Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CSD4.MILW.WISC.EDU!james
From: james@CSD4.MILW.WISC.EDU (Jim Lowe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.tahoe
Subject: Re:  floating point woes
Message-ID: <8805160245.AA04843@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Date: 16 May 88 02:45:17 GMT
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> To: uwvax!csd1.milw.wisc.edu!info-tahoe
> Subject: floating point woes
> Date: Sun, 15 May 88 13:45:44 PDT
> From: (P. Graham) <uwvax!rutgers!solstice.unr.edu!pjg@csd1.milw.wisc.edu>
> 
> 
> configuration: cci 6/32 (from sperry)
> 
> my questions:
>  Has anyone else seen this problem or does anyone know if the stuff in
> sys/tahoemath has been fixed by cci and kept secret?
>  My sperry configuration guide says i have to get the third cabinet and
> move all my peripheral boards to it if i want to use those three slots set
> aside for the floating point.  Is this really necessary?  If so why?
>  Anybody have a floating point set for less than $12k?  (naturally this
> last question should certainly be answered via private mail)
> 
We found many problems with libm.a.  The stuff that is in /usr/src/cci/libM
has many bugs in it, also the stuff in /usr/src/usr.lib/libm is very slow and
buggy.  Your problem might be here...

A person here has worked on the math libs and has fixed many of the problems.
We are testing the new stuff now.

As far as a machine with out floating point -- I don't think it is good to
run the box w/o floating point and less than 16 Meg of memory.

With the floating point boards, the machine turns about 7 MWhetstones single
precision and 3.2 MWhetstones double precision.  Running our math libraries.
I have never yanked out the floating point sum and multiply boards to see
how it works without it, but it has to be slowww.

For prices and configuration you can try some other vendors.  There are
quite a few people that sell stuff for the CCI box.  

Here are a couple of people I usually talk to about this stuff:

	Jerry Martin		Paul Caliban		Gary Praznik
	First Computer		CCI			Unisys
	Chicago			Chicago			Madison, WI
	(312) 920-1050		(312) 299-9340		(608)-221-3311

	John Cimino		Dave Katt
	InterSource		Office Network Inc.
	Cedar Rapids, Iowa	Waukesha, WI
	(319) 362-4007		(414) 784-6040

And I am sure there are more.

> A little nugget of info: early this year my ce's came by and changed my cp
> roms. suddenly i could boot 4.3beta according to the instructions.  if you
> are still running the old roms i'd rush right out and get the new ones.

I beleive the current rev. level from Unisys is A18.  A18 proms are suppose to
be able to support booting from Eagles and the new tape controller available
from Unisys.  Unisys sells the new tape controller on their 7000/50
systems.  I have heard that there is a newer version of the firmware available,
but not from Unisys yet.


	- Jim 

Internet:	james@csd4.milw.wisc.edu	Uucp:	ihnp4!uwmcsd1!james
Phone:		+1 (414) 229-6431