Seeking immediate rescue of full-rack SGI ONYX near Northbrook, IL

[Swift Griggs]

On Tue, 19 Apr 2016, Jules Richardson wrote:
> Ditto.  I do like mine.  Extra TRAM option, 384MB of RAM, 2x4GB disks.  It
> gets a little toasty (but it's got the feet for standing it up on its
> side, and I think that helps a little with the heat dissipation - plus it
> looks a lot nicer!  :-)

I hope you have the deskside stand for it.  That made them look a bit
cooler.  Hmm.  It's the kind of thing that could probably be 3D printed
these days, too. 

While I'm rambling about 3D printing, I've often speculated that with a
not-insignificant investment of time, one could built new skins for the Indy
on some larger 3D printers. 

> I'm not sure if there was a 'correct' display/keyboard/rodent setup on
> those machines?  Mine came with a white keyboard and mouse but granite
> display, and I assume that they should really all be matched.

Granite in most cases.  The Indigo2 had a longer run than many SGI models. 
Plus, since there was also a lot of differentiation in models (everything
from XL24 graphics to Maximum IMPACT graphics, too), there might have been
more than one.  I remember seeing a few show up brand-new (deep-purple Max
Impact models) and they came with 21" Trinitron SGI re-branded monitors with
granite PS/2 keyboard and a granite PS/2 mouse.

> Maya would be nice (and if I remember right there's evidence that it was
> originally accessible from that machine, but via a long-gone network
> drive), but I assume that period versions are difficult to get hold of.

Difficult, but not impossible.  Maya 6.5 was the last version made for the
SGI.  You can buy media on Ebay.  I note that the last auction (for a set of
6.0 disks) was in Feb 2016.  So, it seems possible.  However, I got mine
from purchasing an O2 with Maya 4.x on it.  Just about any interesting
commercial app/tool is going to have flexlm copy protection, hence the large
amount of Irix warez & cracks you'll notice on p2p networks like eMule.


-Swift