Hardware For Sale/Trade

@mapesdhs
Performances was also explained in the wiki page

The SGI O2 had an Imaging and Compression Engine (ICE) application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for processing streaming media and still images. ICE operates at 66 MHz and contains a R3000-derived microprocessor serving as the scalar unit to which a 128-bit SIMD unit is attached using the MIPS coprocessor interface. ICE operates on eight 16-bit or sixteen 8-bit integers, but still provides a significant amount of computational power which enables the O2 to do video decoding and audio tasks that would require a much faster CPU if done without SIMD instructions. ICE only works with the IRIX operating system, as this is the only system that has drivers capable of taking advantage of this device.

The Unified Memory Architecture means that the O2 uses main memory for graphics textures, making texturing polygons and other graphics elements trivial. Instead of transferring textures over a bus to the graphics subsystem, the O2 passes a pointer to the texture in main memory which is then accessed by the graphics hardware. This makes using large textures easy, and even makes using streaming video as a texture possible.

Since the CPU performs many of geometry calculations, using a faster CPU will increase the speed of a geometry-limited application. The O2's graphics is known to have slower rasterization speed than the Indigo2's Maximum IMPACT graphics boards, though the Maximum IMPACT graphics is limited to 4 MB of texture memory, which can result in thrashing, whereas the O2 is limited only by available memory.

While CPU frequencies of 180 to 400 MHz seem low today, when the O2 was released in 1996, these speeds were on par with or above the current offerings for the x86 family of computers (cf. Intel's Pentium and AMD's K5). Further, the above listed features made it an excellent graphics workstation which was the market it was targeted at. It was however, even with the speed upgrades it consequently received, not able to keep up with the mainstream PC market and cheaper x86 based computers started to outperform it by the end of its lifetime.

about CPU clock speedup, i have seen the R7K @ 600Mhz hack made by Joe Page and Ian Mapleson. I have read something about, never seen a @600Mhz CPU module for sale. It's very interesting, do you know if it is available, yet ?

about O2+ color

my friend and i can realize a purple-painted case in O2+ colors compliant. We will do, sooner or later, i have a second case for O2, a very damaged case that we are able to repair and repaint. My friend worked as car-coachbuilder, so he is a bit expert about how to paint plastic and metal materials.

I have to take a few photos about Impact, i have found an original Impact plastic front plane, it's a brand new replacement so we can compare the original purple-color of Impact with the color that my friend has decided to paint for the Impact that is here for sale.

ivelegacy wrote: @mapesdhs
Performances was also explained in the wiki page

Heh, think you'll find my site is somewhat older than the wiki page. I helped launch the O2 in the UK. I had the tech info 2 weeks
before most other people; I put out a summary file after launch without the PR blurb for those who wanted such a thing. I think I was the
first to obtain the O2 Technical Report aswell. I researched & covered the performance issues a looooong time ago.

Btw, O2's texture fill rate is less than half that of HighIMPACT, never mind MaxIMPACT. There are a lot of minor errors in the wikis like
this, but I don't correct them, don't have the time. That O2 summary contains several others, but nothing serious.

ivelegacy wrote: about CPU clock speedup, i have seen the R7K @ 600Mhz hack made by Joe Page and Ian Mapleson. I have read something about, never seen a @600Mhz CPU module for sale. It's very interesting, do you know if it is available, yet?

You've linked to my mirror site, I'm the latter guy.

The CPU is not available from me atm because hobbyists are not willing to pay an amount high enough to cover the value of the base
CPU + the cost of the mod + any kind of profit margin to make the venture worthwhile. I had 7 CPUs modded way back, made a loss of more
than 400 UKP overall (one didn't work, and the person who organised the mod work didn't reply to my contact attemps to get it sorted); in
the end I kept the last CPU for myself. I was only able to sell one of the CPUs at a break-even price, the other four went for a loss amount.

By contrast, the modded R12K/300 is IMO a far better option. It's much cheaper to produce, easier to sort out, and it's not that much
slower than the R7K/600. People assume the power consumption is much higher, but it really isn't. Some assume the noise must be an
issue, but I fit a better modern fan. And if I can find out the resistor positions then I'll offer an R12K/350 aswell, but haven't got the info
for that yet. Only caveat is such systems are limited to one internal disk by default (some people mod their chassis to get round this).

The mod cost situation could change in the future if the R5K/300 stops being so valuable, or if the mod work becomes a lot cheaper
(it was 180 UKP per module when I had the batch done way back), but not atm. However, sometimes they turn up on eBay, or here in
the for-sale section.


Nice work on the respray btw; I wouldn't worry too much about the shade of purple though, I've seen quite a bit of variation over the
years, usually due to light exposure but in some cases, with the asbence of marks/scratches, I think the original paint job was sometimes
not identical anyway.

I've not done too much with resprays, though I have been experimenting with redoing spare Indy cases in black + gold trim, a nod to
the Cray T90, hehe.

uunix wrote: Pros and Cons for me, Form Factor, Noise, Power Consumption, 1600sw and cuteness.

And one other thing, you'd be amazed how many times I've heard hobbyists say that in the face of objections
to possible techno clutter, O2 is the one SGI system which wives/gfs seem happy to have around. "cute"
has been used on many occasions so I gather.

So, tip: if you have a techno phobic other half, start off with O2, work up from there. They won't realise what's
happened until the Onyx rack gets delivered.

Ian.

mapesdhs wrote: You've linked to my mirror site, I'm the latter guy.

nice to meet you

mapesdhs wrote: By contrast, the modded R12K/300 is IMO a far better option

yeah, but i was thinking: the modded R7K @ 600Mhz doesn't have the cache coherency issue of the R12K, so i could eventually use the R7K with linux. My R12K @ 400Mhz panics the kernel in a few seconds, while Irix is appreciating the speed up.

I've never seen any consequence of the cache structure with R12K (apart from the well known fp speed hit),
but then I don't use Linux with O2 and I never would (don't see the point) since everything that's unique
about O2 can't be used. I understand the challenge of getting it to work, but not beyond that.

Ian.

about ram i was a bit shocked, see prices

• 128MB FPM SIMM , 99.00 UKP
• 128MB EDO SIMM , 79.00 UKP

the Impact here for sale has 8 SIMM modules of 128Mbyte each, so does it really mean it has a virtual value (just of the ram of) 8 x 99 UKP X______________X ? How much should i ask to sell this machine ? Unbelievable, these guys are insane about prices !

No price is insane. It's always about supply & demand. if a price seems high, that's probably just because the seller is
perfectly able to sell them elsewhere for that amount, in which case, er, tough luck. But look elsewhere, it varies,
and there's always the used market (I obtained my kits from HP systems). My own price for the 512MB kit equates to
about 37 UKP per SIMM, ie. 150 for one kit.

Ian.

ivelegacy wrote: about ram i was a bit shocked, see prices

• 128MB FPM SIMM , 99.00 UKP
• 128MB EDO SIMM , 79.00 UKP

the Impact here for sale has 8 SIMM modules of 128Mbyte each, so does it really mean it has a virtual value (just of the ram of) 8 x 99 UKP X______________X ? How much should i ask to sell this machine ? Unbelievable, these guys are insane about prices !

CJE Micros is a specialist in Acorn and other RISC OS gear, so serving a very small market and with no direct competition since the sad demise of APDL. The RiscPC was quite fussy about SIMMs and launched before 128MB modules were generally available (I've heard that at launch in 1994 Acorn's engineers did not actually know if the designed RAM ceiling of 256MB would ever work, because they could not get the hardware to test it!), so the price reflects CJE's assurance that they will work in a RiscPC.

Note also that they are not parity RAM, so not suitable for an SGI machine anyway. If you are looking for 128MB SIMMs for a RiscPC, see this ebay sale and make an offer! (Nothing to do with me, but that seller has consistently had one or two on sale at around GBP30 for ages).

For Indy/I2 - I got a batch of 10 32MB parity SIMMs from "1-800-4-memory" on ebay a while ago, to use as two sets of four (plus a couple spare) for my R4400 Indigo2. They seem to do 128MB sets as well, e.g. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LOT-OF-TEN-12 ... 35b3c8b198 but without specific assurance of I2 compatibility.

ajw99uk wrote: I've heard that at launch in 1994 Acorn's engineers did not actually know if the designed RAM ceiling of 256MB would ever work, because they could not get the hardware to test it!

yeah, been afraid about that, i asked around with the following answer

Yes, you can fit 2x128MB SIMMs to the RiscPC, giving 256MB memory, but some software might have difficulty with this much memory, believing the system is short of memory!

ajw99uk wrote: Note also that they are not parity RAM, so not suitable for an SGI machine anyway. If you are looking for

nope, i was offered to sell out my friend's Impact (yeah, i am playing like a broker ) for just 100 euro plus shipping, which appears me as … not acceptable, but which is there right price ? So i was just trying to understand the correct money i have to ask for this machine

i mean, it has

• Phobos G160 (with manual and CD)
• 3Com for SGI (not the hacked one)
• 40Gbyte 2U SCA SCSI disk
• 8x128Mbyte (that we have understood they cost, a bit)
• a not hw patched revision of the the motherboard (like happenes for RevA, i mean, this one, which was the earlier motherboard installed, replaced with the last Rev available and for Impact)
• CD rom SCSI that can also work when the machine stands vertically
• Iomega ZIP SCSI
• extra cooler (ok, it's just +5 USD gadget, btw is funny and pretty installed into the bay)
• repainted box (professionally made, 50 euro just for the can of purple paint)
• Impact feet

Depends how quickly you want to sell it!

You could imagine 250 Euros for the base system with CPU and Solid Impact graphics, maybe another 200 Euros for the RAM and 200 Euros for the NICs (although you might be better off pulling one of them out and selling separately as there's probably not many people interested in a system with TWO 100MB NICs), maybe another 50 Euros for the ZIP and CD drive and you're looking at 700 Euros.

It's a difficult one overall, as if you push the price too high, people will start to want HighIMPACT or above for those sort of prices and may not be willing to part with that kind of money for a system with only SolidIMPACT (even if the rest of it is nice).

If it struggles to sell for that sort of price, you might get more money by selling half the RAM separately, along with one of the NICs, then try to get 500 Euros for the system after this (seeing as it'll still be a fully usable system).

For what it's worth, I paid just over £300 for a SolidIMPACT system with 36GB HDD, 256MB RAM, 100MB EISA NIC, foot stands and decent-quality case from Ian last year. The other upgrades to the one in my sig have taken place after this.

ivelegacy wrote: i was offered to sell out my friend Impact for just 100 euro plus shipping, which appears me as … not acceptable, but which is there right price ?

Well, this one has been repainted which I think most people would consider a turnoff, Indigo2's are heavy so expensive to ship, and (nothing personal, but) the Italian Post office has a reputation for destroying things or valuable items simply vanishing.

ivelegacy wrote: So i was just trying to understand the correct money i have to ask for this machine

i mean, it has

• Phobos G160 (with manual and CD)
• 3Com for SGI (not the hacked one)
• 40Gbyte 2U SCA SCSI disc
• 8x128Mbyte (that we have understood … they are extremely expensive, btw i do not want to ask to much, it's insane)
• a not hw patched revision of the the motherboard (like happened for RevA, i mean, this one

I have an Indigo2 R10K myself; I added the full 1024MB of RAM (two 512MB kits from an HP NetServer) for 40 or 50EUR per kit years ago. The G160 used to fetch a similar amount, not sure anymore what I paid for it or how much they sell for these days.

Value of a system is never the sum of the values of the individual components, especially if you want to sell in a hurry. If you want to maximize money I advise you to part out the G160 and the memory, they might sell for the amounts I mentioned above and shipping will be reasonable. There was someone interested in an Impact Indigo2 PSU recently.

mapesdhs wrote: No price is insane. It's always about supply & demand. if a price seems high, that's probably just because the seller is perfectly able to sell them elsewhere for that amount, in which case, er, tough luck.

Seller is a business, sitting patiently on it's stash, waiting for another company in need to extort ^H^H^H do business. That doesn't mean a hobbyist can sell *today* at those prices. Most businesses don't even want to buy from individuals.

mapesdhs wrote: But look elsewhere, it varies, and there's always the used market (I obtained my kits from HP systems). My own price for the 512MB kit equates to about 37 UKP per SIMM, ie. 150 for one kit.

I'm using the same kits here. Downside to the HP kits is they have tin plated contacts rather than gold. This causes bad contacts over the years -- but nothing that a little cleaning won't fix.

Trippynet wrote: For what it's worth, I paid just over £300 for a SolidIMPACT system with 36GB HDD, 256MB RAM, 100MB EISA NIC, foot stands and decent-quality case from Ian last year.

I would say half of that is so you can feel assured that someone will answer the mail if you run into a problem. Not that there's anything wrong with that, on the contrary. Ian can simply demand a higher price than you or I can.

jan-jaap wrote: Post office has a reputation for destroying things or valuable items simply vanishing

that is false, I have sent Ducati (motorcycle) parts to
- germany
- uk
- france
edit:
- usa
- canada

without any issues! The secret is just choosing the right shipping agency
e.g. UPS, Fedex, SDA, and in case i do my best to offer the cheapest price

Trippynet wrote: you're looking at 700 Euros

well, this machine is my friend's one, he has asked me: would you like to buy it instead of putting auctions around for sale ?
i asked - how much ? - and he answered - 300 euro for the whole including an additional plastic box - (that - what should i use it for ? -he said - obviously to put in an other 40Gbyte SCSI external hard drive - X________X )

to be honest, i am thinking about that, as i have written a of time here, this friend of mine has damaged my IP30, offering 100 euro of money cash to buy the replacement (a front plane) which i am not able to find out at such a price. I was asked 250 euro + shipping + VAT, so, as the fact i can develop linux on IP28, too (1), while replacing my dead Octane2 seems HopeLess (i was asked more than 700 euro for the whole Octane2 machine, that's insane at all), i am really thinking about buying this machine from my friend for 300 euro without any shipping issues as i can pickup it an put it into my car.

Actually i am remotely connected (ssh) to this machine in order to fix all the software jam my friend has done (e.g. issue with lan configuration, issues with C compiler, issues with license manager, and so on). After 1 week of fixup, this machine has been working very solid with Irix, everything is fast and being working very good!

Phobos G160 is … too slow, i can achieve only 10Mbyte/sec, i was thinking about using NFS to resolve the 10Mbyte/sec limitation offered by the internal SCSI built-in controller, but … this way seems hopeless due to the Phobos limitations, too =(

btw, It's also the first time of experienced with an Impact, never tried it before as i was used to play with O2+ and Octane2, so … how do i feel the console ? The SCSI is not so fast, but the whole experience is very pretty and i think i am falling in love with, so if people want to offer 100 euro being afraid about how safe the shipping can go, well … i offer 300 euro and i take it!

that's all!



(1) IP28 and IP30 are the only SGI machines with R10K ISA in where i can run linux! I can't run linux on O2+/R10K/R12K, it's unstable due to cache issues

ivelegacy wrote:

jan-jaap wrote: Post office has a reputation [...]

that is false [...] The secret is just choosing the right shipping agency e.g. UPS, Fedex

I think you just confirmed what I said ...

(emphasis mine)

jan-jaap wrote:

ivelegacy wrote: I think you just confirmed what I said ...

sure, you are quite right about that, the only exception is SDA business (it's the same company, but different service, they are more expensive but extremely professional), that ships only with-in zone1-5 of Europe.

ivelegacy wrote: Phobos G160 is … too slow, i can achieve only 10Mbyte/sec

That's about right for any 100Mb NIC - it's not a limitation of the Phobos card specifically. 100Mbit / 8 = 12.5MB/s absolute theoretical maximum. And pretty much all cards top out a bit below this due to overheads etc. To get much more than that, you'd need a gigabit card and no such thing exists for the Indigo2. Only faster option I'm aware of is fibre-channel.

ivelegacy wrote: I was asked 250 euro + shipping + VAT

Sounds reasonable. The 700 Euros was the absolute rose-tinted spectacle price and to be fair, you probably wouldn't get many takers at that. It should sell for 250 Euros without any problem. Heck, it'd sell for 250 probably with half the RAM and one NIC, so I would still pull those out and sell separately myself. They're unlikely to add to the value of the system that much if you leave them in.

Jan Jaap wrote: I would say half of that is so you can feel assured that someone will answer the mail if you run into a problem. Not that there's anything wrong with that, on the contrary. Ian can simply demand a higher price than you or I can.

It was also because of the fact that the system was fully cleaned out inside, Ian T-cutted the case to smooth off the scratches (and did a really good job IMO), set the extra NIC up, plus there's a mountain of software on it as well, along with a cloned spare HDD of the system image, CDs of extra software, etc. There was the advantage of being able to spec up exactly what I wanted, rather than having to rely on what was maybe available on eBay. Actually, speaking of which, Indigo2 systems seem to be very rare on eBay in the UK as of late. I've not had a single one show up at all in the last year which was UK based.

I know you can get Indigo2s a fair bit cheaper if you really shop around and look for a bargain, but I don't begrudge for one minute paying a bit more for one from Ian

Trippynet wrote: Sounds reasonable

it is reasonable to sell the whole Impact for 250/300 euro, while it's insane to ask 250 euro just for the front plane module of Octane2 as i was asked, i think it's really too much on ebay (USA, so … plus shipping VAT etc)

Also, i was asked 700 euro for the whole Octane2 system, we are talking about R12K @ 400Mhz 1Gbyte of ram, V6 gfx, and 36Gbyte HD, and i am a bit confused about that, because I got an other quote, 350 euro for such a machine, plus 350 euro for a 2xR14K@600Mhz.

quote1 (by guy1, ebay italy): 1xR12K @ 400Mhz 1Gbyte of ram, V6 gfx, 36Gbyte HD, 700 euro
quote2 (by guy2, ebay germany): 2xR14K @ 600Mhz 1Gbyte of ram, V6 gfx, 36Gbyte HD, 700 euro (yeah, the same price)

A guy has bought an Origin with 4XR16K and 4Gbyte of ram, for less than 500 euro (ebay germany), so It seems to me, everyone wants to do personal price X_________X

and at the top of my shock price list: an O2+/R12@400Mhz 1Gbyte of ram + RAD, sold for 40 euro X_________________X
that's simply incredible, but it happened, i have seen the auction by my eyes

i payed 250 euro for my O2+/R12@270Mhz/512Mbyte, plus 150 euro for the R12K@400Mhz upgrade, so it means 400 euro against the same numbers without a zero, 40 euro, and the ratio goes for 1:10 payed for the same object X_________X unbelievable ebay germany

my O2+/R12@400Mhz/512Mbyte/RAD: 400 euro, bought from ebay italy
his O2+/R12@400Mhz/1024Mbyte: 40 euro, bought from ebay germany (1)


(1) obviously it was an extremely lucky effect (_|_) which i believe it happens once every million transactions

Alas you're in the hobbyist realm here, ie. you can't expect to get top prices for this stuff, especially given you cannot
provide any proper warranty. Sure, in theory on paper the system is worth 'quite a bit', but that has nothing to do
with what any particular person is willing to pay, because the people who would pay more are those buying for
companies, not hobbyists, and they mostly do not look in this forum.

When it comes to hobbyist sales, let me put it this way: if someone asked me about your listing, whether they should
buy it as a hobbyist looking for their first SGI, I would normally say no, because an Octane2 400/V6 is so much better
in various ways. But this doesn't take into account the broad range of hobbyist bias; some prefer specific systems,
some care about particular tasks or features, others just want a basic SGI for learning IRIX. Some want the fastest
possible and thus look for Fuel, Tezro, etc. This is why I usually go through a Q&A process to find out what a person
is looking for - do they care about noise, what about size/weight, specific apps they want to run, future upgrade
potential, and so on. This may lead to a different recommendation such as an O2, or indeed an Indigo2. It varies.
In that sense it's hard for me to answer a question such as, what is this system worth, because I can't put myself in
typical hobbyist shoes anymore, too familiar with it all.

Dealers will not offer much because, no matter what they can sell a system for, they can obtain them fairly cheaply,
in some cases even free (when companies are ditching old gear). I've heard of some reseller used kit sales involving
markups of 10000% compared to how much a system was sold for vs. how much it cost to obtain. That's at the extreme
end of course; my point is one can't say any particular item has an objective value. It's always down to whatever
someone is willing to pay, and the sheer luck if you happen to attract the right person who's willing to pay that sum.
On eBay it's a total crapshoot for this sort of thing.

Trying to get a fast sale for what's effectively a specialised item, at a good price for the seller, will be difficult
unless the right person is around at the time. You could have a dozen replies saying ach, don't be daft, Octane2 is
better, that thing's not worth more than 100E, and then all of a sudden a buyer comes along for whom Indigo2
brings back the best memories of working at a movie company or something, and so they're happy to pay 1000+.

I'd buy it for 100E, but not more since atm I'm up to my eyeballs in Indigo2s (I have seriously a lot of them). Plus of
course I buy SGI stuff to sell on, so an item's "value" means even less to me, as I try to get things for as little as
possible (for obvious reasons).

NB: I have a feeling that those who have asked me over the years if I had a good condition purple skins set for
Indigo2 would probably not want a repainted set. Such buyers tend to prefer originality. Others may not be
so bothered though, who knows.

Btw, whatever an item sells for on eBay means *nothing*; never has done, never will do. Again, stop looking for
'objective' values for things, because they don't exist. Just pick a price you'd be happy with and try to sell it for
that much, but do remember you're always going to get more by splitting it for parts and selling things over a
longer period of time. If you want a fast sale then it's very unlikely you'll get a high amount because by defintion
buyers know you're in a hurry, so they have the advantage. It doesn't matter a hoot if you bought an O2+ for 250E,
because an SGI reseller can easily sell such a system for 10X that much to a company; ditto R12K/400 modules, etc.

I don't understand why you think this is all bizarre and weird when you're talking about eBay. It's not a normal
shop, just a totally random auction-fest by different people in different countries. Could be, for example, that
one person has been given advice on how much to list a system for, whereas another person is simply happy to
recover how ever much it cost them to originally obtain - likely two very different amounts. Sometimes a seller
just doesn't care, they want rid of it, so they list it with a low start & no reserve, and if luck of the draw means
not many people see it then it'll go for not much, but that's their choice not to use a higher start or a reserve.

Ian.

Trippynet wrote: That's about right for any 100Mb NIC - it's not a limitation of the Phobos card specifically. 100Mbit / 8 = 12.5MB/s absolute theoretical maximum. And pretty much all cards top out a bit below this due to overheads etc. To get much more than that, you'd need a gigabit card and no such thing exists for the Indigo2. Only faster option I'm aware of is fibre-channel.
)

yes, you are right, @mapesdhs has explained me that fibreChannel card is the only solution to speed up the storage of an Impact's storage. I have read that such an FC card have two ports, of the type where one port can be used for storage and the other for networking. Unfortunately i have never seen any FC network switch to any FC disk array, which i hope … they could achieve 80MB/sec in theory. I have read something of legendary about what was made by Prisa, but never seen by my eyes, and never seen for sale.