INFO-VAX Mon, 27 Oct 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 581 Contents: Re: Bell Labs closes Re: Bell Labs closes Re: Bell Labs closes Re: Bell Labs closes RE: Bell Labs closes Re: Bell Labs closes DCPS setpagedevice PS error on a Xerox WCP 35 Re: DCPS setpagedevice PS error on a Xerox WCP 35 Does anyone know what time it is? SYS$GETTIM Re: Does anyone know what time it is? SYS$GETTIM test: is google groups stuck Re: test: is google groups stuck Re: test: is google groups stuck ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:12:57 +0100 From: Michael Kraemer Subject: Re: Bell Labs closes Message-ID: Richard B. Gilbert schrieb: > Right now I'd be VERY careful with ANYTHING "Made > in China". Unfortunately there is not much choice left over to buy sth *not* made in China. > It's a shame that they, and other countries, have to learn the hard way, > lessons that the rest of the world takes for granted! > > Even though humans CAN learn from the experience of others, it seems > that we don't do it very well! It seems those countries learn only part of the lessons. I.e. the easy part: "be greedy and get rich real fast". ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:21:37 +0100 From: Michael Kraemer Subject: Re: Bell Labs closes Message-ID: JF Mezei schrieb: > The other issue here is that while you accept that people in Asia will > enentually get higher wages and better living conditions, nobody accepts > that the western world would have to lower its standard of living in > order to remain competitive. Has happened already. Over here employees with lower wages (i.e. a big chunk of the population) have seen further erosion of their effective income over the past decade. Only the "upper ten thousand" benefit from globalization. I guess it's not that much different in the rest of the western world. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:00:44 -0000 From: "John Wallace" Subject: Re: Bell Labs closes Message-ID: "Richard B. Gilbert" wrote in message news:ecadndGnNJnJrZjUnZ2dnUVZ_tbinZ2d@comcast.com... > JF Mezei wrote: > > Neil Rieck wrote: > > > >> the UNIX operating system and the C programming language), Bell Labs > >> is closing. What has happened to the sputnik society? > > > > As I read the article, it made it look much more like what Hurd did to > > HP's R&D department (HP Labs ?) than "closing". The article says that > > Alcatel will get Bell Labs to focus on marketable products instead of > > toy around with esoteric concepts. > > > > The USA has so far survived because of R&D allowing it to be first to > > market with new products (especially in IT and telecom), and asia > > eventually manufacturing them at lower cost under contract. > > > > When the chinese start to get their own R&D efforts like Bell Labs, > > watch out. They will truly rule the world. > > > > And world economics will have to change. The current system is based on > > some balanced flow of goods/money between countries. Not sure it can > > support a very large country like the USA living almost entirely on > > imported goods and exporting very little. > > > > In the case of Cars, the USA may have been importing lots of cars from > > Canada, but the profits from making cars in Canada all went back to the > > USA (because GM/Chrysler/Ford are based in USA). So it is a fairly > > balanced exchange. > > > > When Kraft Australia exports cheese to Japan, profits end up eventually > > flowing back to Kraft's USA headquarters and shareholders. So while it > > doesn't affect USA trade numbers, it does help the balance of payments. > > > > > > But when you have chinese owned industries exporting goods to the USA, > > the profits stay in China and the trade imbalance is very big. > > > > When the Chinese get their house in order to the point where no one > would even think of adulterating milk with melmine, they will become > a commercial power. Right now I'd be VERY careful with ANYTHING "Made > in China". > > It's a shame that they, and other countries, have to learn the hard way, > lessons that the rest of the world takes for granted! > > I read, five or six years ago, about a hotel fire in Singapore. Only > the desk clerk survived! There were bars on all the windows, no fire > escapes, no sprinkler system, etc, etc! No building codes or fire > codes? Officials "on the take"? > > Even though humans CAN learn from the experience of others, it seems > that we don't do it very well! "Right now I'd be VERY careful with ANYTHING "Made in China". Indeed. But in practice, what choice do we have, how can we be careful, when in many market sectors the globalisation beancounters already exported all the manufacturing jobs (and the associated pollution etc) from the West to China and the like, in the interests of "competitiveness", leaving customers no choice except which badge is on our Chinese-made product? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 06:44:03 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Bell Labs closes Message-ID: <49059c87$0$9642$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> John Wallace wrote: > Indeed. But in practice, what choice do we have, how can we be careful, when > in many market sectors the globalisation beancounters already exported all > the manufacturing jobs (and the associated pollution etc) from the West to > China and the like, in the interests of "competitiveness", leaving customers > no choice except which badge is on our Chinese-made product? Individuals can make that choice. I bought a reel lawnmower (those manual ones) from Canadian Tire (former-hardware-now-walmart_wannabe store). It lasted 1 year. I needed one of the cogs that drive the cutter from movement of wheel. Was quite the experience to tracks the "Yardworks" brand from a Canadian Tire house brand, contracted to McCulloch, a company that doesn't exist anymore (owned by chinese) and eventually tracking down a place that had the part numbers for that model of mower I had. Once I got the part numbers, I found out lead time for that cog was over 6 months because it had to be ordered from china. I ended up buying a similar mower with a "Scotts" brand which was made by American Lawn Mower https://www.reelin.com/ Last year, the mower had an unfortunate encounter with a car backing out of driveway. Called their number, told them I had the 20" model from Scotts, that I needed 1 spare back wheel and the middle part of handle bar, and I got it within a week by mail. No need to hunt down part numbers because the people who answered the phone knew their products (even if American Lawn Mower doesn't sell its own version of the 20" one marketed by Scotts). Since the mower was less than a year old, they said it was covered by warrantee. (I ended up buying the sharpening kit while I was at it). The difference in service and ease of doing business was HUGE. Good customer service can exist in Asia, but generally, it doesn't. Now, if you buy garment for a 2 year old kid that will be outgrown in 6 months, you don't care about service or quality. But for something which you hope will last and for which you might need to have spare parts, then it starts to make quite a difference. Now, because I am the odd one in the neighbourhood, mowing the lawn with that manual mower, I have had a few people stop and ask questions about it. Everytime, I mention to not buy the canadian tire one because it comes from china and you can't get spare parts for it. If everyone did that, then people would either buy more locally, or they would demand that chinse products come with good service and easy of getting parts. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:23:10 +0000 From: "Main, Kerry" Subject: RE: Bell Labs closes Message-ID: <9D02E14BC0A2AE43A5D16A4CD8EC5A593ED8166D58@GVW1158EXB.americas.hpqcorp.net> > -----Original Message----- > From: David J Dachtera [mailto:djesys.no@spam.comcast.net] > Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 10:27 PM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Bell Labs closes > > "Main, Kerry" wrote: > > > > [snip ..] > > > > Darwin theory - "it's not the strong that will survive, but rather > the > > most adaptable to change ..." > > Well, no - not quite. The essence of Darwin is that those species which > are BEST ADAPTED to their environment are the most able/likely to > survive. If the environment changes, it can take many generations for > adaptations to appear that will help a species to continue/recover. > > For example, "drug resistant" microbes did not "respond"to antibiotics, > rather they simply continued their natural proclivities for mutation. > Those that survive in the greatest numbers are those least susceptible > to antibiotics. > > I understand what you were trying to say. My point is that Darwin is > not > a good source for appropriate citations in that context. > Ok, regardless of the source, the point remains that, contrary to what many people would like to see, the rate of change in the world is on the increase. One can stand by and argue about the good ole days or you can recognize things are changing and take some steps which will hopefully put you in a better position to adapt to those changes. Having been through 30 years of Digital->Compaq->HP and now EDS integration, it Is interesting to see how change impacts a company's culture and the people involved (some good, some not so good). > In and of itself, change is neither good nor bad. "It depends". > Regardless, it is inevitable, so one needs to recognize this and take steps to deal with it. One good example is Canada starting discussions with Europe for free trade agreements. Some may not like this, but the reality is that the world is rapidly becoming (even more so) a global economy. > Change for the sake of change rarely produces anything positive. > > Change where change is appropriate usually leads to a more desirable > result than the status quo. > Agreed - "planned" change is more desirable than "reactive" change. However, as the recent financial crisis has shown, sometimes there are things that happen that are totally out of your control. Regards Kerry Main Senior Consultant HP Services Canada Voice: 613-254-8911 Fax: 613-591-4477 kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom (remove the DOT's and AT) OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:20:40 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: Bell Labs closes Message-ID: <00A81B95.5CC47CE3@SendSpamHere.ORG> In article , Michael Kraemer writes: >Richard B. Gilbert schrieb: > >> Right now I'd be VERY careful with ANYTHING "Made >> in China". > >Unfortunately there is not much choice left over to buy >sth *not* made in China. I didn't even have to buy. APC just sent me a "Swiss Army Knife" made in China (from the peel off sticker on the knife). -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM ... pejorative statements of opinion are entitled to constitutional protection no matter how extreme, vituperous, or vigorously expressed they may be. (NJSC) Copr. 2008 Brian Schenkenberger. Publication of _this_ usenet article outside of usenet _must_ include its contents in its entirety including this copyright notice, disclaimer and quotations. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:54:22 GMT From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan-Erik_S=F6derholm?= Subject: DCPS setpagedevice PS error on a Xerox WCP 35 Message-ID: Hi. I just setup a new queue against a "Xerox WCP 35". Or "Workcentre Pro 35" as it's also called, at least I *guess* that it's the same printer ! "Xerox WCP 35" is in the list of supported printers in the DCPS management manual. When printing (a text file printed as "ANSI") we get an Postscript error from the printer. It's a page with only the following text printed : > ERROR: rangecheck > OFFENDING COMMAND: setpagedevice > STACK: --dict--, Nothing else on the page and nothing after the ending ",". The DCPS$xxx_PRODUCT_NAME logical is def as "Xerox WCP 35". (But it didn't make any change when defined...) And the DCPS$xxx_PARAMETER is def as "DATA_TYPE=ANSI". (Didn't change anything either...) Now, while looking for solutions I thought I'd post a question here about it also at the same time. In case someone else has seen this before... Best Regards Jan-Erik. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:53:07 GMT From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan-Erik_S=F6derholm?= Subject: Re: DCPS setpagedevice PS error on a Xerox WCP 35 Message-ID: Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote: > Hi. > I just setup a new queue against a "Xerox WCP 35". > Or "Workcentre Pro 35" as it's also called, at least > I *guess* that it's the same printer ! > > "Xerox WCP 35" is in the list of supported printers > in the DCPS management manual. > > When printing (a text file printed as "ANSI") we get > an Postscript error from the printer. It's a page > with only the following text printed : > > > ERROR: rangecheck > > OFFENDING COMMAND: setpagedevice > > STACK: --dict--, > > Nothing else on the page and nothing after the ending ",". > > The DCPS$xxx_PRODUCT_NAME logical is def as "Xerox WCP 35". > (But it didn't make any change when defined...) > > And the DCPS$xxx_PARAMETER is def as "DATA_TYPE=ANSI". > (Didn't change anything either...) > > Now, while looking for solutions I thought I'd post > a question here about it also at the same time. In case > someone else has seen this before... > > > > Best Regards > Jan-Erik. I shold have added that we uses "IP_LPD/nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn" and DCPS$SPOOL is defined. Other IP_LPD printers works fine on the same system, including other Xerox printes, both running Postscript and PCL. This is the first "WCP 35" printer... Jan-Erik. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:13:46 -0400 From: "Stanley F. Quayle" Subject: Does anyone know what time it is? SYS$GETTIM Message-ID: <4905945A.20969.1A028ABB@infovax.stanq.com> I'm developing an application on VAX/Alpha/Itanium that uses timers to cover I/O operations. Earliest VAX and Alpha versions needs to support V6.2. This application is launched as a detached process, and needs to run 7 x 24. The code uses SYS$GETTIM exclusively to get the current time, and timeout values are added to that value, and then a timer is set (typically for 5-30 seconds). What happens when daylight savings time kicks in (or out)? It's not clear from the manuals that those timers will still fire at the right interval. And what happens in V6.0-V6.2? Or is the behavior the same as V7.0 and later? Yes, I know that someone doing a SET TIME will mess this all up. But I can't prevent privileged idiots from really messing things up... --Stan Quayle Quayle Consulting Inc. ---------- Stanley F. Quayle, P.E. N8SQ Toll free: 1-888-I-LUV-VAX 8572 North Spring Ct., Pickerington, OH 43147 USA stan-at-stanq-dot-com http://www.stanq.com/charon-vax.html "OpenVMS, when downtime is not an option" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:21:05 -0400 From: "John Vottero" Subject: Re: Does anyone know what time it is? SYS$GETTIM Message-ID: "Stanley F. Quayle" wrote in message news:4905945A.20969.1A028ABB@infovax.stanq.com... > I'm developing an application on VAX/Alpha/Itanium that uses timers to > cover I/O > operations. Earliest VAX and Alpha versions needs to support V6.2. This > application is > launched as a detached process, and needs to run 7 x 24. > > The code uses SYS$GETTIM exclusively to get the current time, and timeout > values are > added to that value, and then a timer is set (typically for 5-30 seconds). > > What happens when daylight savings time kicks in (or out)? It's not clear > from the > manuals that those timers will still fire at the right interval. > > And what happens in V6.0-V6.2? Or is the behavior the same as V7.0 and > later? > > Yes, I know that someone doing a SET TIME will mess this all up. But I > can't prevent > privileged idiots from really messing things up... > It depends on whether you pass an absolute time or a delta time to sys$setimr. If it's just before 2am and you set a timer for 2:30am, when the time jumps to 3am your timer will fire (even though you just set it). If you had passed a delta time of 30 minutes, the timer would fire 30 minutes later (and the time would be 3:30am). I think it has always worked this way. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:48:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Neil Rieck Subject: test: is google groups stuck Message-ID: <6eaf031a-7396-46d3-b0fa-1b6bed54e7a6@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com> I posted a few messages to google groups on Sunday but nothing has appeared (yet). Is google groups broken? Neil ------------------------------ Date: 27 Oct 2008 11:51:14 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: test: is google groups stuck Message-ID: <6mlo9iFhe15mU1@mid.individual.net> In article <6eaf031a-7396-46d3-b0fa-1b6bed54e7a6@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, Neil Rieck writes: > I posted a few messages to google groups on Sunday but nothing has > appeared (yet). Is google groups broken? > One can only hope!! bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:23:05 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: test: is google groups stuck Message-ID: <00A81B95.B34F8749@SendSpamHere.ORG> In article <6eaf031a-7396-46d3-b0fa-1b6bed54e7a6@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, Neil Rieck writes: >I posted a few messages to google groups on Sunday but nothing has >appeared (yet). Is google groups broken? We can only hope so. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM ... pejorative statements of opinion are entitled to constitutional protection no matter how extreme, vituperous, or vigorously expressed they may be. (NJSC) Copr. 2008 Brian Schenkenberger. Publication of _this_ usenet article outside of usenet _must_ include its contents in its entirety including this copyright notice, disclaimer and quotations. ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.581 ************************