The NeXT-FAQ (Frequently asked questions)
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From: scholzb@pst.informatik.uni-muenchen.de (Bernhard Scholz) Newsgroups: de.comp.sys.next, comp.sys.next.misc, comp.answers Subject: The NeXT-FAQ (Frequently asked questions) Date: 11 Apr 1998 01:35:01 GMT Message-ID: <6gmhc5$l2o$1@union.informatik.uni-muenchen.de> Reply-To: scholzb@pst.informatik.uni-muenchen.de (Bernhard Scholz) Summary: Frequently asked questions concerning NeXT related topics. Posted-By: auto-faq 2.4 Archive-name: NeXT-FAQ Last-modified: Saturday, 11. March 1998 Posting-Frequency: monthly The NEXTSTEP/OpenStep FAQ _________________________________________________________________ THE NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP FAQ 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 1.1 README FIRST! 1.2 About this FAQ 1.3 Submissions 1.4 Availability 1.5 Copyright 1.6 Disclaimer 1.7 Thanks 2 General information 2.1 Information available but not in the written FAQ version 2.2 Where to get answers? 2.3 How may I contact NeXT, Inc.? 2.4 FTP servers 2.5 Software on CD 2.6 What is the current status of NEXTSTEP/OpenStep? 2.7 Will there be a public implementation of OpenStep? 2.8 Are there differences between Openstep for Mach and other implementations? 2.9 What information is available by NeXT 2.10 What is the correct spelling? 2.11 How do I start an official NeXT User Group? 2.12 Are there differences in the NEXTSTEP implementations? 2.13 What are the names of the ftp sites that have NeXT-related files? 2.14 Additional information sources 2.15 How to get FTP files via e-mail. 2.16 References on Objective C 2.17 How to contact music interested people. 2.18 How to announce upcoming events 2.19 Can I mix different hardware running NEXTSTEP? 2.20 Can I exchange software running on different hardware? 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 Rhapsody 3.11 WWW Browser 3.12 Newsreader 4 Miscellaneous information 4.1 How do I get pictures of people from remote sites to appear in Mail.app and NewsGrazer? 4.2 How to manipulate and examine default settings 4.3 How do I run NextApps remotely? 4.4 Why does UUCP hangs on outgoing connections after sending the password, but other communications software do not have a problem with it? 4.5 How do I access the NeXT's Digital Webster Dictionary from a program? 4.6 How do I get the arrow keys to work in csh? 4.7 What default affects menu location? 4.8 How to get Gourmet to boot up the Mathematica 2.0 kernel? 4.9 Manipulating the Loginwindow 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? 4.11 Appending a signature and addition headers to your e-mail 4.12 How can I quickly find a file if I don't know its directory? 4.13 Mail.app suddenly stopped working! 4.14 Recycler doesn't work anymore?! 4.15 How to hear sound from CDPlayer.app thought NEXTSTEP system? 4.16 How do I decompress a file with the extension .compressed? 4.17 How do I change the Workspace compression app? 4.18 console: loginwindow: netinfo problem - No such directory. 4.19 Root login not possible on client machine 4.20 How to boot NEXTSTEP from the second (higher SCSI ID) HD? 4.21 How to make swapfile shrink to the normal size? 4.22 Does netinfo work between machines running NEXTSTEP 2.x and 3.x? 4.23 Why does the console user "own" the external disk filesystem? 4.24 How to limit coredump sizes? 4.25 What is the maximum value of nbuf that I can specify on bootup? 4.26 How can I change the mouse pointer shape and color? 4.27 How do I customize BuildDisk to create a bootable disk of my own configuration? 4.28 Are there any more dwrites useful for the workspace, ...? 4.29 What is the @LongLink message from gnutar all about? 4.30 What stands the file .place3_0.wmd for? 4.31 How to create transparent icons with IconBuilder 4.32 How to access the MAC format of a mixed DOS/MAC CD-ROM 4.33 Is there a PPP for NEXTSTEP 4.34 NIS and OpenStep 4.35 System overloaded due to swapping 4.36 Swapfile issues 4.37 Garbage collection and Objective-C 4.38 Setting up an anonymous FTP server 5 Black (NeXT) hardware 5.1 What disk drives will work with the NeXT? 5.2 Will a 68030 NeXT Computer run NEXTSTEP 3.3? 5.3 Does a FUJITSU MO (256 MB) works with NeXT original Hardware? 5.4 Can I run my SCSI-2 disks in synchronous mode? 5.5 How do I configure my HP 660 to boot properly? 5.6 What is the procedure for installing a Fujitsu M2263SA/SB SCSI Disk as the NeXT Boot Disk? 5.7 How to mount a corrupted OD that won't automount? 5.8 What non-NeXT CD Players that work with a NeXT? 5.9 What are some other sources of toner cartridges and trays for the NeXT laser printer? 5.10 What printers (laser or otherwise) may be used with a NeXT? 5.11 What can I do to prevent my NeXT printer from running all the time? 5.12 What type of microphones will work with the NeXT? 5.13 How do I connect a modem to the NeXT? 5.14 Are there any alternative sources for the SCSI-II to SCSI-I cable required to attach external SCSI devices to the 040 NeXTs? 5.15 What fax modems will work with the NeXT? 5.16 How may I attach more than two serial ports to the NeXT? 5.17 What is the best and/or cheapest way to connect a NeXT to a thick Ethernet? 5.18 How can I connect my NeXT to the telephone line and use it like an answering Machine? 5.19 What color monitors can I use with the Color NeXT machines? 5.20 Where can I get 13W3 to BNC adapters to connect third party color monitors? 5.21 How may I attach Centronics or 16 bit wide parallel ports to the NeXT? 5.22 Why does an unused serial port consume cpu? 5.23 How to adjust MegaPixel Display brightness and focus? 5.24 I want to emulate a macintosh, how? 5.25 My NeXT laser printer fails to fully eject the sheet - how to fix? 5.26 What are the NeXT mouse connections? 5.27 What type of memory may be installed in a NeXT? 5.28 What is the NeXT SIMM tool? 5.29 Where can I purchase a NeXT machine? 5.30 Where to obtain hardware service? 5.31 What types of NeXT machines were manufactured? 5.32 What can be done about older 030 NeXT cubes that have a fan that turns in the "wrong" direction? 5.33 Can I connect SONY MPX-111N to my 68030 NeXT Computer? 5.34 Why does the OD continually spin up and spin down? 5.35 How many colors can NeXT machines display? 5.36 Why is my machine so slow when I run the monochrome and NeXTdimension displays? 5.37 Where to obtain replacement mouse parts? 5.38 Where to obtain extra batteries? 5.39 How to convert a Turbo system to use ADB? 5.40 68030 board in the same NeXTcube as a 68040 board? 5.41 How to expand DSP memory? 5.42 How to boot a NeXT without a monitor? 5.43 Where can I get black spray paint for my NeXT? 5.44 What makes aged NeXT monitors dim? 5.45 How to use two internal hard drives 6 White (Intel) hardware 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 7.1 Disktab help needed: ST15230N 7.2 Formatting DEC DSP3105 with 1024-byte blocks. 7.3 My formatted disk has much less space then advertised! 7.4 Can't initialise my disk within the Workspace 7.5 Initialing Opticals for NeXT 7.6 How to use a tape drive ? 7.7 How to recover from an partially formatted disk? 7.8 What about the ZIP drive? 7.9 How to partition a 4GB drive 7.10 How to mount/ignore a disk during boot 7.11 Can't read multisession CD-ROMs! 8 Printing 8.1 What printers (laser or otherwise) may be used with NEXTSTEP? 8.2 What fonts can I use with NEXTSTEP? 8.3 How can I save my printable documents to a postscript file? 8.4 How can I print only the even or odd pages of a document? 8.5 How do I get banner pages on my printer output? 8.6 How do I get [la]TeX files to print correctly on non-NeXT printers? 8.7 What if I have a PostScript font has not been ported to NEXTSTEP? 8.8 What color printers (laser or otherwise) may be used with NEXTSTEP? 8.9 How can I make the Page Layout default to A4 in all applications? 8.10 /usr/lib/NextPrinter/Server/pstf: syntax error at line 31: `end of file' unexpected? 8.11 How to get TeX with NEXTSTEP to make proper fonts for a 600 dpi laserwriter? 8.12 How to get printer description files (PPD)? 8.13 What are the Canon part numbers for ink cartridges equivalent to those NeXT's Color Printer uses? 8.14 JetPilot does not work with my JetDirect box, why? 8.15 powering down NeXTprinter during bootup, printer still works 8.16 How to set up the HP LaserJet 4M? 8.17 Laserwriter NTX & NEXTSTEP 8.18 Problems with gray levels in printout 8.19 Can't print using additional fonts 9 Obsolete but still interesting? 9.1 Where can I get NeXT paraphernalia? 9.2 Is there any way to change the text in the title bar of a terminal window? 9.3 I can't get my pictures in OmniWeb 9.4 How do I remap the and | keys on my keyboard? 9.5 How do I stop NeXTMail/Sendmail adding &Mcirc;s onto the end of lines? 9.6 Why does NEXTSTEP 1.0 hang a few seconds after attempting to boot? 9.7 Modem hangs under NS2.0 by incoming calls 9.8 NS2.0 doesn't recognize /LocalApps path _________________________________________________________________ This document was converted from LaTeX using Karl Ewald's latex2html. The NEXTSTEP/OpenStep FAQ ! to the table of contents _________________________________________________________________ 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 README FIRST! This is now preliminary version of the FAQ. It hasn't been updated for 2 years. Because I was lacking to update it on a regular basis, I'm now struggling to continue working on it. So be aware, that most information isn't still up-to-date! (In fact it's sometimes more than 2 years old). However I believe, I've rechecked a lot and most information should be correct. Please let me now, if you discover any wrong information. This FAQ is going to be updated monthly, at least on the Peanuts Web site. Postings to the newsgroups might change, because the FAQ is really huge now (over 110 pages, using >200kB). Please excuse misspellings, wrong grammar, etc. English isn't my native language and I have only school knowledge. Have fun! 1.2 About this FAQ These are the frequently asked questions concerning NeXT, NeXTSTEP or any other NeXT related topics. This compilation is meant primarily as a service to the (comp.sys.next and de.comp.sys.next) community. NeXT Software,Inc. was a privately held company, heading towards software business. It sold NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP its award winning OS and several other software packages (most included with NEXTSTEP): EOF, NEXTSTEP Developer, WebObjects, NetInfo, ... However all properties of NeXT Software, Inc. are now owned by Apple Computer. Apple is still distributed the NeXT software and currently developing a new operating system based on the NeXT technology, code name: Rhapsody. The latest version is OPENSTEP (based on the white paper 'OpenStep'), which runs not only on top of Mach (as NEXTSTEP does) but also on Solaris, Windows NT, Windows 95, HP-UX. The user of NeXT's software is confronted with a wide range of different software and hardware. 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 that NEXTSTEP,OpenStep and Rhapsody 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. 1.3 Submissions As with all FAQs the quality of the information provided here is mostly depending on the Usenet community, which in most cases serves for the information resource. Feel free to e-mail the FAQ author to contribute, or send error reports. 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. 1.4 Availability This FAQ is published monthly in the comp.sys.next.* newsgroups and in the near future news.answer. It may be downloaded via FTP from ftp://ftp.peanuts.org/peanuts/GeneralData/Documents/faq/. Special additions for redistributors and homeusers do exist. This FAQ may be accessed only through Peanuts as well: http://www.peanuts.org/ In the near future we want to implement an e-mail service for those who don't have access to news. You may add yourself to the mailinglist by sending an e-mail with subject: FAQ mailme. Note that this service isn't available, yet completely, because there is too little interested. However I keep a list of all the registered people and they will still receive e-mail copies. 1.5 Copyright This FAQ is copyrighted by Bernhard Scholz. (Internet e-mails: scholzb@peanuts.org) Mentioned trademarks belong to their holder and are not explicitly listened. We do not collect any royalties, charge any fees, or compensate anyone in connection with this endeavor, but of course we would be happy about each e-mail commenting on the FAQ, about pizzas (lasagne is accepted, too :-) ), postcards, ... Anyway we reserve a copyright on the the published information in this FAQ. Any questions concerning other redistribution should be send to the author of the FAQ. Reprinting of this FAQ, even in parts, is prohibited without permission by the author except for printings for private use. Newsletter editors wishing to excerpt from this work for publication should consider using local electronic bulletin boards to disseminate this information rather than preparing hardcopies. This allows for readers to access the most recent information, and perhaps save a couple of trees. 1.6 Disclaimer Of course there is no warranty in any case using the information provided here. We haven't tested the information to be correct. We are not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned in this FAQ. 1.7 Thanks Especially we want to thank the Usenet community for contributing to the FAQ and all the people who have written us. 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 2.1 Information available but not in the written FAQ version pinout patches There is additional information available for the following topics: mouse pinouts, monitor cable pinouts, common addresses, mousepointer patch, windowmanager patch. These inforamations are not included in the written FAQ, because they are considered rarely referenced resources and of not much use for the written FAQ. However you'll get these information when you download the whole FAQ via FTP or HTTP as a package for your computer. Please look at http://www.peanuts.org/FAQ/ for further information. 2.2 Where to get answers? If you run into a problem, first read the FAQ of course :-) Second you might consider asking NeXT directly through the electronic service: nextanswers@next.com. Send an e-mail with subject: ascii help index to start. If all fails, post to the newsgroups concerning NeXT related topics: comp.sys.next.*, de.comp.sys.next. 2.3 How may I contact NeXT, Inc.? Next, Inc. Contacting NeXT, Inc. Address of NeXT, Inc. NeXT, Inc. can be reached under the following addresses. USA: NeXT, Inc. 900 Chesapeake Drive Redwood City, CA 94063 Voice: 800-848-NeXT (Redwood City #) Voice: (415)-366-0900 Japan: NeXT marketing div. of Canon - Japan Phone: (81)-44-549-5295 Fax: (81)-44-549-5462 EUROPE: Munich: Phone: (49)-89-996-5310 UK: Technology House Meadowbank Furlong Road Bourne End Bucks SL8 5AJ Phone: (44)-1628 535222 Fax: (44)-1628 535200 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. 2.4 FTP servers 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 opriate site is listed in the text. If you get slow connections you might want to consider contacting a mirror of the both sites. For the Peanuts archive (Europe) the WWW pages http://www.peanuts.org give you links to an updated list of mirrors and other FTP sites. The addresses are: ftp://next-ftp.peak.org/ (formerly the ftp.cs.orst.edu archive) ftp://ftp.peanuts.org/ (Peanuts archive in Europe) ftp://ftp.evolution.com/ (Peanuts mirror USA) ftp://ftp.eunet.ch/ (Peanuts mirror Switzerland) 2.5 Software on CD There are currently two CD (sets) which serve you with NEXTSTEP/OpenStep software: Nebula. Nebula is published by Walnut Creek and mostly contains actual recompiled software for all supported hardware platforms. It might be the best choice for those who don't own a compiler. A big font collection and a developer section complete the disk. http://www.cdrom.com/ Peanuts Archive Disks. The Peanuts FTP Archive in Munich distributes their complete NEXTSTEP/OpenStep archive on CD. This currently brings you 4CDs full with software. Although the software isn't compiled for each hardware (it is provided 'as uploaded') it is the most complete software and information resource available on CD. (It includes the NeXTanswers published by NeXT). http://www.peanuts.org/, cdrom@peanuts.org Fatted Calf CD-ROM. The Fatted Calf CD-ROM is published by Ensuing Technologies, LasVegas, Nevada. Currently I don't know it's special contents. 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, ack@skylee.com 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/ Clips for QuickTime. Quicktime is NeXT's native format for movies, so some samples might be quite nice. Note: On the latest Peanuts Archive, you'll get about 200MB of quicktime movies which might be enough, too. http://www.cdrom.com/ 2.6 What is the current status of NEXTSTEP/OpenStep? status, NEXTSTEP status, OpenStep 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. There will be no NEXTSTEP 4.0, because NeXT changed the naming conventions. NEXTSTEP 4.0 (also sometimes referenced as 'Mecca') is now named 'OpenStep for Mach' 2.7 Will there be a public implementation of OpenStep? Yes, there is a project by GNU. The so named GNUStep is available in pre-alpha state from the archive sites. Be aware that it is not fully functional and currently requires Motif. In its current state, GNUStep is on it's way to port the FoundationKit completely. This alone makes it worth to give it a try. 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. 2.9 What information is available by NeXT information NeXT NeXT, Inc. now operates an automatic e-mail response system. Send e-mail to "nextanswers@next.com" with the subject "ascii help index" 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/. 2.10 What is the correct spelling? 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. Incorrect spellings are: NeXTSTEP, NeXTstep, NeXTStep. A common shortcut used in the newsgroups is: NS for NEXTSTEP. 2.11 How do I start an official NeXT User Group? NUG user groups NeXT user groups To start a user group, just send e-mail to user_groups@next.com. 2.12 Are there differences in the NEXTSTEP implementations? No, there are no differences beside the DSP, which is a hardware feature of NeXT computers. On other hardware platforms you have to buy additional hardware. 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: next-ftp.peak.org ftp.peanuts.org nova.cc.purdue.edu sonata.cc.purdue.edu umd5.umd.edu ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de MIT GNU: aeneas.mit.edu MIT X: export.lcs.mit.edu music: princeton.edu 2.14 Additional information sources Additional information Information, additional Every NeXT machine owner has access to manuals to a degree. Network and System Administration (NSA), for example contains answers to many of the questions asked to comp.sys.next. Some of the important man pages are reproduced in the NSA as appendices. User manuals were shipped with every NeXT. Additional copies available from NeXT (N6002/N6003/N6014/N6026) $25. The following books are available directly from NeXT: * Operating System Software * NeXTstep Concepts * NeXTstep Reference, v. 1 * NeXTstep Reference, v. 2 * Development Tools * Sound, Music, and Signal Processing: Concepts * Sound, Music, and Signal Processing: Reference * Writing Loadable Kernel Servers * Technical Summaries * Supplemental Documentation Unix man pages, which are included in the online docs. 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 office@usenix.org * PS1 = Programmer's Supplementary Documents, Volume 1 * PS2 = Programmer's Supplementary Documents, Volume 2 * SMM = System Manager's Manual * USD = User's Supplementary Documents 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). Adobe documentation. Available machine-readable by e-mail from ps-file-server@adobe.com. Hardcopy available from Adobe Developer Support Line +1 415 961-4111 for a nominal charge. NeXT last shipped these as part of the 1.0a release; hardcopies appeared in 0.9 Technical Documentation, were omitted in 1.0, and have returned in updated form in Supplemental Documentation of the 2.0 Tech Docs (which is not available on-line). Get NextAnswers for Digital Librarian from NeXT. The current versions are actually on ftp.next.com or available via the mailserver at nextanswers@next.com. Get NeXT Support Bulletin from the archives. It is meant for support centers. Another good source of information is the archives of previously posted notes from the comp.sys.next.* newsgroups. Note that since the split of comp.sys.next, there is a group archive maintained at ftp://ftp.peanuts.org/peanuts/GeneralData/Usenet. NeXTstep Advantage book is available electronically from the archive servers. The file name is NeXTstepAdvantage.tar.Z; (its compressed size is about 1.3 megabytes; uncompressed, it's about 9.5 megabytes). It is a good introduction to the NeXT programming environment. 2.15 How to get FTP files via e-mail. 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. Send mail to: archive-server@cc.purdue.edu ------------- mail-server@cs.tu-berlin.de (with the subject line help and you will get a complete description of this service) Submissions: Mail should be sent to archive-server@cc.purdue.edu with the subject of 'submission' (no ticks) if a person is submitting material to the archives. They need to include a 1-2 sentence description of the submission, the OS release the product runs on, and if it is source, binary, newsletter, etc. 2.16 References on Objective C Objective-C, documents Objective-C and other useful Object-oriented programming references: Budd, Timothy, An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming (Addison-Wesley) [It discusses Smalltalk, Object Pascal, C++ and Objective-C] Cox, Brad J., Object Oriented Programming: An Evolutionary Approach ISBN 0-201-10393-1. (Addison-Wesley) [Note: 2nd edition - ISBN is 0-201-54834-8 and has coauthor A.J. Novobilski] Huizenga, Gerrit, Slides from a short course on Objective-C available via anonymous ftp from: ftp://sonata.cc.purdue.edu/pub/next/docs/, ObjC.ps.Z, or OldObjC.wn.tar.Z Meyer, Bertrand, Object-Oriented Software Construction (Prentice-Hall). NeXT Technical Documentation Pinson and Weiner, Objective-C: Object-Oriented Programming Techniques (Addison-Wesley). 350 pages, ISBN 0 201 50828 1, paperback. User Reference Manual for Objective-C which is available from Stepstone Corporation. (203)426-1875. Note: There are some differences between Stepstone's Objective-C and NeXT's. 2.17 How to contact music interested people. 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: nextmusic@horowitz.eecs.umich.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change addresses, etc.: nextmusic-request@horowitz.eecs.umich.edu 2.18 How to announce upcoming events Announcements Please send any announcements of upcoming NeXT-related events to next-announce@digifix.com These events will be posted to comp.sys.next.announce. Be sure to send your announcement in plenty of time to have it posted prior to the event. One to two weeks in advance would be a good idea. Since postings will be carried across many networks, commercial announcements may be edited down to reflect network usage policies. Look for current guidelines posted weekly in the newsgroup. 2.19 Can I mix different hardware running NEXTSTEP? NeXT, networking Networking Of course! NEXTSTEP is design to plug and play with existing NeXT installations. NeXT has addressed interoperability between NEXTSTEP systems in the following ways: * NEXTSTEP systems share identical networking capabilities. * NEXTSTEP systems share the same Distributed Objects. * NEXTSTEP systems use the same system and network administration services. * NEXTSTEP systems use the same mass storage format. Yes, you can take a external SCSI drive, removable media (e.g. Bernoulli etc) or floppy disk and use it interchangeably between NeXT Computers running NEXTSTEP. 2.20 Can I exchange software running on different hardware? 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 ardware by a key letter: N = NeXT computers, I=Intel based, H=HP hardware, S=Sun hardware. A FAT binary is runable by every supported hardware listed in the binary file. NeXT ships tools to examine such a fat binary and to add/strip different hardwa re modules to/from a binary. 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 support FAT binaries and NEXTSTEP 3.x applications will continue to run under OpenStep for Mach. 3 WHAT IS ... What is ... This chapter tries to give you some overview over NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP software and related software. For a detailed description you should contact the producer's WWW server. E.g. for more information about OPENSTEP contact http://www.next.com/ 3.1 NEXTSTEP NEXTSTEP NEXTSTEP is a complete development and user environment by NeXT it provides an unique GUI (graphical user interface), which currently gets copied by several other OS provider like Microsoft, combined with the currently most advanced and tested OS, named Mach. NeXT applied several changes to the Mach kernel to add special features which makes NEXTSTEP unique. NEXTSTEP comes with a lot of development kits (bundles of classes to build on), like: Sound Kit, Indexing Kit, 3D Graphics Kit, Database or EOF Kit and Application Kit. 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). To be used in networks, NEXTSTEP supports NFS, NetInfo, Novell Netware (as client only), Ethernet and Token Ring and different filesystems (Mac, DOS, ISO 9660, High Sierra, Rock Ridge). For multimedia purposes NeXT uses Lempel-Ziv compression for text, Audio Transform Compression for Sound (comparable to Sony MiniDisc), JPEG for TIFF and Group 4 for Fax. Of course these are only standard modes and NEXTSTEP is extensible to use other methods too. For system administration (remember that NEXTSTEP is using Mach as an UNIX derivate), NeXT supplies several administration applications which make it easy to configure NEXTSTEP as needed, like: SimpleNetworkStarter, UserManager, PrintManager, NFSManager, HostManager, NetInfo Manager, BuildDisk, Upgrader and the complete documentation and manual pages online. 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. Features of Mach are: loadable kernel services (extensions during runtime), different scheduling algorithms, an advanced messaging system, an advanced memory allocation mechanism (copy on demand, world wide message broadcasting), true multitasking, multi-threading and BSD compatibility. 3.3 OPENSTEP OPENSTEP OPENSTEP is the latest release of NeXT's NEXTSTEP with the ability to be OS independent (NEXTSTEP depends on Mach). OPENSTEP is currently available for Mach, Windows NT and Solaris and will get available for other operating systems in the future. 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. To express the new standard, 'OPENSTEP/Mach' is now the correct spelling for the formerly named NEXTSTEP product by NeXT, but it is known that NeXT itself is still using the same version numbering scheme for at least the Mach product line, so the first release of OPENSTEP for Mach is equivalent to NEXTSTEP 4.0 and in fact the first OPENSTEP product is named 'OPENSTEP/Mach 4.0'. OPENSTEP is supposed to be an industry standard for developing object oriented, system independent, scalable solutions for client/server architectures. It was adopted by Sun, Hewlett Packard and Digital. It provides distributed applications through PDO (Portable Distributed Objects) and D'OLE (Distributed OLE) based on CORBA. The usage of EOF supplies object persistence with traditional relational databases. And finally with WebObjects, objects are accessible through the internet or in your own private network. OPENSTEP, like NEXTSTEP 3.3 provides several kits for software developers like: Application Kit and Foundation Kit as well as Display PostScript. Applications written for OPENSTEP are sourcecode compatible to all other architectures running OPENSTEP, although fat binaries are only available under OPENSTEP for Mach (because the binary format is depending on the operating system). It's rumored, that OPENSTEP applications will also compile fine under Apple's new Rhapsody version. 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- The following are some new advantages/disadvantages over the known NEXTSTEP product: * documented NEXTIME library for developing * faster message handling * handling of disks >2GB in automatically. Paritioning size is still limited to 2GB. * no Novell Netware support (supposed to be included with OPENSTEP 4.1) * Renderman still included * Indexing Kit available by third party (MiscKit) * no more POSIX! (Hopefully included again in OPENSTEP 4.1) 3.4 Objective-C Objective-C To develop applications NeXT uses Objective-C as its native programming language. Objective-C is a more strict OO language then C++ but covers C as well as C++. Because NeXT uses the GNU C/C++ compiler, you go with the most spreaded and tested C compiler available for most UNIX platforms of today. (Of course you can use Objective-C on every platform on which gcc is available). Objective-C is different to other languages in the way it executes code. Objective-C uses a runtime library to dynamically access objects at runtime. This allows you to change objects at runtime etc. All this goes with nearly no speed penalty, because hashing mechanisms are used to access the different methods of an object. There is also ObjC which is an different product, available as a commercial compiler for different operating systems. Don't mix up things by using the expression ObjC instead of Objective-C. For shortcut purposes the NeXT community also uses the term ObjC/Obj-C but of course thinks of Objective-C by NeXT. Objective-C isn't standardized, yet. In Objective-C you are able to mix code. E.g. you can use C++ and C in any Objective-C program. Objective-C is a simple and concise object-oriented extension to ANSI-C. It has a runtime messaging facility and offers dynamic binding. Distributed objects are supported and the code is optimized for native compilations. It's syntax and programming technique is much like in SmallTalk. Using Objective-C you can even message objects in other applications, also over a network! 3.5 NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP Developer NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP Developer NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP Developer is currently the only way to develop applications under NEXTSTEP because it includes all the necessary include files and libraries.(Of course you can get any GNU C version precompiled, but it won't help you without the include files and linker libraries). In addition to a precompiled GCC, include files and the linker libraries you will get the famous NeXT developer tools: ProjectBuilder (your commando center for building applications and managing sources), InterfaceBuilder (for designing the application's GUI and making object connections), an graphical addition to GDB (GNU Debugger) integrated in Edit (NEXTSTEP) or ProjectBuilder (OPENSTEP), MallocDebug (for seeking memory leaks), HeaderViewer (access class information in header files and in documented form in a browser), DBModeler (for building data models, based on Database Kit) (NEXTSTEP only), Yap (an interactive PostScript interpreter and viewer), IconBuilder (a very simple but extensible pixel-based editor for creating icons) and popular UNIX utilities like GNU Emacs, yacc, lex, vi... 3.6 D'OLE D'OLE D'OLE is a shortcut for Distributed OLE. OLE is Microsoft's standard for Object Linking and Embedding and is currently not distributable across platforms. With D'OLE you can distribute OLE objects across the network like e.g. in SOM by IBM. But D'OLE is more. It uses NeXT's object model PDO (Portable Distributed Objects) from Unix to Windows platforms and enables OLE objects to communicate with OPENSTEP objects natively, which means without changing the application. OPENSTEP objects behave like OLE objects and vice versa. D'OLE also supports EOF (Enterprise Objects Framework) which enables a distributed computing environment to access database and provides an infinitely flexible choice of application deployment of application deployment strategies. D'OLE uses the Foundation Framework, Distributed Object Framework and other core classes. It comes bundled with C/Objective-C compiler and GNU make, although Microsoft Visual C++ is required. Further you get a portable nmserver, Mach emulation and on-line documentation. 3.7 PDO --- Portable Distributed Objects PDO PDO is a shortcut for Portable Distributed Objects. In the near future PDO will become CORBA 2.0 compliant. It is the industry's first product to provide a heterogeneous client/server framework on objects. With PDO it is possible to deploy objects on non-NEXTSTEP server Machines and therefore deployed anywhere in a network, wherever they are most appropriate for a task. PDO encapsulates low-level network protocols, making messaging a remote object as straightforward as messaging a local object. You even don't have to learn new programming tools or techniques, because PDO is a subset of NeXT tools and objects. Because PDO makes object location completely transparent to the application, the application communicates with every object the same way regardless wether it is local, in the local network or anywhere in the world. Because of the free location of objects, objects may get moved to other locations, e.g. to optimize performance, without modification of the application using it. 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. PDO comes with Foundation Framework, Distributed Objects Framework, DOEventLoop and other core classes. Bundled tools are: Objective-C++ compiler, GDB, libg++, GNU make, Portable BuildServer, Portable nmserver, Mach Emulation, NEXTSTEP's default system, on-line documentation. Currently supported platforms are: HP-UX, SunOS, Solaris, Digital UNIX. 3.8 EOF --- Enterprise Objects Framework EOF EOF is the latest replacement for the DatabaseKit and available as an extra product. 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!) EOF clarifies many things. It supports a three-tier client/server architecture by separating the user interface, business objects and the database. In fact you can simply exchange the database (by changing the adapter) and still use the same application! 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. EOF includes client and server software. It consists of the Enterprise Object Modeler, runtime libraries and adapters for SYBASE,ORACLE and Informix (other adapters available from the DBMS producers). It currently runs under HP-UX, SunOS, Solaris, Digital UNIX and always requires PDO. For client use you additionally need NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP. 3.9 WebObjects WebObjects WebObjects helps you building dynamic Web pages. It is targeted to the server side of the Web and there mostly to the intranets, also most people might find it very useful for the Internet, too. It is operating system independent and runs under Windows NT, Solaris, HP-UX, Digital UNIX and NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP. WebObjects contains development tools to build components for your application logic, as well as a set of reusable components to manage the rendering of your application. Because WebObjects is Java compatible, you even can integrate Java applets in your application today. It supports the standard http servers which have to support CGI or NSAPI interface. WebObjects supports database access to Informix, Oracle, Sybase and DB/2. What's unique about WebObjects is the ability to share the logic of your Web application and your data with other internal applications. It means that you are not required to maintain a dedicated database or write specific application code for your Web application. Currently there are three versions of WebObjects: WebObjects, WebObjects Pro and WebObjects Enterprise. WebObjects itself is freely available to anybody interested in. WebObjects Pro contains PDO and WebObjects Enterprise contains PDO and EOF with a special license to connect to the Internet. But because WebObjects is a brand new product, look at http://www.next.com/WebOjects/ for further information. WebObjects is free for academic usage. 3.10 Rhapsody Rhapsody Rhapsody is the code name for Apple's new operating system, based on BSD 4.4 and OPENSTEP frameworks. Because it's not released yet, we don't talk about it. (Also we could, of course, spread some details, but it would only produce more noise.) Please refer to http://www.apple.com/, http://www.devworld.apple.com/, http://www.macrumors.com/, http://www.rhapsodyos.com/ for more details 3.11 WWW Browser WWW Browser Browser OmniWeb NetSurfer SpiderWoman NetScape First: There is no Java capable browser. Several NEXTSTEP browsers are available for NEXTSTEP. The currently most advanced browser is named 'OmniWeb'. OmniWeb is commercial in the way that you need a license to use it in a network. A single user license is free. OmniWeb seems to be continuesly updated and support is known to be good. OmniWeb is also supporting a lot of well known Netscape features. There is also a public domain WWW browser named 'SpiderWoman'. It's plus is the NEXTSTEP look and feel (e.g. you navigate through the Web like you navigate your filesystem with WorkspaceManager). Anyway SpiderWoman is somehow unstable and it seems as if development stopped. Another commercial browser is NetSurfer. Demos are available on the ftp sites. This browser is preferred by several people because it integrates ftp access very well. Anyway you have to pay for it. Netscape isn't available for NEXTSTEP and is unlikely to be ported. 3.12 Newsreader Newsreader Alexandra NewsGrazer NewsFlash RadicalNews There are currently four well known newsreaders for NEXTSTEP. First there is Alexandra, a public domain newsreader and second there is NewsGrazer (and unsupported NeXT product). You should test them to get your personal favorite. The only real difference is the support of NEXTSTEP 3.3J (Japanese) and flatfiles in NewsGrazer, while the interface in Alexandra seems to be better for many people. NewsFlash is a commercial product which adds several features. As RadicalNews it supports article threading, automated posting and extraction of multi-part files. Demos are available on the ftp sites. E-mail inquiries should go to support@wolfware.com. Further info is available at: http://www.wolfware.com/ RadicalNews is a commercial newsreader. It supports true article threading, quoted text highlighting, japanese and Latin-1 support, URL-support, an interface to Digital Librarian, a sophisticated coloring scheme and much more. Info is available at: http://www.radical.com/. A note to both commercial versions: the community is very splitted about which version is to prefer. In general it seems as if there are no really 'killer features' so it prefers much to personal taste. Demos are available and don't forget to test the free versions, too! 4 MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION Misc Various Unsorted 4.1 How do I get pictures of people from remote sites to appear in Mail.app and NewsGrazer? Pictures, in Mail Pictures, in NewsGrazer Mail, remote Pictures Newsgrazer, remote Pictures You can do this in the following ways. * Mail In /LocalLibrary/Images/People put a tiff (64x64) in the form of person@remote.site.domain.tiff (all lowercase). In /LocalLibrary/Images/People/passwd add an entry for the person: person@remote.site.domain:*:-2:-2::/nodir:/noshell (person and sitename need to be all lowercase as well) In the future anytime you get mail from the person their picture should appear. You can include an "aliases" file in /LocalLibrary/Images/People too. This allows you to use the same picture for somebody that might send you mail from accounts on many different sites, or for those people whose letters use several different routings. To do this, you include entries in this local aliases file like so: bkohler@ucrac1.ucr.edu:bkohler.gonzo.ucr.edu gonzo.ucr.edu!bkohler@uupsi2.uucp:bkohler.gonzo.ucr.edu There should then be a .tiff file called bkohler.gonzo.ucr.edu.tiff. There can be no CAPITAL LETTERS in this file. So even if the address in the From: field looks like gonzo.ucr.edu!bkohler@uupsi2.UUCP, keep the letters lowercase in the aliases file. As always, you have to restart Mail before these changes take effect. * NewsGrazer In /LocalLibrary/NewsGrazer/People put a tiff (64x64) in the form of person.remote.site.domain (all lowercase). This is a different naming convention from what Mail uses. There is a large archive of some 4000 or 5000 pictures prepared for this purpose. The name of this archive is Faces3.tar.Z and it is about 4.1 MBytes large. Currently it is available from several anonymous ftp sites (e.g. sonata.cc.purdue.edu in: /pub/next/graphics/Images/icons/people) That image archive also contains a script which automatically creates proper alias and passwd files. 4.2 How to manipulate and examine default settings * A command line utility for examining defaults is available from: ftp://sutro.sfsu.edu/pub/ * A PD App, DefaultMgr.app, is available on the NeXT ftp archives. * A more brute approach (done by DefaultMgr.app): 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: DefaultMgr.app doesn't any longer work properly under 3.0. It still is able to manipulate defaults but can't any longer "investigate" apps to find out which defaults they use. [eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)] adds: Needs to be revised for 3.x systems. wmdefaults is only for 2.x; it's not needed for 3.0 and later. 4.3 How do I run NextApps remotely? 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. [shayman@Objectario.com (Steve Hayman)] NeXTSTEP 3.1 and higher includes a demo application called OpenSesame that simplifies this. You can select a program in Workspace and use > Service > Open Sesame > Open on Another Host ...to launch a program on a remote machine. This is a way to run old, non-fat-binary software on new NeXTSTEP/Intel machines. 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: wanted "password:" (means that username needs to end with a CR) imsg waiting for SYNC< (means that password needs to end with CR) So how do you get UUCP to send CR, instead of LF? End the send string with the sequence n c. For instance this line in L.sys will send a LF after login, but a CR after password. myfeed Any DIR 9600 cub "" ATTD19095551212 9600 \ "" ogin:--ogin: Unext ssword: secret\n\c 4.5 How do I access the NeXT's Digital Webster Dictionary from a program? Webster Get Jiro Nakamura's define program from the archiver servers: define.tar.Z. This will allow you to access the database from the command line. This program breaks under 3.x. For 3.x there are two other programs which might be useful: Webster.a5 and websterd. 4.6 How do I get the arrow keys to work in csh? csh, arrow keys 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 Then create a file called .bindings and put in it: bind-to-key ExecuteNamedMacro '\e[' 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 ƒ 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. On Intel machines these sequences are a little different: A^A^@^@^@^P B^A^@^@^@^N C^A^@^@^@^F D^A^@^@^@^B Then source .cshrc and the changes should take effect. 4.7 What default affects menu location? Menu, location Do the following. dwrite GLOBAL NXMenuX <value> dwrite GLOBAL NXMenuY <value> 4.8 How to get Gourmet to boot up the Mathematica 2.0 kernel? 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 where uuuuu is the directory where Mathematica was placed (typically, /LocalApps) and vvvvv is the directory where the executable math was placed (typically, /usr/local/bin) 4.9 Manipulating the Loginwindow loginwindow dwrites There are some for loginwindow: [Jess Anderson writes:] Here, I hope, is the quasi-definitive story on dwrites that affect the loginwindow. I'm indebted to several people, notably Art Isbell, Kristian Koehntopp, Dan Danz, Louie Mamakos, John Kheit, Felix Lugo, and Paul Sears, for some of the information presented here. 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. OK, here's what we know (or think we do :-): dwrite loginwindow DefaultUser <login-name> 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! dwrite loginwindow HostName "<host_name>" dwrite loginwindow HostName localhost 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!). dwrite loginwindow ImageFile <path/to/a/suitable.tiff> 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. dwrite loginwindow TimeToDim <integer_number> 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. dwrite loginwindow MoveWhenIdle YES This causes the panel to move around approximately in Backspace bouncing-off-the-walls-tiff fashion. The point is to avoid burning the screen phosphors, as a static image would tend to do. The animation is controlled by the next couple dwrites. dwrite loginwindow MovementTimeout <real_number> The units are seconds. The panel starts moving (assuming the preceding is set to YES) after this time. If you set it to be less than the TimeToDim time, the movement starts before the dimming occurs. I did not try zero. I can't stand waiting around for things to happen, so I use 10 seconds for both times. The default appears to be 5 minutes. dwrite loginwindow MovementScale <integer_number> No movement occurs if this is set to 1. But it looks like the units might be approximately pixels for each change of position (the frequency of which is controlled by the next dwrite). If you put a big number here, say 200, the image moves in big jumps, but I don't know if the 200 is divided up somehow between change in x- and y-coordinates. I wouldn't worry about it much, just set it to something you like. Since my image contains readable text, I want it to scroll smoothly around, so I use the apparently minimum value, 2. The default appears to be 10. dwrite loginwindow MovementRate <real_number> 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. dwrite loginwindow PowerOffDisabled YES 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. dwrite loginwindow LoginHook <path/to/loginhook/executable> dwrite loginwindow LogoutHook <path/to/logouthook/executable> Pointers to the login and logout hooks, if used. It should be pointed out that some of these things (login/logout hooks, for example) are maybe more logically set where the loginwindow is invoked by the WindowServer, namely /etc/ttys. There are yet others. Here's the full list (thanks, Art): NXGetDefaultValue("loginwindow", "DebugHook") => 0x0 NXGetDefaultValue("loginwindow", "DryRun") => 0x0 NXGetDefaultValue("loginwindow", "WindowServerTimeout") => 0x0 NXRegisterDefaults("loginwindow", 0x16024) KeyMapPath: 0x12d97 "~/Library/Keyboards:/LocalLibrary/Keyboards:/NextLibrary/Keyboards" Keymap: 0x12de1 "/NextLibrary/Keyboards/USA" SwappedKeymap: 0x12e0a "No" LoginHook: 0x0 LogoutHook: 0x0 HostName: 0x0 ImageFile: 0x0 DefaultUser: 0x12e41 "me" PowerOffDisabled: 0x0 TimeToDim: 0x12e69 "2040" MoveWhenIdle: 0x12e0a "No" MovementTimeout: 0x12e8b "300.0" MovementRate: 0x12e9e "0.06666" MovementScale: 0x12eb4 "10" [Christopher J. Kane kane@cs.purdue.edu] 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). The program below patches loginwindow to eradicate the restart and power buttons. It makes the loginwindow's LoginButton class instance method initWithImage:altImage:andString: a no-op (just return nil). This patch has been applied to the machines in the NeXT lab at Purdue (like sonata.cc.purdue.edu for instance), and no adverse effects have been noted. This program must be run as root, since it writes to the file /usr/lib/NextStep/loginwindow.app/loginwindow. An archive with a compiled executable has been submitted to sonata.cc.purdue.edu. /* * Patches the loginwindow.app to eradicate the restart and power * buttons from the login window. * * Christopher J. Kane (kane@cs.purdue.edu) * Released into public domain; August 13, 1993. */ #include <libc.h> #include <errno.h> void main(int argc, char *argv[]) { unsigned char patch[8] = {0x0, 0x0, 0x42, 0x80, 0x4e, 0x5e, 0x4e, 0x75}; int file = open("/usr/lib/NextStep/loginwindow.app/loginwindow", O_WRONLY); if (-1==file) goto error; if (-1==lseek(file, 21170, SEEK_SET)) goto error; if (-1==write(file, patch, 8)) goto error; if (-1==close(file)) goto error; exit(0); error: fprintf(stderr, "%s: %s\n", argv[0], strerror(errno)); exit(1); } FAQ-Authors note: We strongly recommend to do a backup of the loginwindow application, because the patch alters the file directly and will most likely not work on different versions of the OS. 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? man pages, 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 Other options that people suggested for ixBuildOptions: -fman -Nwhatis -Ncat[1-8] -V /usr/local/man -fman -Nwhatis -V /usr/local/man/man* 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. Note: Do NOT leave a trailing return after the line in ixBuildOptions; DL will barf. (I think someone said that, as shipped, the standard man .index/ixBuildOptions had this problem.) [From: Eric D. Engstrom ] Can anyone tell me what the command line for this might be under NEXTSTEP 3.0? Short answer: RTM on ixbuild(1) - specifically the parameter "-g". In addition, I'd like to inform the newsgroup of a simple hack I setup on my own machine to create a unified DL target for all UNIX Manual pages (including system, local, gnu, whatever). This was easier under 2.x because IXBuild (pre IXKit) had more hacks in it... Basically, you need to setup a directory with sym-links to the various man-page directories; For example: (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. Unfortunately, once the index is built, I've never successfully gotten DL to update it correctly. Instead I have to do it by hand using ixbuild -ogldvc (actually, I setup a cron job to reindex weekly.) If you have troubles, try removing the .index.store file and rebuilding the entire database. I've had intermittent problems with ixbuild under 3.0. 4.11 Appending a signature and addition headers to your e-mail .signature signature Mail 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. Here are other solutions which might serve you as well: [Carl Edman ] First create a simple text file the following content: #!/bin/sh { if test -r ${HOME}/.add-header; then cat ${HOME}/.add-header; fi cat - if test -r ${HOME}/.signature; then echo "--"; cat ${HOME}/.signature; fi }| /usr/lib/sendmail "$@" A good name for this file would be sendmail-addheader. If you want to and can install it for system-wide use put this file in e.g. /usr/lib. Otherwise your private /Unix/bin directory is also fine. Make certain that this file has execute permission. To set that, use e.g. chmod 755 /usr/lib/sendmail-addheader. Next, open up the preferences panel in Mail. Switch to the expert options. Change the Mailer option from /usr/lib/sendmail (which it should originally be) to /usr/lib/sendmail-addheader (or whatever the name of the file you created is). OK this and you should be set. From now on your file /.signature file should always be appended to all mail sent out with Mail.app. In addition if you have a file called add-header in your home-directory it should automatically be prepended to your outgoing mail. To implement a reply-to line, you would simply give it the following content: Reply-to: My Real Human Name <name@my.real.address> 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. [From: jbrow@radical1.radical.com (Jim Brownfield)] I have added a Terminal Service to terminal to add a signature file whenever I type "0" (command/zero), and I thought this might be of interest to people who read your FAQ. I have used this technique for over a year with no problems, and it has the advantage of working both with non-NeXT and NeXT Mail. 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. You can create a "Get signature" service by launching Terminal and accessing the "Terminal Services" window through the "Info/Terminal Services..." menu item. Then perform the following: 1. Create a new service by clicking on the "New" button. Change the service name to "Get signature". 2. Add the command "cat " and "0" (zero) to the "Command and Key Equivalent" entry. The "0" is obviously arbitrary, but I've found that it doesn't conflict with any of the commands I normally use. 3. De-select any items checked within the "Accept" grouping. Select the "As Input" radio button under the "Use Selection" section. 4. Change the "Execution" popup to "Run Service in the Background". Select the "Return Output" and "No Shell" radio buttons. 5. Click the "Save" button. 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? searching, files find 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). 15 03 * * 2,5 root /usr/lib/find/updatedb > /usr/adm/updatedb.err 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). [Carl Edman ] adds: 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 ] I find the following script in /usr/local/bin very handy to bring back the behavior that God Intended find to have: #!/bin/csh if ( $#argv == 1 ) then /usr/bin/find \*$1\* else set noglob /usr/bin/find $argv[1-] unset noglob endif 4.13 Mail.app suddenly stopped working! Mail, doesn't start When I double-click the Mail.app icon it loads and seems to start but then just terminates. How can I fix this ? Usually the problem is caused by Mail.app being terminated with extreme prejudice such as by a power outage or kill -9. Under those circumstances Mail.app may leave a lock file in your active mailbox. Due to a bug 3.0 Mail.app doesn't ask for permission to override this lock when started up again but just dies. Open a shell and look in /Mailboxes/Active.mbox. If this directory contains a file called .lock you have found the culprit. You can safely remove this file. 4.14 Recycler doesn't work anymore?! Recycler For some reason, after moving my home directory, my recycler no longer works? [From: eric%basilisk@src.honeywell.com (Eric D. Engstrom)] 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). Also, an example of the permissions for the external disk .NextTrash directory (which is not automatically created) should be : ls -aldg /private/mnt2/local/.NextTrash drwxrwxrwt [...] /private/mnt2/local/.NextTrash/ Note: /private/mnt2/local is the mount point. Do chmod 1777 .NextTrash to get the permissions right. Thus, if you moved your home directory from one partition to another, the one you left may not have a "recycler-repository" to use. 4.15 How to hear sound from CDPlayer.app thought NEXTSTEP system? digital audio CDPlayer To hear sound, the following info is important. [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. There is another player available: CD_evil, which is based on play3401 but offers a GUI. 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. 4.16 How do I decompress a file with the extension .compressed? .compressed compress uncompress gnutar tar gzip gunzip Do this with the following methods. [From: sanguish@digifix.com] .compressed files have been compressed in the Workspace Manager. Basically, they are just .tar.Z files. Even single files are tarred as well as compressed. There are several methods of decompressing these files. 1. They can be decompressed by selecting them in the Workspace, and Selecting uncompress from the file menu. 2. They can be decompressed by selecting them in the Workspace, and bringing up the Workspace Inspector. (You can double click to get there faster) 3. You can rename them to be .tar.Z and handle them the way you do them. FAQ-Authors note: use uncompress to access the .Z files and/or gunzip to access .z/.gz files. Use tar to access .tar files. You might also you gnutar to access both together, e.g. to access a .tar.gz at once. Read the man pages for more information. 4.17 How do I change the Workspace compression app? compress gzip gunzip dwrites Change it with the given method. [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: dwrite Workspace compress /usr/bin/gzip dwrite Workspace uncompress /usr/bin/gunzip dwrite Workspace AlwaysTarForCompress YES [Reuven M. Lerner reuven@the-tech.mit.edu] 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. 4.18 console: loginwindow: netinfo problem - No such directory. netinfo problem, /keyboard directory is missing. It's benign... but annoying. niutil -create . /keyboard Fixed in 2.1 and up. 4.19 Root login not possible on client machine 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. Note that what you're up against is only a Workspace Manager misfeature; there's no problem logging in as root on the real UNIX console, or logging in as a non-root user and then using "su" to obtain root privileges. Root access is needed to: * Log in a root Workspace. * Perform BuildDisk on a client. * Run the GuidedTour demo for the first time subsequent invocations will not autologin, but they will run just fine if you log in as NextTour (no password). It is not required to perform updates on the local NetInfo database, for any normal user operations, nor to run programs requiring root access on the server using -NXHost. 4.20 How to boot NEXTSTEP from the second (higher SCSI ID) HD? Boot, from higher SCSI ID Boot, from second drive Use the following command. 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). 4.21 How to make swapfile shrink to the normal size? 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 You need an entry in /etc/fstab so the disk will be mounted at boot time, rather than being "automounted" when somebody logs in. Automounted disks are owned by whoever logged in, fstab-mounted disks are owned by root. Something like this: /dev/sd0a / 4.3 rw,noquota,noauto 0 1 /dev/sd1a /Disk 4.3 rw,noquota 0 2 (assuming the external disk is to be mounted as /Disk) fstab should be niloaded into the Netinfo database if it contains any NFS mounts. 4.24 How to limit coredump sizes? coredump, size limit Limit it by the following command. This will work for apps running from a shell. limit coredumpsize 0 If your dock or workspace apps are dumping core, there's also: dwrite Workspace CoreLimit <bytesize> 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: bsd sdmach nbuf=xxx (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] {< ffffffff00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 ffff0d0fffff0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 ffff0d0f0d0fffff000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 ffff0d0ffd0f0d0fffff00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 fffffd0ffd0ffd0ffd0fffff0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 fffffd0ff50ff50ff50ffd0fffff000000000000000000000000000000000000 fffff50ff50ff50ff50ff50ff50fffff00000000000000000000000000000000 fffff50fd00fd00fd00fd00fd00f908fffff0000000000000000000000000000 ffffd00fd00fd00fd00fd00fd00f908f908fffff000000000000000000000000 ffffd00fd00fd00f908f908fffffffffffffffffffff00000000000000000000 ffff908f908fffff00ff00ffffff000000000000000000000000000000000000 ffff908fffff0000ffff00ff00ffffff00000000000000000000000000000000 ffffffff00000000ffff00ff00ffffff00000000000000000000000000000000 ffff0000000000000000ffff00ff00ffffff0000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000ffff00ff00ffffff0000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000ffffffff00000000000000000000000000000000 >} 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 Maybe somebody wants to write some kind of "pointer editor"? There is also a commercial application named 'MouseMagic' which handles this and custom acceleration modes. 4.27 How do I customize BuildDisk to create a bootable disk of my own configuration? BuildDisk, customization The BuildDisk application is extremely limited in terms of the types of disks configuration it knows how to build. Essentially it "knows" about swapdisks, optical disks, 330 and 660 MB SCSI disks. If you wish to do custom configurations you should look at existing BLD script files in /etc/BLD.* There is a script which you can use to specify which BLD script you are using, which disktab entry, and other useful parameters in /usr/etc/builddisk Some things to note: * the fstab installed on the target disk is specified in the newclient command in the BLD script. standard fstabs are extracted from /usr/template/client/fstab.* * the BLD scripts do not put down a new boot block on the scsi disk, you may want to install one by hand using the /usr/etc/disk program. * some disks boot fine but NeXTstep comes up with a blank window and no login window. This is due sometimes to forgetting to install an accessible /NextLibrary/{Fonts,Sounds}. In general you need quite a lot of things to make a bootable disk. 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 There a lot of dwrite useful for you. (self explanatory) dwrite Workspace compress /usr/bin/gzip dwrite Workspace uncompress /usr/bin/gunzip dwrite Workspace AlwaysTarForCompress Yes dwrite Workspace DockOrginX (some number) dwrite Workspace DockOrginY (some number) dwrite Workspace DockOffsetX -1057 (leftmost) dwrite Workspace DockOnTop (0 or 1 for true or false) dwrite appname NXCMYKAdjust YES dwrite Preferences 24HourClock yes 4.29 What is the @LongLink message from gnutar all about? @LongLink gnutar Because gnutar tries to be somewhat compatible to the old tar format, it can't store pathnames longer than 100 chars. In order to store files with longer names, it generates a special file entry containing just the longer filename. These are the long links you see. Nothing to worry about. 4.30 What stands the file .place3_0.wmd for? .place3_0.wmd The Workspace uses it to record the window attributes (sort order, view type, icon positions and so on) Switching the 'UNIX Expert' flag in UNIX Preferences panel off hides all files which start by '.'. 4.31 How to create transparent icons with IconBuilder IconBuilder icon, transparent If you are repainting an icon on the filesystem e.g. .dir.tiff make a copy and remove it first. Then reload the directory (the default icon gets shown). This is needed because the system caches icons. Now here comes how to create transparent backgrounds using IconBuilder: * Select Format->Document Layout (or New document layout) * 'Has alpha' must be checkedus * Open the color inspector * UNcheck 'paint in overlay mode' * Choose any color (I took white) * Set Opacity to 0 * Use Paintbucket to fill the whole icon * Now set Opacity back to 100 * Draw the icon 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. 4.32 How to access the MAC format of a mixed DOS/MAC CD-ROM Mac DOS CD-ROM Some CD-ROMs are using multiple fileformats to adress more people. This is done by putting two filesystems on the disk. With NEXTSTEP you are able to acess both. But what to do if the Workspace only shows you the DOS side of a disk, while the Mac side is often more convenient (due to e.g. long filenames). The solution is to change the priority the system is searching for a usable filesystem. You need to rearange the filesystems in /usr/filesystems to fit your needs. Here is how: * ls -lR /usr/filesystems shows the actual searching queue. * mv /usr/filesystems /tmp/filesystems to backup things * mkdir /usr/filesystems recreate the directory. * cp -p -r /tmp/filesystems/xx /usr/filesystems copy the filesystems in order of searching back to the default location. * chmod 4755 /usr/filesystems/xx.fs/xx.util reset SUID mode * reset the links in /usr/filesystems/DOS.fs/. 4.33 Is there a PPP for NEXTSTEP PPP There is a commercial PPP and a public domain PPP implementation. For the public domain PPP there is an additional FAQ available at: http://www.thoughtport.com:8080/PPP/ The public domain PPP is based on the PPP-2.2 distribution. This distribution offers several enhancements over ppp-2.1.2. Especially noteworty is that it implements BSD packet compression. Using packet compression can lead to higher throughput than you get using compressing modems. 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: listproc@listproc.thoughtport.com 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: nextppp@listproc.thoughtport.com 4.34 NIS and OpenStep 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: niutil -create / /locations/lookupd niutil -create / /locations/lookupd/users niutil -createprop / /locations/lookupd/users LookupOrder \ CacheAgent NIAgent FFAgent NISAgent 4.35 System overloaded due to swapping Swapping CPU overload load Several people discovered the problem, that their system get's unusable due to swapping. This is extremely bad, because if this swapping occurs, you can't even break the CPU load causing process, because you can't even open a terminal window. There exists a programmed solution to this problem. 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. In order to install it, you will have to edit /usr/lib/NextStep/windowpackage.ps. Make sure that you make a backup of this file before editing it! It is owned by root, so not just anyone can do this. To apply the patch, search for a line stating: rmdownEvProc (the procedure for processing right mouse button down events), and replace it with the code named examples/windowpackage.patch in the FAQ archive. For NS3.3 this code is located at line 1319. 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! Thanks to David Koski dkoski@cs.wisc.edu for supplying this code. 4.36 Swapfile issues swapfile swap, speed swap, size 1. use 'mkfile' to generate the lowat file size of you swapfile. This decreases the number of inodes used and keeps the permanent lowat size defragmented. 2. on fast machines, compress the swapfile (only possible on the primary file), on slow machines, disable compressing. 3. place the swapfile on the fastest hard disk drive you have. Use 'man swaptab' to learn more about configuring swap files. 4. to learn more about the never shrinking swapfile question, read the NeXTanswers about it. http://www.next.com/NeXTanswers/ 5. if your swaptab ignores some options: be aware that options must not contain spaces! 4.37 Garbage collection and Objective-C garbage collection memory allocation Note that Boehm's conservative garbage collector from ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/gc/ works great with Objective-C, so you can use GC also with the other compilers. That GC could be enhanced a little by taking advantage of the Objective-C runtime type information; the hooks are there for it. 4.38 Setting up an anonymous FTP server 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. 5 BLACK (NEXT) HARDWARE 5.1 What disk drives will work with the NeXT? 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: * These drives don't work with NeXT hardware: FUJITSU 2684SAU, SEAGATE ST51080N, IBM IB06H8891 * The SCSI driver for NeXT hardware only accepts asynchronous data transfer. Although every new SCSI-2 drive should support this mode, this isn't true for certain drives. Also sometimes there is a hardware switch (a little jumper on the drive) which switches between synchronous and asynchronous mode. You definitly can only use asynchronous disks! * There are also problems with sync negotiation on NeXT hardware. In general there should be another jumper to toggle this are you might change this with an SCSI utility. There are also problems with the tagged command queuing option. Anyway all these problem can be solved. Often these problems arise with IBM drives. We recommand to look in the technical documentation of the drive, which is available only from IBM's WWW site directly. Most SCSI disk drives will work without modifying /etc/disktab. 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] NEXTSTEP releases 2.0 and up provide a low level disk formatter, sdform, which does not offer much flexibility, but gets the job done. Most drives are already formatted at the factory. You might look for the utility sdformat on the FTP sites as well, which overcomes some problems of sdform supplied by NeXT. 5.2 Will a 68030 NeXT Computer run NEXTSTEP 3.3? NS3.3 and 68030 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. 5.3 Does a FUJITSU MO (256 MB) works with NeXT original Hardware? FUJITSU MO Yes, they do 5.4 Can I run my SCSI-2 disks in synchronous mode? SCSI-2, synchronous synchronous mode Quick answer is: No. The reason is that the NeXT does not support synchronous transfers from the SCSI bus. It does support SCSI-2 disks running in asynchronous mode, which all SCSI-2 disks must do. 5.5 How do I configure my HP 660 to boot properly? HP 660, boot boot, HP 660 It has been reported that HP drives fail to autoboot on power on or while other devices are on the scsi bus. The problem seems to be with drives configured to spin-up automatically on power on do not get recognized at boot time. To remedy this problem reliably with HP 660Mb (HP97548) and 1Gbyte (HP 97549) drives remove the auto spinup jumper on the back of the drive. Looking at the disk from the back with the power connector on the lower left, it is the sixth jumper. 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). 5.6 What is the procedure for installing a Fujitsu M2263SA/SB SCSI Disk as the NeXT Boot Disk? Fujitsu M2263SA/SB See Izumi Ohzawa's note in /pub/next/docs/fujitsu.recipe available via anonymous ftp from sonata.cc.purdue.edu. 5.7 How to mount a corrupted OD that won't automount? OD, corrupt OD, mount 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. 5.8 What non-NeXT CD Players that work with a NeXT? CD-ROM, NeXT A USENET survey summary: 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? 5.9 What are some other sources of toner cartridges and trays for the NeXT laser printer? toner, NeXT printer The toner cartridge is a standard EP-S cartridge, the same that fits the HP LaserJet III and some other printers. Any HP LaserJet II or III will fit. HPLJ4mSI cartridges do NOT fit. Any HP LJII or LJIII paper tray will fit. IIISI and 4 trays will not. Confused? Read again :-) 5.10 What printers (laser or otherwise) may be used with a NeXT? 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. NeXT 68040 to HP LaserJet III Cable (not a Null-modem cable): 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. 5.11 What can I do to prevent my NeXT printer from running all the time? printer, turning off 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. 5.12 What type of microphones will work with the NeXT? microphone, NeXT 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). 5.13 How do I connect a modem to the NeXT? modem, on NeXT Previously, we suggested that people use Mac modem cables; however, it has come to our attention that there is no one standard Mac modem cable. Since correct modem operation on a NeXT depends upon a correctly wired modem cable, buying a Mac cable is not a good idea. Some Mac cables do not allow dial-in and no Mac cable allows the use of hardware flow control. For these reasons, we are recommending that only cables that meet NeXT specifications be used. [however, if you have a Mac modem cable lying around and don't care about dial-in or hardware flow control, then by all means....] 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. Hardware flow control is absolutely essential for all serial port connections with speeds of 9600 bps and above. Make certain that you cable supports it, your modem is configured to use it and you are using the hardware flowcontrol devices /dev/cuf[ab], /dev/ttydf[ab] and /dev/ttyf[ab], respectively. 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)). A version of the DOS-program pcomm can be found on ftp.informatik.uni-muenchen.de The 2.0 Network and System Administration Manual, which is available in hard-copy (shipped with each machine) contains an extensive description of how to use modems with the NeXT machine. Additionally NeXT in their TechSupportNotes series called SerialPortDoc.wn and UUCP for 1.0/1.0a systems . This document is available from most FTP sites that carry NextAnswers. Also, try to obtain the about.modem.Z file by Mark Adler in the pub/next/lore directory on sonata.cc.purdue.edu 5.14 Are there any alternative sources for the SCSI-II to SCSI-I cable required to attach external SCSI devices to the 040 NeXTs? SCSI cable to NeXT Yes. This cable is the same as the one used by Sun SparcStations and DecStation 5000's (but not DecStation 3100's which use 68-pin micro rather than the 50pin micro connector used on NeXT 040, Suns and DecStation 5000). The implication that a Sun SparcStation cable can be used with NeXT peripherals is generally false. NeXT themselves, and DEC, and nearly everyone else who makes SCSI peripherals, puts Telco-50 (centronics) connectors on their devices. Sun in their infinite wisdom uses DD50 which are quite different. Telco-50 is an approved connector type in the SCSI spec. Probably the original point was that the 50-pin microSCSI on the NeXT and Sun and some DecStations was different from the 68-pin microSCSI on the DecStation 5000. But this does not address the other end of the cable. 5.15 What fax modems will work with the NeXT? fax modem, on NeXT 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: Manufacturer, Model Supplier, Type DoveFax for NeXT, Dove Computer, Class 1 HSD FaxMaster, HSD Microcomputer, Class 2* mix fax, i·link GmbH, Class 2** SupraFAXModem V.32bis, Supra Corp., Class 2 (requires DFax driver or NXFax driver) ZyXEL U-1496E/E+/S/S+, ZyXEL USA, Class 2 (requires NXFax driver) Telebit T3000 with fax option Telebit WorldBlazer with fax option (requires NXFax driver) Neuron 1414/1414+ with ZyXEL ROM upgrade (requires NXFax driver) (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. Release 2.0 of the NeXT system software includes a Class 2 modem driver which will work with any fax modem which meets the EIA/TIA Asynchronous Facsimile Control standard. Other fax modems must supply a NeXT compatible 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. An alternative workaround for Class 2, especially useful for novices: just use InterFax as the modem type in PrintManager, rather than Class 2*. After installing a fax modem using PrintManager one must repeat setting things in the Fax Options panel in order for them to be stored correctly. In particular, these include the Rings to Answer and Number of Times to Retry. This affects all fax modems being installed. 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. 5.16 How may I attach more than two serial ports to the NeXT? serial port, >2 on 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: yrrid@world.std.com Unitnet has a device, the SLAT, that will connect to the scsi bus. Uninet Peripherals, Inc. Voice: 714-263-4222 Fax: 714-263-4299 Central Data Corporation made the scsiTerminal Server family of products. However they stopped supporting NeXT hardwer. We are told that Central Data may consider the solling or giving of the driver source to an interested party. Phone: 217/359-8010 Toll-free: 800/482-0315 FAX: 217-359-6904 Email: info@cd.com support@cd.com sales@cd.com Also, one can use an IP terminal server. In a non-Internet environment, inexpensive terminal servers, which don't control access to the network securely, can be used. If your network is an Internet subnet, you must use a terminal server that controls either: (1) who can log into the terminal server, or (2) which machines the terminal server will access. These tend to be more expensive (around $250/port, but in 8-port increments), but it may be quite economical means of sharing ports among many NeXTs (or other computers) on the network. Particularly if one has a NeXT network, an Ethernet terminal server may be the way to go. One that supports Linemode Telnet (such as the Xylogics Annex III) will offer the best performance. 5.17 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: * The University of Waterloo (Audio Research Group) uses an old door-stop PC XT clone with two Western Digital cards (WD8003E Ethercard Plus, $250 CDN each; you should be able to get them for under $200 (US$)) running Vance Morrison's PCRoute (available from accuvax.nwu.edu). You will also need a thickwire transceiver and a drop cable (about $300). In addition, you will need Internet addresses for the NeXT and both PC Ethernet cards (and a subnet address). The documentation for PCRoute contains quite a bit of information on the performance of this setup. This solution requires two subnets. There is another program called PCbridge that allows the machines on the thin and thick wires to be part of the same subnet. This product also does packet filtering, so that packets destined to machines on the same side of the net do not cross over. * Cabletron sells a MR-2000C Singleport Repeater for $695 that does exactly what you need minus drop cable and transceiver. Their number is (408) 441-9900. * The march 1992 INMAC networking and connectivity products catalog lists thicknet to thinnet converters. Product number Z903071 price $445. Claims full ieee 802.3 compatibility and diagnostic LED's. * NuData (908)-842-5757 (USA) sells AUI10 base-T boxes for about $149. 5.18 How can I connect my NeXT to the telephone line and use it like an answering Machine? answering machine A company that is selling both hardware and software to allow you to do this: 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: info@ilink.de 5.19 What color monitors can I use with the Color NeXT machines? monitor, color The important specs for the color monitor are: Horz Scan Rate: 61 KHz Vertical Scan Rate: 68 Hz Resolution: 1280x1024 (NeXT uses 1120x832) NON-INTERLACED 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. Some larger NEC displays have also worked. 5.20 Where can I get 13W3 to BNC adapters to connect third party color monitors? 13W3 to BNC BNC to 13W3 You can get them from:NeXT/Bell Atlantic: part number S4025. NuData in New Jersey carries 13W3 female to 4 BNC male connectors. The price is about $100. NuData Voice: 908-842-5757 DISCLAIMER: I take no responsibility for the following. If you can source the bits yourself here's how it's built. 1 female 13W3 connector 3 Male BNC connectors 3 mini coax ie. the pins to the coaxial are male and the regular pins are female. Looks like this. . 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. 5.21 How may I attach Centronics or 16 bit wide parallel ports to the NeXT? centronics, NeXT parallel port, NeXT Uninet has devices, the SLAT-2 and the SLAT-DRV11, that will connect to the scsi bus. Uninet Peripherals, Inc. Voice: 714-263-4222 Fax: 714-263-4299 zardoz!sales@ics.uci.edu or uunet!ucivax!zardoz!sales 5.22 Why does an unused serial port consume cpu? serial port, cpu power usage Perhaps you've got a (probably fairly long) unshielded serial cable attached to it, with either nothing at the other end or a powered-off device at the other end. EE's call this an antenna. It's probably picking up most of the radio stations in your area, which the serial chip is interpreting as a continuous stream of garbage bytes, which it feeds to getty, which tries to interpret them as login attempts. How do you avoid this problem? * 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 5.23 How to adjust MegaPixel Display brightness and focus? brightness, MegaPixel focus, MegaPixel Adjust it using the following information. From: Charles William Swiger 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. In order to adjust NeXT's MegaPixel display (called 'the monitor' hereafter), you'll need (a) the NeXTtool (or a 3mm Allen wrench), (b) a plastic adjustment tool (preferred) or a thin bladed screwdriver, and possibly (c) a Phillips-head screwdriver. (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. Depending on the exact placement of the controls on the circuit board of your specific monitor, some of these controls may be difficult (or impossible) to adjust from the back. If this is the case, I will describe what's necessary below. Otherwise, adjust the appropriate controls using either an adjustment tool or a screwdriver. Be warned that a screwdriver probably will cause some interesting video effects when it enters the case. Ignore this the best you can, or find a plastic adjustment tool, which is what you *really* should be using anyway. Using a flashlight will help you see into the hole so that you can align the business end of the tool correctly. 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. To correctly adjust the brightness, follow this procedure: Turn the brightness of the monitor all the way down using the keyboard. Adjust the brightness control on the back of the monitor until a barely noticeable picture forms. Then turn the brightness down a little so this picture disappears completely. Check that you can get adequate brightness by using the keyboard to brighten the screen. If the display isn't bright enough, adjust the brightness control on the rear of the monitor high