Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!batcomputer!theory.tn.cornell.edu!finn From: finn@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Lee Samuel Finn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NeXT Mathematica Bug Message-ID: <1991Mar5.183930.1701@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> Date: 5 Mar 91 18:39:30 GMT References: <1991Mar4.035543.19802@wam.umd.edu> <13048@helios.TAMU.EDU> Sender: news@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu Distribution: na Organization: Cornell Theory Center Lines: 46 Nntp-Posting-Host: theory.tn.cornell.edu In article <13048@helios.TAMU.EDU> mcguire@cs.tamu.edu (Tim McGuire) writes: >NeXTologist smithw@hamblin.math.byu.edu (Dr. William V. Smith) writes: > >barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (BarryMerriman) writes: > >>I have found a nasty, basic bug in NeXT Mathematica > >>(Mathematica 1.2, running on a 2.0 Slab---but copied from > >>a 1.0a 030 cube, though). > >This bug is apparently not a MMA kernel bug. The function is correctly > >evaluated and plotted with an '030 NeXT MMA 1.2 (Jan. 1990 version), but the > >same version running on an '040 NeXTcube shows the problem (both cubes > >running 2.0 NeXT software(extended)). The '030 - 1.0a software does not > >seem to have this problem. So. . . > >.... The problem goes away if instead of calling tanh, you use > >the explicit definition of tanh in terms of the exponential function, > >so this may be a problem with the 68040 itself. > > The problem is apparently not with the 68040. Some helpful person on the > Mathematica mailing list (whose name slips me) reports the problem > occurs when the #include directive is omitted, but disappears > when it is put in in a minimal C program calling the tanh function. It > seems the 030 version of the kernel didn't care. > > Tim McGuire > mcguire@cs.tamu.edu No, No, No. Red herring. The problem is with the software emulation of FTANH in 040 NeXT boxes. It has nothing to do with the presence or absence of #include . To verify, run it yourself and see. It's really not that hard :-). As a second note, I have compiled and (attempted) to run the Cody & Waite elementary functions test suite on the NeXT '040 cube. These are FORTRAN programs that test elementary functions in single and double precision against identities, special values, and in some cases coded approximations in various argument ranges. I compiled these puppies with both f2c/cc and Absoft FORTRAN, and found quite a few of them would toast my cube so bad that I had to yank the power cord: I couldn't get to the monitor, the power key wouldn't respond, the mouse and keyboard were dead --- life, as we know it, was extinguished in a flash of bits. Now, given that inexcusable is the verb of choice to describe bad standard math libraries (and I don't know if Motorola or NeXT is to blame on that score --- and I really don't care either, I just want it fixed), what can one possibly say about an OS that goes catatonic at the sight of random user programs? Sam Finn