Info-3b2 Digest, Number 20
Info-3b2 Mailing List
info-3b2 at lamc
Fri Sep 30 07:21:03 AEST 1988
Info-3b2 Digest, Number 20
Thursday, September 29th 1988
Today's Topics:
3B20's
Re: The power of this newsletter
Gateway into Europe
Re: Info-3b2 Digest, Number 19
Help needed booting 3b2/400
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 3B20's
From: pacbell!daver!ssbn!dillo1!ehopper
There's been a lot of discussion here about 3B20's, etc and I though
I'd pop in with my 2 cents worth.
The 3B20 is definitely *NOT* considered one of the hot properties
to sell for a typical Data Systems Group Account Executive. It's
still available, but the intervals are undoubtedly awful. I am not
sure it is the best option, either.
It costs about the same as the 3B4000, and the 4000 is typically
a stronger box (although the full-duplex redundancy is not
available on a 4000. At least not yet.) The 4000 architecture
is based on a master processor (typically a 3B15) with a 20MByte
ABUS network connecting it to communications processors (slightly
modified 3B2/600 and 700's) and to file serving and computing
processors that are card based (normally 32200, but you can
get 32100 based cards). The whole mess is an aggregate 40 or so
MIPS. (Of course, you can only throw about 3 to 5 mips at any one
process).
The version of UNIX (3.1.1 going to 3.2.1) allows you to attach
processes to various CPUs. Therefore, in say a database application,
you could theoretically go and assign your screen functions to the
600/700 boxes (terminal I/O is their job). While assigning queries to
the file server card processor (called an ADP or EADP) and math
functions to a compute processor. This mix can be varied by user
id, group id or application.
Re: Getting info. I cringe every time I see a message about someone's
contact with AT&T marketing. It can be a mess. Make sure you are
talking to Data Systems Group people and not phone peddlers. The phone
peddlers have a mandate to forget what little they have learned about
computers and they are doing a good job of that. If someone
runs into a problem, email to me at: ehopper at ssbn or attmail!ehopper.
I'll see what I can do to get you taken care of properly.
Ed Hopper
AT&T Data Systems Group-Houston
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 88 21:17:40 BST
Subject: Re: The power of this newsletter
From: hoptoad!quaduk!graham (Graham Glen)
>
> From: len at netsys.COM (Len Rose)
> Subject: Re: The power of this newsletter
> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 88 23:37:56 EDT
>
> Meanwhile the list grows. There are probably enough votes
> within the mailing list subscribers to get a 3B2 specific
> newsgroup created on the net. I am still interested in this,
> and will periodically stir things up. Some people in Europe
> are unable to send mail freely but can post within Usenet
> itself.
>
Assuming that the rest of Europe operates in a manner similar to the United
Kingdom, then I think I can explain this.
On this side of the pond we don't have telephone systems run by the kind,
benevolent and advanced AT&T (you think I am joking?), and one of the
downsides of this is that ALL calls cost money, so I can't do long uucp
transfer for free.
Because of this, to get a usenet feed in this country it is necessary to
pay an annual subscription to cover the cost of transferring it from a
non-UK backbone site (mcvax in Holland). This cost (which is a flat rate,
but don't ask me what it is) covers the cost of posting originating in the
UK but going to the rest of the world, but doesn't cover the cost of mail
transfers to non-UK destinations. To be able to send mail outside of the UK
through usenet sites requires that the originators site agress to pay for
the costs of it, and not surprisingly a lot don't.
In our particular case, my machine acts as a mail hub between our office in
LA and our other offices in Europe (when their mail systems, modems etc.
are working). So I only pay the flat rate to receive usenet, but can still
send mail out to the states.
The software used at the backbone site is not too smart though, because I
can't send mail out through it, it will happily allow mail from non-UK
sites to reach me.
What I would be prepared to do if possible is try and get the newsletter
through to some other sites in Europe (which should then be able to post it
onwards within their own usenet sites without incurring charges). Within
the next few weeks we should be upgrading one of our modem lines to a
Trailblazer, so certainly transferring the stuff from the States would be a
minimal extra overhead (on average 0.5Mb of company mail passes through
here per week). Would I wouldn't like to happen is that people start using
my link with the States as a gateway to Europe.
Any interested parties got any comments?
graham at quaduk.uucp
..ihnp4!quad1!quaduk!graham
or ..uunet!attcan!sobeco!qnorth!quaduk!graham
or ..attunix!uel!quaduk!graham
or even ..ihnp4!mcvax!ukc!uel!quaduk!graham
------------------------------
Subject: Gateway into Europe
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 88 20:28:44 -0400
From: len at netsys.COM
>
> Assuming that the rest of Europe operates in a manner similar to the United
> Kingdom, then I think I can explain this.
[ lucid but depressing picture of European uucp network deleted ]
> What I would be prepared to do if possible is try and get the newsletter
> through to some other sites in Europe (which should then be able to post it
> onwards within their own usenet sites without incurring charges). Within
> the next few weeks we should be upgrading one of our modem lines to a
> Trailblazer, so certainly transferring the stuff from the States would be a
> minimal extra overhead (on average 0.5Mb of company mail passes through
> here per week). Would I wouldn't like to happen is that people start using
> my link with the States as a gateway to Europe.
>
> Any interested parties got any comments?
Well, It certainly would be a nice thing to have it gatewayed into Europe
in this manner. As long it doesn't get abused, it should be done.
--
Len Rose - Netsys,Inc.
len at ames.arc.nasa.gov or len at netsys.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 88 12:52:18 edt
From: picuxa!tgr (Dr. Emilio Lizardo)
Subject: Re: Info-3b2 Digest, Number 19
In article <10438 at netsys.COM> you write:
: Info-3b2 Digest, Number 19
:----------------------------------------------------------------------
:
:Date: Thu, 22 Sep 88 18:20:05 cdt
:From: lll-tis!lll-crg!uunet!astro.as.utexas.edu!mybest!paddock (Steve Paddock)
:Subject: Big SCSI drives for 600
:
:Anyone know if the 300mb drives from the 700 will work in the 600
:off the shelf? Anyone have partitioning info? Any other big
:SCSI drives work off the shelf?
:
No problem, 300s should work fine. I'm not sure whether 3.1.1
knows enough about the 300MB disk to default partition it for
root, usr, etc -- you might consider upgrading the 600 to run
3.2.1 instead.
I have an external 300MB disk running off of a 3B2/500 running
3.1.1 and have not experienced any problems with it. It is not
the boot device, however.
--
Tom Gillespie ( ...att!picuxa!tgr) | (attmail!tgillespie) (201) 952-1178
AT&T/EDS Product Integration Center 299 Jefferson Rd. Parsippany NJ 07054
"Don't take life so serious ... it ain't nohow permanent." -- Walt Kelly
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 00:02:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael Meyer <mm8s+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Help needed booting 3b2/400
Please help?
I have a sick 3b2/400, and don't know what to do. I'd appreciate any help I
can get.
Symptoms: The machine passes diagnostics, and begins to boot, does the fsck's,
and echos
mount ... /usr2
A this stage nothing more happens. OK, so I guess there is something wrong
(probably) on the root partition.
So, I try to get the machine to fail diagnostics (so that I can get it into
firmware mode). Disconnecting the ethernet is a good way to acheive that.
However now the machine doesn't like my firmware passwd (the standard "mcp").
So I create a firmware floppy and try booting with that. Well, the machine
doesn't seem to recognise the firmware floppy (at least it does not print out
the FW .... message that it should. I've verified the floppy on another
otherwise identical machine and it works fine there).
So, the question is, how to I get the machine to try to boot from somewhere
other than the (presumably corrupt) hard disk, or how to do get it to have a
sane firmware password. At the moment I'm completely lost.
In case it is important, we have 3b2/400's with 4Mb of memory, cartridge tape
and floppy disk, ethernet boards, lots of ports, ....
Thanks for any advice.
--Mike Meyer
Statistics, Carnegie-Mellon
-------------------------------------
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