Message: 8
Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 11:25:29 -0600
From: "Jason T" <silent700 at gmail.com>
Subject: SGI Crimson (was:13W3-3BNC cable)
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID:
<51ea77730801050925n2a68cd01wcbfb2a0bd2af23c5 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On Jan 5, 2008 10:46 AM, Scott Quinn <compoobah at valleyimplants.com> wrote:
>So since mine says "Server" yet has a 13W3 gfx board (haven't opened
>it up to ID it yet, and can't get into the OS to do a gfxinfo) it was
>probably a field-upgrade? I do have the "Elan" badge as well, and the
>owner only had one Crimson, so I'm assuming that's where it came from.
The only way to be positive is if you open the case. the 13W3 connection was the standard monitor connector for SGI's for almost a decade.
>"Pimp my SGI," I guess, and just make use of the nicer gfx board
>before the dead Iris gets scrapped.
Just part it out and sell it on nekochan.net if you are going to scrap it.
>I got an internal cdrom recogzined last night. The only Irix distro I
>have now is 6.5. Will the Crimson at least load fx from that? It was
>acting like it couldn't even find the file, though, giving some scsi
>errors if I booted into the hdd's fx and tried 'ls dksc(....)" on the
>CD. I tried an Apple CD600i and a Toshiba model which was listed in
>the SGI cdrom survey. Of course, they could be bad drives, who knows.
> Too many variables!
>
>Next method will be to attach the boot drive to another SGI and edit
>/etc/passwd from there.
>
>Thanks for all the helps
Most of the older PROM style systems had an issue booting from a cd drive. You can't just use any with them. Many people report that Plextor drives are some of the best and Toshiba drive are right behind. Don't forget also that the cd drive must be ID 4 and be set for 512 byte sectors (not 1024 or 2048). I personally have never tried booting my crimson with my 6.5 cd's but if you just use FX from an Irix 5.3 cd you should be fine.
Well since I see someone else here is chatting about their red box it
might be nice to ask questions too.
My Crimson was given to me by a person who originally got several
desksides at a Boeing sale. When I got the system it had a ruined RM4
(raster manager) board and was missing it's GE8 (Geometry Engine) board.
Turns out that the GE8 was accidentally sold and the RM4...well....I
guess that is what you get when you grab a random RM4 off a pile of
boards and install it before inspecting it.
The system is otherwise fine (aside from the lower side skirts missing,
no drive sleds, a dead fan tray and not much ram) however it would be
nice to find another GE8 board and see the Reality Engine, the best
graphics option for the system, come back to life with another RM4.
Who here has some spare trays and/or a GE8 board they are not using? It
might also be nice to get more ram also.
Chris,
I know this is an old thread I am looking at, but if you still have a copy of Realistic MPA-100 owners manual, I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Kenny
I'm assuming that this is on-topic as the equipment I wish to use this
in is microprocessor controlled (68000) piece of test equipment - the
Fluke 9100 series of microprocessor test fixtures.
What my group of friends (Tech Tools Mail List) are looking for is a
cost effective replacement for the ancient SCSI drives with flash being
an optimum solution, but trying to find the most cost effective solution...
I've only found one solution (Adtron S35FA) on line with a bit of
hunting, but not reading the current magazines I'm probably overlooking
a number of possibilities.
Anyone have suggestions?
Thanks,
John :-#)#
--
John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9
Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"
On Jan 5, 2008, at 8:20 AM, Jochen wrote:
> May it be possible that the Crimson uses High Voltage Differential SCSI
> for its disks like some HP9000 server class machines? In that case a
> Single Ended device will look up the bus completely. Check the model
> designator on the disks if they are SE or HVD...
> --
The base I/O on 4D-series (including Crimson) machines was SE SCSI-I
(WD 33c93) on the IO3B. HVD can be installed through VME options, but
was not standard (as it was in the later Onyx/Challenge).
The OP may want to look at Gerhard's page about the Crimson
(http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/hardware/machines/crimson.php), which
gives more details about the SCSI configuration.
On Jan 5, 2008, at 8:20 AM, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org Richard wrote:
> Oh, a VGXT. I've wanted one of those in my collection as its the
> first SGI machine with hardware texture. I'm still fuzzy on what the
> difference is between a Crimson and a VGXT, aside from the graphics
> bits.
Crimson is the base machine, VGXT is the graphics set - similar to what
you get with smaller boxes (i.e. you can have an Indigo2 in XL,
EXtreme, IMPACT, etc.). VGXT is the 3rd generation high end SGI
graphics (1st - IRIS graphics, 2nd - GTX, 3rd - VGX(T), 4th - Reality)
Jason T wrote:
> I believe the
> Server had no gfx at all? Now inside the door I also found an "Elan"
> tag with the glue worn off, so I'm guessing it may have gotten a field
> upgrade, video card and label.
>
> I've got a dead Iris 410/VGXT downstairs. Wonder if I can transplant
> the gfx board from that into the Crimson?
Servers (S) didn't come with graphics. Later SGI separated out their
server lines even more with a different base name (Challenge/Origin),
but during the late '80s the base model was the same.
Regarding the gfx upgrade:
You can, but SGI never wrote a good OpenGL implementation for the
PowerVision VGX/VGXTgraphics hardware, so much of the work is done by
the main CPU (IRIS GL is fully supported). So, it depends on what you
want to do with it...
>
> Anyone tried to use external SCSI on a Crimson (or Iris?) Mine has
> all the drive bays full (3 HDD and a 150mb tape) and I'm trying to get
> a CDROM hooked up temporarily so I can reset the root pw on the drive.
> There are two external SCSI connectors. If I attach to the left
> one, I lose my hard drives (and still no cdrom seen in 'hinv.') If I
> attach to the right one, nothing.
It should be the one on the cardcage (make sure termination is good).
If that doesn't work, you can loop it in the two connectors on the
bottom right (one cable from lower connector to CD-ROM, one cable from
CD-ROM to top connector). Is the jumper present? There should be a
short cable between the two, and you might have oddities if this isn't
there (such as the cardcage connector not functioning).
One possible gotcha- IRIX 6.2 fx for the Crimson is broken, so you'll
need to fx with either an earlier IRIX (4.0.5-5.3) or fx on a different
SGI.
All of this is per the SGI hardware developer's handbook, I don't have
a Crimson.
On Jan 5, 2008, at 8:20 AM, Jason T. wrote:
> I did see the Sun cable with the 4 BNC on US ebay and thought the
> same. I'm not sure if that fourth lead is relevant.
>
Nope - unconnected it's just floating, the same as if it wasn't there.
SGI 4Ds have always used sync-on-green, so connect your x BNC -> 13W3
up and connect the RGB leads, ignoring the other ones. You do need to
have a SOG-capable monitor.
A few years ago I picked up a DEC TSZ07 and would like to access it
>from my PC.
The DEC TSZ07 is a tabletop 9-track tape drive with a SCSI-1
interface. Apparently it was originally manufactured by Cipher Data,
model 955-S.
I'd just like to write some files out to tape and then read them back.
I don't have to recover/restore any data from an old tape. Ideally
>from a Windows machine.
Has anyone tried this? Is there any software available?
Matt
Roswell, Georgia
> Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 12:27:57 +0000
> From: Stroller <classiccmp.org at stellar.eclipse.co.uk>
>
> On 3 Jan 2008, at 18:35, John Robertson wrote:
>> ...
>> What my group of friends (Tech Tools Mail List) are looking for is
>> a cost effective replacement for the ancient SCSI drives with flash
>> being an optimum solution, but trying to find the most cost
>> effective solution...
>>
>> I've only found one solution (Adtron S35FA) on line ...
>
> I'm not immediately able to find pricing on the Adtron product, but
> IDE-SCSI adaptors - to allow you to connact an (E)IDE hard-drive to a
> SCSI bus are readily available. CF flash memory cards "talk EIDE" and
> again simple pin-out convertors are readily available - and also very
> cheap - or you can make your own.
To get specific with part numbers...
Acard makes the Acard 7720 in a few varieties. In this case you'd want
the 7720U probably for its narrow interface (7720UW has 68 pin interface
and there are LVDS flavors as well). This has a narrow (50 pin) single
ended SCSI interface on the upstream side and a regular 3.5" IDE (as
opposed to notebook drive) interface on the downstream side.
It retails for about $70, but there's a fellow selling a boat-load of used
ones on Ebay for $30 each. I have some new ones I'm selling for $39
which include the little power splitter/adapter and a nice instruction
sheet. :-)
Once you have the 7720U, you have two directions you can go. Go as you
planned and get any of the inexpensive IDE<=>CF Card adapters, which
typically cost well under $10. Geeks.com has an assortment for $5 each
with a dual CF card adapter for $7.50 in their "controllers/adapters"
section.
The other direction you could go is to get a 2.5" to 3.5" drive adapter
for about $5 (again at geeks.com, there's a cheaper one, but the $5 one
comes with rails as well as circuit board) and add any of the 2.5" IDE
hard drives you can find littering the ground.
There can be gotchas depending on your equipment. One resourceful fellow
in Australia used an IDE to CF card adapter in the PowerBook 150, IIRC,
only to find that the IDE in the PB150 interpreted the device ID of CF
improperly (built before or around time spec was finalized) and would not
recognize it. His solution was to build an adapter board to recognize and
intercept the ID transaction and then let all other transactions pass.
As I mentioned, a resourceful fellow.
The point being, there are possible compatibility problems depending on
the equipment being used.
Jeff Walther
