Sun386i and a TB+ modem -- "Yes, but..."

[Mike Newton]

francis%catuc.UUCP at arizona.edu writes:
>I am trying to decide if the Telebit Trailblazer Plus can work with our
>Sun 386i at the speed of 19,200 bps....

Well, yes and no.  My advise is to sell you 386 and start over, but if
that is not an option, it will work somewhat.  Many _hours_ (and that isnt
cheap from here!) of conversations with sun have come up with the
following things:

	[1] 4.0.1 is a hell of a lot better than 4.0.0 for fast speed.
	[2] The console and the modem (ttya) are not compatible even
		when the modem is only delivering 5000 baud (best we
		can do because of satelites).
	[3] UUCP has a bug which will cause it not to hang up sometimes
		(OUCH! $$$$)
	[4] The one competent engineer at sun (who shall remain nameless 
		for his protection) has tried ALOT to help us.

More details on #2:

The sun386i is so brain dead that the ~ 450 char.s per second that we get
off of our trailblazer can not be even partially taken in when the screen
is refreshing.  In particular typing

	cat /etc/termcap

will reduce the flow to a few (3?) characters per second.  Thus, the IO
bandwidth is not there on a 386i.

Secondly, during the 'cat /etc/termcap', sooner or latter part of a uucp
packet will be lost.  This will cause uucp to hang.  Once in a while it
will forget (forever) to hang up.

Our solution to these problems:
	[1] Run uucp late at night when no one want to use the sun
	[2] Have a 'cron' job that runs about an hour after each
		uucp conversation to the mainland that forcibly
		hangs up the modem:
# UUCP insurance:
55  7 * * * stty 0 -hupcl > /dev/cua
10  8 * * * rm /usr/spool/uucp/STST\* /usr/spool/uucp/LCK..c\*
30 12 * * 0,6 stty 0 -hupcl > /dev/cua
45 12 * * 0,6 rm /usr/spool/uucp/STST\* /usr/spool/uucp/LCK..c\*
(and several more entries like these!)

Anyway, hope this helps.  My sympathies to you for having such a machine.

- mike

Mike Newton				newton at csvax.caltech.edu
Caltech Submillimeter Observatory	kahuna!newton at csvax.caltech.edu
Post Office Box 4339
Hilo Hawaii 96720			808 935 1909