Sun-Spots Digest, v6n254
William LeFebvre
Sun-Spots-Request at Rice.edu
Tue Oct 11 08:14:50 AEST 1988
SUN-SPOTS DIGEST Sunday, 9 October 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 254
Today's Topics:
Re: Problem: SLOW Boot on diskless Suns (2)
Re: gettimeofday() bug
Re: how to invert a panel text item programatically
Re: videoing a sun screen
Re: GNUPLOT
Re: Voice Recognition Hardware/Software
Re: facts for purchase justification
SUG Yearly Shindig
BITNET mangles source files
kermit for sun 4, sun os 4.0?
Converting SunOS 3.x dot.o files to SunOS 4.0?
Changing Sunview default font?
Postscript previewer?
Project Planning Software?
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 5 Oct 88 12:37:26 GMT
From: ehrlich at blitz.cs.psu.edu (Dan Ehrlich)
Subject: Re: Problem: SLOW Boot on diskless Suns (1)
Reference: v6n248
Jean-Francois Lamy <lamy at ai.utoronto.ca> said:
>
>We have 3 3/60s in the same room, on the same DELNI. Oddly enough, one
>machine is black and white and has never exhibited the slow TFTP problem.
>The colour and the grey-scale ones do it all the time....As I
>recall, Sun's answer for the Sun 2 problem was "reboot until it goes
>quickly". Sure.
Way back when the DELNI was first introduced by DEC (and I was working
somewhere else) we tried to determine why we got much lower file transfer
rates between machines on the same DELNI. If my memory serves me
correctly the final word we got was something like "Well, you have to
understand that the DELNI is a multiplexor and not a multiport
tranceiver." As this came from 'knowledgeable' people we assumed it was
correct, albeit not the answer we wanted to hear.
Appearently there is enough shared logic in the DELNI that trying to
rapidly pump large amounts of data between two ports results in a large
number of 'collisions' being reported. (Can anyone confirm/deny this?)
When we put the two machines on seperate DELNIs that where connected by
coax the file transfer rates were much closer to the rates we saw when the
machines themselves were directly on the coax.
Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich at blitz.cs.psu.edu>
The Pennsylvania State University
Department of Computer Science
University Park, PA 16802
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 88 21:12:20 MDT
From: tomlin at zia.dspo.gov (Bob Tomlinson)
Subject: Re: Problem: SLOW Boot on diskless Suns (2)
I believe (first hand, from Sun, and from other sources) that the SLOW
boot problem on diskless Sun workstations is caused by receipt of
Multicast packets during the boot process. Multicast packets are used by
DECnet and XNS (as well as other less used protocols VMTP, etc.).
The official Sun bug number is 1013639. The ECO 4022 fixes the problem
(new boot proms). (Actually, it doesn't really fix the problem, so much
as it kicks the boot process in the pants when it gets stuck.)
-- bob
tomlin at hc.dspo.gov
--
Bob Tomlinson -- tomlin at hc.dspo.gov -- (505) 667-8495
Los Alamos National Laboratory -- MEE-10/Data Systems
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 88 21:24:42 PDT
From: jamesa at sun.com (James D. Allen)
Subject: Re: gettimeofday() bug
The timer resolution of Sun-2 and Sun-3 is 20 milliseconds; for Sun-4 it's
10 milliseconds. gettimeofday() cannot be used for greater accuracy than
this. (With some difficulty a finer timestamp *is* available on the
Sun-2.)
Why then, the non-zero digits in the low-order microsecond value? It's a
well-known (though little understood) principle of physics that if event A
occurs AFTER event B, its *time* is arithmetically greater than that of
event B. gettimeofday() provides this useful feature on its "times" by
incrementing the microsecond field on each call.
This is not a new idea. The IBM 370/135, for example, had 16 microsecond
resolution. The firmware for Store_Clock executed 16 microseconds of
NOP's to ensure that the Clock never yielded the same value twice.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 88 07:55:00 EDT
From: Chuck Musciano <chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com>
Subject: Re: how to invert a panel text item programatically
> Normally, when you click on a text panel item, SunView highlights it in
> inverse video. How can I make a SunView program do highlighting like this
> under program control?
You can call panel_begin_preview(panel_item, event) to start the
inverting, followed by panel_accept_preview(panel_item, event) to switch
to the "hashing" and call the notify proc, and finally,
panel_cancel_preview(panel_item, event) to restore things back to normal.
Read about these in the panel chapter in the SunView programmer's guide.
Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(407) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 88 11:45:25 CDT
From: debrunne%uirvld.csl.uiuc.edu at uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (Christian H. Debrunner)
Subject: Re: videoing a sun screen
Phill Everson asks:
>Has anyone successfully managed to video a sun screen? We have tried but
>have had considerable flicker problems with the sun refresh rate of 66Hz
>(?) and our video camera's rate of 25 Hz (?).
We have video taped directly off a color sun screen (3/160) using an
Olympus CCD 8mm camcorder with reasonable results. I actually didn't
expect it to work since the frame rates were different, but there were no
problems with flicker. I'm not really sure why it works, but my theory is
that the CCD sensor integrates the light coming to each pixel over one
whole frame time, so it is not critical when during the frame time the
corresponding region of the screen is illuminated (scanned), and
syncronization is unnecessary. A standard video tube, however, scans the
imaging area with an electron beam and if it is out of sync with the
monitor the image will flicker.
I believe that you could not genlock your recorder to the sun's monitor
because they run at different scan rates. There are devices which convert
signals between different scan rates and signal formats, but I beleive
they are quite expensive. On the other hand, you would probably get
better resolution and color with such a device.
Chris Debrunner
University of Illinois
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 88 00:03:22 EDT
From: ufnmr!gareth at bikini.cis.ufl.edu (Gareth J. Barker)
Subject: Re: GNUPLOT
Gnuplot is available via uucp from 'rpp386.uucp' - put the following
line in your 'L.sys' file :
rpp386 Any ACU 2400 12142506272 in:--in:--in: anonuucp
Send a break to change from 2400 to 1200 baud.
>From a recent USENET posting - sorry I've lost the authors name -
__________
The archive listing file will give the location of the files. All of the
packages are storaged as 16 bit compressed sharchives, except for compress
of course, stored in the subdirectory /usr/archive/. Do not attempt to
use file wildcards. Pick up ~/snatch if you are lazy ;-).
This is a archive of USENET sources I've been able to get running on SCO
Xenix(tm). If you aren't running Xenix, you may still be in luck since
things seem to work fine if they work on Xenix. However, please note that
I am not in any way associated with either Microsoft or The Santa Cruz
Operation.
Files are stored in /usr/archive, one package per directory, as
compressed(1)'d sharchives. Be _very_ careful to get the full path-name.
Many people forget the package subdirectory. For example, it is
/usr/archive/moria/moria-1.Z. Do not use wild cards. YOU MUST NAME THE
COMPLETE PATH YOURSELF!!!! DO NOT FORGET THE /usr/archive/ SUBDIRECTORY
OR YOUR REQUEST WILL FAIL!!! For best results, pick up the script
/usr/spool/uucppublic/snatch which can be used to setup requests by
package name.
Description Volume File(s) Blocks
===========================================================================
gnuplot - graph and plot tool, part 1 f003 gnuplot/gplot.shar.1.Z 26
gnuplot - graph and plot tool, part 2 f003 gnuplot/gplot.shar.2.Z 52
gnuplot - graph and plot tool, part 3 f003 gnuplot/gplot.shar.3.Z 56
gnuplot - graph and plot tool, part 4 f003 gnuplot/gplot.shar.4.Z 10
gnuplot - graph and plot tool, part 5 f003 gnuplot/gplot.shar.5.Z 30
gnuplot - graph and plot tool, part 6 f003 gnuplot/gplot.shar.6.Z 46
__________
The diffs in the Sun Spot archives are almost, but not exactly, correct
for this version - you'll probably have to patch 'term.c' and the Makefile
by hand.
Gareth J. Barker,
University of Florida,
Department of Radiology.
INTERNET : ufnmr!gareth at BIKINI.CIS.UFL.EDU
UUCP : ...gatech!uflorida!ufnmr!gareth
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 05 Oct 88 08:36:08 EDT
From: Eric.Thayer at f.word.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Voice Recognition Hardware/Software
Andrew S. Gerber asked on Fri, 30 Sep 88:
Can anyone give me a pointer to companies that manufacture/distribute
voice recognition software and hardware for the Sun?
I don't know of any developed systems, but a number of industry
representatives have come to see the SPHINX recognition system developed
by Kai-fu Lee, Roberto Bisiani, and their groups. You can get in touch by
e-mail or phone with Raj Reddy or Kai-fu @ CMU for more details.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 05 Oct 88 09:58:21 -0500
From: "David C. Martin" <dcmartin at cs.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: facts for purchase justification
Reference: v6n249
Email: dcmartin at cheddar.cs.wisc.edu or ..!ucbvax!dcmartin
Phone: 608/262-6624 (O)
In response to Robert Lopez's question about purchasing a Sun4 for LISP
development in an VAX/VMS environment.
Well, I don't know about the current state of VAX Lisp, but the Lucid
Common LISP and SPE from Sun appear to be nice development environments.
I don't particularly like Lucid, but SPE appears to be a win (Franz
Allegro 3.0 is faster on the Sun4 than Lucid 2.1). Why buy a Sun4 instead
of a uVAX 3200 running VMS? Well, you are comparing apples and oranges.
If you buy the VMS box then you will be forced to purchase whatever SPE
equivalent that DEC produces (when they produce it). A possible
alternative might be the rumored DEC/MIPS box running Ultrix. With
approx. 13 MIPS of computing power and UNIX with the X Window System you
should be able to blow away any Sun product that currently exists. Or you
could simply purchase a MIPS box from some other OEM who adds the bigh-res
bitmap display and provides support for X11.
I think you ought to examine the needs for LISP in your environment and
look for a box which provides the highest throughput with the nicest
environment - but don't forget response to customer needs - one thing I
find a little lacking from Lucid/Sun. Talk to Franz, Inc in Berkeley, CA
- I don't remember their number off the top of my head, but it is the 415
area code.
dcm
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 88 19:44:44 MST
From: bull at noao.edu (Frank Bull CCS/NOAO)
Subject: SUG Yearly Shindig
What is the status of SUG Conference in Miami in December? I haven't heard
from SUG in 6 months nor received README in that long. Anyone care to
comment?
Frank Bull
Central Computer Services
National Optical Astronomy Observatories
UUCP: {arizona,decvax,ncar}!noao!bull or uunet!noao.edu!bull
Internet: bull at noao.edu SPAN/HEPNET: 5355::BULL or NOAO::BULL
[[ As far as I know, it's still happening. I plan to be there this
year....maybe we could have an informal "sun-spots" gathering or
something. It's scheduled for December 4 - 7 at the Fountainebleau
Hilton, which (I guess) is on the beach. --wnl ]]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 88 07:46:51 EDT
From: Chuck Musciano <chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com>
Subject: BITNET mangles source files
It has been my experience that C source sent to some bitnet sits, or to
some sites which have to pass through some EBCDIC (!) machines is horribly
mangled. Does anyone know of some tools which will massage files into
some form which is acceptable to everyone, and then restore them after the
mailer gets through with them? If not, I'll gladly write them, and would
appreciate it if people would send me any mailer failure modes they have
seen so that I can handle the problem.
[[ Later that same week.... --wnl ]]
Well, I suppose I'm just losing my mind. I just asked about tools which
let you ship code across various hosts undamaged, and then realized that
uuencode and uudecode do just that. Sigh... I've got to sit further back
from my screen...
[[ Well, yes and no. Uuencode/decode usually work, but I have encountered
EBCDIC machines that change around some ASCII characters in an unexpected
way. What have other peoples' experiences been in sending a uuencoded
file through Bitnet hosts? What subset of ASCII does uuencode use (I
can't find an answer to that in the manual pages)? --wnl ]]
Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(407) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed Oct 5 00:09:32 1988
From: fabscal!dorn at gatech.edu (Alan Dorn Hetzel)
Subject: kermit for sun 4, sun os 4.0?
I am in desperate need of a version of kermit which will operate on a sun
4 under sun os 4.0
Anyone who can help, please send mail to:
gatech.edu!fabscal!dorn
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 88 01:10:46 PDT
From: markb at ee.ucla.edu (Mark Bell)
Subject: Converting SunOS 3.x dot.o files to SunOS 4.0?
Is there a reasonable way to convert 3.x object files to 4.0? I have some
commercial libraries (Informix) which I use in my production code. I can
compile an executable module on a 3.x system which works fine on the 4.0
SunOS, but I can't use those libraries on the 4.0.
Sun told me that they knew of no way and agreed with me that perusing the
a.out manual page and include/a.out.h should theoretically allow me to
write a converter; there was no Computer Science reason it couldn't be
done. I acknowledge that the manual for 4.0 says the library modules
won't work. Maybe there is a switch I can give the linker to accept
object modules that are non-run-time-dynamic? [[ "-Bstatic" maybe?
--wnl ]]
I'm not too concerned with execution efficiency since I expect to receive
new libraries in a couple of months and this would tide us over.
Thanks -- Mark Bell UCLA Engr School (213) 825-6166.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 88 14:10:04 EDT
From: Paul Jordan <pj2f at eesun8.ee.virginia.edu>
Subject: Changing Sunview default font?
I hope there's an easy fix to this problem I'm having with the font setup
in Sunview (on a SUN 3/50). I can't seem to change the default font the
way described in any of the manuals (i.e. using WIN_FONT in window_create,
or calling the pf_default() routine). Thus my application takes the
default font of the user. How can it be set to use one font, no matter
what the user's font is ?
Also, a side-note question (since I'm a new user/reader of sun-spots) :
are there any easy fixes to the use of more than one tty subwindow in
Sunview, for when I create 2 ttys, the window setup for one or both is
lost and applications inside will not work. Is it an environment
parameter which limits the number or a system limitation ? Any help would
be appreciated !
Paul J. (pj2f at uvaee.ee.virginia.edu)
------------------------------
Date: 6 Oct 88 01:03:32 GMT
From: venkat%brand.usc.edu at oberon.usc.edu (V. Venkat)
Subject: Postscript previewer?
Is anybody aware of a postscript previwer on the SUN to preview postscript
files? Thanks for any info.
V. Venkat
email to venkat at brand.usc.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 88 11:21:36 MDT
From: roberts%studguppy at lanl.gov (Doug Roberts @ Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Subject: Project Planning Software?
I'm looking for project planning software for the sun that does the
following:
1. Critical path analysis (PERT algorithm preferred)
2. Calendar bar charts
3. A friendly interface for inputing event/activity info
4. A graphical interface that shows event precedence info
(i,j node diagram) would be nice.
There is a package called Micro Planner Plus for the Macintosh that does
all of the above, and I've seen one or two PC products as well.
Anybody know of something like this for the Sun?
--Doug
Douglas Roberts
Los Alamos National Laboratory
(505)667-4569
dzzr at lanl.gov
------------------------------
End of SUN-Spots Digest
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