Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!ucbvax!PAN.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM!thompson From: thompson@PAN.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM (John Thompson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: re: problems with apollo's running mentor software Message-ID: <9010081437.AA26594@pan.ssec.honeywell.com> Date: 8 Oct 90 14:37:50 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 44 > >Once in a while we get (on an authorized node) a message something > >like "?Authorization problem: you are not authorized to run this > > First, as you already no doubt know Mentor doesn't > officially support 10.2. Unofficially, it works pretty well, though. We've encountered only two problems here -- 1) Rounding is handled differently between 10.1 and 10.2. This causes the LISTER portion of the idea_station test routines to 'fail'. It turns out that in at least four instances (+-0.250 and +-0.750 were the only ones we discovered between +100 and -100 by 0.250), 10.1 rounds AWAY from 0, and 10.2 rounds TOWARD 0. This does not affect the computation, just the printout, of values. 2) BOARD station software doesn't display all information. This is the only MENTOR product that has 'failed' at 10.2 (for us). > However I have seen this behavior > on 10.1/7.0 mentor systems. I noticed it after using the > date command to set the node's clock. I didn't persue the > problem, and simply re-booted the node. The problem went > away, ie I was now able to run the application. Did you change > the time on the node before this happened? Does anybody know > why using date should cause this problem? Mentor checks to see whether the date has been dynamically changed, either by someone running 'timed' or by root changing the date, it refuses to start Mentor software! A flag needs to be kept somewhere recording this fact, since otherwise files would be created with the (dynamically set) new date, which _could_ cause duplicate UIDs to occur. This flag is reset at system shutdown, which is why rebooting clears the problem. I've yelled at Mentor for this stupid practice, and they have said that it won't be implemented at release 8.0 (I haven't checked the new 7.0 version for it, but suspect that it's there). A contact at HP/Apollo was really frustrated, because apparently Mentor had been one of the big guns pushing Apollo to _add_ the feature allowing dynamic date setting!! John Thompson (jt) Honeywell, SSEC Plymouth, MN 55441 thompson@pan.ssec.honeywell.com As ever, my opinions do not necessarily agree with Honeywell's or reality's. (Honeywell's do not necessarily agree with mine or reality's, either)