Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rochester!rutgers!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!XEROX.COM!"Philip_Young.XSISHQ"
From: "Philip_Young.XSISHQ"@XEROX.COM
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: VAX Lisp bug?
Message-ID: <870805-100255-4768@Xerox>
Date: Wed, 5-Aug-87 13:02:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: Xerox.870805-100255-4768
Posted: Wed Aug  5 13:02:27 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Aug-87 07:44:56 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 20

> I've had a problem reported to me involving VAX Lisp and phone lines.
> The problem is this: when someone has dialed in and is using Lisp and
they > lose the line for whatever reason, the process does *not* die but
stays
> active and continues to munch up CPU...

I'm afraid that all I can do is give you confirmation of the problem. In
our case it happened when users logged into the VAX through the Ethernet
(using Xerox protocols for virtual terminal connections). Every time a
user lost a connection, the VAX Lisp process would enter what looked
like a hard compute loop and bring our 750 to a standstill.

We attempted without success to find the source of this problem. Since
our use of VAX Lisp was temporary we put severe CPU limit restrictions
on our Lisp users and left it at that. We always thought that the
problem had something to do with our virtual terminal implementation but
now it seems otherwise.

Phil Young
Xerox Corp.