Adventures with a "new" machine

[phil at eecs.nwu.edu]

I just unpacked my very own Sun 3/80.  I haven't gotten it up and running
yet and I've already had two disappointments and two setbacks.  My office
is a mess, there's boxes everywhere, it's Friday afternoon, and maybe I'll
come in on the weekend to finish up.

Disappointments:

1) the mouse cord is too short.  How can I put the keyboard in my lap now?

2) The "Small Computer Standard Interface" is only as standard as the
cables it uses!  Can you believe this?  Sun has CHANGED THE CABLES.  The
shoebox tape drive that I ordered with my 3/80 (I understand that this new
"sleek" design is being called a lunchbox) cannot be attached to an older
machine, such as a 3/60, without a special cable!  The connector is
completely different.  It looks better, but it is different.  I wanted to
use this tape drive as a "roving" drive: attach it to whatever machine
needs it at any given point in time.  Looks like I won't be able to do
that.  Unless......does anyone know if I can buy a "converter" cable? 

Setbacks:

1)  In order to save some money, I purchased a thinnet transceiver from
Cabletron rather than thru Sun.  My office has thin instead of thick and I
knew that the 3/80 only has a drop cable (thick) connector on the back.  I
figured that I could just get the transceiver and plug it straight into
the back of the machine.  WRONG!  The machine's connector is
recessed---there's alot of plastic moulding around it--- and the connector
on the transceiver box does not stick out much.  End result is I STILL
need a "drop" cable.  I suspect that Sun's thinnet box will fit there, but
that no one else's will.  Nice going guys!

2) When I pulled the tape drive lunchbox out of the box and installed it,
it was set to SCSI unit 0.  I typed "b st(0,0,0)" and it didn't work.
Drive chatter, pause, then "Device not found".  After much poking around,
thinking, trial and error, and even a call to Sun, I realized that st0 is
really SCSI unit 4 (and st1 is unit 5).  You'd think it would have dawned
on me earlier, but I was thinking "I'm asking for unit 0 (the middle
number in the boot command), so it must want it set to unit 0!"  It wasn't
until after the Sun service rep asked me to try to boot off sd, and that
made the tape drive actually move, that I realized my misteak [sic].  I
set the tape drive to 4 and everything worked.  Thanks again, Sun!  Why
did you pack it with it set to 0?

By the way, the new lunchbox design has a selector on the back that sets
the SCSI unit number.  VERY easy to change.

Oh well.  I'll let you all know how it turns out in the end.  One of the
nice things about not moderating sun-spots is that I actually have the
time to write articles for it!

		William LeFebvre
		Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
		Northwestern University
		<phil at eecs.nwu.edu>