1 INFO-VAX	Mon, 22 Dec 2003	Volume 2003 : Issue 706       Contents:< Re: ALPHAstation 255/233 won't boot: nothing obviously wrong< Re: ALPHAstation 255/233 won't boot: nothing obviously wrong1 Re: can one embed escape sequences in the prompt? ! Re: lbr$ routines and concurrency ! Re: lbr$ routines and concurrency & Re: scrambled terminal output on OPA0:& Re: scrambled terminal output on OPA0:  F ----------------------------------------------------------------------   Date: 21 Dec 2003 21:48:08 GMT< From: gartmann@non.immunbio.mpg.de.sens (Christoph Gartmann)E Subject: Re: ALPHAstation 255/233 won't boot: nothing obviously wrong 0 Message-ID: <bs54eo$jb1$1@n.ruf.uni-freiburg.de>  w In article <bs427j$2d8$1@online.de>, helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: > >My trusty ALPHAstation 255/233, which had been running almostI >continuously since April 1997 (and, being one of the few machines I have H >bought and the only one I have bought new and my first private DEC box,9 >is especially dear to me), crashed on about 11 December, G >(coincidentally?) a few days after I had upgraded to 7.3-1 from 7.2-1. E >(The upgrade went through with no problems.)  This weekend, I had an C >opportunity to examine it on-site.  I could find nothing obviously  >wrong.  > E >The console is set to serial, and I get ABSOLUTELY NO output on the  E >console (except for a few characters of what looks like line noise)  C >after switching the machine one.  (The terminal works fine as the   >console for another ALPHA.) > F >I opened up the box.  A light on a board lights up (on the left side E >toward the rear when looking from the front.)  The internal RZ26 (a  C >rebadged Quantum Fireball) seems to spin up (even if it didn't, I  F >wouldn't expect this from keeping the machine from booting).  Again, " >there is nothing obviously wrong. > I >Just in case something like this had happened, I had brought along a DEC I >3000/300LX as a replacement and connected all the stuff to it which used F >to be connected to the 255/233.  This booted with no problems (which H >rules out the fact that there could be something wrong with the system G >disk (a shadow set of two RZ29's)---in any case, the 255 doesn't even   >get as far as trying to boot).  > I >Not being a hardware guy, I would appreciate some hints as to "obvious"  ' >things to check and how to check them.   K I have the same model and it broke last Thursday. A capacitor melted (C127, I on the mainboard, between the outlets for the keyboard/mouse and the SCSI N outlet). Now I get a keyboard error on the graphics console and I am unable toF enter anything. I didn't try the serial console, though. I'll have theM capacitor replaced on Monday. This capacitor seems to be a common problem for J these machines. I have a second one, bought at the same time. But it has aN different capacitor at the same position (different brand, I think). The value3 of the exploded one is 2,2 microFarad and 35 Volts.    Regards,   Christoph Gartmann   --  E  Max-Planck-Institut fuer      Phone   : +49-761-5108-464   Fax: -452   ImmunbiologieI  Postfach 1169                 Internet: gartmann@immunbio dot mpg dot de   D-79011  Freiburg, Germany 9                http://www.immunbio.mpg.de/home/menue.html    ------------------------------  + Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 03:35:03 +0000 (UTC) 7 From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) E Subject: Re: ALPHAstation 255/233 won't boot: nothing obviously wrong ( Message-ID: <bs5op7$p3a$1@pcls4.std.com>  F Be sure the terminal is set up correctly.  9600 baud, 8/N/1.  AlthoughG you do mention using the termilan on another system so this is probably  not it.   A Does it have a graphics card?  If so, connect a monitor to it and B a keyboard, and press the halt button and hit return/ctrl-P/ctrl-C> on the keyboard and you should get its attention (>>> prompt).@ Then you can poke around and see what's up, and see what happensH when you try to boot.  You can enter the command >>>set console graphicsJ to keep it in this state until you figure out what's wrong with the serial console.   ------------------------------    Date: 21 Dec 2003 20:29:29 -0800. From: spamsink2001@yahoo.com (Alan E. Feldman): Subject: Re: can one embed escape sequences in the prompt?< Message-ID: <b096a4ee.0312212029.9dcbb07@posting.google.com>  r peter@langstoeger.at (Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOEGER) wrote in message news:<fnlFb.173783$dt3.153484@news.chello.at>...y > In article <bs433m$2d8$5@online.de>, helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes: I > >I'm not saying it's necessarily a good idea, but can one embed escape  E > >sequences in the prompt, e.g. to make it appear bold by using the  = > >appropriate escape sequences for the terminal in question?  > 
 > Yes, it is.  > N > I use it for a decade now to restore video attributes or a bad scroll regionN > (like EDT which doesn't turn it off on exit but sets it to 24 lines which is% > bad on DECterms with larger sizes).     F That EDT problem was fixed at some point somewhere roughly between VMS" v5.5x and 6.1. Is it broken again?    D [Code to assemble escape sequences into the symbol "PROMPT" omitted]   # > $       SET PROMPT = "''prompt' "      You can use        $ SET PROMPT = &PROMPT  E instead. By using the ampersand in this way you can TYPE or PRINT the C command file without sending the actual raw escape sequences to the E terminal or printer. This may also help when running the command file  with SET VERIFY.  = Here's what I use to put the node name in bold in the prompt:    $    ESC :=  $    ESC[0,8] = 27 $    BOLD = ESC + "[1m"  $    UNBOLD = ESC + "[0m"   $    NODE = F$GETSYI("NODENAME")5 $    PROMPT_STRING = BOLD + NODE + "$" + UNBOLD + " "   $    SET PROMPT = &PROMPT_STRING   " [remainder of quoted material cut]   Disclaimer: JMHO Alan E. Feldman    ------------------------------    Date: 21 Dec 2003 18:57:35 -08001 From: usenet_vms@lehrerfamily.com (Joshua Lehrer) * Subject: Re: lbr$ routines and concurrency= Message-ID: <477e0934.0312211857.499bd812@posting.google.com>    winston@SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU ("Alan Winston - SSRL Admin Cmptg Mgr") wrote in message news:<00A2AAF0.2835A8B4@SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>...s > In article <477e0934.0312201937.5737acc2@posting.google.com>, usenet_vms@lehrerfamily.com (Joshua Lehrer) writes: ^ > >JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@istop.com> wrote in message news:<3FE4B837.6CE5EA17@istop.com>... > >> Joshua Lehrer wrote: G > >> > I wish I could debug the code somehow, and hit "stop" during the 4 > >> > offending flush, and see what code it was in. > >>   > >>  O > >> Flush nominally performs 2 operations: writes blocks to disk and frees the  > >> in-memory library index.  > >>  R > >> You can specify LBR$C_FLUSHDATA as the block_type argument of LBR$FLUSH whichF > >> will flush only the data blocks and preserve the index in memory. > > D > >And why would I want to do this?  What benefit does this give me? > M > Possibly speed.  Flush the whole thing at the end and you won't get i/o for Q > the index until it's done, which has to mean, at a minimum, less head movement. N > I don't have any sense of how dramatic that change would be, but it has some > potential for improvement. > O > (You're not going to try to use the library until you're all done anyway, if  N > I understand the problem description, so you don't need a partially-updated  > index for anything.) > 	 > -- Alan     F Do I need to call lbr$flush before I call lbr$close, or does lbr$close imply a flush?   -josh    ------------------------------    Date: 21 Dec 2003 19:42:33 -08001 From: usenet_vms@lehrerfamily.com (Joshua Lehrer) * Subject: Re: lbr$ routines and concurrency= Message-ID: <477e0934.0312211942.441a360c@posting.google.com>   [ JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@istop.com> wrote in message news:<3FE518EA.7CE62E95@istop.com>...  > Joshua Lehrer wrote:S > > > You can specify LBR$C_FLUSHDATA as the block_type argument of LBR$FLUSH which G > > > will flush only the data blocks and preserve the index in memory.  > > E > > And why would I want to do this?  What benefit does this give me?  > M > If you flush the in-memory index to nla0:, the next operation you make will N > force a reread of the index into memory, which will require re-allocation of > just released memory.   F Ok, I have tried this and I see no performance difference over a 5 run average with each flag.   F I still get a long (~1 minute) pause when flushing after the insertionE of ~6,800 module.  I currently flush every 500 module insertions.  If C no flushing is performed, the call to close takes a very long time.    -josh    ------------------------------  % Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 17:36:43 -0500 * From: JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@istop.com>/ Subject: Re: scrambled terminal output on OPA0: ) Message-ID: <3FE6207A.11BCEB03@istop.com>   K > > I have a VT320 connected by an MMJ cable to a VAXstation 4000/60.  When G > > in an editor, the terminal output is scrambled, like there had been I > > dropouts, line noise etc.  (The cable is quite short.)  This persists I > > even after SET TERM/INQ etc.  If I then SET HOST/LAT or TELNET to the L > > same machine or another one (in the cluster or outside it), the terminal > > works fine.    What does SHOW TERM reveal ?  G In particular, device type ? eightbit ?, hostsync ? ttsync ? commsync ?    Also, do you have parity set ?    K If the terminal thinks it is 7 bit with even parity, but VMS thinks you are K eightbit with no parity, then the terminal will display wrong characters or " the ? to indicate parity failure. M In the reverse case, (VMS set at 7 bits with parity, terminal set at 8 bits), M the terminal will essentially have every second character screwed up. This is N especially visible with TPU which makes use of 8 bit escape sequences when VMS thinks your terminal is 8 bits.    ------------------------------  % Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 17:38:24 -0500 * From: JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@istop.com>/ Subject: Re: scrambled terminal output on OPA0: ) Message-ID: <3FE620E0.14B20807@istop.com>    > Phillip Helbig wrote: E > When in an editor, the terminal output is scrambled, like there had " > been dropouts, line noise etc.    + Format your system disk and re-install VMS.    :-) :-) :-)    ------------------------------   End of INFO-VAX 2003.706 ************************