Re: MMA 2.1 on HP9000 and HP 700/X X-terminals
- To: mathgroup at yoda.physics.unc.edu
- Subject: Re: MMA 2.1 on HP9000 and HP 700/X X-terminals
- From: jacobson at cello.hpl.hp.com
- Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 09:13:30 -0700
David Harrison writes:
> I am having some trouble with the interaction between Mathematica 2.1
> on an HP 9000/750 and a HP 700/X X-terminal. In a nutshell, all graphics
> commands cause the X-terminal to crash. Example:
>
> Mathematica 2.1 for HP 9000 RISC
> Copyright 1988-92 Wolfram Research, Inc.
> -- Motif graphics initialized --
>
> In[1]:= Plot[ Sin[x], {x,0,Pi}]
>
> Out[1]= -Graphics-
>
> In[2]:=
>
> At this point, after about 10 seconds the X-terminal totally locks
> up and I have to power-cycle it. I see no sign of a graphics
> window trying to appear. When I rlogin back in to the HP9000,
> I find a 'motifps' process using 'ps' with about 5 seconds of cpu
> consumed.
> [[Lots more details deleted.]]
We experienced a similar problem here at HP Labs. We are running
Mathematica 2.1 on an HP 9000/870, which is basically a snakes machine
(9000/700 series) set up to be a timesharing machine. When we
installed 2.1 it came only with the Motif window manager stuff (if I
recall correctly). That seems to run okay, aliet a bit slow, when I use my
personal workstation, an HP 9000/834 as an X server, but some of our
users were using HP 9000/RX X terminals. (I don't know the exact
model or configuration.) With that sytems it just ground to a halt.
A relatively simply plot would lock everything up for over a half hour!
It turned out that from on older version of Mathematica or from having
been a beta test site or something, we had the old X11 files around,
and I discovered that with those installed everything works perfectly.
If you have the .../StartUp/X11.m and
.../Bin.HP9000S[78]00/Display/x11ps files around, then you can fix the
problem. If you can't find them somewhere then bug WRI to give them
to you. (Of course, I am not actually advocating violating your
license agreement or copyright laws. If in doubt, consult WRI or your
legal advisor.)
Your init.m file probably contains something like this:
Which[
$Remote, <<"PSDirect.m",
Environment["DISPLAY"] =!= $Failed, <<"Motif.m",
True, <<"Terminal.m"
]
Change it to this:
Which[
$Remote, <<"PSDirect.m",
Environment["DISPLAY"] =!= $Failed, <<"X11.m",
True, <<"Terminal.m"
]
When we made this change, everything worked perfectly, and the
graphics had the "Out[23]" type labels, which we missed under motif.
-- David Jacobson