12 Feb
2002
12 Feb
'02
11:34 p.m.
Christopher Smith wrote:
[re. broken SGI Indy]
He was able to find the faulty part. Honestly, I wish
I'd been
able to do that, myself, but I don't have the stack of SGI pieces
to do it :)
On an only slightly related note, IMHO the build quality and general
longevity of Silicon Graphics hardware really isn't what you'd hope
of kit that cost so much new...
I've seen Sun boxes that have been through the mill several times by
the look of things, but flick the switch and you're up and running
(possibility of needing to solder a battery onto the PROM
notwithstanding.)
Personal (limited, I grant you ;-) experience of Indys on the other
hand suggest you need at least 3 candidates handy if you want to put
together a working combination of power supply, processor and mobo/PROM.
And the chassis is horribly weak - the way the power supply clips into
place is very neat, but also makes it structurally very poor at the
join (L-shaped computer, anyone?)
I also don't think I've yet forgiven SGI for making the power
supply (simple slide-in/slide-out with two thumbscrews) on the O2000
a non user replaceable part - i.e. they won't sell you one without
a service contract and an engineer round to plug it in. And trying
to get an SGI Challenge to actually see all the devices on its SCSI
bus without trying them in 100 different permutations can keep you
occupied for at least an afternoon...
Which isn't to say I don't love 'em, an Indy is my main workstation at
home & the sight of SGI rapidly going down the tubes is deeply sad...
Cheers,
Tim.
--
Tim Walls at home in Croydon - Reply to tim(a)snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk
13 Feb
13 Feb
5:34 a.m.
Tim said:
Christopher Smith wrote:
[re. broken SGI Indy]
No shit. I recently did a system board swap on an O200, and there were just
too many weak and uncooperative bits for a machine that cost so much...not to
mention that SGI didn't want to tell me how to do it without paying someone to
come out and do it for me. Oh yeah, and out of 4 available module system
controllers (MSC's, it's like a hardware monitor and contains the PROM), only
2 worked. That's not counting the 2 that have failed on this system in the
past few years. however, everything did go OK in the end and it's now running
4x360Mhz R12000's :) (needless to say, this is NOT a machine I have at home.)
He was able to find the faulty part. Honestly, I
wish I'd been
able to do that, myself, but I don't have the stack of SGI pieces
to do it :)
On an only slightly related note, IMHO the build quality and general
longevity of Silicon Graphics hardware really isn't what you'd hope
of kit that cost so much new... Personal (limited, I grant you ;-) experience of Indys
on the other
hand suggest you need at least 3 candidates handy if you want to put
together a working combination of power supply, processor and mobo/PROM.
And the chassis is horribly weak - the way the power supply clips into
place is very neat, but also makes it structurally very poor at the
join (L-shaped computer, anyone?)
Yes, the indy's are awful...O2's are also awful... I think the only sturdy
workstations they've ever made are the Indigo2s and Octanes. The octanes are
a giant 50lb metal casting, they have no choice but to be sturdy ;)
Which isn't to say I don't love 'em, an
Indy is my main workstation at
home & the sight of SGI rapidly going down the tubes is deeply sad...
it is really too bad...especially since it's mostly because of shit-poor
management, not bad engineering -- the machines really do work well for what
people buy them for. they've been coming back a little in recent months,
though...I just hope the trend continues. Although, I think it would be
ultimately hilarious if, in the end, Cray Research decided to buy them in
order to take over the Origin line of supercomputers ;-)
Cheers,
Tim.
--
Tim Walls at home in Croydon - Reply to tim(a)snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk
- Dan
Wright
(dtwright(a)uiuc.edu)
(http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
-] ------------------------------ [-] -------------------------------- [-
``Weave a circle round him thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed, / and drunk the milk of Paradise.''
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan
5:51 a.m.
On Wed, Feb 13, 2002 at 10:34:31AM +0000, Tim wrote:
I also don't think I've yet forgiven SGI for
making the power
supply (simple slide-in/slide-out with two thumbscrews) on the O2000
a non user replaceable part - i.e. they won't sell you one without
a service contract and an engineer round to plug it in.
You sure about that? I had to replace a bad PSU on an O2K in '99;
called SGI, shipped them the power supply, they shipped one back...
Bill
--
Bill Bradford
mrbill(a)mrbill.net
Austin, TX
6:25 a.m.
New subject: Motorola Mainframe????
I saw one of these last year, I was I had bought it, kinda look like a stack
of Micopolis HD cases in dark grey.
Anyone know anything about those units??? History, OS, h/w and such.
Curt
8:20 a.m.
New subject: Motorola Mainframe????
On Wed, 13 Feb 2002, Curt Vendel wrote:
I saw one of these last year, I was I had bought it,
kinda look like a stack
of Micopolis HD cases in dark grey.
Anyone know anything about those units??? History, OS, h/w and such.
Not a mainframe. I don't know too much, but it was a modular workstation
based around the PPC 603. I believe it was implemented as a reference
platform of some sort (PReP, maybe). It would've run Windows NT or
Solaris, or perhaps a custom flavor of Unix, and was the most visually
striking of the Motorola workstation hardware of the time.
This is what I remember from having seen one about six years ago, and
should be taken as apocryphal, or at least anecdotal.
ok
r.
8:55 a.m.
New subject: Motorola Mainframe????
Thanks for the info... hey if anyone out there has one for sale/trade,
please let me know, thanks.
Curt
----- Original Message -----
From: "r. 'bear' stricklin" <red(a)bears.org>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: Motorola Mainframe????
On Wed, 13 Feb 2002, Curt Vendel wrote:
> I saw one of these last year, I was I had bought it, kinda look like a
stack
of Micopolis
HD cases in dark grey.
Anyone know anything about those units??? History, OS, h/w and such.
Not a mainframe. I don't know too much, but it was a modular workstation
based around the PPC 603. I believe it was implemented as a reference
platform of some sort (PReP, maybe). It would've run Windows NT or
Solaris, or perhaps a custom flavor of Unix, and was the most visually
striking of the Motorola workstation hardware of the time.
This is what I remember from having seen one about six years ago, and
should be taken as apocryphal, or at least anecdotal.
ok
r.
14 Feb
14 Feb
12:57 a.m.
New subject: Motorola Mainframe????
On Wed, Feb 13, 2002 at 02:55:12PM -0500, Curt Vendel wrote:
Thanks for the info... hey if anyone out there has one
for sale/trade,
please let me know, thanks.
http://www.schrotthal.de/motorola/ has some pictures of these.
--
Sune Stjerneby <sst(a)vmunix.dk>
- Part of an RFC 1876-compliant network.
13 Feb
13 Feb
8:02 a.m.
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11:51 a.m.
Tony,
Individual molecules are user replaceable parts to you :-)
Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA
Tony Duell wrote:
Hang on... I have enough problems trying to get
manufacturers to sell me
the parts that _I_ consider to be user replaceable spares (read :
flybacks, chopper transistors, individual ASICs, etc).
Any manufactuer who wouldn't sell me a PSU module would never get any
more business from me or anyone I was in 'control' of...
-tony
8190
days inactive
8191
days old
8 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
curt＠atari-history.com -
dtwright＠uiuc.edu -
fernande＠internet1.net -
mrbill＠mrbill.net -
red＠bears.org -
sst＠vmunix.dk -
timwa＠snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk