Date: Thu, 4 Sep 97 15:22:38 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #31 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Thu, 4 Sep 97 Volume 10 : Issue 31 Today's Topics: Anyone want a Sun 3/50? Circuit-Plans color -> greyscale? cycling system logs and aspppd? how to repair the monitor Q: a PPP connection & two computers, making one use the other? SPARCstation as X-term? sun3 with corrupt eeprom? Sun equipment- FCC Class A or B (3 msgs) Sun Hardware Reference status Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #30 (2 msgs) XDM and Sunos 4.1.3_U1 +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 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: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 01:37:26 -0700 From: Noel Cragg Subject: Anyone want a Sun 3/50? To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com I have a diskless Sun 3/50 with 4MB of memory and a 19" mono monitor that I'm no longer using. It's not worth much, but it makes a nice xterm with a lot of screen real-estate, provided you don't mind the lack of a color display. If you'd like it, offer me shipping costs plus whatever you think it's worth. -- Noel Cragg // 6244 Aberdeen Av // Goleta CA 93117-2002 // 805.964.1892 - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 04:51:56 +0100 From: Tilo Hacke Subject: Circuit-Plans To: suns-at-home@tigger.net-kitchen.com Dear Sirs ! I am collecting VME-suns and have got less cages/racks although i have lots of boards in stock. In order to modify standard VME-Racks appropriately for building up some more 3/280-Systems i need the circuit-plans of the 3/260- Cages. Furthermore i should be gratified obtaining circuit-plans for repairing some of the defective boards i have in stock. Especially i am interested in plans for 3/50 and 3/260. Thoroughly Theirs Tilo Hacke -- ASCIA NEMORI, CALLVMINATOR FLAGITIOSVS - ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 97 18:13:18 +0100 From: udo@dinges.xs4all.nl (Udo van den Heuvel) Subject: color -> greyscale? To: suns-at-home@tigger.net-kitchen.com Hoi! I want to connect my 3/60 (with color framebuffer) to a greyscale monitor (2 coax inputs). I can connect sync to sync but need to put R, G and B together into 1 'video' signal. How? I think some resistors might do the trick. What values should they be? Is this the correct way to do this? Info would be very welcome! Groeten, Udo --- GoldED/2 3.00.Alpha5+ -- | Standard disclaimer: These views are strictly my own. - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Sep 1997 08:33:58 -0700 From: Brendan Kehoe Subject: cycling system logs and aspppd? To: Suns-at-Home List Hi! I use the script below to cycle various logs on my system each week, so they don't grow too large. I'd like to also cycle /var/adm/log/asppp.log, perhaps once a month. But as far as I can tell, aspppd has no real way to change the log file it uses, without also cutting existing connections. (i.e., a HUP, which works for syslog and httpd, isn't acceptable for aspppd. Granted httpd also closes its connections, but the effect of a HUP for it isn't as drastic.) Anyone taken an approach to asppp.log, perchance? Thanks, B -- cut -- #!/bin/sh # Rotate the logs like /usr/lib/newsyslog, but $compress 'em. # If you'd rather not compress them, just change compress to `true'. PATH=/usr/bin ; export PATH # What logs to rotate. webdir=/usr/local/etc/httpd/logs logs="/var/adm/messages /var/log/syslog /var/log/netlog $webdir/access_log $webdir/error_log" # How to compress them, and recognize that they've been compressed. compress=/usr/local/bin/gzip ; ext=gz # Uncomment this to see what would happen w/o actually doing anything. #ECHO=echo rotate() { file=$1 ; shift while [ $# -ne 1 ]; do g=`ls $file.$2* 2>/dev/null` if [ -n "$g" ]; then $ECHO mv -f $file.$2.$ext $file.$1.$ext 2>/dev/null if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then $ECHO mv -f $file.$2 $file.$1 $ECHO $compress $file.$1 fi fi shift done } umask 22 # create the new log with mode 644 for log in $logs ; do if [ -s $log ]; then rotate $log 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 $ECHO mv -f $log $log.0 # echo 'doing > $log' > $log fi done # Send syslog the HUP first, so it'll start writing to the new files; then # do the compression. Likewise for httpd. $ECHO kill -HUP `cat /etc/syslog.pid` `cat $webdir/httpd.pid` for log in $logs ; do test -s $log.0 && $ECHO $compress $log.0 done exit 0 -- cut -- -- Brendan Kehoe brendan@zen.org Web page: http://www.zen.org/~brendan/ - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 04:35:10 +0100 From: Tilo Hacke Subject: how to repair the monitor To: kykim@access.digex.net I suppose Your graphics controller to be the original on board monochrome controller implementing an one bit digital video output and your monochome monitor remaining completely black. This controller utilizes ECL logic levels. At first I should check for the correct output levels. This easily is done by a differetial measurement of the V+ and V- signal lines on the video connector utilizing a dual channel oscilloscope with at least 100MHz bandwidth. The difference between those two signal lines should either result to about +0.9 V or -0.9 V. A positive difference is interpreted as a logical 1 and a negative one as a logical 0. If You you are noticing a rhythmically changing signal, the digital video itsself is ok. Otherwise You probably have to replace the 10H141 shift-register or another ECL-component in the video signal path. On one of my 3/50-boards i even detected a DTL-component in the video-path. If this is broken, replacement will be rather difficult, since those componentsar out of production since at least 10 years. But are simple enough to build a home-hade replacement using discrete parts. Afterwards You should Check the SYNC signals. The H-Sync should show about 0.1-0.5 us wide pulses with a 15 us spacing between them. The V-Sync should show about 45 us wide pulses with a 15 ms spacing. The height of the sync pulses should equal to 3-5 V (TTL-Levels). If the monitor has gone wrong, You should look out for a defective 10H115 or 10H116 line-receiver in the monitor. If all those measures do not succeed, I need You to describe the failure more exactly and, most important, I need circuit plans of the involved board and monitor. Tilo Hacke -- ASCIA NEMORI, CALLVMINATOR FLAGITIOSVS, DEORVM CONTEMPTOR - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 16:48:58 -0700 From: Brendan Kehoe Subject: Q: a PPP connection & two computers, making one use the other? To: Suns-at-Home List Hi! I've got my sparc 1+ (Sol 2.5.1) wired up to a PPP connection just fine now. (Took a few steps to figure out aspppd, but it's there now.) Not makin' it yet with the backups, but ... on to this. :) I've got my laptop hooked up to one of the serial ports, and would like to let it log in and run /usr/sbin/aspppls to get a fully workable PPP link. The stuff I've done: * Added this to /etc/passwd: laptop:x:107:200:Laptop:/:/usr/sbin/aspppls and gave it a password, which is in /etc/shadows. * Used admintool to fully enable /dev/term/b (the port) to be listed as a `Modem - Dial in Only' link at 38400, term type vt102 (for when we want to be able to do a normal terminal login w/ the laptop). Service Enable is turned on. * Put this in /etc/aspppd.cf: ifconfig ipdptp1 plumb laptop zen.org down path interface ipdptp1 inactivity_timeout 0 # DO NOT bring the link down when idle ipcp_async_map 0 peer_system_name laptop peer_ip_address laptop * At first, took the advice of a FAQ and ran these bits: /usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 1 /usr/sbin/arp -s laptop 08:00:20:08:ea:4e pub but then realized that was meant for a normal ether-based setup. So I then did /usr/sbin/arp -d laptop /usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 0 to reverse all of that. Anyway, I'm able to do normal logins w/ the laptop just fine. When it does the PPP connection it's able to log in okay, but then nothing really happens. I can't ping it, it can't ping my Sun, nada. I did notice the interface it creates has a funky looking entry: ipdptp1: flags=8d0 mtu 1500 inet 140.174.193.2 --> 140.174.193.2 netmask ffff0000 ether 0:0:0:0:0:0 Even if I had 140.174.193.1 in the ifconfig line for it, it shows up as going to itself. But adjusting this to different things doesn't seem to change things. Am I missing something really obvious? :-) Thanks! B -- Brendan Kehoe brendan@zen.org Web page: http://www.zen.org/~brendan/ - ------------------------------ Date: 17 Aug 1997 17:21:01 GMT From: erd@newyork.newyork ((ERD)) Subject: SPARCstation as X-term? To: culist-suns-at-home@cunews.carleton.ca Hi everyone, I want to set up 2 identical X-terminals, the idea being that I can carry my laptop from my weekend residence to my weekday residence and have a nice big screen, keyboard, mouse at both locations. Thing is, I don't know what's possible. Since, it is an X-term, I really don't need a powerful base, but I would like to be able to run 1280x1024 at 24 bit color. I do, however, want to keep the machine as minimal as possible (given the slightly... exotic pricing of SPARCstuff). Is something like this possible on a low end SPARC? And while I'm here I might as well ask, anyone know any good distributors in North America that would sell low end SPARCs for cheap? Basically, I'd like to grab one of them el-cheapo deals, and stick a 24bit 1280x1024 frame buffer and monitor on it. And before anyone asks, why not get a docking port? It's because I am a geek and I want to try it this way, so there. :) Thanks for any help in advance. - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 21:29:22 -0500 (CDT) From: Henry W Miller Subject: sun3 with corrupt eeprom? To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com (I just joined this list, but I've not seen any answers in the archives) I have a sun3/60, that was working, with a serial port. In trying to get my cg4 working (I finially got cables for the monitor) I entered 1 into 1f, and suddenly I cannot boot in any way. If I put the switch in diag mode it will pass all self test, but when I press a key to enter menu tests it redoes the self tests, this time nothing happens when I press a key to get to menu tests. If I just let it alone it will stop at that prompt, never going farther into the boot process. If I try to boot in normal mode nothing happens. It is possibal that the eeprom is not at fault, but this problem happened right after messing with the eeprom. I have a second 3-60 that is working, can anyone tell me how to fix this? I can soder, but my local electronics store wasn't able to cross reference the number on the eeprom. (not that thye tried hard) Give me a part number and I'll put a new one in. I'm in minneapolis MN now, but one of these will be moving to Worcester, MA this weekend. If anyone thinks they want to help me with this. - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 10:57:45 +0200 (MET DST) From: lukas@design.de (Lukas Wunner) Subject: Sun equipment- FCC Class A or B To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com Howdy, > Is Sun equipment generally certified as FCC Class A (Business) or B > (Residential). The equipment I am most interested in are the smaller > workstations (3/60, 3/80, SS1, SS2, etc). I would like to purchase a Sun > (probably SS2) to use at home, but I don't want to cause any trouble with my > neighbour's TV reception. Funny you'd ask. :-) I can't give you a definite answer with regards to the FCC Class, but I can tell you a little anecdote I was told by a 3/50 owner last friday. According to him, the monitor shipped with the 3/50 will "broadcast" on the same frequency as the German ARD programme, so his neighbors were unable to watch ARD while he was quietly plugging away behind his 3/50. :-) Took them a year to find out what really caused the problems with their TV set but he was eventually sent a letter by the local police station saying that his equipment will be confiscated if he turns it on once again. :-) Obviously only the monitor posed problems, but the 3/50 itself was okay, so he may still turn on the 3/50 with a terminal attached to the serial port and the monitor disconnected. So, if you have a modern multisync monitor at home, you may want to use that one instead of the old monitor shipped with your old Sun, and you should be ok wrt FCC regulations. BTW, I have a 4/20 (=Sparc SLC) at home and it includes a 17" b/w monitor, and we haven't had any problems so far with our TV set. > Other SS2 questions: > Is the SCSI interface SCSI-I or SCSI-II? Not really sure about the SS2, but the SLC (built 1990) already had a SCSI2 interface, so I daresay the SS2 had one as well. > How well does the system perform running Solaris 2.5.1? Depends mainly on the amount of memory installed in the machine IMO. If you have >=32MB, you may want to give it a shot. With 64MB, it may be useable even with CDE, but I wouldn't vouch for it. My recommendation for old machines like the 4/20 (or SS2, for that matter) would be SunOS 4.1.4. The SLC groks at most 16MB, so Solaris wouldn't be an option for me anyway. > How big of a HD would you suggest to run 2.5.1(as a single-user workstation)? If you buy a new disk, go for a 2GB disk with 5400 rpm. I'd recommend the IBM DCAS, it's a relatively cheap disk of decent quality. The price gap between 2GB and 4GB drives is pretty small these days, so you may want to consider the 4GB version of the IBM DCAS as well. Hope that helps, Lukas. -- lukas wunner unix, internetworking and security engineer lukas@wunner.de LW26-RIPE http://www.wunner.de/~lukas/ "Um etwas zu gelten, müssen sich die Nullen immer hübsch rechts halten." - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 14:28:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Anthony Talltree Subject: Sun equipment- FCC Class A or B To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com >Is Sun equipment generally certified as FCC Class A (Business) or B >(Residential). The equipment I am most interested in are the smaller >workstations (3/60, 3/80, SS1, SS2, etc). I would like to purchase a Sun >(probably SS2) to use at home, but I don't want to cause any trouble with >my neighbour's TV reception. I believe that the SS2's are rated B. When I bought my 1+ I found that early units were A and later ones were B. I made sure I got a B. >Other SS2 questions: >Is the SCSI interface SCSI-I or SCSI-II? If by SCSI-II you mean 10MB/s, then no. >How well does the system perform running Solaris 2.5.1? Reasonably -- memory helps. I'd recommend filling the motherboard slots for 64M. >How big of a HD would you suggest to run 2.5.1(as a single-user >workstation)? At least 1G total so that you have room to hold the OS as well as user data. - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:46:41 -0400 From: adh@an.bradford.ma.us (Sandwich Maker) Subject: Sun equipment- FCC Class A or B To: Suns-at-Home-List@tigger.net-kitchen.com, - From: Cory Bajus/MTSCom/MTS I am new to the Suns-at-Home list, and I have the following question: Is Sun equipment generally certified as FCC Class A (Business) or B (Residential). The equipment I am most interested in are the smaller workstations (3/60, 3/80, SS1, SS2, etc). I would like to purchase a Sun (probably SS2) to use at home, but I don't want to cause any trouble with my neighbour's TV reception. my ss2 sits ~1.2m from my own tv without noticeable effect. i'm using a newish vga monitor intended for home use; it might be better shielded than the usual sun ones. Other SS2 questions: Is the SCSI interface SCSI-I or SCSI-II? scsi-1 How well does the system perform running Solaris 2.5.1? very well; as fast as or faster than sunos 4.1.4. How big of a HD would you suggest to run 2.5.1(as a single-user workstation)? at least 1g. i've done stripped installs of 2.4 on 424s and 535s. quantum fireball [what a name] 6g are ~$450. these draw about the same power as the sun0424s that ss2s originally came with; i wouldn't try anything faster like atlases or barracudas because i don't think the ss2 cooling flow is up to them. you're still limited to 2g partitions [for the moment], but just imagine -- 12g [2*6] internal... ________________________________________________________________________ Andrew Hay | 'perfect pitch' is when the accordion internet rambler | lands right on top of the banjo adh@an.bradford.ma.us | when you throw it into the dumpster... - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 13:15:44 -0700 From: "James W. Birdsall" Subject: Sun Hardware Reference status To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com, chicks@chicks.net, george@intnet.net, The Sun Hardware Reference has been stalled since June due to 1) having to change jobs suddenly and 2) moving. Hopefully I will be able to continue updating it starting next month. Unfortunately, the sun-www machine also stalled: it appears to have suffered a mishap during the move, and it needed some extensive maintenance anyway, so it will be down indefinitely until I have time to deal with it. Meanwhile, the flat-text version of the SHR is still available in its usual place, and the HTML version has been moved to the URL in my .sig below. If you sent me email in the last couple of months, I apologize for not replying in a timely fashion. I hope to clear up the backlog this week. -- James W. Birdsall http://www.picarefy.com/~jwbirdsa/ jwbirdsa@picarefy.com "For it is the doom of men that they forget." -- Merlin Get the Sun Hardware Reference from ftp.picarefy.com:/pub/Sun-Hardware-Ref Sun Hardware Reference Web Page: http://www.picarefy.com/~jwbirdsa/sun-temp/ - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 13:49:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Ethan Dicks Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #30 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com I'm trying to get a VME Sparc CPU board working, not in a VME cabinet. Are there any pointers out there on what VME grant signals need to be granted for a VME cpu to _think_ there's a big, empty VME bus out there? Essentially, I've got a VME-based Sparc CPU and I want to run it standalone, without a VME backplane. It's got an SBus on it, but I can't get it to bring up anything on a monitor attached to a CG3. If this is hopeless, what's the smallest VME box available? A 4/110? Thanks, -ethan - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 13:55:23 -0400 From: Jeff Wasilko Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #30 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > Date: 11 Aug 97 13:41:59 > From: Cory Bajus/MTSCom/MTS > Subject: Sun equipment- FCC Class A or B > To: Suns-at-Home > > I am new to the Suns-at-Home list, and I have the following question: > > Is Sun equipment generally certified as FCC Class A (Business) or B > (Residential). The equipment I am most interested in are the smaller > workstations (3/60, 3/80, SS1, SS2, etc). I would like to purchase a Sun > (probably SS2) to use at home, but I don't want to cause any trouble with my > neighbour's TV reception. I'm pretty sure they're class A...there would be no reason to certify them to Class B. In any event, I have 2 Sparc 2s, 5 external disk/tape/cdrom packs, a modem, an ISDN router and a small hub in my livingroom, which is about 10 feet from my TV and stereo and I've not had any problems. > How well does the system perform running Solaris 2.5.1? Pretty good, as long as you have enough memory. 32 megs would be the minimum. With 64 it's quite nice (-: > How big of a HD would you suggest to run 2.5.1(as a single-user workstation)? That depends on what you want to install after the OS is there. Figure about 500 megs for a full OS install and swap space. A 1 or 2 gig disk is plenty... Jeff - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 01:23:23 +0100 (BST) From: Dave Brown Subject: XDM and Sunos 4.1.3_U1 To: "Suns at Home" Hi. I have a SparcStation, running Sunos 4.1.3_U1. I was wondering how you set-up xdm to startup when the machine boots. Currently I have written a little script that I can run from the rc.boot file. However I seem to have problems with the system sticking when X-Sessions finish. Any ideas? Is it just a missing patch. This system is currently unpatched. I also have a problem with certain applications crashing OpenWindows, e.g. Cooltalk, when ran on a remote display e.g. Linux XFree86, the programs work fine. Basically what patches should I apply? What is best way of obtaining a good working version of Sunos 4.1.3_U1. Yours, David Brown. - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************