Date: Fri, 20 Jun 97 22:19:17 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #22 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Fri, 20 Jun 97 Volume 10 : Issue 22 Today's Topics: Fading Monitor reading serial port *reliably* Sigma monitors and Sun 3's Sun 3/110 issues (ESDI disk & tape boot) Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #19 Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #21 (2 msgs) Weather station on IPX's serial port (2 msgs) +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home \ | | Requests: suns-at-home-request > @net-kitchen.com | | Archives: suns-at-home-archives / | | WWW Archive access: http://www.net-kitchen.com/~sah | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 10:04:52 +0100 From: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk (Charles Lindsey) Subject: Fading Monitor To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com I have an ancient 19 inch Black and White "Dimple Top" monitor which was part of a Sun 3/140 or somesuch in an earlier life, but is now attached to my SPARC 1+. The picture is now getting exceedingly dim. All the Brightness knobs are turned fully up, to no avail. What is the likely prognosis? Is it most likely to need a new tube, or could it be something dying in the EHT supply (a leaky capacitor or something)? And if it is a new tube, is it just a standard TV tube, or something special? All suggestions gratefully received. Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------- Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Voice/Fax: +44 161 437 4506 Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5 - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 23:18:58 -0700 (PDT) From: sjm Subject: reading serial port *reliably* To: eggert@twinsun.com, Casper.Dik@Holland.Sun.COM, jim@hosaka.SmallWorks.COM, I just wanted to thank everyone who so graciously sent me advice on getting my Sparc IPX to read the weather station on its serial port. It turns out that it was a ground problem: the Sun and the weather station were plugged into outlets that were on different wiring runs here in my old house, one which is grounded and the other which isn't. Plugging them into the same circuit has allowed the Sparc to read the serial port without a single error for over 24 hours now... :-) :-) :-) Thanks, -- Steve McCarthy Author RightOn 2.4 for Windows sjm@halcyon.com The Power Mouse Utility http://www.halcyon.com/sjm/righton.html Current wind and temp at my house: http://www.halcyon.com/sjm/wx/latest.shtml - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 16:57:48 +1000 From: Tom Plackowski Subject: Sigma monitors and Sun 3's To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com >Terrance Hodgins wrote: >> But watch out if it is something else, like a Sigma Designs monitor. >> Hooking up one of them with a straight-through cable will blow a >> chip on your cpu board. If you have one of them, I can give you >> the cable rewiring... > >Terrance, >can you please send this information to me? Hi. Sorry to take so long to get back to you on this, but I couldn't find the right piece of paper where I wrote down all of this stuff, and didn't want to give you bad information, especially when you can blow your CPU board if wrong... But I just found the home-made cable I have been using, and it verifies what I have been remembering. So it is like this: Sun 3/50 Sigma monitor 1 video + (ECL) 1 6 video - (ECL) 6 3 vert sync (TTL) 5 4 horiz sync (TTL) 9 7,8,9 ground 7,8 KILLER MINUS 5.3 VOLTS 4 leave these unconnected: 3, 4 2,5 No connection The cable for a Sun monitor is just straight through. As you can see, the Sigma monitor just re-arranges a few signals, just enough to blow up things. The minus 5 volt supply is for powering ECL terminating resistors. As you can see, if you use a straight-through cable, you will be connecting minus 5.3 volts to the horizontal sync output, and that will smoke two chips: a diode array that is for clamping signals, and a 74F244 chip that drives the vertical and horizontal sync, and also a few signals for the SCSI bus right beside it... I don't know if you are familiar with old ECL (emitter-coupled logic), but basically it was a very fast family of logic chips, (the Cray 1 was built entirely out of them), and they have the peculiarity that they run on negative voltages. Minus 5.3 volts is a logical zero and zero volts is a logical one. If you connect that to TTL chips, they smoke. And they also always run signals in a differential mode. You have two lines (+ and -) for each logic signal. That helps to suppress ringing, because the receiver always differentially amplifies the received signal. That's why you have Video+ and Video-. Video minus is NOT ground. It is simply the logical complement of Video+. The only part of this that I have any doubt about it the vertical and horizonal sync: I might have them labeled backwards, but I don't think so. In any case, the cable is still correct. And there is the vaguest of chances that the terminator power was on pin 3 of the Sigma monitor, (but again, I don't think so.). Double-check everything with a voltmeter of course, and you will find that minus 5.3 volts on the sigma monitor easily, and avoid it like the plague. * Terrance Hodgins * * Willamette Web Weavers * * weave@navi.net * * http://www.navi.net/~weave/ * - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jun 97 23:43:42 PDT From: perryh@pluto.rain.com (Perry Hutchison) Subject: Sun 3/110 issues (ESDI disk & tape boot) To: funhouse@netcom.com > Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 01:38:32 -0500 (CDT) > From: Dean Grover ... > the tape drive on the system was identified as "st1", and I'm looking > for the correct boot command to boot from tape. I've tried several > variaions of "b st(0,X,0)", but so far no luck. Have you tried setting the tape's SCSI ID to 4 (st0) instead of 5 (st1)? The 3/110 may not support booting from st1. To answer the next question, the SCSI ID is set using a DIP switch on the MT02 SCSI=>QIC board. Switch #1 is the least significant bit. - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 18:31:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Rick Leir EPS Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #19 To: Dwight McKay Rick Leir rleir@igs.net http://www.igs.net/~rleir 613-828-8289 7951 Rocinante It's not the size of the dog in a fight that counts, but the size of the fight in the dog. -- Jim Barksdale On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, Dwight McKay wrote: > 1. is anyone making cheap sparc motherboards (with low end cpus - > expensive 10GHz need not apply) that can be plunked into > cheapo PC cases? Can this hypothetical board use IDE? A company called Opus used to make a PC sparc board, and used boards would be cheap. But it would be easier to find a used IPC, and they are cheap. > 2. can one run Sun graphics on SVGA monitors? perhaps throttling the Yes, Multisync monitors generally work well with suns. - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 21:52:01 -0500 From: Jim Thompson Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #21 To: sjm@halcyon.com > Questions > ----------------------- > 1. So what is the big secret about reading an instrument on a serial port? > I can do it under Linux without dropping or otherwise corrupting > characters. While I have use of this Sun, I would like to actually use > it. See below. > 2. For reading input from an instrument, why does /dev/term/a never work > while /dev/cua/a, which I understand to be a "callout" device suitable > for modems and bidirectional devices, does? /dev/cua/X is, indeed a callout device. More correctly, /dev/cua/X is an 'open without carrier' device. /dev/term/a (and friends) will stall in an open() until CD (carrier detect) comes high. /dev/cua/a will let the open succeed. > 3. What good is the port monitor? Not much. :-) > Why do changes to /etc/ttydefs, which are supposedly used by the port > monitor to set the state of a port, never seem to have any effect? Because sac(1m) forks a ttymon, which only reads /etc/ttydefs when it starts. > Despite whatever settings I have in /etc/ttydefs, when I open the device > it is invariably at 9600 baud and other settings I don't want. Yep. Thats what you get by default, on *all* opens. /etc/ttydefs tells ttymon(1m) what to set the port to, but you'll always get 9600 baud, 7 bits, even parity when you open the device. These defaults are built-into the device driver. > Any advice greatly appreciated! It could be (note your binary data) that ldterm and/or ttycompat (streams modules automagicly pushed onto the stream when you open the device) are interfering with your data. Try something like the below with "a.out /dev/cua/a". Normally, you'll have either be "uucp" or "root" to access the device. /* * Copyright 1997, SmallWorks, Inc. * * Use this as you wish, but don't sue me if it breaks. * (Warning: I've not really tested this.) */ #include #include #include #include #include int main(int argc, char **argv) { int ttyfd, nread; struct termio termio; char buf[BUFSIZ]; /* re-used */ if (argc != 2) { fprintf(stderr, "usage %s term-dev\n", argv[0]); exit(1); } if ((ttyfd = open(argv[1], O_RDWR)) < 0) { perror(argv[1]); exit(1); } /* get rid of ldterm and ttcompat */ while (ioctl(ttyfd, I_LOOK, buf) >= 0) { (void) ioctl(ttyfd, I_POP, buf); } /* get existing terminal settings */ if (ioctl(ttyfd, TCGETA, &termio) < 0) { perror("ioctl TCGETA failed"); exit(1); } /* set termio struct to 2400 baud, 8 bits, no parity */ termio.c_cflag &= CBAUD; termio.c_cflag |= CS8 | CREAD | HUPCL | B2400; termio.c_cflag |= BRKINT | IGNPAR; /* set the above */ if (ioctl(ttyfd, TCSETA, &termio) < 0) { perror("ioctl TCSETA failed"); exit(1); } /* replace this with what you wish */ while ((nread=read(ttyfd, buf, sizeof(buf))) > 0) { if (write(1, buf, nread) != nread) { break; } } return 1; /* something failed */ } -- Jim Thompson / Smallworks, Inc. / jim@smallworks.com 512 338 0619 phone / 512 338 0625 fax - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 10:03:30 -0400 From: Ken Hansen Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #21 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > Date: 15 Jun 1997 23:18:04 GMT > From: erdem@newyorkcity.ny (theErdster:) > Subject: Sparc CD-Roms and floppies. > To: culist-suns-at-home@cunews.carleton.ca > > Does anyone here have any information on a cheaper solution for attaching > a CD-ROM and floppy drive to my Sparc 5? I cringe whenever I see the > listings 600$ for a 4X CD-R drive, 200$ for a floppy. Check out http://www.plextor.com/ they are offering refurbished 4X CD-ROMs for $100 +/- each - I got one, works great (but then again all Plextors run great (IMHO)!). Regarding floppy drive, I would suggest calling around to *surplus* Sun dealers (not the high-priced dealers that advertise in the back of glossy Sun magazines!) to see if any have a sparc5 specific drive available, if not, think about other, interesting options, like getting an IPC w/floppy drive for $50-100 and networking the two - do you need the floppy for booting? Hope the above helps, Ken khansen@njcc.com - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 15:17:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Anthony Talltree Subject: Weather station on IPX's serial port To: Suns-at-Home-List@tigger.net-kitchen.com Just fire up ckermit on the port and have it session-log. - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jun 97 10:59:59 BST From: Hugh Davies Subject: Weather station on IPX's serial port To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com sjm writes; All I can suggest is a careful reading of Celeste Stokely's tutorial on Sun serial ports, at; http://www.stokely.com Sadly, in 22 years in the computer industry, I've seen this kind of problem come up again, and again, and again .... RS232 just isn't suitable for data aquisition. Regards, Hugh. - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************