Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!civilgate.ce.uiuc.edu!lray
From: lray@civilgate.ce.uiuc.edu (Leland Ray)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: bus errors on Apollo
Message-ID: <9003212038.AA00577@civilgate.ce.uiuc.edu>
Date: 21 Mar 90 20:38:22 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 14


It is a weird quirk of Unix that "bus error" is returned for almost
any kind of memory fault. Why this is, I've no idea, perhaps a Unix
guru could enlighten us.

Anyway, a bus error is 99% of the time a memory fault. You should
the tb command (traceback) to obtain a stack traceback that will
tell you what line your error is on. Look for all the typical problems,
like array indices out of bounds, or incorrectly passing some array.
You will likely find it to be a simple programming error.

By the way, from time to time a heavily loaded 3500 will experience
a real bus error (bus time out). I think it is a characteristic of the
WD disk controller. Perhaps I should APR this in. Hmmm....