computing laboratory newsletter
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1. For example amp underline this e in the RNO file will appear as underline this in the MEM file Lastly the way in which DSR does hyphenation often causes confusion There is NO automatic hyphenation facility within DSR The user must decide whether a word can be hyphenated and if so where To indicate where a word can be hyphenated the equals sign is used as a hyphenate flag When the hyphenation facility is enabled then any words containing an are potential candidates for hyphenation and the sign indicates where the word can be broken Note that a word can contain more than one if it can be broken in several places If it is not necessary for the work to be hyphenated the hyphen flag naturally does not appear in the output document February 1984 bs There are two commands to allow use of the hyphenation facility FLAGS HYPHENATE and ENABLE HYPHENATION or EHY with corresponding disabling commands NO FLAGS HYPHENATE and DISABLE HYPHENATION DHY There are three distinct situations possible 1 NO FLAGS HYPHENATE has been set In this case irrespective of whether HYPHENATION is enabled or disabled any sign in the text is output as it is 2 FLAGS HYPHENATE and DHY set hyphenation disabled Any sign in the text is recognised as a potential hyphen but is not used and so does not appear in the output text You must use _ in this case anywhere you want an sign to appear in the o2. command QUME which will set the terminal characteristics appropriate for the Spinwriter It is possible to use the terminal as an ordinary VDU by leaving the Spinwriter switched off You can buy your own ribbon from the operators alternatively you can use the ribbon already in the Spinwriter which will give a light print density towards the end of its life Non standard thimbles can be obtained by special order consult the Advisory MEerVic ul udhal February 1984 Use oF RUNOFF The following three points of difficulty frequently crop up in the use of DSR the Digital Standard RUNOFF text formatting package It is not immediately apparent from the manual how to get round these difficulties and so the cures are described here Firstly users often find that a new page of their document does not start at the top of the physical page when continuous paper is being used To explain this phenomenon the concepts cf form size and page size must first be understood The form size is the maximum number of lines that can be accommodated on the paper being used for the output document at 6 lines per inch the 8 lineprinter paper used by the Laboratory can hold 48 lines and the continuous A4 paper can hold 72 lines DSR by default assumes that the output form size will be 66 lines per page the reason for this is that 11 paper is the commonly used size for continuous forms The page size is the number of lines to be used in
3. user callable routines in this latest version Users will access this library if they specify NAG LIB in the LINK command Only one routine that was available at Mark 9 of the library COSNAF has been withdrawn The recommended replacement for this routine is either COSNBF or COS5NCF Another routine DOIFAF has been scheduled for replacement at the next release of the library Any users of this routine should start using its replacement DOIGBF as soon as possible Further details about the NAG library can be found in the VAX HELP files and in the NAG library Manuals which are kept in the main terminal cluster areas Note that the NAGHELP command is also available for use in getting on line information about NAG routines It may be of some interest to users to know that 11 of the example programs listed in the NAG manuals are also supplied with the NAG library In view of the shortage of disk space however these are not kept on line at present If you wish to obtain copy of a particular example program this can generally be arranged although for relatively brief programs it would be quicker to type in the example yourself Please contact Malcolm Bain CLSMB ext 8203 with requests for particular example programs February 1484 L SURFACE I1 GrapHics SYSTEM The SURFACE II Graphics System which can produce contour maps and 3 dimensional block diagrams from spatially distributed data has now been interfaced to the GHOST 80 gra
4. Power dips system put down 16 1 84 2 RPO unsafe light on 2 4 1 84 Reboots 10 Scheduled 5 lpm 4 S Dev Unscheduled 5 1 power fault Hardware faults 4 SAVB 3 Power fluctuations system put down 2 3 4 16 1 84 4 System disc corrupted 2 16 1 84 Reboots 13 scheduled 1 unscheduled 12 Power faults 5 System hung 2 Bug checks 2 Systems disc 3 February 1984
5. University of St Andrews COMPUTING LABORATORY FILE RESTORES NEC SPINWRITERS USE OF RUNOFF GLOBAL SYMBOLS TRANSFER OF BBC CASSETTE DATA TO VAX MICROCOMPUTER DEMONSTRATIONS NAG LIBRARY MARK 10 SURFACE I1 GRAPHICS SYSTEMS VAX SERVICEABILITY FIGURES NEWSLETTER February 1984 Nore ticush St Andrews KY16 9SX Scotland Telephone 76161 1 Fite Restores Currently the operators receive frequent requests for files to be restored which users have accidentally deleted Several points should be borne in mind o The regular backups of the user disks are primarily intended to ensure that in the event of a disk crash the disk can be restored to as recent a state as possible o The backups are NOT designed to guard users from accidental deletion of their own files Of course in cases where a user has lost a significant amount of data which he cannot readily recreate the Laboratory will take a sympathetic view and do its best to recover a recent copy of the file from its dump tapes This may not always be possible o The availability of the tape drives and the load on the system will be adversely affected if the operators have to do restores too frequently Consequently all requested for file restores should be made to the Advisory Service not the operators Requests should only be made if the amount of information lost is substantial NEC SPINWRITERS Two NEC Spinwriters have been purchased and are now availab
6. e new system as soon as possible and to contact Malcolm Bain in the Computing Laboratory CLSMB ext 8203 if they cannot February 1984 6 VAX SERVICEABILITY FIGURES Overall service from 7 am Sth December 1983 to 7 am 2nd January 1984 SAVA SAVB hrs mins hrs mins Period covered time 672 00 672 00 Scheduled Preventive Maintenance 2 30 2 30 Scheduled Software Maintenance 0 00 0 00 Scheduled Back up Dumps 0 45 0 30 Scheduled Systems Development 1 50 0 00 User Service 605 40 663 10 Time lost Unscheduled maintenance 0 00 4 15 2 Hardware faults 61 15 1 1 35 2 Software faults 0 00 0 00 Other lost time 0 00 0 00 System Recovery Time 0 00 0 00 SAVA 1 Formatting and restoring RPO7 with Bad Blocks 21 15 hrs 6 7 12 83 RPO down unsafe light on 40 00 hrs 31 12 83 1 1 84 Reboots 5 3 scheduled plus 2 unscheduled SAVB 2 WCS PCS Power Supply and Controller replaced 7 12 83 Reboots 4 1 scheduled 3 unscheduled Overall service from 7 am 2nd January to 8 am 30th January 1984 SAVA SAVB hrs mins hrs mins Period covered time 672 00 672 00 Scheduled Preventive Maintenance 2 30 3 00 Scheduled Software Maintenance 0 00 0 00 Scheduled Back up Dumps 1 30 1 00 Scheduled Systems Development 3 05 3 50 User Service 588 55 626 40 Time lost Unscheduled maintenance 2 45 2 0 25 4 Hardware faults 57 00 2 4 50 4 Software faults 0 00 0 00 Other lost time 16 15 1 32 15 3 System Recovery Time 0 00 SAVA 1
7. each page of the output document usually this will not exceed the form size and it is set within the RNO file by the PAGE SIZE command DSR normally starts each page of the output MEM file with a form feed character which causes the printer to advance to the top of the next page However if the preceding page had contained exactly the same number of lines as the form size then the printer would have already advanced to the top of the next form in this event a form feed would generate a blank page and so DSR omits it This sytem works satisfactorily provided that the form size has been set correctly If the actual form size is 72 for A4 paper and the default form size has been used 66 then any page following a page of exactly 66 lines will not start with a form feed because DSR thinks that the printer is at the top of the form already asa result the next page continues on the same form as the previous page The solution is to override the default form size by using the FORM SIZE qualifier on the RUNOFF command For example RUNOFF FORM SIZE 72 should be used for A4 output An additional question has been incorporated into the locally written DSR command to give the user the opportunity to change the form size The second point concerns underlining By default spaces will not be underlined If you want a space to be underlined then use the ACCEPT flag _ in front of it so that it is treated as any other printable character
8. fined automatically when you log in are now redundant and have been ear marked for removal from the global login file A4PRINT JOBSTART OLDBASIC OLDFORT APPLYTREE JOBEND NEWBASIC NEWFORT DC RSUBMIT February 1984 TRANSFER OF BBC CASSETTE DATA TO VAX The Micro Group in the laboratory can now offer a file transfer service for micro users wishing to transfer programs on BBC format cassettes to the VAX mainframes The cassette files should be recorded at 300 baud if possible but 1200 baud cassette files can be handled by arrangement To record a file at 300 baud type TAPE3 then save in the normal way To use the service contact Alan Young ext 8205 MICROCOMPUTER DEMONSTRATIONS A demonstration of Rank Xerox Microcomputer equipment has been arranged for Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th March It will take place in the Microcomputer User Area of the Mathematics Institute Contact B Campbell ext 8114 or P Robertson ext 8112 for further details On Wednesday 21st March Gate Microsystems of Dundee will be demonstrating their range of microsystems which includes the Commodore and Apple products The demonstration will be in the Microcomputer User Area room Cl level 1 of the Maths Institute between 10 am and 4 pm All interested are invited to attend NAG LIBRARY Mark 10 The latest version Mark 10 of the FORTRAN NAG library will be available on the VAX system from Tuesday 28th February 1984 There are 28 new primary
9. le to users one is situated in the User Area of the Computing Laboratory and replaces the existing Qume terminal The other has been sited with the terminals in the Psychology cluster These new terminals complement the Spinwriter in the computer room which currently serves the print queues A4 QUME and SYS QUME The intention is that users with specialised requirements for the output of their documents can now use the publicly available Spinwriter Such needs include the use of single sheets thimbles containing special character sets or a different character pitch The owerator manned service on the Spinwriter will continue as before with continuous paper a standard thimble Elite 12UK and 12 characters per inch pitch Note that the hash symbol appears as the sterling pound sign on this thimble You should note that the Spinwriters are high quality output devices and should only be used to produce final copies of documents The documents must have some academic purpose the Spinwriters are not provided for typing personal letters Draft copies can be printed on the line printer on normal 8 paper or A4 forms Multiple copies must not be printed on the Spinwriters instead these should be obtained by photocopying the final copy The Svinwriters do not have a keyboard of their own but instead run off the printer port of a Hazeltine display terminal Prior to printing a document on the Spinwriter you should type the locally written
10. phics system Thus SURFACE II pictures can now be produced on any of the graphics devices attached to the VAX systems In particular pictures can now be submitted to the Printronix printer plotter and the high quality Benson 92i1 plotter from any terminal The new implementation of SURFACE II is invoked with the command SURFACE2 This command cannot be abbreviated As before you will be prompted for the names of the files containing the SURFACE Ii cemmands to be executed and the data to be processed and the files to which the execution report and text output should be directed in addition you will be asked for the name ef the GHOST 80 gridfile to take the graphical output The pictures thus deposited in this gridfile can subsequently be produced on any cf the devices supported by GH ST 80 Further detaiis on SURFACE II are contained in a free usernote No 4 available from the Computing secretaries and from the SURFACE II Reference Manual which is kept in the Computing terminal area Information on producing pictures from GHCST 80 gridfiies may be found in the CHOST 80 User Manual especially chapter 3 and in HELP GHOST GRIDFILES on the YAX It is important to note that this implementation of SURFACE Ii requires no modification to existing files of SURFACZ II commancs or data but does produce files of graphical output that are in a different format from those produced by the SURFACE command Existing users are urged to start using th
11. utput text 3 FLAGS HYPHENATE and EHY set hyphenation enabled Any sign in the text is recognised and is converted to a nyphen only where necessary otherwise it will not appear in the output text Again you must use to output an sign in such text As the default settings are ENABLE HYPHENATION and NO FLAGS HYPHENATE you will see that to use the hyphenation facility all you have to do is to precede the relevant section of text by FLAGS HYPHENATE and thus arrive at situation 3 above Alternatively if you have text full of signs to indicate hyphenation points but wish to avoid actual hyphenation in certain sections you can have FLAGS HYPHENATE set for the whole text to recognise the signs and then use DHY and EHY respectively before and after those sections where hyphenation is not to be used Thus the existence of two enabling commands allows a greater flexibility in use and the default setting of ENABLE HYPHENATION means that signs are both recognised and used as hyphens if only one command FLAGS HYPHENATE is given Additionally the FLAGS HYPHENATE command may be used to change the hyphenation indicator for all or part ef the text FLAGS HYPHENATE for instance will recognise as the hyphenation indicator and all the remarks relating to the sign will now refer to any signs in the text will now be output as ordinary characters GLOBAL SYMBOLS The following global symbols de
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