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From: waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Power Surge protection & Terminal use
Message-ID: <1991Apr15.134627.1@capd.jhuapl.edu>
Date: 15 Apr 91 18:46:27 GMT
References: <1991Apr14.204737.25075@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Apr14.233319.3123@engin.umich.edu> <8431@umd5.umd.edu>
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In article <8431@umd5.umd.edu>, bchin@umd5.umd.edu (Bill Chin) writes:
> In article <1991Apr14.233319.3123@engin.umich.edu> 
dejnsen@caen.engin.umich.edu (Nik Anthony Gervae) writes:
>>In article <1991Apr14.204737.25075@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> 
ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair) writes:
>>>
>>>   (1) How careful does one have to be about power surges.  [...]
>>  ALWAYS be careful about power surges. Check as much as you can your local
>>electrical supply--they can vary markedly over a few city blocks. Also,
>>since NeXT is a UNIX box, it may do a lot of caching before writing to disk.
>>Consequence: lose power, lose the file you *thought* you saves 5 minutes ago.
>>And the outlet on your surge protector--is it 3-prong? (You never know.) The
>>NeXT plug seems a standard 3-prong to me....
> 
> I'm thinking of getting a NeXT soon, so I was wondering if there are
> any UPS's that can notify the NeXT its connected to that power
> just went out and start a shutdown script.  I know of UPS's that do
> this with Novell servers, so are there any for NeXT's or UNIX
> boxes in general?
	I bought a Clary SL-800 (I think that's the model...I'm sure about the
	manufacturer) and it contains an 8-pin (I think) connector that you
	could cable to a serial port on your NeXT.  Clary's manual describes
	the pinouts and how the UPS uses them in the event of a power
	disturbance.  I haven't tried it yet (I need both serial ports for
	other things) so I can't say that it can be done for sure.  But I
	believe that other UPS manufacturers provide a similar interface and
	some of them provide software packages for various platforms for
	monitoring the UPS.  A daemon for monitoring a UPS was recently posted
	to comp.sources.misc (I believe).  Perhaps it could be adapted to
	whatever UPS you got.

	BTW, my UPS is probably overkill...appears to be only a one quarter
	load.  Don't know whether this would translate into 60 plus minutes
	of battery backup instead of 20 minutes or not.  If it does, I don't
	mind the overkill.

	I bought a UPS because I believe clean power greatly extends the life
	of a system.  I also believe that keeping equipment that you use daily
	running continuously rather than turning it off and on extends its
	life too.  These may all be my versions old wives' tales (I also
	believe in old wives) and I have no credentials as a power engineer and
	only anecdotal evidence that causes me to hold these views so I
	don't offer them as recommendations.

c.f.waltrip

Internet:  <waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu>

Opinions expressed are my own.exit