======================== SSC News, December, 1994 ======================== This is the SSC News. This monthly electronic newsletter will keep you informed about recent changes on the SSC computer networks. We hope this information will help improve communication between the SSC computing staff and all of you computer users out there. Inside this issue... Cluster will be Unavailable January 3-4 for VMS Upgrade Status of Application Software for EAGLE SOC, AGE, and CDE to be Retired December 17 Status of SPSS for EAGLE Two Nodes Added to UNIX Network STATA Available on UNIX SSC Training for Next Semester Pentium Floating Point Division Bug ------------------------------------------------------- Cluster will be Unavailable January 3-4 for VMS Upgrade ----------------------------------------------------------- We will be upgrading VMS on the VAXes to version 6.1 on January 3rd and 4th, 1995. This will require the entire cluster to be down for that time. Logins may be possible on the 4th, or part of it, but we are reserving those two days for this project and do not promise any uptime on the 4th. The differences between the current version of VMS and version 6.1 are not great. The difference that seems to affect most users is that TPU (a.k.a. EVE) becomes the default editor invoked with the EDIT command. Many users have already adapted to this difference because VMS 6.1 has been running on EAGLE since it was made a part of the cluster in September. For that reason and because many people prefer EVE anyway we have decided not to change the system default. If you want EDT to be the EDIT command's default editor, put the following in your LOGIN.COM file if you have not already done so: $ edit :== edit/edt The change in the default behavior of the EDIT command has no effect on emacs users. ---------------------------------------- Status of Application Software for EAGLE ---------------------------------------- SPSS PRERELEASE available now (read article below for details) SAS 6.09 Available now. Glim 4.0 Available now. LISREL/PRELIS Available now. Minitab 9.1 Available now. LIMDEP 6.0 Available now. (Invoke with LIMDEP6_0) EMACS Available now. GOPHER GOPHER, SSCGOPHER, BULLetin, and OLDBULL available now. LYNX Available now. LOOKUP Have VMS source code. Compile was unsuccessful. ODH Have VMS source code. Need to try to compile it. HOTZTRAN Have VMS source code. Need to try to compile it. WordPerfect An Alpha version has been promised by Christmas. EQS Waiting to hear whether an Alpha version is available. HLM We are in the process of buying the AXP/VMS version. CTM Checking whether we have suitable source code. BOUNDS Have VMS source code. Compile was unsuccessful. Would any of you VMS programmers be interested in helping us with the porting of some of these programs like ODH, CTM, RATE, or BOUNDS? If so, please contact Tom Flory. ------------------------------------------- SOC, AGE, and CDE to be Retired December 17 ------------------------------------------- As we have been promising for the last 12 months, we are finally able to retire SOC, AGE, and CDE. See the related article below. R.I.P. ------------------------ Status of SPSS for EAGLE ------------------------ Two weeks ago we received a "PRE-RELEASE" version of SPSS 5.0a for EAGLE, our OpenVMS AXP machine. We had been told and were expecting to receive a production version of the software. Pre-release software (or sometimes called BETA release) is just what its name implies -- code that is not fully developed or tested. Also, not all the code is implemented with some prerelease software as is the case with the SPSS code we received. SPSS Inc. is now saying that the production version of SPSS for OpenVMS AXP won't be available until second quarter of 1995, which in reality probably means sometime next summer. A fair-sized list of problems with this prerelease version of SPSS have been uncovered. Details of some of these problems can be found in bulletin. We have reported these problems to SPSS Inc. and are hoping they can provide a fix soon. Unfortunately, SPSS Inc. only sent this prerelease to 30 schools (no commercial sites) which means it isn't getting a whole lot of testing. This delay in a production version of SPSS has put us in a bind because we have been waiting to get SPSS for EAGLE so that we can provide enough access to SPSS to justify retiring AGE, CDE, SOC, and SSCC, which all run SPSS. But with the version of SPSS on EAGLE being so unstable, many users will choose not to use it. So, in order that we can move forward with the cluster consolidation plans and provide adequate access to SPSS, we have decided to go ahead with the retirement of AGE, CDE, and SOC and put another copy of SPSS 4.0 on ROBIN. That will give users access to SPSS on SSCB, SSCC, ROBIN, a few of the smaller VAXstations, and EAGLE (if you choose to use it there). Then, when SPSS finally does go production with SPSS 5.0 for OpenVMS AXP, we will install it on EAGLE and retire SSCC. We plan to retire AGE, SOC, and CDE and make SPSS 4.0 available on ROBIN on December 17. Tape jobs will continue to have the same access to SPSS that they have always had. ------------------------------- Two Nodes Added to UNIX Network ------------------------------- We have added two DEC ALPHA machines to the UNIX network which we are calling ELAINE and WINGRA. Both are agency-owned nodes. WINGRA is owned by IRP and is thus available to any SSC member with an IRP affiliation. ELAINE is owned by the Sociology Department and is thus available to any SSC member with a Sociology affiliation. ELAINE and WINGRA run the flavor of UNIX called OSF. We have one other node in the UNIX network,NORMAN, which runs OSF. Ultrix and SunOS users will notice minor differences in syntax and output. Because OSF is such a new operating system, not much software is available for it. So far, we have installed STATA, LIMDEP, RATE, and CTM. We also have a C and FORTRAN compiler. If you encounter problems with ELAINE or WINGRA, please contact the consultant. There is still system work to be done on these machines, so expect some downtime with little notice over the next month or two. ----------------------- STATA Available on UNIX ----------------------- We once again have STATA on the UNIX network. Version 3.1 has been installed on the following nodes: o WINGRA -- an IRP agency node o ELAINE -- a SOCIOLOGY agency node o CDE1S-6S -- CDE agency nodes The SSC Publication, 7-12, "Using Stata on UNIX" provides the information you will need to get started. This handout is available in the user rack in Social Science 2470 or on-line in sscgopher. Copies of the manuals are in the consulting office in 2470, the CDE data library, and the CDE print library. There is some set-up work involved if you want to use the X version of Stata. The information you need is in the SSC handout. Next semester we will offer a training session on using STATA. Watch for the announcement in broadcast. ------------------------------ SSC Training for Next Semester ------------------------------ We are planning SSC computer training sessions for next semester. If there is some topic you would like to suggest, or if you would like to volunteer to teach a training session, please contact Nancy McDermott. ----------------------------------- Pentium Floating Point Division Bug ----------------------------------- This is probably old news to those of you having Pentiums, but just in case, it's worth mentioning. A design flaw has been discovered in the floating point unit on Intel's Pentium chip. Double precision divisions involving operands with certain bit patterns can produce incorrect results. This bug could turn in up in software using double precision arithmetic like SAS and SPSS. Fortunately, the bug is very rare. For more information, visit one of your favorite news groups like comp.sys.intel, comp.soft-sys.sas, comp.soft-sys.spss, or sci.stat.consult. TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS NEWSLETTER, just reply to this mail message indicating you want to unsubscribe. We will remove you from the distribution list for future electronic mailings. If you ever change your mind, just notify the SSC Consultant or send mail to SSCNEWS asking to get back on the list.