21 May
2005
21 May
'05
11:50 a.m.
Dan Williams chucked us an Indigo2 the other week amongst a load of DEC
stuff - I've only just had chance to take a look at it, although I've
brought it home for the week to fiddle with :)
Initial questions:
How to I tell what IMPACT video board it has? (Other than powering it up
I suppose, but I'm going to be giving it a good clean inside first...)
Anyone have the SCSI connector pinouts? The machine has no drive sleds,
so I need to improvise something (I gather it's not compatible with SCA,
despite being the same physical connectors). Worst case I could run it
from an external disk I suppose.
Any special flavour of memory the machine needs? I've got a bucket of 72
pin SIMMs of various types kicking around, so I'm sure I'll have
something that'll work...
... that'll do for now :) Once I've checked the machine over and made
sure it looks like it'll work I'll worry about install media (I've got
IRIX CDs - just a question whether they support the R8k / R10k CPU in
this machine)
cheers
Jules
21 May
21 May
12:37 p.m.
On Sat, 21 May 2005 18:50:12 +0000
Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
How to I tell what IMPACT video board it has? (Other
than powering it
up I suppose, but I'm going to be giving it a good clean inside
first...)
IIRC: Solid IMAPCT is one board, High IMPACT (== Solid IMAPCT with
texture memory) are two boards and MAX IMAPCT (== High IMPACT with twice
as much Geometry Engines and Raster Managers) are three boards.
Power up machine, abort boot (press ESC or click with mouse), go to the
cammand prompt (press 5 or click Icon) and type the command "hinv". This
will give you a Hardware INVentory.
Anyone have the SCSI connector pinouts? The machine
has no drive
sleds,
GOTO ePay
GET( "DriveSleds")
If this fails use an external disk / CDROM / ...
The connectors are, as you expected, not SCA. Don't waste time to
replicate the drive sleds.
BTW: Internal and external SCSI bus are two independent busses with
separte host adapters.
Any special flavour of memory the machine needs?
PS/2 FPM parity SIMMs, four per bank, max. 768 MB RAM total. (1 GB with
tricks)
... that'll do for now :) Once I've checked
the machine over and made
sure it looks like it'll work I'll worry about install media (I've got
IRIX CDs - just a question whether they support the R8k / R10k CPU in
this machine)
There where IRIX media specialized for certain platforms but this is
written on the installation media. If the is nothing written on the
media you can expect that they support all platforms that the given
release supported. Try to get IRIX 6.5.20m. This is the latest version
that officially supports this machine.
BTW: I am typing this on an Indigo2 R10k Solid IMPACT. :-)
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
1:18 p.m.
On Sat, 2005-05-21 at 21:37 +0200, Jochen Kunz wrote:
Yes, I did wonder... :/ I *could* scavenge some old SCA connectors from
dead SCA drives though and build some sort of adapter. Or, better still,
replace the whole internal bus with a normal cable and power sockets - I
just need pinouts of the system board SCSI connector then...
Aha ok. I think the biggest SIMMS I have are 16MB, but not sure if
they're parity. Still, there are a bazillion SIMM sockets on the board
so even if I just fill it out with 4MB modules or something that'd still
be enough for starters :)
On Sat, 21 May 2005 18:50:12 +0000
Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Rats, just a standard Solid IMPACT then. Still, it's still the fastest
SGI we've got at present...
How to I tell what IMPACT video board it has?
(Other than powering it
up I suppose, but I'm going to be giving it a good clean inside
first...)
IIRC: Solid IMAPCT is one board, High IMPACT (== Solid IMAPCT with
texture memory) are two boards and MAX IMAPCT (== High IMPACT with twice
as much Geometry Engines and Raster Managers) are three boards. Power up machine, abort boot (press ESC or click with
mouse), go to the
cammand prompt (press 5 or click Icon) and type the command "hinv". This
will give you a Hardware INVentory.
Yep... gotta wait for various bits to dry out for a few days first
before I can do that though :) The machine was half full of dust, so
I've stripped it and dusted off some bits / washed others.
Anyone have
the SCSI connector pinouts? The machine has no drive
sleds,
GOTO ePay
GET( "DriveSleds") If this fails use an external disk / CDROM / ...
BTW: Internal and external SCSI bus are two independent busses with
separte host adapters.
Ahh, I had thought about that. I wasn't sure if it was dual channel -
and if it was, whether it'd boot from a device on the second channel
(mind you I suppose it has to in order to boot from an external CDROM).
Still, that's probably the way to go at least to see if it all works...
Any special
flavour of memory the machine needs?
PS/2 FPM parity SIMMs, four per bank, max. 768
MB RAM total. (1 GB with
tricks) There where IRIX media specialized for certain
platforms but this is
written on the installation media. If the is nothing written on the
media you can expect that they support all platforms that the given
release supported. Try to get IRIX 6.5.20m. This is the latest version
that officially supports this machine.
Can't remember what I've got now TBH. I don't think it's as recent as
6.5.x though - likely it's 5.3 (I've used it to install on both Indys
and Indigos so it's certainly multi-platform... whether that's too old
to work with the Indigo2 though is another matter...)
BTW: I am typing this on an Indigo2 R10k Solid IMPACT.
:-)
Heh... nice machines by the sounds of it. Certainly the good ol' Indy's
still pretty capable, so an Indigo2 can't really be any worse :)
cheers
Jules
2:20 p.m.
On Sat, 21 May 2005 20:18:13 +0000
Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Well Octanes are getting cheap as dirt. Even 400 MHz R12k machines are
down to less then 100 EUR (100 US$). Beleve me: Even with the same CPU
(175 and 195 MHz R10k) and similar GFX (IMPACT == SI) an Octane will
outperform a Indigo2. The Octane features much higher bandwiths in all
aspects of a system. My main workstation is an Octane R12k 300 MHz, ESSI
+ ESI dual head, 2 GB RAM, 36 GB disk, DLT, CD-RW, ... I do everything
on that machine.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
Yes, I did wonder... :/ I *could* scavenge some old
SCA connectors
from dead SCA drives though and build some sort of adapter. Or, better
still, replace the whole internal bus with a normal cable and power
sockets - I just need pinouts of the system board SCSI connector
then...
Don't waste your time with this. Get a drive sled from epay or a an
other list menber or ... It costs much less then your time is worth that
you will need for this hack. And it will work much better.
Ahh, I had thought about that. I wasn't sure if it
was dual channel -
and if it was, whether it'd boot from a device on the second channel
(mind you I suppose it has to in order to boot from an external
CDROM).
I used external CDROMs on Indigo2s for instalation. Maybe it needs to be
on a special SCSI ID. (Start with 3, that is the standard ID of the
internal CDROM, don't use 0, that is the bus adapter itself.)
Aha ok. I think the biggest SIMMS I have are 16MB, but
not sure if
they're parity. Still, there are a bazillion SIMM sockets on the board
so even if I just fill it out with 4MB modules or something that'd
still be enough for starters :)
There are 12 sockets / 3 banks. Get at least 16 MB
SIMMs. You will be
able to use as less as 64 MB, but that is not much fun. 128 MB is barely
enough, 192 is OK if you don't use memory eaters. I have 758 MB in my
Indigo2 IMPACT. :-)
Can't remember what I've got now TBH. I
don't think it's as recent as
6.5.x though - likely it's 5.3 (I've used it to install on both Indys
and Indigos so it's certainly multi-platform... whether that's too old
to work with the Indigo2 though is another matter...)
5.3 may work. It is OK, but
try to get 6.5.20 if you really wane use the
machine. A 6.5 base set is OK, updates to newer versions, i.e.
"Overlays" in SGI terminology, are donloadable from SGI. There is a lot
of ready to install http://freeware.sgi.com/ but that requires 6.5.x...
BTW: I am
typing this on an Indigo2 R10k Solid IMPACT. :-)
Heh... nice machines by the sounds
of it. Certainly the good ol'
Indy's still pretty capable, so an Indigo2 can't really be any worse
:) 
22 May
22 May
12:57 p.m.
Saturday, May 21, 2005, 11:20:07 PM, you wrote:
[hacking a sled]
I personally have 1 Indigo 2 R10000/195 with High Impact graphics and
one Dual R10000/195 Octane and I usually use the Indigo because it is
much more friendly to my ears.
Ok, now after I've moved the Octane is resting on the other end of the
room and the noise has reached "not *that* bad" level, but whenever I
think along that line I think of how the I2 noise would just disappear
in the large room if I'd only move it to the other end.
Don't waste your time with this. Get a drive sled
from epay or a an
other list menber or ... It costs much less then your time is worth that
you will need for this hack. And it will work much better.
ACK, or just use an external harddrive until you find a real sled
somewhere.
I used external CDROMs on Indigo2s for instalation.
Maybe it needs to be
on a special SCSI ID. (Start with 3, that is the standard ID of the
internal CDROM, don't use 0, that is the bus adapter itself.)
Nope, I've never come across another rule as "leave the ID of the
controller alone". The only difference here is that the controller is
on #0.
There are 12 sockets / 3 banks. Get at least 16 MB
SIMMs. You will be
able to use as less as 64 MB, but that is not much fun. 128 MB is barely
enough, 192 is OK if you don't use memory eaters. I have 758 MB in my
Indigo2 IMPACT. :-)
128MB is ok for starters in my book, reasonable amounts start around
256MB if you want to use more complex applications.
5.3 may work. It is OK, but try to get 6.5.20 if you
really wane use the
machine.
The basic 5.3 isn't intended for Impact machines, neither does it work
with R10000 machines. At least for Impact Indigo 2 there is "IRIX 5.3
for Indigo 2 Impact" (part# 812-0119-009).
Heh... nice
machines by the sounds of it. Certainly the good ol'
Indy's still pretty capable, so an Indigo2 can't really be any worse
:)
Well Octanes are getting cheap as dirt. Even 400 MHz R12k machines are down to less then 100
EUR (100 US$).
Not always true.
Beleve me: Even with the same CPU (175 and 195 MHz
R10k) and similar
GFX (IMPACT == SI) an Octane will outperform a Indigo2.
Sure. The question remains if you run applications that make use of
that. Hell, I've been running some GTK1 applications (Gimp, Sylpheed,
etc.) on a 4D/420 (Dual 40 MHz R3000 with IRIX 5.3) with a performance
that was ok in my book. Of course *none* of these apps did make real
use of the second CPU aside from scheduling on OS level in the sense
that Sylpheed isn't bothered very much by the Gimp filtering on the
other CPU.
--
Best regards,
Gerhard mailto:mail at g-lenerz.de
Old SGI Stuff http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/
2:08 p.m.
On Sun, 22 May 2005 21:57:44 +0200
Gerhard Lenerz <mail at g-lenerz.de> wrote:
Ahh, OK. So the PROM is smart enough to use the first CDROM
available.
Sure.
You have to be lucky and you can't expect more then SI / ESI GFX.
But R10k / SI Octanes are really down below 100,- EUR.
I used
external CDROMs on Indigo2s for instalation. Maybe it needs
to be on a special SCSI ID. (Start with 3, that is the standard ID
of the internal CDROM, don't use 0, that is the bus adapter itself.)
Nope,
I've never come across another rule as "leave the ID of the
controller alone". The basic 5.3 isn't intended for Impact machines,
neither does it work
with R10000 machines. At least for Impact Indigo 2 there is "IRIX 5.3
for Indigo 2 Impact" (part# 812-0119-009).
Good to know. I have no closer
experience with IRIX prior to 6.5.
I personally have 1 Indigo 2 R10000/195 with High
Impact graphics and
one Dual R10000/195 Octane and I usually use the Indigo because it is
much more friendly to my ears.
He. I have all my machines in an extra room and use
long extension
cables for K/V/M to get the console into the living room. So I don't
care about noise. :-)
It will be interresting to hear how much noise the O2 and the Origin 200
generate that I will get next weekend. I suspect that the O2 is not that
loud, but the Origin 200...
Even 400 MHz
R12k machines are down to less then 100 EUR (100 US$).
Not always true. Sure. The question remains if you run applications
that make use of
that.
Firefox / Mozilla...
Cross building NetBSD.
Viewing bloated PDFs.
...
Hell, I've been running some GTK1 applications
(Gimp, Sylpheed,
etc.) on a 4D/420 (Dual 40 MHz R3000 with IRIX 5.3) with a performance
that was ok in my book.
I also used a 150 MHz (later 200 MHz) Indigo2 Extreme and
there is still
a R4k4 Indy on my desk... I played a bit with IRIX 3.3 on a PI4D35...
Not to speak about all that non-SGI stuff, including VAXen that are much
slower then a 40 MHz R3k...
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
2:27 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-05-22 at 23:08 +0200, Jochen Kunz wrote:
It will be interresting to hear how much noise the O2
and the Origin 200
generate that I will get next weekend. I suspect that the O2 is not that
loud, but the Origin 200...
I've done a few projects on O200s a few years ago; I don't remember them
being that loud. We had two in a failsafe config with a pair of disk
vaults, and even that wasn't too bad.
Remember I'm talking about a museum regarding the Indigo2, so we
unfortunately don't have funds to go buying heaps of memory or anything
for it :( We're lucky to have a few Indys and the like as it is :)
cheers
Jules
23 May
23 May
8:34 a.m.
It will be interresting to hear how much noise the O2
and the Origin 200
generate that I will get next weekend. I suspect that the O2 is not that
loud, but the Origin 200...
The O2 can vary, my first O2 was pretty quiet when I first got it,
and then I put the 10,000 RPM 18GB Seagate drive in it. That caused
vibration issues. By the time I moved it to my current R12K/270 I
figured out if I stacked a small pile of books on top of it, the
vibration went away. The strange thing is it's no longer sitting on
my desk, rather it's on the wooden shelving unit next to it, and I
don't really notice the noise.
OTOH, I've got 6 10K JBOD drives running about 4 feet from where I'm
sitting, so it's always a bit noisy in here.
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
11:03 a.m.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
The O2 can vary, my first O2 was pretty quiet when I
first got
it, and then I put the 10,000 RPM 18GB Seagate drive in it.
That caused vibration issues. By the time I moved it to my
current R12K/270 I figured out if I stacked a small pile of
books on top of it, the vibration went away. The strange
thing is it's no longer sitting on my desk, rather it's on the
wooden shelving unit next to it, and I don't really notice the
noise.
I tried a 73GB Atlas II 10K drive in my VAXstation 4000-90
a few days ago. It all worked quite nicely and it was nice
to see OpenVMS V7.1 cope with something that must have seemed
unimaginably large at the time the code was written.
But the noise was just too much - a bit like a jet engine
three feet away from me. If yours was as bad and you've now
stopped noticing then YOU'VE GONE DEAF :-)
Antonio
--
---------------
Antonio Carlini arcarlini at iee.org
12:27 p.m.
Antonio Carlini wrote:
Zane H. Healy wrote:
It wasn't anywhere near that noisy, as I recall it was more of an annoying
buzzing noise. Even the 6 JBOD canisters with 18GB 10K drives sitting 4
feet away from where I sit aren't that loud. In fact they aren't as loud as
the Sparc 5/110 that I was running up until 2-3 months ago in the same rack.
It did get retired to quiet things down.
Zane
The O2 can vary, my first O2 was pretty quiet
when I first got
it, and then I put the 10,000 RPM 18GB Seagate drive in it.
That caused vibration issues. By the time I moved it to my
current R12K/270 I figured out if I stacked a small pile of
books on top of it, the vibration went away. The strange
thing is it's no longer sitting on my desk, rather it's on the
wooden shelving unit next to it, and I don't really notice the
noise.
I tried a 73GB Atlas II 10K drive in my VAXstation 4000-90
a few days ago. It all worked quite nicely and it was nice
to see OpenVMS V7.1 cope with something that must have seemed
unimaginably large at the time the code was written.
But the noise was just too much - a bit like a jet engine
three feet away from me. If yours was as bad and you've now
stopped noticing then YOU'VE GONE DEAF :-) 
2 Jun
2 Jun
3:52 a.m.
New subject: Looking for IRIX CD's...
...just recently picked up a few Indy's and Indigo
2's,
including some poiple ones :). Not an OS in sight
though :(.
Also interested in acquiring an Ultra 10 or 5
machine...to play with.
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21 May
21 May
12:38 p.m.
Can only help with one of these, really:
On Sat, 21 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:
How to I tell what IMPACT video board it has? (Other
than powering it up
I suppose, but I'm going to be giving it a good clean inside first...)
Solid Impact takes up one bus slot, High Impact takes up two slots and Max
Impact takes up three slots. Easy, no?
In theory you're only supposed to be able to dual-head with a Max and a
Solid (as SGI shipped them, with the uprated PSU), but I have two Solid
Impact cards in one machine and dual head fine.
Anyways;
Good luck with the others :)
JP
6911
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11 comments
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chrism3667＠yahoo.com -
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