computing laboratory newsletter
Contents
1. Documents to be printed on the LaserWriter should be sent to the queue LASER PRINT using the form type A4FORM type 2 Thus a file called TEST MEM could be printed using the command PRINT QUEUE LASER PRINT FORM A4FORM TEST MEM To simplify the use of this command the symbol PRTLAS has been defined so that the above command can be abbreviated to PRTLAS TEST MEM Output produced in this way will be retained in the VAX computer room by the operators for collection by the person generating it Please note that all users require the permission of their departmental representative before using the Laserwriter since the Computing Laboratory has to recover the running costs of the LaserWriter by charging 7p per sheet of output produced Bills are periodically sent to the departmental representative for the paper produced by a department s users showing the use made by each user A sheet showing who has current permission is posted outside the computer room door We expect most use of this new facility to be made for final copies of RUNOFF documents aS an alternative to the existing Spinwriter service Consequently it is worth noting that to produce pages with approximately an inch margin all round top bottom left and right on an A4 sheet the following RUNOFF formatting commands could be used ps 60 60 lm 8 rm 68 no headers Please note however that not all features of a Diablo daisywheel printer can be reproduced on the Las2. is documented in the Macintosh User Manual but further assistance can be obtained from John Ball ex 8139 CLSJB or Malcolm Bain ex 8203 CLSMB HUMANITIES BULLETIN BOARD AT LEICESTER Users in Arts departments will be interested in HUMBUL an electronics bulletin board service run from the Computer Centre at the University of Leicester and maintained at their office of Humanities Communication This has news of projects courses conferences grants awarded etc in the field of computing in the Arts It is also possible to send messages to the editor of the service for instance about your own projects To access the HUMBUL service you should type the local VMS command PAD which will then give you the prompt V PAD gt Then type CALL LE HUMBUL and wait for the message from HUMBUL asking you to log on if you are a new user typing NEWUSER as your user name will take you into a registration procedure which will ask you for your name etc You can of course use your allocated user name for subsequent calls to HUMBUL When you log off from HUMBUL using a quit command you can return from the V PAD gt prompt to VMS by using lt CTRL 2 gt If the call to HUMBUL does not go through properly you can return to the V PAD gt prompt by using lt CTRL P gt After returning to this prompt you should then type CLR to clear the call and lt CTRL 2 gt to return to VMS March 1987 7 SPSS X USERNOTE Usernote number 5 h
3. University of St Andrews COMPUTING LABORATORY VAX SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS TIMETABLE MANAGING MAIL FILES CUTTING AND PASTING COLUMNS USING EVE USING THE APPLE LASERWRITER FROM THE VAX NEW BOOKING ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE MACINTOSH SYSTEM HUMANITIES BULLETIN BOARD AT LEICESTER SPSS X USERNOTE CONFERENCE ON COMPUTERS AND TEACHING IN HUMANITIES AMSTRAD PC1512 MICROCOMPUTERS SERVICEABILITY FIGURES NEWSLETTER March 1987 North Haugh St Andrews KY16 9SX Scotland Telephone 76161 2 VAX Systems AND NETWORKS TIMETABLE Easter Vacation 23 March to 10 April 1987 Whitsunday Term 1987 13 April to 12 June 1987 Normally the VAX Systems will be up 24 hours 4 day 7 days a weex except during the following periods Software Maintenance VAX Systems and Cambridge Ring Networks On Weekdays from 9 45pm at 24 hours notice A System may need to be rebooted at lpm at 12 hours notice Weekend A system may be taken at any time of the weekend at 24 hours notice Back up Dumps Dumps will be done fortnightly on Mondays from 7am for about 3 hours SAVA and SAVB will be dumped on Mondays as follows SAVB 23 Mar 6 20 Apr 4 18 May 1 June SAVA 20 Mar 13 27 Apr 11 25 May 8 June Preventive Maintenance PM Every 5 to 6 weeks from 7pm for up to 5 hours normally 4 hours The following PM dates have been scheduled Tuesdays 24 Mar 7 Apr 12 May 16 June Operator covered time Vacation Jam to 6pm Mon Fri Term
4. as been updated to reflect usage of SPSS X Copies are available free from the Computing Laboratory secretary CONFERENCE ON COMPUTERS AND TEACHING IN HUMANITIES A conference is to be held at the University cf Southampton on 10th te llth April on the subject of Computers Communication and the Undergraduate aiming to bring together those who have already introduced computing into the humanities curricuium or are considering doing so Further details are available from Peter Adamson ex 8129 CLSPA or direct from May Katzen Office for Humanities Communication University of Leicester Leicester LEl 7RH Tel 0533 522598 Details are available also via the HUMBUL service mentioned elsewhere Amstrad PC1512 MICROCOMPUTERS Two items about the Amstrad PC1512 have appeared recently in the computing press and may be of interest Concern has been expressed that the Amstrad does not have an earthed mains supply so that in the event of a fault the metal plate at the back of the monitor and metal elsewhere in the system could become live Touching the metal or plugging in a peripheral which itself is earthed could give a user a shock In this respect the Amstrad is Similar to several household electrical appliances and it has passed the appropriate British Electrotechnical Approvals Board The best advice is to remember that the Amstrad is an electrical device and to approach it with due care The second item concerns a bug in the ba
5. ck up program for the hard disk models where it appears the back up program can mistakenly make use of bad sectors on the disk For those with hard disk models a modified version of the MS DOS utilities and instructions for avoiding the problem should be available from their supplier The Microcomputer Group has a copy of the corrected software for anyone who has difficulty in obtaining it elsewhere Ma wah ma07 8 SERVICEABILITY FIGURES VAX 11 785 Systems during February 1987 SAVA hrs mins Period covered time 672 00 Scheduled Preventive Maintenance 2 50 1 Scheduled Back up Dumps 7 00 Scheduled Systems Development 0 00 User Service 659 20 Time Lost Unscheduled maintenance 0 00 Hardware faults 0 10 3 Other lost time 2 40 2 System Recovery time 0 00 Notes SAVA SAVB hrs mins 672 00 1 10 8 20 4 1 10 655 50 0 25 6 6 10 5 0 00 1 includes 1 40hrs to restore data to RPO7 disc after scan and format 2 Power fluctuations 3 5Mb of memory lost after PM reboot necessary Reboots 7 scheduled 3 unscheduled 4 SAVB 4 includes 2 00hrs re run after disc mount failure 5 0 35hrs power fluctuations 4 35hrs lost during Benson plotter interface repairs and 1 00hrs due to 3 reboots required after plotter hung system 6 DECNET modem card replaced Reboots 15 scheduled 6 unscheduled 9 March 1987
6. erWriter at present In particular the bolding of characters cannot be done Underlining and overstriking characters works as it does on the Spinwriters For Simtex users if a document is created in QUME format then superscripts and subscripts can be correctly reproduced on the the LaserWriter March 1Q0R7 6 New BOOKING ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE MACINTOSH SYSTEM There is an increasing demand from users with their own Macintosh computer to gain access to the Computing Laboratory s Apple LaserWriter solely to produce high quality output As a result we are introducing a service whereby at three times during the day users with a printing requirement only can have priority on the Apple Macintosh workstation in the Computing User Area During the times 7 30 am to 9 30 am 2 00 pm to 3 00 pm 6 30 pm to 7 30 pm the Macintosh will be reserved for access by the operators Any user with a file that requires printing on the LaserWriter should give the disk and the names of the file s to print to the operators who will print the file s for the user For any particularly complicated printing operation it may be that you would want to be present at the time of printing this can be negotiated with the operators The operators can be contacted on 8133 or 8131 or VAX MAIL can be sent to username SYSOP Please note that it is possible to download files from the VAX to the Macintosh using the MacTerminal software on the Macintosh This
7. solating all you MAIL files within their own subdirectory The command used within MAIL SET MAIL DIRECTORY MAIL will copy all your MAIL files into a subdirectory called MAIL DIR in your top level directory It will create this subdirectory if it does not already exist SHOW MAIL_DIRECTORY if used within MAIL will display the name of the directory containing all your MAIL files March 1987 4 CuTTING AND PastrnG CoLumns Ustne EVE The EVE editor can be extended using the VAXTPU programming language allowing you to add extra facilities as you need them One such extension is described below This program allows an EVE user to cut and paste columns of text or numbers for instance when arranging tables extracting data for graphs or simply generating double columns of text If you wish to do this the program must be added to the EVE program Define a logical name TPUINI to point to the TPU program define tpuini user2 clsap tpu col tpu eve test dat where test dat contains a column you wish to cut paste move the cursor to the start of your column press select move the cursor to the end of the column press col extract move to where you wish to paste the column press col_insert The key definitions are as follows KP Keypad Command VT200 VT100 BBC micro select lt SELECT gt KP 7 f4 col_extract KP 4 KP 4 f4 col_insert KP 6 KP 6 lt SHIFT gt f5 If you are already using KP 4 and KP 6 in your own ini
8. tialisation procedure and want to include col_extract and col_insert you could include a procedure to load and compile the column operations an example proceaure HW _COLUMN_OPERATIONS is in USER2 CLSAP TPU XX TPU and has worid read access If you prefer you can use col_extract and col_insert as lt DO gt commands without defining keys for them The command must start with TPU and cannot be abbreviated lt DO gt Command tpu col_extract Command tpu col_insert USING THE APPLE LASERWRITER FROM THE VAX The Computing Laboratory is investigating software for using the Appie LaserWriter attached to the Macintosh computer in the Computing User Area aS an output device for a number of applications running on the VAX systems As a first step the LaserWriter is going to be made available emulating a Diablo 630 daisywheel printer and using the LaserWriter Courier 12 point font In this mode the LaserWriter will produce output at 10 characters per inch comparable to an IBM March 1987 5 typewriter with a Courier 10 golf ball The NEC Spinwriters are normally used with an Elite thimble at a printing density of 12 characters per inch At the introduction of the service output from the VAX will be printed by the operators during the following times 7 30 am to 9 20 am 2 00 pm to 3 00 pm 6 30 pm to 7 30 pm When the LaserWriter is being used for printing from the VAX it will not be available for printing from the Macintosh
9. time Jam to 10pm Mon Fri access to building 8am to 9 45pm Mon Era 9am to 4 45pm Sat Note System or network problems will be dealt with during the next period of operator maintenance cover March 1987 3 MANAGING MAIL FILES Compressing your MAIL file MAIL MAI If you are in the habit of keeping valuable MAIL messages your MAIL file MAIL MAI can get quite sizeable with unused disk space within the file This space can be recovered by compressing the file using the command COMPRESS within MAIL Note that the old uncompressed file will still exist and be called MAIL OLD This should be deleted after exit from MAIL using the command DELETE MAIL OLD Keeping your MAIL counter correct From time to time your MAIL system may get a little confused and think incorrectly that you have more unread messages than really exist If the number of new unread MAIL messages displayed on your screen is inconsistent with the actual number of new messages enter the command within MAIL READ NEW when there is NO new MAIL This will reset the counter to zero Keeping MAIL files in a subdirectory MAIL messages larger than 3 blocks of filespace 1536 bytes or characters are not kept in the MAIL MAI file but are rather written to files of type MAI and of the form MAIL nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn MAI These files remain as long as you retain the messages within your MAIL system If you have such files it is often worth i
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search