Ne XTFAQ
Ne XTFAQ
_________________________________________________________________
OVERVIEW
* 1 Introduction
* 2 General information
* 3 What is ...
* 4 Miscellaneous information
* 5 Black (NeXT) hardware
* 6 White (Intel) hardware
* 7 Storage
* 8 Printing
* 9 Obsolete but still interesting?
CONTENTS
1 Introduction
2 General information
3 What is ...
3.1 NEXTSTEP
3.2 Mach
3.3 OPENSTEP
3.4 Objective-C
3.5 NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP Developer
3.6 D'OLE
3.7 PDO --- Portable Distributed Objects
3.8 EOF --- Enterprise Objects Framework
3.9 WebObjects
3.10 WWW Browser
3.11 Newsreader
4 Miscellaneous information
6.1 What about support for NeXT Computer specific hardware features
such as the DSP?
6.2 Do Multi-Architecture Binaries take a lot of extra disk space?
6.3 How difficult is it to recompile existing NeXT applications over
to NEXTSTEP/Intel?
6.4 When developing programs, are there any portability issues I
should be aware of?
6.5 What is the difference between the NEXTSTEP/Intel User Environment
and Developer Environment?
6.6 If a specific I/O card is not supported by NeXT, can 3rd parties
write drivers for NEXTSTEP/Intel?
6.7 How is NEXTSTEP/Intel installed?
6.8 Will NEXTSTEP/Intel run on 386 machines?
6.9 Will NEXTSTEP/Intel run on the Cyrix 486SLC?
6.10 Will NEXTSTEP/Intel run on the future Intel Microprocessors in
the x86 family?
6.11 Will NEXTSTEP/Intel run on portable computers?
6.12 Will NEXTSTEP/Intel be able to run MS-DOS and Windows programs?
6.13 How will my DOS and Windows applications perform under
NEXTSTEP/Intel?
6.14 Is the window I use to run Microsoft Windows applications
resizable?
6.15 Will this DOS/Windows compatibility system allow me to run
several DOS programs at once?
6.16 Can I cut and paste between DOS/Windows sessions and NEXTSTEP
applications?
6.17 Can I use both DOS and NEXTSTEP/Intel partitions on the same hard
disk?
6.18 Can NEXTSTEP/Intel read, write, and format DOS and Mac floppies?
6.19 NEXTSTEP/Intel 3.1, DOS, Linux/NT multi-boot system?
6.20 NeXTSTEP on INTEL, KEYBOARD-ERROR ...
6.21 NS 3.2 Tseng ET4000 Video Driver doesn't work.
6.22 Accessing ROM monitor on Intel-System, how?
6.23 Adaptec 2940 Fast and Sync. SCSI explanation...
6.24 Do EIDE-Drives work with NEXTSTEP?
6.25 Anyone have a driver yet that does 8 bit color on an ET4000/w32p
card? (Hercules Dynamite Pro VLB)
6.26 Does a Glidepoint pointing device work with NEXTSTEP?
6.27 AppleTalk under NEXTSTEP/Intel?
6.28 Booting hangs with black screen
6.29 Why are the features of my graphic card useless?
6.30 How to use MIDI without the MusicKit?
6.31 Installation problems with EIDE and ATAPI drives
6.32 Error message during boot time
6.33 Does NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP run with ...
6.34 RAM greater 64MB, now I get a black screen!
6.35 Lost root password
7 Storage
8 Printing
_________________________________________________________________
This document was converted from LaTeX using Karl Ewald's latex2html.
1 INTRODUCTION
To help in the unaware user, this FAQ was founded. But also
professional users might find some interesting information, which they
didn't knew already.
Note the NEXTSTEP and OpenStep questions often concern related topics
like Objective-C, UNIX, administration tasks, etc. for which already
separate FAQs do exist. See the new.answers newsgroup for additional
FAQs, if your problem isn't covered by this FAQ.
1.2 Submissions
If you contact the author, use the following subject for submissions:
FAQ submission. To report errors use: FAQ error. Additionally you
might want to add the chapter where the submission/error report
belongs to.
1.3 Availability
1.4 Copyright
This FAQ is copyrighted by Bernhard Scholz. (Internet e-mails:
[email protected])
1.5 Disclaimer
We are not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned in this FAQ.
1.6 Thanks
Then I want to thank the people who worked on the FAQ before I did
take them over (in order of working): Pascal Chesnais and Erik Kay,
Nathan F. Janette, Maximilian Goedel (never released anything but
cleaned up some things for me).
Thanks also to Karl Ewald, who contributed his latex2html Perl script
which replaced the non working original latex2html version.
2 GENERAL INFORMATION
General information
pinout patches
If you run into a problem, first read the FAQ of course :-) Second you
might consider asking NeXT directly through the electronic service:
[email protected]. Send an e-mail with subject: ascii help index to
start.
EUROPE: Munich:
Phone: (49)-89-996-5310
Note: numbers abroad are listed with the country codes first. You will
need to dial the international access number of your long distance
carrier before proceeding to dialing the country code, area code and
phone number.
FTP Software
The FAQ mentions a lot of software packages which you might find
useful. In general there are two big sites serving Europe and the US.
These sites keep most of the software available and do mirror
themselves to keep up to date (although the structure of the archive
differ). If the software isn't on one of these sites, the appr
2.5 Software on CD
Big Green CD. Selected software for NEXTSTEP. Also this software is on
any other CD, too. It might be a good startes collection.
http://skylee.com/BGCD.html, [email protected]
Font Garden for NEXTSTEP CDROM. Some more fonts for computers running
NEXTSTEP. These fonts should be capable of the NEXTSTEP encoding
sheme. However we got noticed that only very few are ISO-LATIN_1. So
it is possible of most interested to English speaking countries.
http://www.cdrom.com/
The third production version 3.3, has been released for Intel
Processors (i486 and higher) as well as for NeXT hardware (not
manufactured any longer but still supported), HP workstations and Sun
workstations.
OpenStep versions are announced and will be available this year (1996)
for Windows NT, Windows 95, Mach, Solaris and hopefully HP-UX. The
status for DEC machines and their OS (OSF/1, OpenVMS) is unknown. At
least it is uncertain that there will be a port to OSF/1 or even
OpenVMS, because DEC is doing the port alone. At least you can run
OpenStep on DEC machines running Windows NT in the near future. For
Sun's Solaris systems OpenStep will probably be part of the
NeoDesktop.
2.8 Are there differences between Openstep for Mach and other implementations?
Yes there are. OpenStep for Mach will include all the well known
features from NEXTSTEP (Services, Filters, SoundKit, ...) which the
other implementations will lack, due to the underlying OS.
To get all the benefits which is offered in NEXTSTEP today, you need
to go for OpenStep for Mach.
information NeXT
to start.
If you do have access to the world wide web, you even want to try the
following URL: http://www.next.com/NeXTanswers/.
NeXT did (and probably will) change their naming conventions a lot.
E.g. NEXTSTEP is the current correct spelling for their operating
system. With the shipping of OpenStep, there will be no more NEXTSTEP,
but OpenStep for Mach/Solaris/HP-UX/Windows95/Wind
owsNT.
NUG user groups NeXT user groups To start a user group, just send
e-mail to [email protected].
2.13 What are the names of the ftp sites that have NeXT-related files?
FTP, servers
There are too many to list them all, so are here are just a few.
NEXTSTEP: cs.orst.edu
ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de (peanuts)
nova.cc.purdue.edu
sonata.cc.purdue.edu
umd5.umd.edu
ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de
MIT X: export.lcs.mit.edu
music: princeton.edu
User manuals were shipped with every NeXT. Additional copies available
from NeXT (N6002/N6003/N6014/N6026) $25.
BSD unix documentation (MISC, PS1, PS2, SMM, USD). Available from to
USENIX site members. A lot of this has been integrated into the NeXT
documentation. Some of this is sorely missing. The SMM Unix System
Manager's Manual is really useful!
USENIX Association
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 215
Berkeley, CA 94710
USA +1 510 528 8649
fax +1 510 548 5738
[email protected]
The SMM and the rest of the berkeley documentation are also available
directly and for free via anon ftp e.g. from
ftp.uu.net /packages/bsd-sources/share/doc.
To format them properly for viewing and printing on the NeXT use nroff
with the package indicated by the file suffix (e.g. to format the
documentation file 0.t use nroff -mt 0.t).
Get NextAnswers for Digital Librarian from NeXT. The current versions
are actually on ftp.next.com or available via the mailserver at
[email protected].
Get NeXT Support Bulletin from the archives. It is meant for support
centers.
FTP, e-mail access Some ftp sites are configured as an e-mail archive
server. This means you can upload and download files via e-mail.
(with the subject line help and you will get a complete description of
this service)
Music, contacts
Since NeXT has become for now the platform of choice for much of the
computer music composition and research community, the newsgroup
comp.music is one good place to find people with information and
interest in music on the NeXT.
There is also a mailing list specifically for NeXT music. For posting
to the dist list: [email protected]
With the shipping of NEXTSTEP 3.x binaries are distributed FAT. This
means, that a binary might include different versions of the
executable for each hardware platform NEXTSTEP is running on. On the
archive sites you might easily recognize the supported h
The correct spelling for a fat binary is: MAB binary (multi
architecture binary) but most commonly 'fat' is used.
With the shipping of OpenStep this will change. OpenStep applications
are only sourcecode compatible and have to be recompiled for each
architecture. This implies that you need a compiler for future
PD/SW/FW-software, although OpenStep for Mach will still
3 WHAT IS ...
What is ...
3.1 NEXTSTEP
NEXTSTEP
Bundled with NEXTSTEP are several user applications which enhance the
daily use dramatically: NeXTMail (a MIME compatible mail application),
Edit (a simple but powerful editor), FaxReader (for reading incoming
faxes, you are able to send faxes from every application which
supports printing), DigitalWebster (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate
Dictionary and Collegiate Thesaurus), Digital Librarian (indexing and
full text search utility, usable over groups of files) Preview (a
PostScript and TIFF display utility), Terminal (UNIX terminal
application for VT100 and TN3270 emulation), TeX (a well known
compiler for formatted text), SYBASE and ORACLE adapters (to contact
to SYBASE and ORACLE databases within EOF applications).
One special thing about NEXTSTEP is the display system. NeXT uses DPS
(Display Post Script), which gives you true WYSIWYG on every NEXTSTEP
system. The window server supports PostScript Level II, Interactive
RenderMan and Photorealistic RenderMan (an distributed engine for fast
high quality rendering, based on Pixar's RenderMan).
3.2 Mach
Mach
Mach is the the basic OS layer NeXT uses for NEXTSTEP. It is a micro
kernel, which means it is extensible at runtime. Micro kernel often
stands for a small kernel size, too, but due to the compatibility to
BSD 4.3 Mach is currently about 1MB in size.
3.3 OPENSTEP
OPENSTEP
The architecture of OPENSTEP was made public in late 1995 and since
then GNU is working on a public port of OPENSTEP to e.g. X11 based
UNIX systems.
For the NEXTSTEP user OPENSTEP doesn't take away old known features.
In addition with OPENSTEP for Mach you get Mach enhancements, an
enhanced workspace manager, Perl5, TaylerUUCP, PPP and Samba.
Old applications will continue to run under OPENSTEP for Mach and need
to be recompiled to run under Windows NT, Solaris, and other OPENSTEP
platforms. Which goes side by side to become true OPENSTEP
applications-
3.4 Objective-C
Objective-C
In Objective-C you are able to mix code. E.g. you can use C++ and C in
any Objective-C program.
NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP Developer
3.6 D'OLE
D'OLE
PDO
PDO also runs on non-NEXTSTEP servers. It comes with it's own set of
classes, libraries and even an Objective-C++ compiler, etc. Neverless
you can build, maintain, etc. from any NEXTSTEP client connected to a
PDO server. The tools used for building the final objects however are
native to the server's OS.
EOF
EOF bridges the gap between objects and relational databases. With EOF
you can bring the advantage of object oriented design etc. to
applications which use relational databases. (Therefore you don't need
an object oriented database!)
Developing under EOF doesn't limit you to e.g. Objective-C. EOF allows
the integration of e.g. 4GL code as well as SQL etc. all combined
under the advantage of NeXT's developer tools.
WebObjects
3.11 Newsreader
Newsreader Alexandra NewsGrazer NewsFlash RadicalNews
4 MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION
4.1 How do I get pictures of people from remote sites to appear in Mail.app and
NewsGrazer?
[email protected]:*:-2:-2::/nodir:/noshell
[email protected]:bkohler.gonzo.ucr.edu
[email protected]:bkohler.gonzo.ucr.edu
* NewsGrazer
Start the application under gdb, and then try the following
sequence of commands:
break *0x500976a
commands 1
silent
printf "%s: ", *$a2
output {char *}(4+$a2)
echo \n
cont
end
run
[Carl Edman ] adds:
Needs to be revised for 3.x systems. wmdefaults is only for 2.x; it's
not needed for 3.0 and later.
Remote running
On the local machine make sure you have public window server access,
this is set from the Preferences application. On the foreign NeXT
machine run the application from a terminal window with the -NXHost .
Both machines should be running the same version of NeXTstep.
4.4 Why does UUCP hangs on outgoing connections after sending the password, but
other communications software do not have a problem with it?
UUCP
What is happening is that the remote machine is waiting for you to end
your login or password by typing a "Return" (aka &Mcirc; or CR or
CARRIAGE RETURN). UUCP ends a line by sending a LineFeed (aka Ĵ
or LF). Since UUCP doesn't send the CR, the login sequence is never
completed, and you will usually get one of two error messages:
4.5 How do I access the NeXT's Digital Webster Dictionary from a program?
Webster
This is for people who use a terminal app that does vt100 keyboard
emulation - pasc
First, add these lines to your .cshrc (preferably between the if and
endif):
set editmode=emacs
set macrofiles=.macros
And, next, you need to make a file called ".macros". Using an editor
like emacs (which can insert control characters using a &Qcirc;
prefix), into this file put:
A^@^@^@^A^P
B^@^@^@^A^N
C^@^@^@^A^F
D^@^@^@^A^B
where &@circ; means Control-@ and � means Control-A, etc. Also, don't
put in the leading spaces. This will set up the left and right arrows
to move back and forth on the line, and the up and down arrows will
cycle through your history.
A^A^@^@^@^P
B^A^@^@^@^N
C^A^@^@^@^F
D^A^@^@^@^B
Mathematica
Login as root, or get root privileges running su, and execute the
following five commands:
mkdirs /NextApps/Mathematica.app/Kernel/NeXT
cd /NextApps/Mathematica.app/Kernel
ln -s uuuuu/Mathematica.app/Kernel/Display Utilities
cd NeXT
ln -s vvvvv/math mathexe
loginwindow dwrites
Remember that dwrites are not supported by NeXT; they may change with
any subsequent system release. These I've checked out using 3.0; some
or all may work with earlier releases, but I can't vouch for most of
them.
All these dwrites must be done as root. You can also run as root and
use DefaultMgr to set them (which is a whole lot more convenient if
you're intending to fiddle with some of them).
After setting the things you want, restart the WindowServer by logging
out of the current session and typing exit on the login panel.
Most new machines have set to me. This dwrite logs in user
automatically. User must not have a password set, hence don't use this
in a networked environment!
These cause your host name to appear on the login panel. You need
quote marks only if there's a space in the name. The first form
hard-codes the name into root's defaults database. The second form
uses whatever name has been set as localhost in NetInfo, which is
convenient for networked machines.
The font, size, color, and position of the printed string are not
accessible (drat!).
This uses the tiff image pointed to instead of the standard one (in
/usr/lib/NextStep/loginwindow.app/English.lproj/nextlogin.tiff, .lproj
as appropriate for your main language) as the login panel. Be sure you
get the pointer right, though, or you'll have to boot single-user to
fix it. In practical terms, the image is constrained in various ways I
won't detail here.
No relation to the dim time set by Preferences. The units are odd, I
think. Felix reported them as 1/34 second. However, when I changed it
to 1020, I got 15 seconds to dimming, and 680 gives 10 seconds, that
I'm sure of. So I think the units are 1/68 second. Maybe Felix just
thought it was too damn long! We all know it seems longer when you're
not having fun waiting. :-) Whatever, the login screen dims to about
half after this length of time.
The units are seconds. The image jumps by the amount above every this
many seconds. The default is 0.0666 seconds. Bigger numbers mean
slower motion. Since I don't like things being too jumpy or zooming
around, I set this to 0.1 seconds. This makes my image ooze at a pace
befitting an elderly person like me.
This makes it a little harder to turn the machine off; you have to use
the monitor or the minimonitor (- ) if it's set, rather than the key.
There are yet others. Here's the full list (thanks, Art):
Under NeXTSTEP 3.1, the login window has two buttons labeled "Reboot"
and "Power" that allow a user to reboot and power down from the login
window. In a public lab, this feature may be undesirable. The
PowerOffDisabled default can be used to disable the buttons, but they
are still shown in the window and push in when clicked (a bad user
interface decision, IMHO).
/*
* Patches the loginwindow.app to eradicate the restart and power
* buttons from the login window.
*
* Christopher J. Kane ([email protected])
* Released into public domain; August 13, 1993.
*/
#include <libc.h>
#include <errno.h>
4.10 How does one set UNIX man pages to be viewed in nroff format with DL like
the standard manual pages in NS2.x?
Beyond looking in the man pages under ixBuild, etc., what you want to
do is put a few files (contents listed below file name) the .index
directory:
.roffArgs:
-man
displayCommand:
tbl %s | nroff -man
ixBuildOptions:
-fman -Nwhatis -Ncat[1-8ln] -V
I don't think you need to explicitly name the directory in the first
alternative, but you do in the second unless you want the cat*
directories indexed as well.
(397)basilisk% pwd
/LocalLibrary/Documentation/ManPages
(398)basilisk% ls -alg
total 728
drwxrwxr-x 2 eric wheel 1024 Mar 28 18:03 ./
drwxrwxr-x 11 root wheel 1024 Mar 27 00:41 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric wheel 370 Feb 27 22:01 .README
-rw-rw-r-- 1 eric wheel 872 Feb 27 17:11 .dir.tiff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 eric wheel 20 Feb 27 17:11 .displayCommand
-rw-rw-r-- 1 eric wheel 47 Feb 27 17:10 .index.iname
-rw-rw-r-- 1 eric wheel 6 Feb 27 17:10 .index.itype
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric wheel 729088 Mar 28 18:44 .index.store
-rw-rw-r-- 1 eric wheel 5 Feb 27 17:11 .roffArgs
lrwxrwxrwx 1 eric wheel 18 Feb 27 17:53 gnu ->
/usr/local/gnu/man/@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 eric wheel 14 Feb 27 17:53 local ->
/usr/local/man/@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 eric wheel 9 Feb 27 17:53 news ->
/news/man/@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 eric wheel 35 Feb 27 17:53 system ->
/usr/man/@
Notice that I also copied all the .[a-z]* files from the /usr/man/
directory as well.
Then, use ixbuild -gl to (re)build the index. If your any of the links
point to directories on other devices, add "d" to "-gl". "-v" will
give you verbose output (like my writing style ;-). RTM under
ixbuild(1) for more info.
There is a bundle for Mail to which, beside other features, allows you
to add a .signature file to outgoing e-mails: EnhancedMail.bundle.
This software package is available by the FTP archive sites.
[Carl Edman ]
#!/bin/sh
{
if test -r ${HOME}/.add-header; then cat ${HOME}/.add-header; fi
cat -
if test -r ${HOME}/.signature; then echo "--"; cat ${HOME}/.signature;
fi
}| /usr/lib/sendmail "$@"
IMPORTANT: Make certain that you have one and exactly one newline at
the end of /.add-header. Anything might break outgoing mail. Beware!
BUG: The /.signature file is not added properly for NeXT mail
containing attachments. The headers will still be added properly. This
could be fixed but probably is more of a hassle than it is worth.
First, you must create a file with your signature containing the
characters "--" on the first line (there has been some discussion as
to whether this should be "-- " ("--" followed by a blank), but my
file only has the "--" as the first line. The rest of the file should
contain your normal signature. If you place the file in your home
directory, I recommend NOT using the filename ".signature" for this
file since it may conflict with other programs (like NewsGrazer). I
use the filename ".fullSignature". The file used for the signature
should be ascii and not RTF to allow the file to be used for NeXT and
non-NeXT mail.
Now, when you type "0" (actually, from any application), your
signature will be added wherever your cursor is located (be careful
not to have text selected as it will replace the selected text with
your signature). I have found this to be very convenient for adding my
.sig to outgoing mail.
4.12 How can I quickly find a file if I don't know its directory?
The Unix find command on the NeXT has the capability of quickly
searching a database of all the files. This database is located in
/etc/find.codes and has to be generated periodically. You can
automatically generate this database, say twice a week at 3:15 a.m.,
by adding this line to your file /etc/crontab.local (you might have to
create this file).
After this has run, you can quickly find any file from a terminal by
typing find where is a part of the file name you want (it is
case-sensitive).
Find still works under 3.0, but now has to match the entire filename
(including the path) for a match to be recognized i.e. where under 2.x
you would have find foobar, under 3.0 you have find '*foobar*' (The '
are necessary to prevent the shell from expanding the wildcards
itself).
[From: Geert Jan van Oldenborgh ]
#!/bin/csh
if ( $#argv == 1 ) then
/usr/bin/find \*$1\*
else
set noglob
/usr/bin/find $argv[1-]
unset noglob
endif
When I double-click the Mail.app icon it loads and seems to start but
then just terminates. How can I fix this ?
Recycler
Basically, when you dump a file in the recycler, the workspace manager
(attempts) to move it to one of the following locations:
(note: no order implied here, because I'm unsure of the actual order
used)
- $HOME/.NeXT/.NextTrash
(Should always exist; unsure what happens if it doesn't)
- /tmp/.NextTrash_$USER
Automatically created if non-existent)
- $MNT-POINT/.NextTrash/$USER
(.NextTrash NOT automatically created if non-existent)
Also, the workspace requires that the trash directory into which it
puts the to-be-deleted file be on the same disk partition that the
file originally came from (for speed, I assume).
ls -aldg /private/mnt2/local/.NextTrash
drwxrwxrwt [...] /private/mnt2/local/.NextTrash/
Thus, if you moved your home directory from one partition to another,
the one you left may not have a "recycler-repository" to use.
[Carl Edman ]
Hearing the sound directly on the NeXT can be done with the play3401
program from the archives if you have a Toshiba 3401 series drive.
Theoretically this can also be done with NEC [78]4-1s and Apple CD
300s, though I know of no NeXT program which supports them. Most other
drives (including the NeXT CD-ROM) just don't have the hardware to do
it.
FAQ-Authors note: On Intel system it's very easy: just connect the
CD-Audio out (internal) to your CD-in of the soundcard (internal).
Anyway there are problems with different drives. E.g. we know, that
the Toshiba, Sony and Nec drives currently use the same instruction
set to access audio data. So be aware that there are drives which
simply can't be accessed through CDPlayer.
[From: [email protected]]
[Stephen Peters ]
You can change the tools that the Workspace uses to create and read
its .compressed files by issuing the following commands in a terminal
window:
This is generally a good thing, except that people might follow your
advice and then try to send NeXTmail to someone who is still using
compress/uncompress. Changing Workspace/uncompress to gunzip isn't a
problem, since it uncompresses all sorts of files, but people should
be very careful not to change Workspace/compress to gzip unless they
will only be dealing with other gzip-equipped users.
root login
A number of people have complained about the situation where root can
log onto the configuration server, but not its clients. Login proceeds
normally, then a window with "Workspace error Internal error (signal
10)" pops up. Other users are not affected.
This scenario occurs with NetBooted clients that are not permitted
root access to / via the server's /etc/exports file, either via an
explicit root= option or (the most heinous) anon=0. For security
reasons many sites will NOT want to permit such access.
4.20 How to boot NEXTSTEP from the second (higher SCSI ID) HD?
bsd(1,0,0) -a
which will then ask you for the drive to use as the root disk, or
still easier,
bsd(1,0,0)sdmach rootdev=sd1
In the boot command the name of the bootfile can be replaced by '-'.
This is very useful as the length of the bootcommand which can be
stored in the permanent memory is very limited (on NeXT machines
only). So the only way to eg. increase the number of buffers
permanently to 128 in the boot command is to use the following boot
command: sd- nbu=128 (sdmach nbu=128 would have been too long).
swapfile
The swapfile is located in /private/vm. The only current way to make
it shrink is to reboot the machine.
See the man pages for swaptab for more information. Note, that putting
a space after the comma in /etc/swaptab (lowat=,hiwat=) makes swapon
ignore the hiwat entry.
There is a short trick which seems to work for several people: type
exit in the login panel. This will exit the window server and restart
it immediatly. If you are lucky, this will reclaim some space.
4.22 Does netinfo work between machines running NEXTSTEP 2.x and 3.x?
netinfo
Yes.
4.23 Why does the console user "own" the external disk filesystem?
filesystem, external
limit coredumpsize 0
4.25 What is the maximum value of nbuf that I can specify on bootup?
buffers, ROM
I know the ROM monitor only allows twelve characters, but I use
something like this:
(NeXT machines only) Enter the hardware monitor. Hit 'p' to adjust the
configuration parameters. It will respond: Boot command: ? Enter sd-
nbu=xxx, where xxx is a number less than 256.
4.26 How can I change the mouse pointer shape and color?
Maybe this could point you into the right direction. Pipe it to pft
and see what happens....
%!PS-Adobe-2.0 EPSF-2.0
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 16 16
%%EndComments
0 0 16 16 Retained window
dup windowdeviceround
gsave
16 16 scale
16 16 4
[16 0 0 -16 0 16]
{<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>} false 3 alphaimage
grestore
gstate
nextdict /_NXSharedGrayAlpha get
NX_TwelveBitRGB 1 index setwindowdepthlimit
windowdeviceround
0 0 16 16 5 4 roll 0 32 Copy composite
nulldevice
termwindow
You can build a minimally usable bootable floppy (for crash recovery
purposes). There is a modified version of builddisk (to make it
support building floppies, a minimal change) and a BLD script to build
the boot floppy available at cs.orst.edu in
next/sources/Bootfloppy.tar.Z. (I put this together in response to
several requests.) A newer version of Bootfloppy for 2.1 is on the
archives as next/sources/util/Bootfloppy2.1.tar.Z. Also available from
the archives is BootFloopy 3.x (for --- you guessed it --- NEXTSTEP
3.x). I might also add that one can improve on disk usage while
enhancing functionality. BuildDisk (which is used by the various
BootFloppy scripts) just copies the standard binaries for ls, mv, cp
aso. from /bin. These binaries are statically linked as shipped by
NeXT which makes them huge. (e.g. /bin/ls is 106496 bytes large.
/usr/local/bin/gls with more features is just 16268 bytes). If you
replace these binaries by the BSD or GNU equivalents you can save
several hundred kBytes on your boot floppy. This extra diskspace can
be used for tar, dump and more tools which makes the boot floppy
actually usable. Tested.
4.28 Are there any more dwrites useful for the workspace, ...?
dwrite, misc
@LongLink gnutar
.place3_0.wmd
Switching the 'UNIX Expert' flag in UNIX Preferences panel off hides
all files which start by '.'.
What 'Paint in overlay mode� does, is that when checked, it will use
both the alpha (opacity) of the existing pixel and the alpha selected
in the color inspector and combine both into a new color. When
unchecked the existing pixel will just be replaced with one using
color and alpha as selected in the inspector.
PPP
For the public domain PPP there is an additional FAQ available at:
http://www.thoughtport.com:8080/PPP/
The port works on Motorola, Intel (both Mux and NeXT supplied serial
drivers), and HP systems running OS 3.2 and 3.3. It also works in
conjunction with Black and White's NXFAX software.
You may also want to join the mailing list for PPP. This will keep you
informed of new releases and will provide an arena for discussing
problems with the NeXT specific PPP port. To add yourself to the list
(or for any other administrative requests), send an email message to:
[email protected] requesting you be placed on the
list. Make sure to include your proper return email address. To send
mail to all the participants on the list, address your messages to:
[email protected]
NIX lookupd
There's a new lookupd in OpenStep for Mach 4.0, which works a bit
differently than the old lookupd. The new lookupd has a number of
"agents" that do lookups from various information systems (NetInfo,
DNS, NIS, the Flat Files, and the internal cache). You can specify
which information sources should be consulted, and in what order. You
can also specify which information sources should be consulted for
different categories. There is documentation for all this in the file
/NextLibrary/Documentation/NextAdmin/ReleaseNotes/lookupd.rtf.
One change in NIS lookups is that a "+" in the /etc/passwd file does
not trigger a NIS lookup. If you want user lookups to consult both
/etc/passwd and the NIS passwd maps, you need to tell lookupd to use
both Flat File and NIS agents. For example, if you configure all this
in your root domain, you could set user lookups to use
Cache+NetInfo+Flat Files+NIS like this:
Here it is! I should warn you that this will just kill the app --- it
will not give you a chance to save files, nor will it bring up a nice
panel asking if you really meant to do that. There is no warranty for
anything by using this code.
To use it, simple hold down alternate and right click on any window
owned by the application or its icon on the dock. This will not kill
some apps like Terminal because they run as root.
Disclaimer: you should not attempt this if you do not know what you
are doing. You may be unable to log in (you will have to boot single
user to restore the windowpackage.ps) if you mess it up. You can kill
apps that you did not mean to kill. I cannot be responsible for what
happens!
ftp server
Many people suggested just to read the online manual to ftpd. Probably
a good idea. Anyway I included a not tested script in the FAQ
distribution package which might be convinient for most people.
disk drives
There are some situations in which there are problems. Here is a short
list which might help you in your disk drive quest:
There are problems with the installation of boot blocks and badly
formed fstab generated by BuildDisk of NEXTSTEP 2.0. A disk connected
to the NeXT will need to have a NeXT specific label written to it
before it can be properly recognized by the system. If you get an
error message "Invalid Label..." this indicates that the drive was
successfully seen by the NeXT machine but it does not have the proper
label, to install a label use the /usr/etc/disk program on the raw
disk device that the system assigned to the device and use the label
command to write the label onto the disk. [how the NeXT assigns disk
devices is explained in the N&SA manual]
Yes, but note that NeXTstep 3.3 is be optimized for the 68040 CPUs.
NeXTstep 1.0 and 2.x were optimized for the 68030 CPU, 68882 FPU
machines.
The official fix was an EPROM change to the HP drive from HP. The HP
drives took too long to wait up, so the system wasn't happy with the
other drives coming ready first especially when the HP was suppose to
be the boot device. (The EPROM is no longer available from NeXT).
5.4 What is the procedure for installing a Fujitsu M2263SA/SB SCSI Disk as the
NeXT Boot Disk?
Fujitsu M2263SA/SB
If you can't automount an OD, and you can't fix it, you can still
manually mount it. Log in as root. Type /usr/etc/mount /dev/od0a /FoO.
It will ask you to insert the disk. Insert it. It is mounted.
This method WILL mount a corrupted OD so you can read its contents.
Since it is corrupted, it is not recommended to write to it. You
should copy the important files to something else, then reformat it.
CD-ROM, NeXT
Apple CD-150
PLI 1035N for NeXT
SUN CD-ROM drive (Sony CDU-8012, Rev. 3.1a)
NEC 73M and 74 (transfer rates > of 300 KB/sec.)
NEC 84 S
NEC 4xi
NEC 6x speed
Apple CD-SC (Sony 541-22 mechanism)
Apple CD-300
Apple CD-300+
Chinon CDS-431 (with new drivers)
Eclipse CD-ROM from Microtech
Toshiba 3201
Toshiba 3301
Toshiba 3401
Toshiba 3501
Toshiba TXM3301E1
Toshiba XM-2200A external
Toshiba XM3601
Plextor Quadspeed
Plextor PX-63CS (6xspeed)
DENON DRD-253 external (data only, no music)
HP's LaserROM drive (Toshiba XM-3301TA drive in HP's box)
Texel 3024 (required a firmware upgrade to version was 1.11)
As with all SCSI devices, they just work. Some drives only get
problems with their audio support with CD-Player (due to not
standardized SCSI audio commands, but this isn't a NeXT specific
problem!)
In contrary the question should be: are there SCSI CD-ROMs which don't
work together with NEXTSTEP?
5.7 What are some other sources of toner cartridges and trays for the NeXT
laser printer?
The toner cartridge is a standard EP-S cartridge, the same that fits
the HP LaserJet III and some other printers.
printers, on NeXT
If you plan to connect an HP LaserJet (II, IIP, III, etc.) you need to
make a special cable in order for the NeXT 040 and HP to get the
hardware handshaking correct. This is true for whatever version of the
OS you are running.
Mini-Din HP DB-25
1 (DTR) nc
2 (DCD) 4 (RTS)
3 (TXD) 3 (RXD)
4 (GND) 7 (GND)
5 (RXD) 2 (TXD)
6 (RTS) 5 (CTS)
7 (RTXC) nc
8 (CTS) 20 (DTR)
You may want to use hardware flow control for reliability (ie
/dev/ttyfa).
If you have problems with other printers, check the cable pinouts in
the printer's manual against the one recommended in the zs man-page!
Refer to Chapter 13 in Network and System Administration.
5.9 What can I do to prevent my NeXT printer from running all the time?
The NeXT 400dpi printer powers up every time you boot up when the
print daemon is started (/usr/lib/NextPrinter/npd in /etc/rc). Apart
from not running the daemon at boot time (commenting it out and having
to run it by hand later), you can add the following lines to
/etc/rc.local:
if [ -f /usr/etc/nppower ]; then
sleep 3
/usr/etc/nppower off
(echo 'powering off NeXTprinter') >/dev/console
fi
Once you queue a print job the printer daemon will automatically power
up the NeXT printer for you. The printer daemon will not automatically
power off the machine after a print job, you will need to turn off the
printer by typing /usr/etc/nppower off.
Some NeXT owners use the RadioShack (Realistic) Tie Clip Microphone
($19.95) cat 33-1052. NeXT Computer, Inc. uses the "Sony Electret
Condenser Microphone ECM-K7" in-house (available for $60). Some use
Sony Tie-Clip microphone, #ECM-144, which costs around $40. Others
have successfully used a WalMart brand microphone (available for $6).
modem, on NeXT
These cables are available commercially from any store, how still
sells NeXT stuff, and from Computer Cables and Devices, or can be
custom built. Note that no off- the-shelf Mac cable will allow
hardware flow control. It is however possible to make a such a cable
from an Imagewriter II cable by replacing one of the mini-8 ends with
a DB-25 connector.
Most people use tip or kermit to control the modem. SLIP and/or UUCP
may also be used (but are more complicated to set up and require the
remote machine to also have SLIP and/or UUCP (respectively)).
Most available modems of today, don't work for with the general fax
driver available with NEXTSTEP. In this case you need to perchuse a
commercial solution: 'NXFax'. There are demos available. The following
information is pretty much old, and might probably be obsolete now:
The following fax modems are currently available for the NeXT
Computer:
(Neuron 1414 and Neuron 1414+ modems are relabelled ZyXEL modems.
Contact ZyXEL USA for ROM upgrades. Neuron modems with 512K ROMs
should upgrade their ROMs and ROM sockets to 1 Mb ROMs. People with
1Mb ROMs should just order the new ROMs.)
(*) Note that the Class 2 is not yet approved; it is still out for
ballot, after having failed in an October 1990 round. The Abaton
InterFax 24/96 NX driver supports Class 2 as it was in that draft;
there are expected to be very few changes prior to approval.
(**) Note that mix fax works with both the October 1990 and October
1991 draft versions of Class 2, especially with the NeXT supplied
Class 2 modem driver. Upgrading to an approved version of Class 2
would be a matter of just a software update (holds true for any
forthcoming (class 3?) standard, for that matter).
In order to use a fax modem with the NeXT Computer, a NeXT compatible
fax driver must be available to operate the modem. Modem control
procedures may be proprietary or conform to one of the following
EIA/TIA standards:
Class 1: CCITT T.30 session management and CCITT T.4 image data
handling are controlled by the driver.
Class 2*: CCITT T.30 session management and image data transport are
handled by the modem. CCITT T.4 image data preparation and
interpretation are controlled by the driver.
Note that there's a small bug in 2.0 (fixed in 2.1): a symbolic link
is missing for the file Class2_Fax_Modem_Driver in
/usr/lib/NextPrinter. The simple fix: create the link; it should
reference Interfax_Fax_Modem_Driver, also in the /usr/lib/NextPrinter
directory.
If one uses illegal characters in the Modems Number field in the Fax
Options when configuring an InterFax modem then the modem will not
answer the phone. Legal characters are digits, spaces, and plus signs.
This does not affect the Dove modem.
Modems from the german vendor Dr. Neuhaus also work with the internal
Fax-Driver. But only the FURY-series does.
5.13 How may I attach more than two serial ports to the NeXT?
TTYDSP From Yrrid converts the DSP port into an additional serial
port.
Yrrid Incorporated
507 Monroe St.
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Voice: 919-968-7858
Fax: 919-968-7856
E-mail: [email protected]
Unitnet has a device, the SLAT, that will connect to the scsi bus.
Phone: 217/359-8010
Toll-free: 800/482-0315
FAX: 217-359-6904
Email: [email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
5.14 What is the best and/or cheapest way to connect a NeXT to a thick
Ethernet?
Ethernet, thick There are many possible solutions. For example, here
are three:
5.15 How can I connect my NeXT to the telephone line and use it like an
answering Machine?
SES Computing
13206 Jenner Lane
Austin, Texas 78729
Voice: (512) 219-9468 (Demo system number)
i.link, a european company, has a combined data/fax modem and
telephone answering machine. It uses the DSP port and is implemented
mainly in software on the DSP with a little bit of hardware to
interface to the phone line.
i.link GmbH
Nollendorfstrasse 11-12
D-1000 Berlin 30
Germany
Tel: +49 30 216 20 48
Fax: +49 30 215 82 74
E-mail: [email protected]
5.16 What color monitors can I use with the Color NeXT machines?
monitor, color
Displays may require alignment to adjust for the scan rate of NeXT
machines.
The Nanao T560i 17" color display has been used with NeXTstation Color
machines, and seems to work well.
5.17 Where can I get 13W3 to BNC adapters to connect third party color
monitors?
NuData in New Jersey carries 13W3 female to 4 BNC male connectors. The
price is about $100.
NuData
Voice: 908-842-5757
ie. the pins to the coaxial are male and the regular pins are female.
. o o o o o . . 13W3 FEMALE
A1 o o o o o A2 A3
| | |
| | |
| | |
Red Green Blue 3 BNC's
That's the coax part. The outer shielding of the coax's are grounded
on both pin 10 and the case.
5.18 How may I attach Centronics or 16 bit wide parallel ports to the NeXT?
Uninet has devices, the SLAT-2 and the SLAT-DRV11, that will connect
to the scsi bus.
* leave the device at the other end switched on (even when it's not
transmitting, it will assert a voltage that overrides the noise)
* unplug the cable from the next when you're not using it
* use 'kill -STOP' & 'kill -CONT' to stop and resume the getty
process as needed
* buy an adequately shielded serial cable
I have adjusted several monitors with no problems, but make sure you
know what you are doing before opening anything. I expressly disclaim
responsibility for any ill results that may occur.
(NB: A similar procedure will work for color monitors, but you should
either know what you're doing or you'll probably be better off letting
a pro deal with it.)
Turn off the computer. Disconnect all cables to the monitor. Look at
the back of the monitor. There will be 4 screws there; use the
NeXTtool (or Allen wrench) to remove them. Remove the plastic back of
the monitor and put it out of your way.
Reconnect the cables and turn the computer back on. As the machine
powers up, examine the back of the monitor. You'll see a metallic box
(usually silver, though some are black) surrounding the monitor's
vitals. This protects you against the dangerous voltages inside, and
also insulates the monitor from electromagnetic noise. On the back of
this box are several holes for performing adjustments. There are two
focus controls (labeled 'focus' and 'dynamic focus'), a brightness
control (labeled 'brightness' or possibly 'black level') and several
others that adjust various things like screen size and position.
Focus and position controls are fairly obvious. Adjust them slowly
until you're happy with the results. Don't muck with anything you
don't need to; the factory settings are usually pretty decent.
If the control you need to adjust proves to be difficult, you may need
to enter the metal case. This happened on one monitor's focus control
and another's brightness.
WARNING: THE VOLTAGES INSIDE THE MONITOR'S CASE ARE VERY DANGEROUS,
EVEN WHEN THE MONITOR IS OFF. BE VERY CAREFUL, OR YOU CAN SERIOUSLY
INJURE OR EVEN KILL YOURSELF.
DO NOT PERFORM THE NEXT INSTRUCTIONS UNLESS YOU ARE CONFIDENT THAT YOU
KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. You'll have to power off the computer again,
and disconnect the cables.
WARNING: DO NOT TOUCH THIS WIRE, IT CAN SHOCK YOU THROUGH ITS
INSULATION.
Being very careful of this, remove the metal case by unscrewing the
Philip's head screws that hold the case on. Don't touch the screws
that hold the picture tube into the front of the monitor's case.
Once you've gotten the metal box off, reconnect the cables. Figure out
what control you're going to adjust, and make sure that you can do so
without touching anything else inside. Again, *watch out* for the wire
that connects to the picture tube on the right side.
Power up the computer. I recommend that you use only one hand to make
the adjustment, and that your other hand be placed in your pocket (or
similar equivalent, if you're wearing clothes lacking pockets). This
precaution reduces the chances that you'll make a short circuit
between one hand, your heart, and the other hand --- a good idea.
It works fine with dual-headed cubes and is optimized for the Apple OS
- Version 7.5. To get further information about daydream, please
contact:
QUIX Computerware AG
011-41-41-440-88-28
9 hour differential
Luzernerstr.10
6030 Ebikon
Switzerland
Next software - 011-41-41-34-86-80
[email protected]
5.22 My NeXT laser printer fails to fully eject the sheet - how to fix?
printer, eject, NeXT laser NeXT laser, eject paper Fix it as follows.
You can see this gear before you disassemble the printer, so that is a
good first step. Then read these instructions all the way through and
see if you want to attempt it. Next recommends replacing the entire
fuse ass'y ( big bucks) if the gear is damaged, but Chenesko, Inc., of
Ronkonkoma, NY sells the gears for $2.31. The part number is RS1-0132.
They recommended I also replace the 20 tooth gear, number RS1-0116,
but I don't know if it is really necessary. Their phone number is
800-221-3516.
To examine your gear, open the rear (delivery ) door and undo the
screw attaching the strap that keeps the door from opening down all
the way. The gear is on the side nearest the power input to the
printer.
There are two gears on the part of the delivery ass'y that swings
down. The suspect gear engages the top one, but is mounted on the
fixed portion of the fuse. Ours had several teeth missing and/or
damaged. To get the gear off you have to remove the fuse ass'y. To
remove the fuse you must open the printer lid fully, so it is straight
up. To open the lid fully you must remove the case. To remove the case
you must remove the plastic cover on the lid.
Are you getting the idea now? This will be a lot of fun, and take most
of the afternoon. I hope you have a spacious, well-lit area, because
there are a lot of screws, and a lot of them are painted black, so
they are hard to see when you drop them, unless you drop them inside
of the printer, where you might NEVER see them again.
* REMOVE THE LID COVER open the lid and remove 3 screws. They DO NOT
have any red paint on them.
* REMOVE THE BACK DOOR there is one screw that holds the strap. When
you can swing it clear down, you can squeeze the hinges together
and remove the door.
* REMOVE THE CASE There are maybe seven screws that hold the case
on. Four are right on top. Two are just inside the rear door area.
Two are down inside where you store that green cleaning tool. 4 +
2 + 2 = 7, right? Say, who was the last guy that worked on this
printer anyway?
The case has to be convinced that you really need to remove it,
even when it is loose and all the screws are out.
* REMOVE THE FUSE ASS'Y You will need a PHILLIPS screwdriver for
this, as with the previous steps. But you will need a LONG one
this time. Three of the screws are pretty easy to find. Just study
the lower part of the fuse, as it is screwed onto the bottom case.
Two of the screws are inside. One is under the lid next to the
gears, the other near the green cleaning tool. On the outside, in
back, there is one on each side. One is under the white wires that
connect the fuse to the 10 AMP circuit breaker, which is pretty
near that gear, and close to the power input. Unplug that cable.
Then remove the small black crew that holds the black plastic gear
cover so you will have better access to the last screw. Then you
will have to wrestle the fuse out the back of the printer. Be
careful with it.
* DISASSEMBLE THE FUSE There are several screws and a spring. It's
not too hard to take apart. You can see the gear, so you just have
to take off the covers on that end of the ass'y to get to it. I
should caution you that I had trouble putting them back on,
because they have funny shapes and don't make a lot of sense. Plus
I was tired, so I went home, ate dinner, played with the dog, went
to bed, got up and ate breakfast before I put it back together.
You might want to label some parts, make some drawings, etc. to
reassure yourself that you can put the parts back just like they
were.
* REMOVE THE GEAR You can remove the gear pretty easily with a small
screwdriver by unspringing the "E"-ring that holds it on the
shaft. Try not to bend the e-ring.
* PUT EVERYTHING BACK TOGETHER Sorry, I can't help you with this
part (HA HA!) I told you you should read the instructions first.
Maybe you should buy a new printer, or try to attach some third
party printer via the serial port!
Well, if you got this far I hope you dropped little crumbs of bread so
you can find your way back. I try to save all the little screws by
putting them back in the holes they came from, or putting them in some
small container. You might clean some of the gears or the paper path
while you have it open. You can also install a new OZONE filter.
Remember OZONE is hazardous to your health, so you don't want to
inhale it.
Yet another update to reflect that Jacob Gore received gears for an
Apple Laserwriter from Chenesko, which are similar enough to work, but
with some modification.Also, if the original gear is in fair
condition, it can be reversed on the shaft until a replacement is
ordered.
Pin Function
1 +5v
2 X Encoder Phase A
3 X Encoder Phase B
4 Y Encoder Phase A
5 Y Encoder Phase B
6 Right Button
7 Left Button
8 Ground
Parity (9-bit) SIMMs can be used in both 68030 and 68040 NeXT
machines, but should not be mixed with non-parity SIMMs. Only 68040
boards with ROM levels of 2.2 (v63) and higher can use the parity
memory to detect parity errors.
It is OK to mix parity and non-parity memory, but the system will not
boot unattended. Cubes with early boot ROMs will not work with 4 Mb
parity ram, unless at least 3 banks are used. The system gives an
exception error on power up. The fix is to get a new boot rom from
Next.
You can pay $30, or you may be able to squawk and get one for free. I
have found Next to be pretty responsive, once I find the right person.
The correct version is v66 which was the last or final rev for this
series of 040 boards. This version also fixed the problem in the
second paragraph.
NeXT didn't officially bless the use of 8 MB SIMMs, but they seem to
fit and work.
Faster SIMMS (70/80 ns) don't make the memory system work any faster
than the 100 ns units.
The memory system has programmable memory timing such that the number
of processor clocks needed to access a given amount of data can be
tailored to the speed of the memory installed. 70 ns memory is just
enough faster than 80 ns memory to allow the cpu to access the data
with fewer clock cycles. This improves memory system performance.
"70 ns" memory is faster than "80 ns" memory in many parameters other
than just RAS access time. The faster CAS access time in particular
allows the memory system to respond quicker to burst (16 bytes) bus
transfers.
SIMM Tool The tool came with 68040 upgrade kits for NeXTcubes.
It really makes removing SIMMs easy. It looks like a dental tool:
about six inches long with a 1/2" long head offset at 90 degrees. To
remove SIMMs, you slip the head into the hole on one side of the SIMM,
rest the head on the SIMM socket next to the SIMM you are pulling, and
pivot the tool back, using the simple fulcrum to gently pry the SIMM
up about 1/8" from the socket on that side. Repeat on the other side,
and the SIMM can be then removed by hand.
USA hardware service has been purchased by Bell Atlantic. They will be
supporting the Authorized Service Centers and are selling extended
warranty contracts.
Decision One
Voice: 800 499 6398, or 800 848 NeXT
Fax: 510 732 3078
SORBUS
40549 Duesseldorf
Willstaetter Strasze 13
* NeXTcube systems:
+ 68030-25 2-bit grayscale (NeXT Computer)
+ 68040-25 2-bit grayscale (NeXTcube)
+ 68040-33 2-bit grayscale (NeXTcube Turbo)
+ NeXTdimension board adds 32-bit color (i860) to any of above
systems
Cube systems can use any of the boards. With hacks, multiple
independent CPU boards can run in one cube.
NeXT Computer systems have room for 2 full-height 5.25" internal
devices with a wide slot for an Optical Disk drive(s) in either
position.
* NeXTstation systems:
+ 68040-25 2-bit grayscale (NeXTstation)
+ 68040-33 2-bit grayscale (NeXTstation Turbo)
+ 68040-25 16-bit color (NeXTstation Color)
+ 68040-33 16-bit color (NeXTstation Color Turbo)
NeXTstation systems have room for two 1/2-height 3.5" devices, with a
floppy slot at the side.
5.29 What can be done about older 030 NeXT cubes that have a fan that turns in
the "wrong" direction?
The fan on older 030 NeXTs cubes sucks air out of the back of the cube
which means that it draws unfiltered air in through the optical disk
on the front of the cube. This causes optical disks to succumb to dust
must sooner than cubes with the new-style fan which turns in the
opposite direction.
Perhaps the best solution is obtain the cleaning kit and OD filter
from NeXT.
SONY MPX-111N
The SONY MPX-111N internal 2.88 MB floppy drive which was shipped with
all the 68040 NeXT machines is not a SCSI device, therefore there is
no way of connecting that particular drive internally on a 68030
system.
OD, spinning
A big problem with the Canon optical drives is that air flows through
the drive to cool it. Dust accumulates inside the drive causing it to
fail with the continuous spin-up spin-down syndrome. NeXT as part of
it's 040 upgrades provided a dust filter to prevent this. If your
drive has this problem it usually can be fixed simply by cleaning out
dust from the drive. NeXT sold a cleaning kit for both the drives and
the optical disks.
NeXT, colors
The monochrome machines can display 4 gray levels. You can use color
apps on a monochrome machine, they will converted into monochrome
images and dithered accordingly.
Color NeXTstations can combine 4 bits of red, green and blue primaries
for a total of 4096 pure colors. The imaging functions dither the
image to produce intermediate colors.
None of the NeXT products support color look up tables where the user
can define their own color palette on a per window basis. This feature
is useful for displaying images which have adaptive lookup tables, and
display pure grayscale images on the color NeXTstation. On the
NeXTdimension images can be converted to full 24 bit representation.
5.33 Why is my machine so slow when I run the monochrome and NeXTdimension
displays?
There is a bug with the window system in which if you select the
monochrome display as your primary display the server will be much
much slower. The solution for those wishing to use both displays is to
select the color (NeXTdimension) display as the primary display. The
most optimal configuration at present with the NeXTdimension is to run
only the color display.
mouse, parts
From: [email protected]
For those who have need of a new button in their mouse, and don't want
to pay for the whole mouse when it is only the button that has gone
bad, we have recently discovered a satisfactory replacement for the
Omron switch. It is in the Digikey catalog, # 931, Jan-Feb 1993, page
141, under Cherry switches D4, DG, and DH series. Digikey part #
CH164-ND, Cherry part # DG1C-B1AA. We ordered one of these, and just
received it today. Tried it out, and it seems to be working flawlessly
so far.
If ADB equipment are used with older NeXT systems they won't work
properly. Here are the ADB requirements:
* A Turbo computer.
* CPU eprom version 74.
* New revision computer to soundbox/monitor cable.
* ADB soundbox for color systems. S/N prefix ADD instead of ABN.
The hardware included a NeXT cube with 660 MB drive, OD, etc., a 68040
upgrade board, and a 68030 motherboard. I successfully installed both
the 68040 and 68030 boards on a SINGLE NeXT cube and linked them
together through their ethernet ports. The 68040 was configured as a
boot server and the 68030 was used as its client (booting off the
network for lack of an additional hard drive).
The procedure:
2. Using the NeXT supplied screwdriver, remove the two screws that
attach the power-supply housing to the cube (the screws are
located on the lower part of the housing) and gently pull the
housing out. Set it aside in a safe place (away from kids and
nosey friends!)
3. Remove the two plastic grooved plates (used to slide the system
boards in) at each side of the inside bottom of the cube. (For
each plate, lift the side closest to the rear opening and gently
pull them out). Set them aside.
4. Using the NeXT tool, remove three screws holding the back-plane to
the cube and then take the back-plane out of the cube. Let the
cube rest for a while.
Inspect the back-plane. You will see five bus slots (four vertical
and one horizontal). The horizontal slot connects the back-plane
to the power supply housing. We're only interested in the four
vertical slots. From the factory these slots are configured as 6,
2, 0, and 4 (starting from the left and going right with the
horizontal slot at the bottom).
x y z C B A
o-o o 32 . . .
o-o o 31 . . .
o-o o 30 . . .
o-o o 29 . . .
28 . . .
.
.
.
3 . . .
2 . . .
1 . . .
Notice the four rows of GND, SID, VCC triads; each row is
equivalent to one bit position in the slot number, the bottom row
bit position 0, the top row bit position 3. This gives a total of
four bit positions, or 16 possible slot numbers. To encode a slot
number, you need to connect an SID row to its corresponding GND or
VCC row. For example, the diagram below shows the configuration of
the slots in my cube's back-plane (you'll have to look very
closely to see the actual connections):
5. To reconfigure slot 2 as slot 0, cut the trace between SID and VCC
for bit position 1 (see * o o-o * above) and connect SID to GND on
the same row. I used the SIMM removal tool supplied by NeXT in the
040 upgrade (talk about multi-purpose) to cut the trace! Very
gently, scrape the solder off between the two holes. Take a
paperclip, shape it to fit between the holes in SID and GND, and
trim it down to an even 1/4 inch (perfect fit)!
That's all there is to it. If for some reason you ever want to
revert to slot 2, just remove the paperclip from GND-SID and
reconnect it to SID-VCC.
6. Now put the cube back together. First, re-install the back-plane
using its three connecting screws, then snap on the plastic
plates, and finally insert the power-supply housing and secure
with its two screws.
At this point the cube is ready to take on the two system boards
(it is up to you to determine where/how you want to use the two
boards; I'll explain how I used mine) ...
7. I installed the 68040 in the original slot 0 and the 68030 in the
reconfigured slot 0 (previously slot 2). The 68040 was used as the
main processor board. I connected the 660 MB drive, the OD, and
the monitor to it.
NOTE: Before beginning the procedure, I went into the NeXT Monitor
on the 68030 and disabled the Sound out, SCSI tests and verbose
test mode and enabled serial port A as a console terminal. I also
made "en" the default boot device. I setup the 68040 as a boot
server and taught it about the 68030 (which took some time in
getting it setup properly).
That's all folks. Hope all this made some sense and people find it
useful.
Comments:
* To power off the cube, I have to first shutdown the 030 (I run
"halt -p" as root from a telnet connection and wait for the 030 to
go down), and I then power-down the 040. If you shut down the 040
before the 030, you'll have to pull the power plug to turn the
machine off. The cube will not power off if either of the two
boards is providing a load to the power-supply.
* I don't know what problems may arise when you add a board that
uses the NeXTbus, such as the NeXTdimension, or how it will
behave. If someone is courageous enough to perform the procedure
and installs another board, please post your results to the net.
Update:
1. Sound out test must be "no"; the boot process will not proceed if
the monitor isn't connected to the board and this is set to "yes"
(the sound out tests will fail, aborting the boot procedure).
2. SCSI tests should be "no" if you don't have SCSI devices attached
to the board (SCSI tests will fail otherwise, aborting the boot
procedure).
3. Verbose test mode must be "no" for booting from the network. If
set to "yes", the boot process will timeout waiting for a BOOTP
and you'll be left in the monitor with no means of restarting the
board (except pulling the power plug)!
This is probably true also for booting from an OD that hasn't been
inserted (assuming the OD was attached to the board).
without any problems. Using the od got the system warm, but never had
a problem. The cool part was having the printer on the 030. One day I
tried to dump an 040 into the 030 position, but I couldn't get it to
boot. I played for a couple minutes, but put the 030 back in and went
on with life...
* The price will be $600. Please let us know if you are interested.
Delivery will be in about 3-4 weeks.
Tom Holton
Division of Engineering
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132
415 338 1529 (phone)
415 338 0525 (fax)
The procedure is to just touch pins 6 and GND on the DB-19 NeXT
monitor out with a 470 Ohm resistor (450 is the actual resistance, but
470 ohms is more commonly found in resistors). Pin 6 is the power
sense, and pins 13-19 (and the DB shell) are the GND. Just say "pin
19", it may be easier.
If you have an old Cube, the power supply needs to have more power
drawn from it than an 030 (and 040?) board uses to stay on. So: On the
DB-19, attach a Power Resistor (20 Ohm, at least 20 Watt) between pins
12 and GND. (Pin 12 is -12V, pin 13 works well for GND). Then just
"touch" the 470 ohm resistor as described above, and you're set. The
20 Ohm resistor draws an old 030 running without monitor in an old
CUBE), but it isn't necessary - just don't touch it (*HOT!* ;-)
To power off, type "halt -p" as root on the machine (either through a
terminal connected to port A, or over the ethernet connection).
Also, you have to have the Rom Monitor settings done correctly. The
important ones are:
Black, spray paint paint, black spray You can get black spray from the
following address.
Sprayon Paint
Omni-Packblend
4Next-Black (icon black)
LAV-16
25216
The cause of the dimming monitors is the CRT cathode wearing out. The
most common type of CRT (and the type used in most NeXT monochrome
monitors and all of the NeXT color monitors) uses what is called an
oxide cathode. A thin coating of oxide is deposited on the cathode to
allow the electronics which form the picture to get off the cathode
easily. The oxide gradually boils off the cathode itself, and when the
oxide is gone, the CRT goes dim.
Typically, the oxide will last from 10,000 to 20,000 power on hours
(screen savers don't help the cathode, they only prevent phosphor
aging). Unfortunately, the black monochrome monitors fall into the
short end of the life range thanks to Toshiba who made the CRT's. The
aging is more noticeable in Unix machines because they tend to be left
on. Note that there are about 8,000 hours in a year. If you leave your
monitor on all the time, all oxide type CRTs will be dim in three
years.
The other type of CRT cathode is the I-cathode or dispenser type. This
type of cathode is porous and continually brings new activation
material to the surface. Its lifetime is 40,000 hours or more. The
last of the NeXT monochrome monitors (N4000B) used this type of CRT
and they don't go dim. There aren't many of that type around because
NeXT quit the hardware business after producing only a few thousand.
If you can get an N4000B monitor, you won't ever have to worry about a
dim monitor.
If you read this far, you probably know more than you ever wanted to
about CRT aging, but I hope this helps.
of sheet metal for the 1 inch high drive. On 25 MHz mono stations the
SIMMs are smaller and the drive doesn't have to go all the way against
the back wall. In this case, glue the bracket to the underside of the
NextStation cover, centered from side t
e drive will clear the RAM when the cover is closed. Screw the drive
into the bracket, with the power and SCSI plugs toward the right hand
side of the NextStation so that the cables will reach. Go to your
favorite computer store and get both a "dual int
ernal SCSI bus cable" and a "dual internal SCSI power cable." Plug in
the cables to both internal hard drives and close the cover.
6.1 What about support for NeXT Computer specific hardware features such as the
DSP?
Anyway it might be a good choice to thin such a fat binary. NeXT ships
tools for this purpose. Look at the manpages for lipo.
compile, re
Very easy. Most programs will simply recompile and run, or require few
changes. We believe that any application that uses the standard
development environment and Object kits provided by NeXT should simply
compile and run. Only applications that use architecture specific
features or data formats, will require additional time to port.
Several developers have already ported applications to NEXTSTEP/Intel.
Appsoft Draw simply recompiled and ran, Lighthouse Concurrence took 3
hours, other programs took 1/2 a day to 2 days, and this was all on a
very early release of NEXTSTEP/Intel 3.1!
Some applications just will refuse to compile, because they are still
based on the old 2.0 headers etc. These applications are really rare
now and may get ported very easily too, by changing the include path
in your developer package.
ticeable.
6.4 When developing programs, are there any portability issues I should be
aware of?
6.5 What is the difference between the NEXTSTEP/Intel User Environment and
Developer Environment?
piler shipping. If you want to compile, you are forced to use the NeXT
Developer package.
6.6 If a specific I/O card is not supported by NeXT, can 3rd parties write
drivers for NEXTSTEP/Intel?
I/O driver Yes. NEXTSTEP/Intel uses a newly developed object-oriented
driver architecture that brings the benefits of object-orientation all
the way down to the I/O card driver level.
installation, Intel
386 Intel 386 No. NEXTSTEP/Intel uses several 486 specific features
that enhance the performance of NEXTSTEP. NEXTSTEP/Intel will support
any 486 with Coprocessor and up.
6.10 Will NEXTSTEP/Intel run on the future Intel Microprocessors in the x86
family?
x86 Intel, x86 Yes. NEXTSTEP/Intel will not only support them, but
will take advantage of any performance enhancements available with
future Intel CPU's, just as NeXT has taken advantage of the 486.
portable computers
Yes. Many portables and notebooks with 486 CPU's and sufficient system
resources (>=8MB RAM and >=120MB hard disk space) are available. Since
NEXTSTEP/Intel will support 640x480 VGA displays in grayscale,
NEXTSTEP 486 can run on these systems. Do be aware that NEXTSTEP's
user interface and applications were not designed for low-resolution
screens, and consequently will impose limitations on the use of some
applications.
This package is called SoftPC and comes with every NEXTSTEP system.
The software is not free with NEXTSTEP, you have to pay extra. Anyway
you are not limited in a 30 day test phase when installing it.
Windows 95 and Windows NT are not supported by the emulation software.
6.13 How will my DOS and Windows applications perform under NEXTSTEP/Intel?
Yes. You can set the Windows session to any size you wish up to the
maximum screen size available to the NEXTSTEP/Intel system you are
using.
6.15 Will this DOS/Windows compatibility system allow me to run several DOS
programs at once?
MS-DOS, multitasking
Hey, did I say Windows? Yes you can do real Windows multitasking with
SoftPC.
6.16 Can I cut and paste between DOS/Windows sessions and NEXTSTEP
applications?
Yes. You can cut and paste text and graphics between DOS/Windows and
NEXTSTEP applications.
6.17 Can I use both DOS and NEXTSTEP/Intel partitions on the same hard disk?
partitions, NeXT and DOS multi OS setup OS, more than one
* Start with the NS/Intel installation. When it asks you how you
want to configure your disk, it gives you three choices, which are
basically
1. erase the whole disk and use it all for NS/Intel,
2. save some room for DOS,
3. advanced. Choose the advanced option, which places you in
NS/Intel fdisk (not to be confused with DOS FDISK.EXE).
* Create three partitions in this order:
1. Primary DOS (if more than 32MB desired, use the "large" FAT
option)
2. HPFS (this is a placeholder for NT, and can be any non-DOS
format)
3. NEXTSTEP
* Proceed with the rest of the NEXTSTEP installation.
* When NEXTSTEP is safely installed and tested out, boot DOS from
your bootable DOS floppy.
* Insert the blank floppy when asked. Don't bother to format it, NT
unconditionally formats it.
That's it. When you boot, you see the familiar NS/Intel boot manager.
If you select DOS, it boots NT, which in turn offers you a chance to
boot DOS or NT (not NS/Intel, of course). Kind of weird that you have
this two tiered boot, but it's probably because the bootsector has
been modified by NT. I haven't tried setting the active partition to
DOS -- that might avoid the two tiers.
6.18 Can NEXTSTEP/Intel read, write, and format DOS and Mac floppies?
* Boot OS/2 from diskette and press Escape to get to the [A:]
command prompt
* Run the OS/2 FDISK program and create the following partitions:
+ 1 MB Boot Manager
+ 20MB DOS Primary partition (drive C:)
+ 64MB OS/2 Extended partition (logical drive D:)
+ 120MB Data Extended partition (logical drive E:) (or 200MB or
whatever size)
NOTE: LEAVE THE REMAINING 460+MB FREE SPACE UNFORMATTED DO NOT CREATE
A PARTITION FOR THE REMAINING SPACE
* After OS/2 has been installed shutdown the system. Do a cold power
off boot.
* Proceed with normal NEXTSTEP install and you should get the
following disk installation option screen:
Type 1 to erase the entire disk and use all 667 MB ...
Type 2 to set aside some space for DOS and use the rest ...
Type 3 to keep existing partitions and use the 462 MB free space ...
Type 4 to use the 184 MB DOS extended partition for NEXTSTEP.
Type 5 for advanced options (in English only).
--->
* After NEXTSTEP has been installed, re-boot the machine and select
'd' from the NEXTSTEP boot manager menu to boot DOS.
* When DOS has booted, run the FDISK program to set the active
partition to the first partition, the BOOT Manager partition. Then
exit fdisk.
* Now run the DOS FDISK program again but with the following
parameter: fdisk /mbr This command removes the NEXTSTEP boot
manager from the DOS partition.
* Now re-boot the machine and the boot manager should come up.
Select OS/2
* Once OS/2 has booted, run the OS/2 FDISK program and name the
NEXTSTEP partition and add it to the boot manager menu.
* You should now have a machine with DOS, NEXTSTEP, OS/2 listed in
the boot manager menu when the machine starts up. The boot manager
defaults to the OS that was last booted.
Well, it seems that the PS/2 Mouse driver interferes with the keyboard
driver when installing on some motherboards. You have to remove the
PS/2 mouse driver, then reboot, and it will work fine. I destroy the
driver on our machines, so that config=Default will work properly as
well. You should be able to remove the driver without reinstalling.
ET4000, NS3.2
ROM-Monitor, Intel On Intel you just type -s at the boot: prompt. Also
try CTRL-C at the point where it hangs it might continue. This gives
you single user mode. There simply is no ROM-Monitor on Intel as it is
on NeXT. You do have the choice to enter a simple ROM-Debugger by
choosing the appropriate option when the system hangs.
The Adaptec 2940 SCSI Host Adapter Driver supports Synchronous Data
Transfer as well as Fast SCSI transfers. In order to enable
Synchronous Data Transfer, this feature must be enabled in both the
2940's AutoSCSI program and in the NEXTSTEP Configure application,
when configuring the Adaptec 2940 driver. In the AutoSCSI program,
this feature is enabled in the SCSI Device Configuration menu, via the
"Initiate Sync Negotiation" field. This can be enabled or disabled on
a per-target basis. In the Configure application, the "Synchronous"
button, if disabled, disables Synchronous Transfers for ALL targets.
If enabled, the values selected in the AutoSCSI program are used to
determine whether or not Synchronous Transfers occur on a per-target
basis.
EIDE
6.25 Anyone have a driver yet that does 8 bit color on an ET4000/w32p card?
(Hercules Dynamite Pro VLB)
Here's a trick that will work with 3.3 if the driver works with your
adapter. You need the latest driver though.
Simply select one of the 8-bit gray resolutions in Configure. Save the
configuration and quit Configure. Open Instance0.table inside the
driver bundle and search for BW:8 and replace it by RGB:256/8. Save
the file. Restart your machine and you've got 8-bit color!!!
Glidepoint
It will work nicely under NS as you don't need any driver to make it
work and use the nice features that GlidePoint have, like 'double-tap'
to replace left-button click and 'double-tap and slide on the pad' to
replace the hold the button and move for dragging an object.
AppleTalk, Intel IPT has a product called Partner, which works fine
under 3.3 and mounts AppleShare Volumes, supports AT printing etc.
(This is true, although IPT states that Partner only runs under 3.3
Black and 3.2 Intel.)
Triton Bootoptions
If you don't get a 'boot:' prompt, or if you just want to fix things
forever, you need to enter Default.table and Instance0.table in
/usr/Devices/System.config and set 'BootGraphics="No"'. This has the
same effect as typing '-v' at the 'boot:' prompt every time.
graphic card
MIDI MusicKit
* Be sure you have an MPU-401 compatible MIDI card for the PC.
* Get the Music Kit and install it. It's on the ftp servers.
* If your program does not use the -ObjC flag on its link line, link
against /usr/local/lib/libmusickit.a. However, if your program
does use the -ObjC flag, extract the following files from
libmusickit.a and link against them
explicitly:
mididriver_replyServer.o
mididriverUser.o
mididriver_nonMig.o
* Add this line as the first line in the C file that accesses the
MIDI driver:
#import <musickit/midi_driver_compatability.h>
The reason for needing a separate API for Intel is that there's a
structure size disparity between the 68k and Intel versions of
NeXT's libsys_s. So we defined a new set of MIDI functions for the
Intel driver. The header file above defines the old names to be
the new names.
Example:
#if i386
#define MIDIDRIVER_NAME "Mididriver"
#else
#define MIDIDRIVER_NAME "mididriver"
#endif
r = netname_look_up(name_server_port, "",MIDIDRIVER_NAME,
&driverPort);
Load the SCSI driver and then load the EIDE driver. Don't follow the
directions they give you (which are to load the CD's driver and then
load the hard drive's driver). Do it backwards, so that the hard drive
you are installing to gets assigned sd0. By swapping drivers like
this, the CDROM gets sd1 which is what the installation procedure
expects.
I guess that what happened is that the EIDE driver makes the CDROM
drive masquerade as a SCSI device. And SCSI ids will be assigned to
devices in the order that you load the drivers. Since the OS wants to
load to sd0, that means that you have to load the hard drive's driver
before the CDROM's driver, especially in this case where the CD is on
one bus and the HD is on another. By doing this, the CD doesn't steal
sd0 away before the SCSI driver is loaded. My guess is that if you had
the CD and the hard drive on the same bus (EIDE or SCSI) you'd never
have this trouble. It's just the fact that there are two busses that
confuse the installation. Anyway, this worked for me (Don Yacktman
[email protected]).
The following is a common error message you might encounter during the
boot process just before the workspace starts up: bootstrap_register
failed -- 102. You may ignore it savely. It will only occur if you
didn't installed a sound driver.
compatibility
NO, this excludes MP support (if you don't know what it is, never
mind) (Okay, MP: Multi-Processing. Some boards are capable to keep
more than one processor. However NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP doesn't take
advantage of more than one processor).
Also most multiprocessing boards do work with a single or more
processors (even if a second or further processors aren't utilized)
there are reports which indicate that there are problems with these
boards.
Many users discouver a nice effect: They add RAM to their computer so
they have more than 64MB of RAM installed. After rebooting
NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP only a black screen appears and the system is
stalled.
Boot in single user mode supplying '-s' to the boot prompt. Once the
system is halted. Start NetInfo by running 'sh /etc/rc'. Now use 'nu
-m' to change the password and reboot (enterying 'reboot' of course.
Not pressing the power button! I didn't had to tell this, did I?)
7 STORAGE
ST15230N_1024|SEAGATE ST15230N_1024:\
:ty=fixed_rw_scsi:nc#3992:nt#19:ns#59:ss#1024:rm#5411:\
:fp#160:bp#0:ng#0:gs#0:ga#0:ao#0:\
:os=sdmach:z0#32:z1#96:hn=localhost:ro=a:\
:pa#0:sa#512000:ba#8192:fa#1024:ca#8:da#4096:ra#10:oa=time:\
:ia:ta=4.3BSD:\
:pb#512000:sb#512000:bb#8192:fb#1024:cb#8:db#4096:rb#10:ob=time:\
:ib:tb=4.3BSD:\
:pc#1024000:sc#716800:bc#8192:fc#1024:cc#8:dc#4096:rc#10:oc=time:\
:ic:tc=4.3BSD: \
:pd#1740800:sd#1536000:bd#8192:fd#1024:cd#8:dd#4096:rd#10:od=time:\
:id:td=4.3BSD: \
:pe#3276800:se#1150000:be#8192:fe#1024:ce#8:de#4096:re#10:oe=time:\
:ie:te=4.3BSD:
7.2 Formatting DEC DSP3105 with 1024-byte blocks.
# DEC DSP3160S
DSP3160S|DEC DSP3160S|DEC DSP3160S w/1024 b/sec as 2 partition:\
:ty=fixed_rw_scsi:nc#1302:nt#16:ns#75:ss#1024:rm#5403:\
:fp#160:bp#0:ng#0:gs#0:ga#0:ao#0:\
:os=sdmach:z0#32:z1#96:r0=a:\
:pa#0:sa#744000:ba#8192:fa#1024:ca#7:da#4096:ra#10:oa=time:\
:ia:ta=4.3BSD:\
:pb#744000:sb#818400:bb#8192:fb#1024:cb#7:db#4096:rb#10:ob=time:\
:ib:tb=4.3BSD:
The disk must be formatted. This is often done by the vendor, but
occasionally by the user. Formatting maps the disk into sectors. Space
is reserved for the disk geometry and bad sectors. Formatting can take
10-20% of the capacity depending on the sector size. Common sector
sizes are 512 and 1024. Generally, bigger sectors mean less waste.
Once formatted, the UNIX file system must be created. On the NeXT,
this is one of the steps performed by the BuildDisk application. It
invokes the mkfs command to make a file system. This reserves space
for the UNIX file system (e.g., superblocks, inode tables). This
overhead can take another 2-3% of the available disk space.
initializing
Mostly you can overcome this problem by using the sdformat utility
available on the FTP sites. (Not sdform by NeXT, which is incapable to
do this). After using sdformat, you should be abel to further format
the media within Workspace.
Do the following:
tape drive
Using Configure.app add the SCSITape driver to support any SCSI tape
drives in the "Others" config.
recover, disk
There are frequently asked questions about the IOmega ZIP drive. One
question will be answered here: 'Yes, it works with NEXTSTEP'.
For other question I'd like to point you to the ZIP-drive FAQ:
http://www.radical.com/TheSolutions/RadicalSolution4.html
If you are going to use large drives (greater 2GB) you need to
partition this drive (true at least for OS versions up to 4.0). These
are the common ways to go without too much trouble and it provides an
very easy way for 4GB drives under NS3.3.
1. Solution: disktab
+ If you need more than 3 partitions, you have to write a
disktab entry! Using fdisk (Intel systems only) has no
effect.
+ On how to write a disktab entry, read the NeXTanswers (search
for partition)
+ other pointers are: 'scsimodes' and 'man disktab'.
2. Solution: installation on drive to partition
+ for Quantum drives the following is true: Quantum defines 1MB
to be exactly 1.000.000 bytes. So if you are suited best by
using 2 partitions on a Quantum Atlas 34300 (4.3GB
drive-Quantum size, 4GB+5MB real size)
+ 2 partitions are automatically handled on all NS3.3 platforms
+ To easily install the drive by not writing a disktab entry do
the following:
o disconnect all other drives and connect the 4GB drive
with ID 0
o start a plain NS3.3 installation via disks and the
CD-ROM
o when the installation of files starts (text based
output) you may break the procedure (the disk will get
fsck'ed later) or wait until the system reboots and
hangs :-) (no fsck needed then)
o you should previously have read some line telling you:
initializing sd0b
o now reconnect your old boot drives and restart NEXTSTEP
with the old boot drives. Switch the 4GB drive to a
different ID.
o Only the first partition of the 4GB drive will get
mounted automatically, this is due to a documented bug
in the automounter.
o to permanently mount both partitions, add your drive
partitions to the /etc/fstab file. Test mounting and
umounting by hand first.
o everything should work fine now after a second reboot,
and if you set up your fstab file correctly, both
partitions will get mounted.
+ To switch the boot partition to the new 4GB drive continue
with:
o only the first partition is bootable (you'll notice that
by doing a ls -l on the mount entry --- there is the 't'
file mode)
o (cd / ; gnutar -clf -)|(cd ; gnutar -xvpf -) This
transfers your root partition to the new partition.
o now try a boot from the new drive, by entering in the
boot prompt: sd(x)mach_kernel (bsd for NeXT)
If you just format a new disk attached to your computer, it will get
automounted by the Workspacemanager and unmounted when you log out. To
utilize the disk during the boot process or to have fixed pathes and
protections you need to create an entry in /etc/fstab for the drive.
See the Unix manual pages for more details.
Argh. Yes it's true. The original NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP drivers can't read
multisession CD-ROMs. Only the first session can be used. If it is
audio, CDPlayer is started if it's data it is just automounted to
become accessable though Worksapce manager.
8 PRINTING
printer, NeXT
LaserJet_III: \
:note=LaserJet_III:ty=HP LaserJet III PostScript: \
:sd=/usr/spool/NeXT/LaserJet_III:lp=/dev/ttyfa: \
:lf=/usr/adm/lpd-errs:af=/usr/adm/lp.acct:br=19200:rw:fc\#0000374: \
:fs\#0000003:xc\#0:xs\#0040040:mx\#0:sf:sb:if=/usr/lib/transcript/psif:
\
:of=/usr/lib/transcript/psof:gf=/usr/lib/transcript/psgf: \
:nf=/usr/lib/transcript/psnf:tf=/usr/lib/transcript/pstf: \
:rf=/usr/lib/transcript/psrf:vf=/usr/lib/transcript/psvf: \
:cf=/usr/lib/transcript/pscf:df=/usr/lib/transcript/psdf:
HP printer configuration:
Note that if you modify the printcap this way you cannot reconfigure
this particular printer entry with PrintManager.
If you are using NEXTSTEP 2.0 and you use remote non-next printers,
there is a bug that can be simply corrected by doing "dwrite system
PrinterResolution 1" for each user trying to access non-next printers
on the network. This not a problem in later NEXTSTEP versions.
fonts
The same directory contains fonts Shalom (Hebrew and Yiddish in Old
Style, Stick and Script typefaces, by Jonathan Brecher, shareware) and
CyrillicGothic (san serif, by Jay Sekora). These were packaged by
Jacob Gore to work with the Installer application.
Some fonts in Type 1 format for NEXTSTEP are also available from Y&Y:
PS to file
Select PRINT from the main menu, then select SAVE from the resulting
print panel.
8.4 How can I print only the even or odd pages of a document?
odd and even pages even and odd pages duplex printing double sided
print
banner
/usr/lib/NextPrinter/banner.pro
Latex TeX
If you are printing to a non-NeXT printer from NeXT TeX using dvips,
make sure you specify the correct resolution (300 dpi, usually),
either on the command line with -D300, or in the
/usr/lib/tex/config.ps file with a line that looks like : D 300
If you are printing from within TeXView, you will have to choose
CustomResolution and enter the correct number (300, usually) because
of the way DefaultResolution defaults to 0.
8.7 What if I have a PostScript font has not been ported to NEXTSTEP?
PS-Font to NeXT
Suppose you were porting the font family Shalom, which consists of
three faces: Old Style, Stick and Script. Here is the procedure to
follow:
Shalom-OldStyle.font
Shalom-Script.font
Shalom-Stick.font
Note that the font family name is to the left of the hyphen ("-"),
and the typeface name is to the right and with no spaces in it.
* Copy the outline font file for each typeface from wherever it is
into its folder, and give it the name of the folder minus the
".font". For example, if you are doing this in a Terminal window:
cp /Floppy/ShalomOldStyle.NeXT Shalom-OldStyle.font/Shalom-OldStyle
cp /Floppy/ShalomScript.NeXT Shalom-Script.font/Shalom-Script
cp /Floppy/ShalomStick.NeXT Shalom-Stick.font/Shalom-Stick
* Do the same thing with the font metric files, but make the suffix
".afm":
cp /Floppy/ShalomOldStyle.AFM Shalom-OldStyle.font/Shalom-OldStyle.afm
cp /Floppy/ShalomScript.AFM Shalom-Script.font/Shalom-Script.afm
cp /Floppy/ShalomStick.AFM Shalom-Stick.font/Shalom-Stick.afm
* If there is a "read me" file with the font, or any other
documentation, copy it into the .font folder too. For example,
each of the Shalom font folders contains files ReadMe,
CheatSheet.wn and Sample.wn specific to the typeface.
* Edit the outline and font metric files to make them fit the NeXT
AppKit's Font Panel, which is what most NextStep applications use
to let you choose your font.
+ Editing the outline file, e.g.,
Shalom-OldStyle.font/Shalom-OldStyle:
FullName ShalomOldStyle
FamilyName ShalomOldStyle
mkdirs ~/Library/Fonts
mv Shalom-*.font ~/Library/Fonts
buildafmdir ~/Library/Fonts
su
mkdirs /LocalLibrary/Fonts
mv Shalom-*.font /LocalLibrary/Fonts
buildafmdir /LocalLibrary/Fonts
exit
The fix is to move the troublesome dictionary from 'userdict' into the
font dictionary itself (unlike 'userdict', the font dictionary does
stick around between tasks).
Perform the following changes in the outline font file (the font
CyrillicGothic is used as the example):
Write down the number before 'dict' (in this case, 23). You will
need it in the following step. Delete the dict definition, making
the line look like this:
\$CyrillicGothic begin
* Go back to the beginning of the file. near the top of the font
program, find the following lines:
The number before 'dict' (in this case, 24) is one greater than
the number you wrote down in the previous step.
* Go to the end of the file. The last line looks like this:
EncodingScheme AppleStandard
to
EncodingScheme AdobeStandardEncoding
8.8 What color printers (laser or otherwise) may be used with NEXTSTEP?
printer, color
With Dots Color, the HP DeskJet 500C can print in color today, under
NEXTSTEP 2.1, and it costs significantly less than $1000 (in Germany
at least).
JetPilot from Interpersonal Computer does this jobs also very well.
You can get more information from:
8.9 How can I make the Page Layout default to A4 in all applications?
A4 default size
[...]
cat /usr/lib/NextPrinter/Server/pstf
[...]
The last change is my own. It worked for the 1 (one!) dvi file I
tried.
11,12c11,12
< while "x\$1" != x do
< case "\$1" in
---
> while test \$\# != 0
> do case "\$1" in
16c16
< -h) HOST=\$"; shift;;
---
> -h) HOST=\$2; shift;;
17a18
> esac
21c22
< PRSERVER="/usr/lib/NextPrinter/Server/prserver -p \$PRINTER -n \$USER
-h HOST -f -"
---
> PRSERVER="/usr/lib/NextPrinter/Server/prserver -p \$PRINTER -n \$USER
-h \$HOST -f -"
27c28
< psdf) psbad \$FILTER \$PRINTER \$USER \$HOST | \$PRSERVER;;
---
> psdf) dvips -f -D 400 -r | \$PRSERVER ;;
8.11 How to get TeX with NEXTSTEP to make proper fonts for a 600 dpi
laserwriter?
If you upgrade to a 600 dpi laserwriter then the version of TeX that
ships with NEXTSTEP (either 2.X or 3.0) does not know about 600 dpi
fonts, i.e. does not know how to make them and will instead use scaled
400 dpi ones (which look significantly worse at 600 dpi than they do
at 400 dpi). Some simple modifications to a few Metafont files and
rebuilding the metafont bases are all that is needed. What to do to
get the 600 dpi stuff working is as follows:
That should do it! You might have to (depending on how you configure
NEXTSTEP for the LaserJet IV) select `custom resolution' and set the
gadget to 600 in the TeXview print panel, and save Preferences. These
instructions are written for an HP Laserjet IV, but they should also
work for a QMS printer just fine.
Adobe has a mail server and ftp site where you can get .PPD files.
They are:
8.13 What are the Canon part numbers for ink cartridges equivalent to those
NeXT's Color Printer uses?
\#
\# host htype haddr iaddr bootfile
\#
printer 1 XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
where
* host: your given hostname for the printer (eg. picasso)
* haddr: The Ethernet hardware address (Can be seen, if you press
the TEST-Key on your JetDirect box.
* iaddr: Is the hostaddress for the printer (eg. 192.42.172.1)
\#
\# Starting JetDirect-Printer configuration
\#
fbshow -B -I "Starting Printer initialization" -z 92
/usr/etc/bootpd -d /etc/bootptab >/dev/console 2>\&1
HP Laserjet 4M
I solved the problem by building a serial cable based upon the pinouts
supplied by HP in their manual. Please note that the LJIII cable does
not work. In particular, pin 1 from the DIN plug must be connected to
pin 6 of the DB25. I used 38500 bps on both sides, and the 600 dpi
ppd.
Emulex offers the NETJet network interface which speaks lpd protocol,
unlike the HP unit.
Laserwriter NTX
The other aspect is to set the DIP switch on the printer. Here are the
DIP switch settings:
Switch 1 Switch 2 Meaning
If you have problems with your shades of gray (e.g. light gray is
indistinguishable from white) this might be well a problem in the
Level2 Color Space calibration of your printer.
to:
If you still have problem with the shades of gray, the printer
driver/PPD file is probably broken, otherwise your printer is broken,
which means he has problems with the Level2 color space calibration
(The given correction turns PS Level2 off).
Paraphernalia
NeXT T-shirts
Classic NeXT logo on front $6.95 each (S-XL)
3.1 NEXTSTEP logo on front $7.95 each (M-XXL)
Orders can be taken 24 hours a day for domestic and overseas orders
9.2 Is there any way to change the text in the title bar of a terminal window?
Stuart can change the title of the current window from the command
line. In Stuart is possible to get more descriptive titles by linking
/usr/ucb/rsh to /usr/hosts/. Then by adding /usr/hosts to your Stuart
ShellPath you can then get the hostname into the title bar:
You should then type in the hostname as the shell to invoke (disable
the "Shell reads .login file" for this. You can also add hosts to your
.Stuartrc file:
Shell=golem.ps.uci.edu
SourceDotLogin=NO
WinLocX=545
WinLocY=563
Lines=24
|
WinLocX=76
WinLocY=833
For what it's worth, I do this with a script called "telnet_to" and a
(bash) function called "telnet_window". The function simply does a
This has a number of advantages, not the least of which being that I
can pop up a "telnet_window" to anywhere. I don't have to create links
for each host (though I do create aliases for the most common hosts),
and I can type "telnet_window" (or, e.g., "tel_aix") as a unix
command.
Also, if I lose the connection suddenly then the window stays around
until I get a chance to see what happened. I use telnet instead of rsh
because I generally connect to hosts which won't accept rsh's.
Keyboard
9.5 How do I stop NeXTMail/Sendmail adding &Mcirc;s onto the end of lines?
Sendmail
[old code]
[new code]
##### UUCP Mailer specification
#####
Muucp, P=/usr/bin/uux, F=msDFMhuU, S=13, R=23, E=\n,
This has been fixed in 3.1, and the default mailhost sendmail is UUCP
oriented.
9.6 Why does NEXTSTEP 1.0 hang a few seconds after attempting to boot?
Release 1.0 contains a bug that can corrupt the kernel /odmach if a
user attempts to launch /odmach from the browser. The solution is to
copy a clean /odmach from another NeXT system. Be sure to change the
permissions of the newly installed /odmach to remove execute
permissions to prevent future occurrences of the same problem. Release
1.0a and beyond do not have this problem.
It is possible for the sdmach to get corrupted in the same way. Boot
from the OD, copy an uncorrupted version of the kernel to the hard
disk, and remove the execute bits from sdmach.
There is a bug in the serial driver which causes getty to get stuck.
The situation arises after a successful uucico connection, subsequent
connections via modem will get a connection with the modem, but no
login prompt.
#! /bin/sh -u
PIDS=`ps -ax | bm getty | grep -v bm | awk '{print $1}'`
kill -TERM $PIDS
Of course trying to connect when the script is running will not allow
you to connect, try again a minute later. This fix will not affect
on-going UUCP or interactive connections. This will probably be fixed
in the next kernel release.
/LocalApps, NS2.0
Workspace has its own internal application path. In 2.0 /LocalApps was
omitted. Improv needs to have /LocalApps in the Workspace path if you
have Improve installed in /LocalApps. The work around in 2.0 only is:
dwrite Workspace ApplicationPaths "~/Apps:/LocalApps:/NextApps: \
/NextDeveloper/Apps:/NextAdmin:/NextDeveloper/Demos"
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This document was converted from LaTeX using Karl Ewald's latex2html.