UNIX PC BOF Minutes for 1990 Winter USENIX Conference (formatted)
Lenny Tropiano
lenny at icus.islp.ny.us
Fri Feb 9 14:53:05 AEST 1990
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1990 Winter USENIX: AT&T UNIX pc BOF Minutes
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Sponsored by ICUS Software Systems
Lenny Tropiano (lenny at icus.islp.ny.us)
Gil Kloepfer, Jr. (...!ames!limbic!gil)
Wednesday, June 24, 1989
Omni Shoreham Hotel
Calvert Room
The 1990 Winter USENIX conference once again was the home
of the UNIX-pc BOF session. As always, our thanks are
extended to those who attended the BOF for making it the
technical exchange forum that it is meant to be. As is always
the case, there are those who cannot make it to the conference
for one reason or another, and we hope that this summary again
provides you with a little insight regarding the event you
missed. For those who did attend, we hope that this summary
is something you can keep in a file on your computer somewhere
for reference and possibly some ideas for the next BOF.
What we tried to do, and succeeded to some extent in
doing, was to spice-up the BOF with examples of the more
obscure or unusual capabilities which can be exploited using
some of the expansion hardware. Those who came to the BOF
early had a unique opportunity to see what went-on "behind-
the-scenes" during the BOF set-up, and took the time to ask
questions about the demonstrations. In Gil's opinion, these
people got the most out of the demonstrations.
The BOF opened as usual with Lenny's electronic artwork
on the overhead transparencies and a summary of what was to be
covered during the BOF. This was:
Hardware
o ICUS 2nd drive/P5.1 upgrade
o Bigger hard disks
o WD2010 (seek performance)
o Voice Power boards
o Botton's VIDPAL
o Custom UNIX pc cases
(Dapoz design/ICUS Design)
- 1 -
Software
o "Jukebox" (Voice Power) demo
o Answering Machine (Voice Power) demo
o USENIX FaceSaver Display demo
o MGR ("manager") demo
o UNIX 3.51 FIXDISK 2.0
o Public Domain (wmgr, ph, login)
o "Archived" UNIX-pc Software
o Alex Crain's sockets, symbolic links
Miscellaneous
o UNIX-pc Technical Newsletter
o UNIX-pc Reference Manuals
Unfortunately, what disappointed some was the fact that
there were too many things planned to be covered, and many of
them did not get covered as completely as they were during the
BOF in June.
Lenny opened the discussion by making some brief comments
regarding the status of getting the UNIX-pc kernel source code
(no further along than before), how to obtain the hard disk
upgrade, the success rate of the UNIX-pc hardware reference
manual deal, and touched briefly on the WD2010 modification
and its benefits. All of these have been discussed on the net
in detail, but some had some questions and this was the time
to have them answered.
The first demonstration and, perhaps, the bulk of the BOF
was the port of the MGR windowing system to the UNIX-pc.
Lenny showed how MGR was implemented on the UNIX-pc, and the
various utilities with which MGR comes packaged. Among the
more familiar MGR bells-and-whistles were the X-like clock, a
numeric digital clock, and a Mickey Mouse clock, as well as an
icon editor facility. This, again, brought-up the proverbial
X-port discussion, and those who wanted to know "why do I need
MGR?"
Discussions about porting X-windows to the UNIX-pc can be
summarized in one sentence, "X windows can be ported to the
UNIX-pc, but we need someone to write it." Nobody at the BOF
volunteered to port X, but the MGR demonstration did spark
some additional enthusiasm about doing it.
The second question regarding the necessity to use MGR
over, say, the current windowing system or a port of X windows
was a bit more involved. Gil's one-line answer was,
"...because someone wrote it already, and it provides a good
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porting base to other systems." However, this answer didn't
seem to be the answer that most of the group was looking for,
and further discussion continued. In general, although there
was an air of apprehension about how useful MGR would be,
there was a feeling of awe in seeing the speed and
responsiveness of a public-domain windowing system. MGR
definitely out-performed the current window driver in reacting
to menu requests, window resize/move, etc. There are yet
problems in the speed of the pty drivers used to communicate
between MGR-windows and the operating system. During the next
six months, we hope to see various incarnations of MGR in the
works, as well as some work in porting X windows.
During that time, Alex Crain was questioned about his
socket library. He commented that there were several people
using it currently, and they seemed to have little trouble to
date.
The MGR demonstration was followed by Gil's demonstration
of some unique (and not-so-unique) applications using the AT&T
Voice Power speech processor board. The demo began with a
synthesized speech recital of the Pledge of Allegiance with a
crudely-drawn American flag on the display. Funny as it may
sound, it was an attempt at showing just what progress has
been made in voice response systems over the past 7 years.
The second voice response demonstration was an answering
machine which used the Voice Power board as the sole form of
communication over the phone lines (ie. no tape recorders were
used). Simple as it sounds, the answering machine program can
be a more complex application as it needs many voice response
messages to communicate with the user. As one attendee noted,
there were computer synthesized messages for the answering
machine attendant. A reason for these messages, as Gil
explained, was to keep the program complexity down. Removing
the synthesized speech would have involved digitizing many
digits, providing a means to parse the digits (with the proper
inflection), then adding the "filler" voice response messages
to both ends of the recited numbers. Gil noted that an
interesting "feature" of the room where the BOF was held was
that there were two hotel telephone lines. This made the
answering machine demonstration a little more realistic.
The last voice response demonstration was a computer-
controlled jukebox. The software provided a means of storing
music in digital form recorded from a home stereo system in a
specialized archive format. A user-interface, which looked
much like a jukebox as would be seen in a local diner, allowed
the 15 megabyte archive of songs recorded on a streaming
floppy tape system to be retrieved and converted back to
audible sound.
- 3 -
Of all the voice demonstrations, the answering machine
was the most popular. After seeing almost 75 minutes of
demonstrations, the group decided to break for 10 minutes.
During the break, many of the attendees took a moment to
experiment with MGR and the voice demonstrations, and the
new-improved USENIX FaceSaver Display program.
Following the break, Mark Dapoz discussed how he re-
organized and designed the UNIX-pc cabinet improvements for
his UNIX-pc. Gil and Lenny also presented their ideas for a
tower cabinet, and Mark reflected on both ideas with some of
his design considerations and initial failures, in the hopes
that others could learn from his experience. Mark's design
goal was to provide a more workable cabinet for adding
additional hardware and modifications, but to leave the option
to return the cabinet to its original form if necessary. He
sternly recommended that those planning to add multiple hard
disks also add an additional 200 watt supply. He shared a
story of how he overloaded his UNIX-pc supply by attempting to
power two hard drives and several expansion boards at once.
He recommends that the two hard disks be powered by a separate
supply, while the remainder of the stock UNIX-pc hardware be
powered by the stock supply.
A day or two before the BOF, AT&T officially released the
long awaited FIXDISK 2.0. Lenny summarized what was included,
specifically the oddities of the "metermaid" and 3-key-
functions. He did mention that he would detail all of the
specific changes in a future posting on USENET (which he did).
Everyone seemed anxious to receive their copy and try out the
new "features" of release 3.51m.
Next, Lenny went on to talk about where one could get
UNIX-pc Software. He mentioned several archive sites, the
ICUS Archives (uucp access) run by Gil Kloepfer, osu-cis
Archives (ftp/uucp access) run by Brant Cheikes, and several
other ftp-able sites. Although this information is
frequently posted to USENET, it was important to discuss. As
always there was a small population of BOF attendees that
didn't have USENET access.
Finally, Lenny discussed the possibility of creating a
UNIX-pc technical newsletter, to be distributed for a minimal
charge on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. The idea seemed to
be accepted by the those attending, however it was preferred
overall that the newsletter be in electronic format. The
problems with an electronic format would be the inability to
include illustrations and diagrams where appropriate, and the
prerequisite of receiving the network newsgroup that the
newsletter was posted to. Someone mentioned getting an
advertiser or some sponsorship of the newsletter, but the
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overall consensus was that it would detract from the
newsletter, and make it harder to produce.
Following the BOF, several individuals met with Gil and
Lenny to exchange ideas and software. The after-the-BOF
meeting continued in our hotel suite (what Gil and Lenny
dubbed the "ICUS Hospitality Suite") until about 2AM, at which
time everyone felt a need to get some sleep.
Last, but certainly not least, special thanks go out to
the USENIX association for allowing us to hold the BOF during
the conference, Gil Kloepfer & Lenny Tropiano for coordinating
the BOF and demonstrations, Mark Dapoz for sharing his work he
did with the modified UNIX-pc case, Brad Bosch for providing
beta-copies of his MGR port, Brian Botton for his work on the
VIDPAL board which is making porting MGR and X-windows more of
a reality, and most of all the BOF attendees, for without you
there would be no reason to do this!
In closing, the BOF seemed to be a success. However, it
did seem like there were too many items to cover. In planning
the next BOF, it would help if more people provided some input
as to topics to be discussed, and a good format for discussing
them. We would also appreciate any feedback you have
regarding how the BOF was presented and how appropriate you
felt the demonstrations were to the discussions.
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--
| Lenny Tropiano ICUS Software Systems lenny at icus.islp.ny.us |
| {ames,pacbell,decuac,hombre,sbcs,attctc}!icus!lenny attmail!icus!lenny |
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