Getting Started, Documentation, Tips & Tricks

Hiya,

I managed to grab me an Octane (175Mhz / SI / 512Mb) for the kings ransom of €1! Sold as fully working, but I haven't been able to test this for the reasons below. I wonder if I could ask a few questions to hopefully get me up and running....

1) All of my screens are Apple (DVI-D only) connectors. Is it possible to get a 13w3 to connect to these, or am I going to need another screen with a VGA connector?

2) When I boot the machine connected to the network, I can't see it (I have it's currently configured IP address, but it's not responding there). I'm guessing that it's not booting due to the lack of an active monitor connection (and the red LED lightbar would suggest this as well). Is the diagnosis that it's waiting for a monitor connection likely to be the case here?

3) I got out a PC null modem connection and attached it to an old Debian laptop and serial 1 on the octane. I set up minicom for 9600 8N1 and booted the machine and I can't see anything from it. I tried again with 38400 as some pages say that this works for Octanes. Nothing there either. I've tried Serial 2. Nothing. I opened up the cable and got a pin out from this site. A bit of re-soldering and still nothing. Is there anything else that I can try to get a serial connection? What else could I be doing wrong here?

4) Finally, somewhere in the 'hardware archive (i.e. the pile of old computer junk that I get nagged about) I have an old 13w3 to VGA connector that I used to use for Sun machines. Will this work with an SGI, as I've found info saying that Sun 13w3 and SGI 13w3 is different?

Any help that anyone could give me would be most appreciated. It's pretty frustrating having is sitting there blowing out hot air and not being able to find any way of talking to it!

Cheers,
Ian

iffy50 wrote: Hiya,

I managed to grab me an Octane (175Mhz / SI / 512Mb) for the kings ransom of €1! Sold as fully working, but I haven't been able to test this for the reasons below. I wonder if I could ask a few questions to hopefully get me up and running....

1) All of my screens are Apple (DVI-D only) connectors. Is it possible to get a 13w3 to connect to these, or am I going to need another screen with a VGA connector?

Not only that but a Sync on Green monitor.

iffy50 wrote: 2) When I boot the machine connected to the network, I can't see it (I have it's currently configured IP address, but it's not responding there). I'm guessing that it's not booting due to the lack of an active monitor connection (and the red LED lightbar would suggest this as well). Is the diagnosis that it's waiting for a monitor connection likely to be the case here?

It should provide output on the console serial port if not running with monitor keyboard and mouse.
Pull the keyboard, mouse and check the serial port. 9600,8,n,1.

iffy50 wrote: 3) I got out a PC null modem connection and attached it to an old Debian laptop and serial 1 on the octane. I set up minicom for 9600 8N1 and booted the machine and I can't see anything from it. I tried again with 38400 as some pages say that this works for Octanes. Nothing there either. I've tried Serial 2. Nothing. I opened up the cable and got a pin out from this site. A bit of re-soldering and still nothing. Is there anything else that I can try to get a serial connection? What else could I be doing wrong here?

Its not 38400, that is newer machines like fuels, tezros, o3(x)0, etc... it is 9600, 8n1, by default.

iffy50 wrote: 4) Finally, somewhere in the 'hardware archive (i.e. the pile of old computer junk that I get nagged about) I have an old 13w3 to VGA connector that I used to use for Sun machines. Will this work with an SGI, as I've found info saying that Sun 13w3 and SGI 13w3 is different?

Any help that anyone could give me would be most appreciated. It's pretty frustrating having is sitting there blowing out hot air and not being able to find any way of talking to it!

Cheers,
Ian

Sun 13w3 is different..
http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/13W3
http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/13w3_to_VGA

I have had cables that work on both but that was an rare exception not the rule.

General stuff in the wiki..
http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/Serial_Access
http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/Headless



R.

What he said, but, I have a cheap Sun cable that works perfectly, so don't rule it out until you've tried it. Also, I've read that if the monitor supports sync on green, all you need is the the three big coax pins on the 13w3, so if the existence of the smaller pins is screwing up the connection, you should be able to clip them to make a working cable.

As for the network thing, I wouldn't worry too much until you can see what is going on. Too many variables at this moment.

Geof

Hi R,

Thanks for the info (and your quick reply)!

So if I understand you correctly, then I should have been able to get a console connection already based on what I've tried. That leaves a couple of things (3 actually!) that could be wrong:

1) The console cable itself: The cable that I've made up is following the pin-outs given on http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/ ... figuration

I bought the cable yesterday as a new 'null modem' cable and had no luck with it as it was. Then I opened it up and made some small changes to make sure that it exactly followed this pin out. From the pin out, these shouldn't have mattered, but I thought that I'd make sure it was right. Neither worked. Would you expect a normal null modem cable to work between a pc and an SGI?

2) The PC either has a bad serial port or there's something wrong with the software. I'll bring home another laptop from work tomorrow to see if I can eliminate this one.

3) The Octane's got some more serious problems.

On the monitor side of things, I haven't researched this sync on green thing yet, but is this something that you can get in commercially available screens these days, or am I looking for an old SGI type of screen?

Thanks again,
Ian

One final thought before I admit defeat for the night, does anyone know if using a null modem cable with a USB to serial type of connection (on a Mac) will work? This may simplify things a bit for me for connecting to the existing hardware that I've got, but I can't quite get my head around how the pin mappings would work for that.

Cheers,
Ian

iffy50 wrote: Hi R,

Thanks for the info (and your quick reply)!

So if I understand you correctly, then I should have been able to get a console connection already based on what I've tried. That leaves a couple of things (3 actually!) that could be wrong:

1) The console cable itself: The cable that I've made up is following the pin-outs given on http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/ ... figuration

I bought the cable yesterday as a new 'null modem' cable and had no luck with it as it was. Then I opened it up and made some small changes to make sure that it exactly followed this pin out. From the pin out, these shouldn't have mattered, but I thought that I'd make sure it was right. Neither worked. Would you expect a normal null modem cable to work between a pc and an SGI?

2) The PC either has a bad serial port or there's something wrong with the software. I'll bring home another laptop from work tomorrow to see if I can eliminate this one.

3) The Octane's got some more serious problems.

On the monitor side of things, I haven't researched this sync on green thing yet, but is this something that you can get in commercially available screens these days, or am I looking for an old SGI type of screen?

Thanks again,
Ian

1. I would absolutely expect a normal standard cable to work. I have a few cables and they have always worked.

2. I suspect this is unlikely but ruling it out is a good idea.

3. If you bought it for a $1 or UKP or whatever I suspect this is more likely to be the case, but never fear there are a lot of guys here with really solid knowledge that will be able to help you. Pull it a part and clean it out...
Make sure everything sits properly. Do not touch the compression connectors. Keep asking questions and providing evidence of what state the machine is in.. You'll get there.

iffy50 wrote: One final thought before I admit defeat for the night, does anyone know if using a null modem cable with a USB to serial type of connection (on a Mac) will work? This may simplify things a bit for me for connecting to the existing hardware that I've got, but I can't quite get my head around how the pin mappings would work for that.

Cheers,
Ian

I have never tried although I sell 3 types of these USB to serial adapters. I plugged one into a Mac and it identified it as a serial port in "about this Mac" but I've never found the time to investigate beyond that. Too much time playing in Smoke 2008 sp6 or playing on a quite large VAX in Germany.

R.

iffy50 wrote: One final thought before I admit defeat for the night, does anyone know if using a null modem cable with a USB to serial type of connection (on a Mac) will work? This may simplify things a bit for me for connecting to the existing hardware that I've got, but I can't quite get my head around how the pin mappings would work for that.

Cheers,
Ian

I don't see why not. I've used serial/USB adapters to program and flash Dolby CP-650 cinema processors at the theater I used to work at. It would be a matter of finding a terminal program that works with serial ports on the Mac. If worse comes to worse, cu or screen from the command line would work (if the Mac has those...)

Also SOG monitors aren't uncommon on new LCD monitors. I recently bought a new Acer $100 20" that works fine with the octane and cheap sun adapter cable (except trying to coax 1600x900 out of a v6.)

Geof

The PROM doesn't have any way of knowing about the presence or non-presence of the monitor. If you're getting a red bar with a keyboard plugged in to the keyboard port then there's a problem. Start out by cleaning and re-seating all of the boards (memory, processor, IP30, graphics) DON'T touch the flat connectors on the "front" of the boards because these can be easily damaged.

SGIs will go red-light and halt at the PROM screen if they do not sense a keyboard and they are set to graphical console. In this case the console is redirected to the first serial port.

If you didn't have a keyboard plugged in try starting it up with one. If you still see the red light you've got a problem.

iffy50 wrote: does anyone know if using a null modem cable with a USB to serial type of connection (on a Mac) will work?

as long as it breaths on a ftdi chip, you're gonna be fine. i've done this on both o2 & fuel straight from my mbp using an ugly, cheapo, usb->serial adapter. got one for 30p or so from the computah fair @ucl.



iirc i had to use x zterm on mac os per neko's suggestion - (no clue if there's anything else). for the rest of the settings, just go for what the guys told you.

edit: uh-oh, iffy thank zm for clarifying further ↓

I use ZTerm on my Macs, it does pretty good. I had to download the drivers for my adapter off the apple website though.

http://homepage.mac.com/dalverson/zterm/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/d ... river.html

OK, so I tried again last night, this time with a USB to serial connector and a brand new null modem cable (in case my soldering 'skills' were part of the problem). I reseated the XIO, the system disk and the IP30. Zterm didn't like it, but good old 'cu' was enough to get it to break it's vow of silence!

So I ran the diagnostics and everything came back as OK (so I don't know why I was getting the red LED, but there you go). I changed it to boot headless and it was good to go!

Thanks to everyone here for your help in getting me started.

Now making fairly good progress with performing a network fresh irix install.

Cheers,
Ian

Here is a good video adapter to get if you want to sidestep all the monitor compatibility headaches:

http://www.deepspacecables.com/models/octane.html

I'm fortunate enough to have SGI monitors and cables, so I don't have any myself, but I set up a friend with an Octane and one of these is working well for him.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16721811&
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16720118&p=7292700&#p7292700
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16723061&p=7319830&#p7319830

Just my 2 pence, but use the built in OS X Terminal, and minicom.

Compiled for OS X by Jeff Frey, you can get it at: http://turin.nss.udel.edu/archive/minicom-2.2.pkg.zip

I prefer minicom as it works the same across all platforms, rather than the dated Zterm.

Hi,

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a go!

cheers,
Ian