Hi,
 
Evan writes:
 
> I had a FAFFing hang late last night -- PIN 17 ran away with the CPU.
>
> Does anybody know if pin 17 has special significance (& if so, what)?
 
Well, it depends on several things:
 
   1) is that decimal 17 (#17), or hex 17 ($17)?
 
   2) how many volume sets do you have; how many mirrored volume sets?
 
   3) unknown vagaries of the PIN god :)
 
Seriously, PIN $17 is likely to vary from site to site, and perhaps
bootup to bootup.  PIN #17 is somewhat less likely to vary, but it's
still possible.
 
However, on a given machine, it's highly probable (but *not* guaranteed)
that when you bootup again, pin #17 will be the same process as the
prior time  (why?  because it's a low number, and things tend to get done
in the same order each time you boot)   (but...not guaranteed!)
 
So, to see what PIN #17 is now, do one or more of the following:
 
   0) See my 1993 paper on determining the names for processes from
      their PINs:
         http://www.allegro.com/papers/whorun.htmtl
 
   1) use SHOT, from Lund Performance Solutions  (plug :)
 
       Pin  Cpu   Process Name          Pri Q Delta  %  Ic Wait State
     - --- ------ --------------------- --- - ----- --- -- ---------------
     ...
        17     20 io_mgr_process         13 A           nn MsgPort#-113
 
   2) :SHOWPROC 17; SYSTEM
 
   3) :DEBUG
      pin #17; tr, i, d     /* or, possibly:   pin #17; cm; tr
 
   4) Take a recent memory dump, load it with DAT, and say:
 
      DPTREE #17
 
   5) Use an MI-based tool like SOS/3000 from LPS, or Glance/iX from HP.
 
 
--
Stan Sieler                                          [log in to unmask]
                                     http://www.allegro.com/sieler.html