[11489] in Athena Bugs
vax 7.6E: The spreadsheet XESS has frozen up on XESS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dot@MIT.EDU)
Mon Dec 6 10:45:15 1993
From: dot@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 10:44:49 EST
To: parinell@MIT.EDU, bugs@MIT.EDU
Cc:
>Sorry about the sketchy details, but the form doesn't seem to encourage
>verboseness. I've since used xess in the cluster in bldg 11 with success,
>but I'm afraid to use the ones in the OE cluster. My whole keyboard and
>mouse would freeze completely for at least 5 minutes (I couldn't wait longer)
>and needed to be rebooted. This happened several times. There was no
>pattern to the specific task I was performing at the time of lockup (once I
>was changing a data range for a graph, once I was copying some cells, once
>I was adding some text to a graph, once I don't remember). I switched to an
>adjacent machine, but same problem. Even when it was working, there was a
>problem when it would list files and directories for loading a spreadsheet.
>It's difficult to explain, but the individual pixels in each of the letters
>in a filename or directory name wouldn't line up properly unless the cursor
>were directly over top of the letter. I hope this helps.
>
Well, it helps somewhat. If this behavior is particular to the
VAXstation platform (which is what I read in your description), then we
both cannot and will not fix it. I don't mean this as harshly as it
sounds, but the VAX is on the way out as an Athena workstation. All of
the public VAXen will be replaced this IAP, and ones in departmental
clusters will be replaced next summer. The software on these machines
is, in many cases, slightly older and buggier than that on our other
platforms, and newer versions are simply not available. I'm sorry that
this is inconveniencing you, but my only advise is to avoid using the
VAXstations whenever possible.
Dorothy Bowe
