I hadn't seen it either, otherwise I would have replied. I have about 6 PI's, covering most of the models and options. The 4D/35 was the top of the line. There are basically two generations of PIs. The first generation is the 4D/20 and 4D/25. The 4D/30 and 4D/35 were added a few years later. There is considerable difference between the two generations. For example the memory architecture was changed rather drastically. The 4D/30 memory is the same as Indigo memory (but not Indigo2). There were also several changes in keyboards. In addition, there was an upgrade path from the 4D/20 to the 4D/30 models, which didn't quite produce an off the shelf 4D/30. There are a number of very interesting bastard configurations out there due to the different upgrade paths. Some of my answers will be kind of vague because of this. I would strongly advice getting the console working. The monitor part is easy, most VGA monitors will work. Depending on the graphics option that's installed in your machine you should have either a VGA or BNC connectors (some of the later graphics options used 13W3 connectors). I've had success with a wide range of monitors. The standard resolution is 1280x1024 I believe (they came standard with 19 and 21 inch monitors), but I've used 1025x768 monitors, a bit fuzzy, but it works. The keyboard and mouse is much harder. There were several models of keyboards used on these machines. What type of keyboard connector to you have? The popular ones were DB9 and PS/2 (note I don't think a PS/2 keyboard will work, but I haven't tried). I can look up the part number tonight when I get home. The keyboards are not that common, but I have seen them on eBay. The mouse attaches to the keyboard. The easiest way to get these machines running is through the console. There is a way to set a terminal to be the console, but I'm not sure how its done on the PI. On some SGIs there is a hardware mechanism, but on others the console must be use (this won't help you much). Its difficult to do much without a console, since all the installation and maintenance procedures assume that you are working through the console by default. What devices do you have? There are two forms of the OS media. The older systems were on tape, and the newer ones were on CD. A may have IRIX 4 tapes at home, which could get you started. The 4D/35 will run up to IRIX 5.3 (something I recommend), and the CDs can be found regularly on eBay. Note that these machines are a bit picky about the CDROM drives they use, older ones are better. It sounds like the previous owner on your second machine wiped the disk. The lack of a disk label is a good indication that there is nothing on the disk. Note, these machines can be network booted, so you could boot from the other machine. Do you have access to any of the accounts on the first machine? Quite often the guest account had no password, so you could try that. If you are successful, run hinv to get your machine's configuration. If you have a console the easiest way to change the root password is to boot a mini-root (this may be on partition 8 of your disk). SGI tended to use there own file system structures, so you may not be able to read the disks on other UNIX systems. Let me know if this helps you. My machines are at home, so I can provide any detail until tonight. One word of warning the 4D/30 series machines had a habit of catching fire. The CPU used in the 4D/30 machines generated much more heat than the 4D/20 machines, and the cabinet really wasn't designed for them The upgrade included an extra fan. If any of the fans fail the system overheats. Also run with all the skins on for better heat flow. One of the 4D/35s I had a work caught fire one day, filled the room with smoke. PS: Are there other SGI collectors on the list? I have a fair amount of documentation on the early systems, I also have a working 3130 at home. -- Dr. Mark Green mark(a)cs.ualberta.ca McCalla Professor (780) 492-4584 Department of Computing Science (780) 492-1071 (FAX) University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada