CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Preface

  1      SPEAR Overview
    1.1 Introduction
    1.2 The SPEAR Library
    1.3 User Profiles and Interaction

  2      The System Event File
    2.1 Introduction
    2.2 Entry Categories
      2.2.1      Software Entries
      2.2.2      Hardware Entries
        2.2.2.1      CPU Timeout Failures
        2.2.2.2      Adapter and Controller Failures
        2.2.2.3      I/O Device Failures
      2.2.3      Performance Entries
    2.3 Recording Events
      2.3.1      Record Format
      2.3.2      Record Conventions for Numbers and Dates

  3      Isolating Failures
    3.1 Introduction
    3.2 Types of Failures
      3.2.1      Characteristics of Solid Failures
      3.2.2      Characteristics of Intermittent Failures
    3.3 Error Detecting and Checking
      3.3.1      Hardware Error Detectors
      3.3.2      Software Error Checking
    3.4 Isolation Techniques
      3.4.1      Isolation
      3.4.2      Verification

  4      The SPEAR Library
    4.1 Introduction
    4.2 Running SPEAR
      4.2.1      Prompts, Responses, and Arguments
      4.2.2      Separators and Terminators
      4.2.3      HELP Features
      4.2.4      File Specification
      4.2.5      SPEAR Switches
      4.2.6      Exiting from SPEAR
    4.3 INSTRUCT
      4.3.1      Setting Up a Student ID
      4.3.2      Using INSTRUCT as a Reference Tool
    4.4 RETRIEVE
      4.4.1      RETRIEVE Input
      4.4.2      RETRIEVE Output
      4.4.3      RETRIEVE Procedure
        4.4.3.1      Retrieving Selected Events
        4.4.3.2      Sample RETRIEVE Session
        4.4.3.3      Cryptic Format
        4.4.3.4      Hexadecimal Format
        4.4.3.5      Short Format
        4.4.3.6      Full Format
    4.5 SUMMARIZE
      4.5.1      Summarize Report
      4.5.2      Error Register Codes
      4.5.3      SUMMARIZE Procedure
      4.5.4      Sample SUMMARIZE Session
    4.6 COMPUTE
      4.6.1      COMPUTE Reports
      4.6.2      COMPUTE Formulas
      4.6.3      COMPUTE Procedures
      4.6.4      COMPUTE Summary Report
      4.6.5      COMPUTE FULL Report
    4.7 VSR
      4.7.1      VSR Input
      4.7.2      VSR Output
      4.7.3      Signal Files
      4.7.4      Register Files
      4.7.5      Header Files
      4.7.6      VSR Procedure
      4.7.7      VSR Sample Session

  5      Entry Descriptions
    5.1 Introduction
    5.2 System Event File Entries
      5.2.1      Device Error
      5.2.2      Machine Check
      5.2.3      Memory Error
      5.2.4      System Start-up
      5.2.5      ERRLOG.SYS Created
      5.2.6      Periodic Time Stamp
      5.2.7      Fatal Bugcheck
      5.2.8      Volume Mounted
      5.2.9      Volume Dismounted
      5.2.10     Device Time Out
      5.2.11     DW780 Interrupt
      5.2.12     Asynchronous Write Error

  A SPEAR Messages

  B Commonly used OpenVMS and VMS Mnemonics

  C Disk Subsystem Error Bits

  D VAX 8600 Console SNAPSHOT File Information

  Glossary