Making the
refresh rate 66Hz instead of 60Hz moves the beat frequency high enough to
turn a gross problem into one subtle enough so that only some people under
some lighting conditions are bothered by it. A beat frequency of 6Hz is
about as close as you dare get to the brain's 8Hz alpha frequency, where
you run the risk of inducing seizures and blackouts.
If your only windows are on your screen, use incandescent lights, which
have a relatively small amount of flicker at 60Hz, because the filament
does not have time to cool off. The "flicker" is more like a "ripple" on
a constant background. Fluorescent light flicker depends a lot on the
particular bulbs: if the phosphor is fast, the light can turn almost
completely on and off at 60Hz. My understanding is that high-efficiency
"industrial" fluorescents tend to have fast phosphors.
Also subtle: stare in one direction, say at your screen, and each region
of your retina will begin adjusting its bias according to the brightness
focussed on it. Normal eye movements make the resulting spatial
non-linearity coarse, but matching screen brightness to room brightness
(dark room, dark background) is easier on the eyes.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 17:36:47 PDT
From: david at sun.com (David DiGiacomo)
Subject: Re: writemasks and retained pixwins
Reference: v6n113
>From: nosun!cvedc!grimm!billt at sun.com (Bill Tracy)
>
>...It turns out that the
>writemask affected only the displayed data. The retained pixrect did not
>have a writemask, so it would get cleared or scribbled on, etc. and would
>no longer match what was displayed. The included program example shows
>the needed fixes.
> ...
>/* modify pixrect data structure (must be done AFTER pw_putcolormap()) */
> pr = pw->pw_prretained ;
> mprd = mprp_d(pr);
> mprd->mpr.md_flags |= MP_PLANEMASK; /* this wasn't set
> * (but should be) */
Ouch! You should allocate space for the plane mask instead of just
overwriting the word following the mpr_data (cf. memvar.h and the 3.5
release notes).
Here is some (untested) code for adding a planemask to a memory pixrect:
add_planemask(pr)
Pixrect *pr;
{
struct mprp_data *mprd;
char *malloc();
if (MP_NOTMPR(pr))
return PIX_ERR;
if (mpr_d(pr)->md_flags & MP_PLANEMASK)
return 0;
if (!(mprd = (struct mprp_data *) malloc(sizeof *mprd)))
return PIX_ERR;
mprd->mpr = *mpr_d(pr);
mprd->mpr.md_flags |= MP_PLANEMASK;
mprd->planes = ~0;
/* could free mpr_d(pr) here */
pr->pr_data = (caddr_t) mprd;
return 0;
}
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 11:46:14 -0400
From: fed!arcfs1!m1rcd00 at uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: cshrc prompt
I guess I knew that when I posted that problem, I would wind up with
54,017 alternate solutions mailed to me :-) We used sed because we wanted
to get the %/# off the old prompt so we could tell when we were
super-user. And yes, I can think of alternate solutions to that, as well;
nonetheless, the thought of untold numbers of sed scripts breaking under
4.0 depresses the hell out of me.
Bob Drzyzgula, uunet!fed!rcd
[[ In other words, many people missed the point of the original message.
--wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 14:16:19 EDT
From: John T. Nelson <jtn at potomac.ads.com>
Subject: Office lights
> Both fluorescent and incandescent lights "flicker" mainly because the
> source voltage is alternating current. Theoretically, the flicker is fast
> enough (50-60 hz) that the eye won't notice it.
/From what I understand, the eyes of people who work in office environments
(under floursecent lights) become desensitized to the 60-cycle beat of
lights, in much the same way that you loose sensitization to high
frequency sounds.
Its odd though since the eye can't really perceive much beyond 30 cycles
per second but I found it interesting.
John T. Nelson UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn
Advanced Decision Systems Internet: jtn at potomac.ads.com
1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209-2401 (703) 243-1611
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 88 14:01:00 GMT
From: mcvax!tut.fi!jsa at uunet.uu.net (Jari Salo)
Subject: Program to examine your SUN display mode
We had some trouble with our new SUN 3/60 colourgraphics display as it
refused to understand (or at least some programs didn't) the display
really is coloured. So we wrote a tiny program to show/set the display
mode used.
The program which didn't work well was magic (a VLSI tool), which
requested the display information through ioctl from /dev/fb and the
answer was "I am B/W display".
Also mahjongg no longer needs the -c option to work in colours :-)
Jari Salo Tampere University of Technology
UUCP: jsa at tut.UUCP Computer Systems Laboratory
Internet: jsa at tut.fi PO box 527
Tel: 358-(9)31-162932 SF-33101 Tampere, Finland
[[ The shar file is 10571 bytes and it has been placed in the archives as
"sun-source/emulation.shar". It can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from
the host "titan.rice.edu" or via the archive server with the request
"send sun-source emulation.shar". For more information about the archive
server, send a mail message containing the word "help" to the address
"archive-server at rice.edu". --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 09:18:05 -0400
From: fed!arcfs1!m1rcd00 at uunet.uu.net
Subject: New telebit setup guide
I have implemented the new setup guide for our telebit modem. Thank you
for publishing a solution to a problem that had been the source of growing
frustration. I bought the telebits to drive down the cost of getting
usenet news and increase the throughput of our one uucp gateway. While I
was able to use the trailblazer *either* to service our uucp links at 2400
baud *or* get news from uunet at PEP speeds, when I had my uucp
configuration going back and forth between the two, I was met with
failure. The solution had been to resort to a CAC 2400 baud modem for all
purposes. Last night, for the first time, I was able to continue
servicing my uucp links while receiving 1.9 MB of news at an average
throughput of 940 cps.
There was one change I had to make in order to get it all working: for our
uunet link, I had to set s50=255 in L.sys to force the trailblazer to wait
for the PEP tones from uunet.
Again, thanks.
Bob Drzyzgula
Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC, 20551; uunet!fed!rcd
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 09:36:34 +0200
From: Ole Holm Nielsen <ohnielse%nordita.dk at cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject: Uucp does not work on SUN-4 (with Sys4-3.2).
We just had our SUN-4/260 delivered. Great machine ! But one annoying
problem is that it won't do uucp !! Specifically, we cannot receive
incoming mail correctly via the uucp connection (*sending* mail with uucp
is OK, however). In our LOGFILE appears error messages like:
"XQT DENIED (rmail)"
which we diagnose as coming from /usr/lib/uucp/uuxqt (try strings(1) on it).
Apparently uuxqt will not execute any command whatsoever !
A Sun rep. went through all the obvious problems such as permissions, but
there seems to be an inescapable conclusion: Uucp does not work under
Sys4-3.2 because "uuxqt" is faulty. It is promised to work in the next
release. The only work-around is to move mail to a SUN-3 !
Since this solution is rather painful for us, I would like to appeal to
the net for solutions: Has anyone made uucp work on a SUN-4?
Ole H. Nielsen
Nordic Institute of Theoretical Physics
Copenhagen, Denmark
E-mail: ohnielse at nordita.dk
Bitnet: ohnielse at dknbi51
[[ A solution to this problem was mentioed in v6n113. "The problem will
occur if you install SunOS Release Sys4-3.2 (which comes on 3 tapes, if
you get reel-to-reel) rather than Sys4-3.2_REV2 (which comes on one tape,
if you get reel-to- reel)." The symptoms are similar to the ones you have
described. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 10:59:25 EDT
From: Jean-Francois Lamy <lamy at ai.toronto.edu>
Subject: 4.0 vs kill -HUP 1
Under SunOS 4.0 on a Sun 4, editing /etc/ttytab and doing a kill -HUP 1
will force new gettys on all terminal ports on the ALM-2, including those
where people are logged on (definitely not nice).
Repeat-by: edit /etc/ttytab, change your terminal entry to some other
speed and kill -HUP 1. You should get kicked out.
Configuration: Sun 4/280-32, ALM-2, SunOS 4.0 kernel reconfigured to
include patches for ALM-2 and SCSI from Sun (object modules are dated May
6 and May 9).
Jean-Francois Lamy lamy at ai.utoronto.ca, uunet!ai.utoronto.ca!lamy
AI Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 13:39:44 EDT
From: oconnor at sccgate.scc.com (Michael J. O'Connor)
Subject: 4.0 SOS questions
I've got some problems with our Sun OS (SOS) 4.0 machines and DDN
services. They are all RoadRunners, but I've seen the same problem on a
Sun-3 running SOS 4.0.
The first problem is that I can't ftp into a 4.0 SOS machine unless I use
the user name root. All other accounts are denied access. The local
service people say there is a memo about ftp security being on by default
but can't tell me how to undefault it. I can't find any mention of ftp
security in the manual pages except for the old "anonymous" remarks. I
haven't been able to find an analogue to ftpusers either.
The second problem is that I can't get the ftp and telnet programs to use
the name domain server. Named runs fine as does nslookup and the MX
version of sendmail, but ftp and telnet tell me that any host not in the
yellow system is unknown. I'm running ypserv with the old secret -i flag
just like I do on our 3.n systems but have no joy. Does anyone know if
the secret flag to ypserv has changed?
Mike
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 88 13:43:04 EDT
From: watmath!thunder!flash!gihill at uunet.uu.net (geoff hill)
Subject: SUN OS 4.0 disk space?
Speaking of SUN OS 4.0, could someone tell me approximately how much more
disk space version 4.0 will require compared to version 3.5 ? We are
tight on space already and I want to know if we have to get another disk
pack.
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 88 15:05 +0100
From: DALVIT Luciano <dalvit%cui.uucp at relay.cs.net>
Subject: PC/NFS?
Does anyone know how to print a document from a PC on a printer connected
to a SUN workstation running OS 3.5, using PC/NFS v2.0, without giving
access to the root partition in the /etc/exports file on the SUN
workstation. Replies should be sent directly to dalvit at cgeuge51.bitnet
Thanks D.l.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 09:34:13 BST
From: Morna Findlay <morna%lfcs.edinburgh.ac.uk at nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: Why is my 3/60 so slow - and why is mine unuseable?
I have also had problems with a 3/60 running 3.5 on a 70Mb disk. On
talking to SUN, they informed me that this was an unsupported combination,
due to "known problems" with the SCSI interface with 3/60's. I am still
waiting for more information on these "known problems", so I'll pass it on
to you if it looks interesting.
The problem I have here is that attempts to write to remotely mounted
filesystems from the 3/60 usually fail, giving "remote NFS server not
"responding" type messages. On closer investigation, the write will be
stuck in disk wait, and the only way to get it out is to reboot! As a
result, none of our users bother using this machine. SUN suggested that
going back to 3.4 might solve the problem, as there are "changes relating
to the SCSI drive in 3.5" - quote.
Has anyone had similar experiences?
Morna
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 10:38:39 PDT
From: ultra!ted at ames.arc.nasa.gov (Ted Schroeder)
Subject: How do I make an IBM readable tape on a SUN?
I have a hunk of C code that I want to port (sort of) to an IBM
mainframe. (Yeah, I know, why would I want to do that anyway? :-)) My
only method of transportation is 9-track tape. The files I want to move
are all c source (hence ascii text). I think the IBM can handle the
ASCII-EBCDIC conversion, but if I can preconvert on the sun that would
make me more confident. I've heard rumors that this can be done using 'dd'
but don't know the details.
Anybody know how to do this?
Thanks in advance,
Ted Schroeder ultra!ted at Ames.arc.nasa.GOV
Ultra Network Technologies
2140 Bering drive with a domain server:
San Jose, CA 95131 ted at Ultra.COM
408-922-0100
[[ A good place to start would be the manual page for "dd". Look for the
description of the option "-conv=ebcdic". --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 88 11:04:38 PDT
From: ultra!ted at ames.arc.nasa.gov (Ted Schroeder)
Subject: A tool to draw structure charts?
Does anyone have a public domain tool for the sun that will draw a
structure chart (or function call tree)? It seems like I remember a
program called 'schart' that was available on an early Amdahl UTS system
but can't find anything similar in my sun manual pages.
Thanks in advance,
Ted Schroeder ultra!ted at Ames.arc.nasa.GOV
Ultra Network Technologies
2140 Bering drive with a domain server:
San Jose, CA 95131 ted at Ultra.COM
408-922-0100
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 88 18:25:28 GMT
From: esr at mrst.UUCP (Eric S. Rose)
Subject: Problems with Apple Laser-writer and Sun
We are having a problem with our Apple laser-writer connected to our Sun
3/180. Things that are sent are printed mormally, but there is another
problem that has me puzzled:
The laser-writer randomly produces a test page, like the ones that are
spit out when you first turn the sucker on.
Either the laser-writer is going loopy, or my line printer daemon is
randomly resetting it (somehow). This has only been going on for a few
months. We are running Sun OS 3.4.
We are also use Valid Logic Systems software, and I know that that can
really screw up the laser-writer, because they didn't implement their
postscript drivers properly. (Hear that, Valid?????)
Has anyone had similar problems with their laser-writers? If so, I would
like to hear from you!
Thanks for any help!
Eric
Eric Rose
MRS Technology, Inc. Chelmsford, MA.
(617) 250-0450
...genrad \
...apollo ->- !mrst!esr
...necntc /
------------------------------
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