Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 09:17:50 EST From: Dwight D. McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V5 #25 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Mon, 22 Jun 92 Volume 5 : Issue 25 Today's Topics: About Sun3/60, slip, etc (5 msgs) Does this disk partitioning seem goofy to you ? need cable pin-out for 4/20 serial ports +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home \ @orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu | | Requests: suns-at-home-request > -- or -- | | Archives: suns-at-home-archives / ...rutgers!pur-ee!... | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ [I've editted out much of the included text in the following messages.] [Please try and include the *minimum* amount of text from the article ] [you are responding to. Thanks! --ddm] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 14:49:06 CDT From: aqn@thaison.tivoli.com (Andy Nguyen) Subject: About Sun3/60, slip, etc To: suns-at-home@orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu + From: gcd@einstein.bgsu.edu (Comer Duncan) + I may soon be seriously interested in obtaining a Sun3/60 color + with 4Mb for home. I would have to buy a SCSI disk drive with + 1/4" tape separately. I have some general questions concerning + such a configuration. How about a disk and a separate tape drive? Is there a reason you need a disk with tape? I have a used Sun shoebox (327MB, no tapedrive, used, from Rave Computers) ) and a 60MB tapedrive (free, from a friend!) in a SCSI chain off of my 3/60. + Second, I am interested in perhaps putting up slip. Do any of you + have slip up and running on similar systems? Does it make sense to + run slip with a 3/60? Is it necessary to have SunOS 4.1.1 up first? A UNIX BBS (Panix, NYC) that I use runs SLIP to a local Internet node (PSI, NY). I can FTP, telnet etc... into the BBS (from Texas), tho the speed is not really good enough for interactive use. I don't know how a dedicated SLIP line (i.e. where you're the only user) would perform. + Third, what do you know about the variety of modems out there that would + be of 'reasonable' cost and can do say at least 9600 without compression? I use a ZyXEL modem (up to 36K or so, as I have witnessed when connecting to another ZyXEL modem on ZyXEL's BBS). It has V32 and V32b (modulation methods?), V42 and V42b (data compression and error correction, or is it the other way around), MNP5 (data compression?), and G3 FAX. When I connect with another ZyXEL (local, in the same phone area code) I usually can connect at 14.4K, occasionally at 12K. I have never connected with a Telelbit T3000 yet, though I will soon. Will let youse guys know what speed I get out of it. + Fifth, does it make any sense to run slip between work and home if 9600 + is the maximum speed? With compression one apparently gets a [much?] + better throughput. It could mean that X-Windows stuff would be pretty slow, especially when it involves lots of data e.g. pictures and such. On the other hand, I do not know if X-Windows over SLIP line is actually useable, having never witnessed it. + Sixth, given that one is going to have a Sun3/60 and disk drive running + at home, what do I need to consider as far as power requirements? Must + I buy [ugh!] a UPS? Do you guys turn the 3/50 off at night and restart + when you use it every so often, or do you leave it on? I turn it on when I use it. I use it about 2-3 hours every night. No point in wasting electrons leaving the thing on all the time. Not to mention the calories it put out... enough to heat a small house! (I think the stuff about disk being less stressed more if on all the time is mostly bunk; if you're concerned about that, you can always leave the disk on while turning the Sun off.) Andy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 21:55:55 PDT From: zurna!sinan@sunup.West.Sun.COM (Sinan Karasu) Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V5 #24 [really About Sun3/60, slip, etc] To: sunup!ecn.purdue.edu!Suns-at-Home@sunup.West.Sun.COM Well I have one comment to make. Seems like everybody is intent on buying a Sun 3/50 ot 3/60. I bought a SparcStation 1. Now before everybody flames me for being too frivoluos I should mention that Sun ( Yes the beloved SUNW ) has a refurbished equipment resale program for people like you and me. Thru this program you can get 1 ea. Sun 4/65 w/ GX and 8MB $4700 1 ea. Sun 669MB/Tape $1300 ( 50% off with CPU) 4 ea. Andataco 4MB Ram $700 ------ $6700 That is much cheaper than MacII Ci with the same configuration... If you need to know more info. Contact me at karasu@george.ee.washington.edu or Sinan@u.washington.edu and I'll fill you in..... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 22:09:05 PDT From: zurna!sinan@sunup.West.Sun.COM (Sinan Karasu) Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V5 #24 [really About Sun3/60, slip, etc] To: sunup!ecn.purdue.edu!Suns-at-Home@sunup.West.Sun.COM We have a SparcStation 1 and a SparcStation 1+ (Ok! Ok!. I am friviolus). We do not have a UPS ( but live in Seattle, in the City which does not have power interruptions). I understand that wiretap is much better than slip . You can have X accross wiretap . But we have not been able to make it work yet....(lack of time .. we do know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who has gotten it to work...) Seriously, with XNeWS you can have Jet and Jed as your terminals and editor thus have PostScript traffic instead of bits flying around and things do work like ethernet...(no kidding)..... We do not turn anything off at night not even the LaserJetIII which is on the Ethernet and HP is selectively offering a Net Card for 199.95 for LaserJet II and III which makes it somewhat faster ( BTW I love Our LaserJetIII w/ PostScript Level 2... Does everything!!!) but nice thing is it frees up the Serial port so that we can use it for MIDI.... We have a dedicated phone line for Modem and get and deliver UUCP mail..(as is obvious from the address) we use 2400 did not buy a 9600 yet... soon in the future... but I'd definitely go for a Fax/Modem. Anyway I hope these blitherings help... I'd like to Thank Vaughan Pratt for the wonderful paper "Direct Least-Squares Fitting of Algebraic Surfaces" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jun 92 14:23:02 CDT From: "Peter N. Saurugger" Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V5 #24 [really About Sun3/60, slip, etc] To: Suns-at-Home@ecn.purdue.edu > From: gcd@einstein.bgsu.edu (Comer Duncan) > > I may soon be seriously interested in obtaining a Sun3/60 color > with 4Mb for home. I would have to buy a SCSI disk drive with > 1/4" tape separately. I have some general questions concerning > such a configuration. > For an external drive you need a case (ca. $150.-) - the 150 MB tape should be in the at most $750.- (this is what I paid a year ago). > Second, I am interested in perhaps putting up slip. Do any of you > have slip up and running on similar systems? Does it make sense to > run slip with a 3/60? Is it necessary to have SunOS 4.1.1 up first? > I plan to connect my home machine to the Internet, too. My understanding is that PPP has advantages (speed) over SLIP. It's a while since we heard from people doing this. I would like to hear a comparison of the two protocols! > Sixth, given that one is going to have a Sun3/60 and disk drive running > at home, what do I need to consider as far as power requirements? Must > I buy [ugh!] a UPS? Do you guys turn the 3/50 off at night and restart > when you use it every so often, or do you leave it on? > You don't want to turn this thing off every night. Last month, my power bill was ca. $20.- ,and I have my little SPARC running around the clock. This includes an external disk/tape unit. For protection I have a PowerMax unit which automatically shuts off power when it falls below a certain level. This is not as good as a UPS, but a reasonable temporary solution. (ca. $125.-). *IF* you buy a UPS, buy a decent one - BEST Power systems *are* best [at least the ferromagnetic resonance ones - but they are also fairly expensive. I HAVE MADE VERY BAD experiences with cheap UPS systems. E.g. I got a demo unit (can't remember the brand) - and when I unplugged it from the outlet it fried the hard drive! Definitly a no-no. -- Peter N. Saurugger peter-s@molbio.cbs.umn.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 92 08:50:38 -0400 From: steve-massie@orl.mmc.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V5 #24 [really About Sun3/60, slip, etc] To: Suns-at-Home@orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu, stevem@kildare.orl.mmc.com In response to your questions about disk and tape units for SUN. I have a SUN IPC at home with a 780 MB Hitachi disk and an Exabyte 8200 8mm tape unit. I purchased the unit in December of 1991 with cables, manuals, cleaning tape, etc. for $3229.00. I know the same box with 1/4 QIC150 tape was $500.00 or so cheaper. You might consider the 8mm as I did since I beleive I have already saved the $500.00 on the difference in media costs. An 8mm tape can be purchased at any store that sells video tapes for about $6.00 where as a 1/4 tape is substantially more and not as convenient to obtain on a Saturday evening at 10:00. ( You can also swipe one out of the video camera if you really need one quickly ) ------------------------------------------- | Steven A. Massie | | Orlando, FL 32862-8007 | | Voice: (407) 356-5909 | | Fax: (407) 356-8944 | | E-Mail -- steve-massie@orl.mmc.com | ------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1992 03:35:22 EDT From: plauterbach@CORTEX.PROSPECT.COM (Peter C. Lauterbach) Subject: Does this disk partitioning seem goofy to you ? To: suns-at-home@orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu Greetings, This is my first posting to this list, please bear with me. I have just brought up a Sun 2/120 server and 2/50 client at home. The server was running fine, but the client has been sitting in a box for about a year. It looks as if the sysop disabled the client by randomly hacking the startup files on the server. Before we get too far into this, I have a copy of 4.0.3 that I going to load on this machine, and blow most of this away. I just need to know if this is 'normal' The server comes up fine, but running dkinfo on the disk looks like this: sd0: SCSI controller at addr 80000, unit # 0 1222 cylinders 15 heads (base 2) 17 sectors/track a: 16320 sectors (64 cyls) starting cylinder 0 b: 41055 sectors (161 cyls) starting cylinder 64 c: 311610 sectors (1222 cyls) starting cylinder 0 d: 119340 sectors (468 cyls) starting cylinder 449 e: 9690 sectors (38 cyls) starting cylinder 917 g: 68085 sectors (267 cyls) starting cylinder 955 So I mapped it out: cyl 0 1222 |----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----| | a| |----|----|- | b | |----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----| | c | |----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----| | d | ---|----|----|----|----|--- |e| ----|----|----| | g | --|----|----| Is it my imagination, or is there a lot of space missing between the 'b' and 'd' partition ? Some other questions include: is this missing space the root partition of the client ? is this the same partioning is should use when I load up 4.0.3 the server is running with 4 meg, a Maxtor XT-2190, is there any hope of it running any faster than dog slow ? I am attempting this with minimal docs, using some of the Nutshell books from completly blowing my foot off. I don't yet understand Unix or SunOS at this level, but I do understand DOS and VMS, so I you can talk in those terms, all the better. If there is a doc that describes how to do this step, by step, I'd love to get a hold of it. Thanks for being gentle with me ... Regards, Peter Peter C. Lauterbach Cortex Corporation (617)622-1900 Technical Account Manager 100 Fifth Avenue plauterbach@cortex.prospect.com Waltham, MA 02154 ------------------------------ From: steve@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Steve Mitchell) Subject: need cable pin-out for 4/20 serial ports Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1992 21:22:40 GMT The subject pretty much says it. I need the pin-out for the silly serial connector on the back of the SPARCstation SLC (4/20), the one where they brought two serial ports out a single db25 connector. I finally need to use both ports, and don't really want to pay Sun's outrageous price for the serial port splitter cable. Please email me your response, as I just can't keep up with the news (particularly with my typing slowed down to a crawl by CTS). Thanks in advance! - -- - Steve Mitchell College Park Software steve@seabhag.cps.altadena.ca.us 461 W. Loma Alta Dr. grian!seabhag!steve@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov Altadena, CA 91001-3841 ames!elroy!grian!seabhag!steve ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************