What can I DO with it?
DoN. Nichols
Bill Bradford <mrb...@ionet.net> wrote:
>I finally got a 3b1 (2mb RAM, 40Mb HD), but it's been sitting on my
>kitchen table for about two weeks doing nothing. Are there any
>"killer apps" or cool games out for the 3b1? Any ports of
>Adventure?
Certainly, adventure will compile and run on the system. Here's the
contents of the /usr/games directory on the 3b1 which I currently have
running (with some comments):
total 754
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin bin 95569 Jul 27 1991 gdc
This turns your whole screen into a digital clock.
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 51440 Jun 30 1992 klondike
A solitare game with good graphics
drwxr-xr-x 2 bin bin 48 Oct 28 1992 lib
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin bin 9808 Jul 27 1991 life
A fairly good implementation.
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin bin 16600 Jul 27 1991 mahjongg
A port of the one which appeared first on the Sun under SunTools.
Obviously, it must be monochrome, but otherwise it has the same feel as the
version I have running on my SPARC systems.
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin bin 6148 Jul 27 1991 moire
Graphics toy
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin bin 158365 Jul 27 1991 yahtzee
ASCII graphics, so it will run on any terminal.
> I need something that I can DO with this machine to
>justify it taking up the space on the kitchen table. (otherwise
>the wife is going to slowly dismantle it and feed it down the
>garbage disposal to get it out of the way).
This would require a replacement garbage disposal, too. (Perhaps
she is trying to get a replacement one? :-)
>BTW, how do I create an account that goes straight to shell,
>without going into the UA?
If you'll look at the .profile generated for your account, you'll
see:
======================================================================
#sccs "@(#)install:.profile 1.3"
ENV=$HOME/.kshrc;export ENV
HISTFILE=$HOME/.kshistory;export HISTFILE
HISTSIZE=128;export HISTSIZE
if [ "$SHFLAG" != 1 ]
then
exec /usr/bin/ua
======================================================================
Note in particular the last three lines. The /etc/profile goes
through a lot of shenanigins, and if it determines that they terminal you
are using is unlikely to support ua, it sets $SHFLAG to '1', forcing the
system to skip the last line, which is what throws you into ua. You could
comment out those last three lines, or have it prompt you for a choice of
'u' for ua, or any other character for a shell login.
Or ... you could import another shell, such as tcsh, and change the
entry in the /etc/profile line to point to your shell of choice. In the
following example, my shell of choice is tcsh:
csu:Not-Likely:0:0:Csu on faisdodo:/u/csu:/bin/tcsh
Since tchs does not use /etc/profile (or $HOME/.profile), it avoids all of
this, though you may need to go through and set up addtional environment
variables and/or paths since you will be bypassing the normal system
initilization.
> I assume the UA is so tightly bonded
>to the system that there's no way at all to run a shell-based,
>text-ONLY system...?
Of course there is. There are several ways -- except that system
administration is a bit easier with ua in place. You can learn enough to do
it all without ua, but it is convenient to have it around for those tasks
which you do sufficiently seldom so you don't remember how to do them.
To do without the window manager, you'll need to run the cron
daemon. Normally it is wrapped into the window manager.
>Anybody wanna swap me a Voice Power board for a DOS-73 card?
You mean give you a VP and receive a DOS-73 in exchage? Not
likely! I already have two DOS-73 cards, and don't use them.
>bill bradford * mrb...@ionet.net
>
>PS - how the HECK do I tell the system that I wanna use an external
>modem (14.4, but I'll run it at 9600) instead of the interal 1200
>for the comm program? Is a null-modem necessary between the system
>and the modem? I keep getting error messages saying something
>like "/dev/tty000 does not exist, define it".
Check whether the entry in /dev actually exists. It should look
like this:
crw-rw-rw- 1 root sys 0, 0 Jan 1 1970 /dev/tty000
Where the 'c' at the beginning of the modes indicates that this is a
character special file, and the "0, 0" in place of the size are the major and
minor device numbers. If the file is missing, you'll need to do:
/etc/mknod /dev/tty000 c 0 0
to re-create it. If it looks like a regular file, delete it and run the
above command line.
Good Luck,
DoN.
--
Email: <dnic...@d-and-d.com> | ...!uunet!ceilidh!dnichols
Donald Nichols (DoN.) | Voice (Days): (703) 704-2280 (Eves): (703) 938-4564
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---
Acolyte of Skuld
Bill Bradford <mrb...@ionet.net> wrote:
>I finally got a 3b1 (2mb RAM, 40Mb HD), but it's been sitting on my
>kitchen table for about two weeks doing nothing. Are there any
>"killer apps" or cool games out for the 3b1? Any ports of
Nethack 3.1.3 will compile on the 3b1 with no trouble, and is a great
way to waste vast amounts of time. I'm not sure if Adventure has been
ported or not, but the OS does come with a decent version of Worm.
Also, a friend of mine has a spiffy solitaire program which takes
advantage of the machine's graphics capabilities.
>BTW, how do I create an account that goes straight to shell,
>without going into the UA? I assume the UA is so tightly bonded
>to the system that there's no way at all to run a shell-based,
>text-ONLY system...?
If you modify the user entries in /etc/passwd so they point to a real
shell (say, /bin/ksh) instead of UA, that account will then log
straight into the shell. All of the things that the UA office stuff
acts on for Install can be found in various files scattered about
/etc and /bin, for the most part; if you know your way around a UNIX
system you can do everything from root and never use the UA at all.
>and the modem? I keep getting error messages saying something
>like "/dev/tty000 does not exist, define it".
If there's no tty000 in /dev, something's happened to the device
definition, and it'll need to be remade. I dunno how to do that, so
I'll leave it to the more in-depth gurus.
--G.
--
"It's the car, right? Chicks love the car." -- Batman
gry...@world.std.com gry...@hotblack.gweep.net -><-