Getting Started, Documentation, Tips & Tricks

Hi all,

I'm a regular on 68KMLA - 68K Macs are usually my primary hobby - and I couldn't pass up an SGI haul from a fellow collector who also gave me some vintage Macs. I've longed to play around with an SGI after seeing an Indy in action when I was in high school at CSIRO (Australian science research organisation) and an Indigo running in the Monash university IT department. I believe the SGI units received were in storage for up to ten years, some are quite rough and have surface rust. I'd ideally like to upgrade and fully restore a couple of good units to keep and enjoy playing around with.

The hardware seems quite a mixed bag - what would be the "pick" of the bunch here?

O2 # 1 - R5000PC 180Mhz, 256MB RAM, 4GB HD, boots to IRIX, SGI logo case
O2 # 2 - R5000PC 180Mhz, 192MB RAM, no HD, logo case
OS # 3 - R5000SC 180Mhz, 192MB RAM, no HD, logo case
O2 # 4 - R5200SC 300Mhz, 256MB RAM, no HD, logo case
O2 # 5 - R10000 195Mhz, 192MB RAM, no HD, logo case, CPU quite loose missing motherboard mounting screws

SGI 1600SW LCD monitor - no O2s have the flat panel card though

Indigo2 - teal, R8000SC 75Mhz (this is what it says on a scrap piece of paper, as pulling the lid off the CPU card doesn't have any part numbers that result in a hit online), 128MB RAM, no HD, Extreme graphics, 3Com 10/100 network card

Some questions:

- Are there different revisions of the O2 motherboard? For example the R10000-based O2 has taller riser connectors for the CPU. Is there a preferred revision of the board to use?
- R10000 195Mhz vs R5200SC 300Mhz = I gather the R10K is the pick of the pair?
- Are the O2 PSUs all Sony branded units (of the couple I pulled out)?
- As the one hard disk I have has IRIX 6.5, can I safely yank this HD and test it on all the O2s?
- The teal Indigo2 sounds like an oddity - from what I can gather the R8K CPU only came out in later models?
- Are the O2 drive trays easy to find here? I can't find many online for sale.

Thanks in advance for the answers! No doubt more to come.

JB

Byrd wrote: - The teal Indigo2 sounds like an oddity - from what I can gather the R8K CPU only came out in later models?

The R8000 Power Indigo2 is a very collectable system (IMHO). The R8000 is unique: it is not a CPU, but a chipset . It was the first implementation of the 64bit MIPS IV ISA. It was designed to excel at number crunching, integer performance was basically the same as an R4x00 CPU. The tagline was 'a Cray under your desk' or something.

Because the CPU card was built from several chips and because of the 'streaming' cache memory used, it was very expensive. It was replaced withing a year or two with the R10000 CPU series, which offered similar FP performance to the R8000, but much better integer performance so it was a better all-round performer. R10000 was also easier to scale to higher clock rates.

Compared to R4x00 and R10K Indigo2s, the R8000 is rare. It can also be rather fragile. Enjoy, and take good care of her.

Me personally I would use the O2 R5200SC.

I did a bit of a youtube video about the o2 that may interest you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6esqVSP ... Cz-9uuiGTQ

jan-jaap - Thanks for the info, I'm delighted to own such a special beast - this Indigo2 is the best condition of the haul (missing front flip-down door and no HD sadly). From further research, it does indeed have the R8000 - so is it dual 75Mhz?

mwd - Overall would the R5200SC give slightly better performance in integer calculations/for general use but the R10000 more beef for floating point? See you're in NSW - do you want any O2 parts, eg. skins PSU motherboards.

I'm looking for the 1600SW flat panel adapter now. Part is 030-1170-001, pricey little things, but I did find this one, would it work (or is it for some sort of SGI projection device)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SGI-O2-PRESENTE ... 4adfb63011

JB

That adapter is for the Presenter 1280 flat panel, not the 1600SW.

The R8000 is a single CPU, but it has very high throughput per clock cycle; something like 4 integer and 4 floating point per cycle IIRC.

Thanks for the advice.

I've torn down the O2s are am busy in the process of building up two machines - the R10K 195Mhz and R5200 300Mhz-based systems (one with the original skin the other the updated logo), both with roughly 400MB RAM each. I have to say the O2 plastics are crazy brittle - years of storage has not helped - some of the plastic tabs just snap off with no effort. Still I'm enjoying the restoration process and look forward to having two decent clean machines (one for me, the other for a friend) that haven't made it to landfill.

If anyone in Australia wants some parts, let me know - I have a few O2 motherboards, CPUs, AV cards, happy to post for cost of postage and in kind would love an SCA hard disk or caddy, maybe the 1600SW flat panel card ... :p

JB

Hey JB,

Might be interested

What HDDs or caddy are you after? For the O2?

Hi,
Its a bit of a belated response but congrads on your pickup. Its nice to see more machines rescued and undergoing refurbishment rather than making land fill. I have 3 02s here in Hobart plus a few parts so it would be great to keep in touch.
Regards
John

Hi also from New Zealand!!