[rescue] Culling some goodies!

[Bill Stivers]

Hey all:

I have:

4x Assorted BA356 disk enclosures with varying numbers of fast scsi disks
with cabling
2x Compaq Alphaserver DS20Es.
- Both functioned fully when last used.
- No skins or case plastics.
- A little external case rust on one but nothing too gross.
- Both dual processor configurations
- Both with reasonable complement of RAM.
2x SGI Indigo 2 Teal Cases
- unknown RAM and other configurations
- both worked when powered down
- fully intact case plastics, which is unusual.
1x Vaxserver 3800
- Extremely rough
- I suck at debugging DEC card configurations
- Did I mention extremely rough?
- But also good case plastics.

I am in the Santa Cruz mountains in Ben Lomond, California.

I would like to, in order of preference:
- Trade for Sun. IBM, or "quirky random Unix" stuff that better fits my
knowledge level, collection theme, and skill.
- Turn both alphas + all of the other stuff + some cash into a smaller,
faster alpha that I can tolerate running in my house
- Give them to a home that I know will be staggeringly good and awesome
where I know they'll get the love and attention I cannot give them.

I'm not super eager to ship any of this, because most of it wants to be
freighted... definite preference for locals.. but I will entertain any
possibility.

More stuff is coming, this is just the first round of my cull.

Best,

--Bill
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[John Hudak]

Hi Bill:
Am interested in one of the Indys...Desktop case? CPU? Graphics card?
I am on the east coast, ...in the event you don't get any takers, and can
bubble wrap and case and stick it in a box to send, we can talk
arrangements.
Best regards,
John

Post by Bill Stivers
4x Assorted BA356 disk enclosures with varying numbers of fast scsi disks
with cabling
2x Compaq Alphaserver DS20Es.
- Both functioned fully when last used.
- No skins or case plastics.
- A little external case rust on one but nothing too gross.
- Both dual processor configurations
- Both with reasonable complement of RAM.
2x SGI Indigo 2 Teal Cases
- unknown RAM and other configurations
- both worked when powered down
- fully intact case plastics, which is unusual.
1x Vaxserver 3800
- Extremely rough
- I suck at debugging DEC card configurations
- Did I mention extremely rough?
- But also good case plastics.
I am in the Santa Cruz mountains in Ben Lomond, California.
- Trade for Sun. IBM, or "quirky random Unix" stuff that better fits my
knowledge level, collection theme, and skill.
- Turn both alphas + all of the other stuff + some cash into a smaller,
faster alpha that I can tolerate running in my house
- Give them to a home that I know will be staggeringly good and awesome
where I know they'll get the love and attention I cannot give them.
I'm not super eager to ship any of this, because most of it wants to be
freighted... definite preference for locals.. but I will entertain any
possibility.
More stuff is coming, this is just the first round of my cull.
Best,
--Bill
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

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rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Mike Spooner]

Post by John Hudak
Am interested in one of the Indys...Desktop case? CPU? Graphics card?
I am on the east coast, ...in the event you don't get any takers, and can
bubble wrap and case and stick it in a box to send, we can talk
arrangements.
Best regards,
John

<cough> <choke> That's no Indy, it's an Indigo2! You'd be flayed within an
inch of your life if you equated those on any Silicon Graphics fora :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Indigo%C2%B2_and_Challenge_M
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/i2info.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Indy
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/indyinfo.html

-- Mike
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[Jerry Kemp]

Wish these weren't so far away from Texas.

Would have loved to have the Silicon Graphics stuff. :(

I'm sure they will find a good home though.

Jerry

Post by Mike Spooner

Post by John Hudak
Am interested in one of the Indys...Desktop case? CPU? Graphics card?
I am on the east coast, ...in the event you don't get any takers, and can
bubble wrap and case and stick it in a box to send, we can talk
arrangements.
Best regards,
John

<cough> <choke> That's no Indy, it's an Indigo2! You'd be flayed within an
inch of your life if you equated those on any Silicon Graphics fora :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Indigo%C2%B2_and_Challenge_M
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/i2info.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Indy
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/indyinfo.html
-- Mike
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[Jonathan Patschke]

Post by Jerry Kemp
Wish these weren't so far away from Texas.
Would have loved to have the Silicon Graphics stuff. :(

I've got at least a back-seat[0] full of SGI stuff that it's time to part
with. Every piece is neurotic in one way or another, but I've quite the
pile of spares and OS discs[1] for rehab purposes.

If you feel like a project or two, I'd sure appreciate having the space
back for newer and bigger projects.


[0] Probably a small pickup truck bed, if you packed it to keep the
plastics pretty.
[1] Plus a ready-to-go VMware appliance I threw together for netbooting
IRIX.

[Phil Stracchino]

Post by Jonathan Patschke

Post by Jerry Kemp
Wish these weren't so far away from Texas.
Would have loved to have the Silicon Graphics stuff. :(

I've got at least a back-seat[0] full of SGI stuff that it's time to part
with. Every piece is neurotic in one way or another, but I've quite the
pile of spares and OS discs[1] for rehab purposes.

I keep thinking about getting a more recent SGI box, maybe a Tezro or
Fuel, but I keep running short of the combination of time, space, and
"what to do with it".

[Richard]

Post by Phil Stracchino
I keep thinking about getting a more recent SGI box, maybe a Tezro or
Fuel, but I keep running short of the combination of time, space, and
"what to do with it".

Tezros and Fuels still sell for a pretty penny on ebay. Someone must
still be doing production work with them. After a long search I
eventually got a couple fuels for a reasonable price, but still
haven't been able to add a Tezro to the collection.

[Mark Linimon]

Post by Jonathan Patschke
If you feel like a project or two, I'd sure appreciate having the space
back for newer and bigger projects.

Probably what Jonathan and I should do is: once every two years, take
a pickup-truck load of stuff to the other person's house. Then when
it has collected two more years of dust, swap it back to him :-)

mcl
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[Mark Linimon]

A *slightly* more serious answer is that I am willing to gather up and
deliver various bits of our SGI and Sun goodies within "some kind of"
driving distance from Austin, TX, where Johnathan and I both live.

Gas money and sufficient bottles of imported beer are "requested
donations".

mcl
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[Dave McGuire]

Post by Mark Linimon
A *slightly* more serious answer is that I am willing to gather up and
deliver various bits of our SGI and Sun goodies within "some kind of"
driving distance from Austin, TX, where Johnathan and I both live.
Gas money and sufficient bottles of imported beer are "requested
donations".

My best friend (who is also deeply involved in the museum) literally
owns a high-end brewery. Will that get you all the way up to Pittsburgh?

-Dave

[Mark Linimon]

Post by Dave McGuire
My best friend (who is also deeply involved in the museum) literally
owns a high-end brewery. Will that get you all the way up to Pittsburgh?

Actually, yes: probably later this year.

My old college roommate lives in Pittsburgh and I stopped by last October
to disrupt^Wcatch up on old times. I think I have an open invite.

mcl
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[Dave McGuire]

Post by Mark Linimon

Post by Dave McGuire
My best friend (who is also deeply involved in the museum) literally
owns a high-end brewery. Will that get you all the way up to Pittsburgh?

Actually, yes: probably later this year.
My old college roommate lives in Pittsburgh and I stopped by last October
to disrupt^Wcatch up on old times. I think I have an open invite.

You were here in October and you didn't come up to visit?! WTF!

I'm deeply offended. And you know what that means: You're buyin'!

-Dave

[Mark Linimon]

Post by Dave McGuire
I'm deeply offended. And you know what that means: You're buyin'!

Aieeee!

(ok the first two rounds)
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[Dave McGuire]

Post by Mark Linimon

Post by Dave McGuire
I'm deeply offended. And you know what that means: You're buyin'!

Aieeee!
(ok the first two rounds)

That was easy. ;)

Ok, let me know when you'll be in town. Block out some time for LSSM;
it's a great thing, in my far-from-humble opinion.

-Dave

[Richard]

Post by Jonathan Patschke
[1] Plus a ready-to-go VMware appliance I threw together for netbooting
IRIX.

Nice! Do you have a set of instructions so others can create such a
thing?

[Jason T]

Post by Richard

Post by Jonathan Patschke
[1] Plus a ready-to-go VMware appliance I threw together for netbooting
IRIX.

Nice! Do you have a set of instructions so others can create such a
thing?

For years, the go-to for netbooting an SGI was DINA:
http://shiftleft.com/mirrors/dina.harrydebug.com/

But it looks like someone has tweaked their own version to address
some shortcomings: https://github.com/halfmanhalftaco/irixboot
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[Andrew Liles]

Author of irixboot here - I'm biased but I think it's the best method of
getting IRIX installed on pretty much any netboot-capable SGI. The
oldest machine it's been tested on so far is an R3000 Indigo with IRIX
4D1, I have no idea if older machines use the same scheme because I
don't have access to any unfortunately.

Would love to hear if others have had success with it or not.

-a

Post by Jason T

Post by Richard

Post by Jonathan Patschke
[1] Plus a ready-to-go VMware appliance I threw together for netbooting
IRIX.

Nice! Do you have a set of instructions so others can create such a
thing?

http://shiftleft.com/mirrors/dina.harrydebug.com/
But it looks like someone has tweaked their own version to address
some shortcomings: https://github.com/halfmanhalftaco/irixboot
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[Jonathan Patschke]

Post by Richard

Post by Jonathan Patschke
[1] Plus a ready-to-go VMware appliance I threw together for netbooting
IRIX.

Nice! Do you have a set of instructions so others can create such a
thing?

http://www.sunhelp.org/pipermail/rescue/2003-April/084767.html

To fill in the gaps, you need tftpd, bootpd (ISC dhcpd works), and NFSv2
configured to allow mounts from non-privileged ports.

With regards to step 1, put each disc's contents into a separate
directory. Usually you just need the "dist" directory's content, but
either Foundation 1 or Overlays 1 is "special" and needs the whole
contents. It's easiest just to expect you'll have to point inst at
$NFSROOT/65found1/dist and such.

Note: to copy the EFS disks (usually just Installation Tools 1; the rest
are Rock Ridge), you'll need a Linux machine configured with read-only SGI
EFS support.

With regards to step 3, that requires a running IRIX system, or copies of
the machine-specific kernel. I've got kernels for the Indy, Indigo2,
Indigo2 R10k, and Octane at least. The kernel on the "Installation Tools"
disc has no NFS support, so you have to do the install over rsh. The
miniroot has a full libc and friends, so an NFS-style path will DTRT when
the installer tries to mount it.

SGI firmware will find the kernel file using BOOTP in the usual way.

If there's sufficient interest, I could see about taking my VMware image,
removing the IRIX images (for DMCA reasons), and providing documentation
for setting it up. IIRC, it's built on OpenBSD 5.5-ish.

[Carl R. Friend]

Post by Mike Spooner
<cough> <choke> That's no Indy, it's an Indigo2! You'd be flayed within an
inch of your life if you equated those on any Silicon Graphics fora :-)

The teal Indigo 2s are actually sweet little machines. I've got
one in my stable that's based on the R-8000 chip, which I believe is
a bit of an oddity.

For Indys, I have one that's a day-to-day runner and another
one with the Presenter panel that I fire up every so often for the
fun of it. Another Indy seemed to have died a while ago (when I
had it at work) but when I fired it up at home over the past week-
end actually ran well. Of course the "N"VRAM batteries are all flat,
but one gets used to putting the MAC address back into them whenever
one powers them up. (I need to do the surgery on the chips to install
an external battery...)

When did those chips get discontinued?

Cheers!

[Richard]

In article

Post by Bill Stivers
2x SGI Indigo 2 Teal Cases
- unknown RAM and other configurations
- both worked when powered down
- fully intact case plastics, which is unusual.

Unusual indeed. These things are heavy and the plastics seem to be
inordinately fragile. They require pretty careful shipping to keep
the plastics intact.

The teal ones show up semi-regularly on ebay, being the weaker of the
two colors. The purple ones had upgraded graphics, motherboard and
CPU, IIRC.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals-wiki.org>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://ComputerGraphicsMuseum.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://LegalizeAdulthood.wordpress.com>
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[Earl Baugh]

Ibve been looking for a SGI 4d/35 TGX with z-buffering for a long time.
Anybody have one theybd part with?

Earl
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