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Epson NX Product Support Bulletin
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1. This program reboots the computer twice in the process so make sure that you select to boot DOS each time so as not to disturb the compression process The only effect this has from the NeXTSTEP perspective is that your DOS files will no longer be available from NeXTSTEP instead of the MS DOS_6 disk icon you ll see one called host_for_c this is the uncompressed partition that DoubleSpace uses for the actual compressed volume What about MemMaker MemMaker the memory optimizer included with MS DOS 6 0 has absolutely no effect on NeXTSTEP It can safely be used to optimize memory utilization for MS DOS and Windows EPSON Product Support Bulletin Subject Proper Method for Running Benchmark and Diagnostics Programs Date 06 04 93 PSB No S 0158 Page s 1 of 1 Originator MWT This bulletin describes the proper method for running any benchmark or diagnostics programs This applies to any computer system In most cases the computer should be started using an MS DOS boot diskette that s clean in other words one with no CONFIG SYS or AUTOEXEC BAT files The appropriate executable can then be run either from diskette or hard drive There will be some exceptions to the above rule In attempting to benchmark or troubleshoot any add on that requires a device driver CD ROM local area network etc obviously the necessary device driver s must be loaded Also some programs will require a minimum number of FILES or BUFFE
2. 15 to 20 minutes to complete When it has repaired the file system it will automatically restart the system I see there s an icon for a MS DOS_6 disk can I run my DOS and Windows programs from NeXTSTEP With release 3 1 no NeXT will be releasing an optional third party package called SoftPC which is a DOS simulator This will allow you to run DOS and Windows applications from the NeXTSTEP Workspace including drag and drop capability between all applications SoftPC should be available later this year Then why is the DOS partition accessible at all Certain files can be accessed from both OS environments The most common type of file is a straight ASCII text file Note however that DOS and Mach use different end of line or EOL characters DOS uses CR LF where Mach uses LF alone Other examples would be applications that exist for both environments and share a common file format WordPerfect is such an application From NeXTSTEP you can either access eligible DOS files from the DOS partition or copy them into a folder directory in the Mach partition You can also copy eligible NeXTSTEP files to the DOS partition for later manipulation from DOS You cannot however access the Mach partition from DOS due to the differences in the file systems PSB No S 0167 Page 5 of 7 You mentioned networking isn t that a lot more complicated in UNIX than it is in DOS Yes but NeXTSTEP makes it very simple NeXTSTEP was design
3. computer off Like all UNIX based systems an orderly shutdown should be performed This is because the Mach file system is completely dynamic in other words things are constantly changing on the fly Fortunately NeXTSTEP provides a very easy way to do this From anywhere in NeXTSTEP even at the Mach command prompt simply hold down the right Alt key and press NumLock This causes the message Restart or halt Type r to restart or type h to halt Type n to cancel PSB No S 0167 Page 4 of 7 to be displayed in a terminal window or at the command line Type h and the system will start the shutdown procedure safely unmounting the active file systems Wait until you see the message It s safe to turn off the computer and then power the system down Typing r to restart is the equivalent of Ctrl Alt Del in DOS Mach ignores the Ctrl Alt Del keystroke sequence Okay what happens if the system is NOT shut down correctly say there s a power outage When power is restored the system will come up in a dirty condition file links and pointers will be disorganized and the file system will be in an unknown state At a certain point in the boot process Mach displays the message checking disks At this point it will run the program fsck for file system check This is similar to the DOS CHKDSK command but much more thorough Depending on the size of the drive and the condition of the file system fsck can take up to
4. 7 What does a normal NeXTSTEP boot up look like The system will go through its normal power on process displaying the BIOS versions RAM count etc If it s one of the 525MB HDD systems you ll then see the SCSI BIOS version Then the screen will clear you ll hear another beep and the message NeXT boot0O Type n for NEXTSTEP d for DOS 1 4 for partition Type n or wait for 5 seconds and you ll see NeXT bootl v1 17 gt gt NeXTSTEP 486 boot v1 17 gt gt 639 conventional 19456 ext Type for information abou nded memory 20MB system advanced startup options CT tT boot At that point press Enter or wait again for about 5 seconds and the operating system will continue loading With an EPSON NX that s in the original factory configuration you ll wind up automatically logged in to NeXTSTEP as the user account me So how is working in NeXTSTEP different from working in DOS or Windows Everything is graphically represented so in that respect it s similar to working in Windows Some of the conventions are different for example instead of drop down menus the active window s menu is always displayed in the upper left hand corner of the screen unless you place it elsewhere Another difference is that NeXTSTEP uses a spinning disk icon when it s busy accessing a drive as opposed to Windows hourglass icon Probably the biggest functional difference is that unlike DOS you can t just turn the
5. B of system memory standard One of these includes the NeXTSTEP Development software Finally there s a bare configuration no HDD no software NeXTSTEP MS DOS or Windows This is quite different from systems that Epson has offered in the past Is it new technology From a hardware standpoint no The EPSON NX is derived from the Progression 4 basic design In fact with the exception of the main board and front bezel parts are interchangeable between the two systems What s different about the main board Primarily the increase in video memory from 1MB to 2MB and the TI TLC34076 RAMDAC as opposed to the Brooktree BT484 RAMDAC used in PSB No S 0167 Page 2 of 7 the Progression 4 series This called for a new board layout to accommodate the increased component count What Ethernet adapter is being used Actually two different adapters will be used the Intel EtherExpress 16C and the SMC EtherCard PLUS Elite 16 Combo These adapters will be used interchangeably and both provide BNC thin Ethernet AUI thick Ethernet and RJ J45 10BaseT Ethernet connectors This gives the EPSON NX true plug n play capability in virtually any Ethernet environment What options are available Additional SIM modules FDDs and HDDs 17 and 20 Professional Series monitors and a SCSI host adapter Other options may be made available in the future Note that NeXTSTEP only supports a 3 5 1 44MB FDD so a 5 25 1 2MB FDD would b
6. EPSON Product Support Bulletin Subject Epson NX Multimedia PC CDR101 ERROR Date 05 18 94 PSB No S 0176 Page s 1 of 1 Originator RWS This bulletin provides updated reinstallation information of the Multimedia software from the Media Vision Spectrum 16 Drivers for DOS and Windows installation disk The product codes affected are A432360 A432361 A432370 A432371 PROBLEM CDR101 errors are exhibited when the CD ROM drive is accessed after the reinstallation of the Media Vision software The CDR101 errors are due to an OLD version 3 06 of TSLCDR SYS 34 239 dated 7 15 93 being installed to the hard drive This file is in compressed form on the installation disk and therefore is not listed if a directory command is performed on the installation disk SOLUTION Copy the NEW version 3 12 of TSLCDR SYS 34 975 dated 12 01 93 Included in the root directory of the Media Vision INSTALLATION disk to the C SPECTRUM directory on the hard drive Then RE BOOT the PC To copy the NEW version of the TSLCDR SYS file to your hard drive insert the Media Vision installation diskette into the floppy drive A go to a DOS prompt C gt and type in the copy command listed below followed by pressing the ENTER key C gt COPY A TSLCDR SYS C SPECTRUM NOTE Copy the NEW TSLCDR SYS file to your hard drive each time the Media Vision installation diskette is used to reinstall the multimedia software VERIFICATION 1 Re boot you
7. RS to be defined in the CONFIG SYS file Such programs will usually display this requirement if they are run without the necessary CONFIG SYS file For the most consistent results use the absolute minimal boot configuration that s allowed by the hardware being tested PSB No S 00621 Page 1 of 18 EPSON NX 1 11 1 12 SYSTEM 270010 U1 INITIAL RELEASE 1 11 1 12 SETUP 270512 U113 1 13 1 14 201311201 SYSTEM 270010 U1 1 13 1 14 201311301 SETUP 270512 U113 Corrected jagged cursor display in interlaced mode with the BT 482 RAMDAC when using the hardware cursor Wingine display drivers Serial BIOS has been expanded to support COM3 and COM4 Parallel BIOS has been corrected to provide support for LPT1 LPT3 Corrected inability to run SETUP when an adaptec AHA 1540C or 1542C SCSI host adapter is installed by modifying POD to run external ROM initialization routines just prior to invocation of SETUP Corrected timing of parallel port STROBE signal to allow for slow rise time and longer cable lengths Removed internal cache test The cache test failed regardless of cache condition Since the 80486 CPU perform internal cache testing at power up disabling the POD cache test will not affect system performance SEE ECN NO PROG4 002 12 03 93 EL3S 33 PART DESC TYPE REASON
8. e useful only in the DOS Windows environment SOFTWARE Q A What is NexTSTEP NeXTSTEP is an advanced Mach based operating system that integrates object oriented technology industry standard networking and connectivity and an outstanding graphical user interface GUI It provides true multitasking in a very user friendly environment Okay what s Mach Mach is an operating system that was designed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University It s based on a simple communication oriented kernel and is designed to support distributed and parallel computation while still providing UNIX 4 3BSD Berkeley San Diego compatibility For all intents and purposes Mach looks like the 4 3BSD implementation of UNIX and the terms Mach and UNIX can be used interchangeably But I ve heard that UNIX is very intimidating is that true Yes UNIX can be very intimidating to someone not familiar with it But with a properly installed and configured NeXTSTEP system the only UNIX ese that you see is during the initial loading of the operating system and that s all automatic The only exception is if your LAN adapter is installed and configured but you re not connected to a LAN you ll be prompted to type Ctrl C to continue without the network connection Since the EPSON NX HDD configurations have NeXTSTEP preloaded and configured you might very well never see the Mach command prompt unless you want to PSB No S 0167 Page 3 of
9. ed from the beginning to be a networked environment instead of having it tacked on after the fact If you take a brand new EPSON NX out of the box and connect it to an existing NeXTSTEP network the first time you boot into NeXTSTEP you ll be prompted to enter a name for your computer this name can be anything not already used by another system on the network So type in sirius or jsmith or foo or whatever and that s it Your system will be recognized on the network by that name and the IP Internetwork Protocol address will be automatically generated and assigned You ll now be able to send and receive E mail and access other resources on the network What about non NeXTSTEP networks like Novell NetWare There is an application called NetWareManager included that provides access to NetWare fileservers on the network This works in much the same way that DOS access does i e you can copy eligible files back and forth between the two environments or access them right from the NetWare file system NetWareManager is located in the NextAdmin folder Since NeXTSTEP is so graphically oriented what display resolutions are supported In the shrink wrapped release of NeXTSTEP 3 1 a display driver is included for the EPSON NX that supports 1024 x 768 x 64K colors An updated driver is available from NeXT 800 848 6398 that supports the native display mode which is 1120 x 832 x 64K colors Incidentally on a standard Progression
10. or Progression 4 NeXTSTEP would run at a resolution of 800 x 600 x 64K colors What about printing Since NeXTSTEP uses Adobe s Display PostScript for the display it logically uses PostScript printers A minimal number of PostScript Printer Description PPD files are installed by default but there are many more PPD files contained in the package Documentation pkg on the distribution CD ROM Included are virtually all of the Epson printers that support PostScript either in native mode or with an optional PostScript card This package can be installed using the Installer application PSB No S 0167 Page 6 of 7 SETUP TROUBLESHOOTING Q How do you run SETUP and are there any special considerations A SETUP is stored in ROM so you simply press F2 when prompted to at boot up The only special consideration so far as NeXTSTEP is concerned is the parallel printer port assignment If you enable the parallel port driver in NeXTSTEP using the Configure application without changing the default SETUP you ll see an error message when you reboot about not being able to initialize the parallel port This is because NeXTSTEP uses I O address 378h for LPT1 whereas the default SETUP uses 3BCh Just run SETUP and change the port to 378h and when you reboot you ll see a line that says pp0 enabled and you re ready to use the parallel port All you have to do is run the PrintManager application to select and configure your printer Q Wha
11. ould write down the exact error message as displayed A message such aS RDP exception typically indicates a hardware or software configuration error What should do if I think there s a hardware problem but NeXTSTEP doesn t clearly isolate it The first step would be to run some thorough diagnostic software on the system Unfortunately there are no readily available Mach or UNIX based diagnostics due to the fact that UNIX is relatively hardware blind There are a number of excellent third party DOS based diagnostic programs available such as QA Plus AMI Diagnostics Landmark AT Service Diagnostics and Checkit Tools If there is a hardware problem one of these programs should identify it If it doesn t and you still feel there is a problem you might want to have an authorized service technician check the system out What do I do if want to change the hard disk partition sizes Obviously the first thing to do is back up your data Then from DOS run the FDISK utility to change the partition sizes Of course you ll have to reinstall DOS Windows and NeXTSTEP Be sure that you install DOS first if you install NeXTSTEP and then install DOS DOS 6 does something to the partition table that doesn t really work correctly with NeXTSTEP Is there any problem using the DoubleSpace disk compression utility included with MS DOS 6 0 No Follow the directions in the MS DOS User s Guide for preparing the disk and then running DBLSPACE EXE
12. r EPSON NX Multimedia PC by turning it OFF and then back ON 2 Insert a CD ROM program disk into the CD ROM drive 3 Go to the DOS prompt C gt 4 Change to the CDROM drive by typing a D C gt D followed by the ENTER key 5 Do a directory command by typing DIR D gt DIR followed by the ENTER key 6 You should see a listing of the contents of the CD installed EPSON AMERICA INC E PS O N Product Support Bulletin Subject EPSON NX Questions and Answers Date 10 8 93 PSB No S 0167 Page s 1 of 7 Originator MWT HARDWARE Q A What is the EPSON NX The EPSON NX is a small footprint high powered desktop computer that is designed specifically for the NeXTSTEP for Intel operating system What are some of the standard features An Intel i486DX2 66 CPU 20MB or 36MB of system memory depending on the configuration VirtualCache memory architecture Chips and Technologies Wingine display controller with 2MB of video memory and high performance TI RAMDAC 16 bit Ethernet LAN adapter 16 bit sound card with speakers and microphone 3 5 1 44MB FDD NeXTSTEP for Intel 3 1 MS DOS 6 0 and Windows 3 1 preinstalled on all HDD configurations What configurations are available There are two IDE HDD configurations 170MB Conner CP30174E and 240MB Quantum LPS240AT Then there are two 525MB SCSI HDD configuration these use the Quantum LPS525S HDD and Adaptec AHA 1540B SCSI host adapter and comes with 36M
13. t do I do if the NeXTSTEP configuration gets corrupted for example if a non supported display driver is selected accidentally A There s a way to boot the system with a plain vanilla configuration At the boot prompt type the command config Default and press Enter This will use the configuration template that was used by the initial installation program You can then rerun Configure app and select the correct settings Do remember that Mach like UNIX is case sensitive unlike DOS Enter the command exactly as shown above Q The NeXTSTEP boot process keeps stopping with an RDP exception error message what should do A First follow the same steps as above to use the default configuration template and then check everything in Configure app Make sure that all of the settings are valid and match the physical configuration of the system If that doesn t correct the problem you have two choices either contact NeXT for software support at 800 848 6398 or reinstall NeXTSTEP using the boot floppy and CD ROM that came with your system PSB No S 0167 Page 7 of 7 How can tell if an error message is caused by hardware or software Hardware generated error messages are fairly specific such as parity errors device failures etc Either hardware or software problems can cause panic or kernel panic errors at boot up such messages will usually include additional information related to the error condition and you sh
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