IRIX and Software

So, I'm cleaning up some machines I picked up/saved recently, getting ready to try to get rid of them (I don't need any more Indigo 2s!) when I notice they have a lot of nodelocked licenses, permanent or expiring in 2038 (Why not just make them permanent? Do they expect a flood of license revenues 40 years later?). I'm not familiar with all of them - do they make these machines worth keeping? Normally I like the old SGI apps, better than current FOSS, but I think FOSS may have these covered...

Cosmo stuff (Code, Color, Create, Create 3D, Worlds) - Anything useful here? What commands would start up these programs?
WebSpace Author
WebMagic Pro
WebMagic Author
RapidApp
Prodev Workshop
PCP Collector, PCP Monitor
InPerson - pretty sure this obsolete?
Annotator - too old as well?
Workshop Pro MPF
XLV XFS Plexing - Mirroring? Somewhat unneeded on a 10MB/s I2?
Mineset Server,Client

Basically, is there anything here that's GUI based, really shows off an SGI? Commandline tools may be plenty powerful and useful, but I'm unlikely to really use them as playtoys. I suspect some of the Cosmo*,Web* stuff may be GUI based, but that nekoware/freeware have FOSS alternatives that are just as good. Or maybe not. Something I should check out? I'm mostly familiar with CAD/CAE software under IRIX, I think this these are more web/software development tools that I don't know too much about...

The world will end in 2038. Or at least, 32bits time_t (seconds since 1/1/1970) will overflow.

Yeah, I remember reading about that, the next Y2K bug. But since you can apparently make them permanent, it did seem kinda lazy to just make them the largest int you can fit.

but since irix 6.5 is 64 bits, maybe they have fixed this?

An IRIX-only video iChat. Way, way ahead of its time. Cool to play with if you have enough machines and IRIX geeks on a local net.

Very interesting early GUI-based exploratory data analysis suite. Could still be worth some money to people.

The pcp stuff could be interesting for folks who admin larger (challenge/origin) boxen.

IIRC, "permanent" is synonymous with "2038" in those versions of FLEXlm, so it's a matter of semantics, not a matter of being lazy.

I haven't kept up with the current status. That might be a good question for someone with a service contract to ask SGI. Obviously, they won't be supporting IRIX in 2038, but they should be able to say whether or not certain things are likely to work. Also, keep in mind that even if IRIX itself might support post-2038 dates, that is no guarantee that specific applications will support 2038+, particularly third party systems like FLEXlm license management.

It's not 64bits on my R4400 Indigo2 or R4600 Indy.

Is this what they used in Disclosure ? Unfortunately, these machines don't have video - and since the license is nodelocked, it's not moving to my machines that do.


Thanks! If it can make pretty charts/graphs, that would be cool. I assume it's still installed on the machine, or it's likely I have the disks to install it. I'll try to check it out this weekend. Hopefully is starts up easily enough with a command like mineset? It's not always obvious to me how to get some of the larger software packages started, you need to run a script with an obscure name that does 20 things to get it going, the binary with the package name doesn't do the trick.


Yeah, I didn't think it would be that useful on a lowly I2.

Thanks for the on-topic info!

Yep. A typical use would be to use a graphical workstation to collect and analyze raw pcp data from larger systems. I still think that pcp provides one of the best GUI dashboard views of systems, large or small, but especially large. Kind of like gr_osview on steroids, and with lots of customizable options.

Well, it does start up with mineset. But not without some doing. It seems only the compilers are installed, the others are just the licenses. But I have a lot of CDs, MineSet 2.6 installed and started up, made some pretty pictures from the examples - but it'd take some doing to figure out how to process my own data.

So next problem - on to Cosmo, not installed either. Seems to be a collection of web and VRML editors. CosmoCreate supposedly replaces Webmagic, which makes that license way old, since there were versions of Cosmo for 5.3. Now, my "Cosmo Suite August 1998" cd has dist (6.2?) dist6.3, dist6.4, and dist6.5 dirs. Pointing the software manager at dist says no compatible software to be installed. Pointing it at 6.5 lets you install CosmoCode, CosmoWorlds, some other stuff. But there are conflicts - they need cosmocreate.sw.base installed, some other cosmocreate stuff, too. But there isn't any cosmocreate stuff in dist6.5 - but there is in every other dir!!! (None of which it wants to read) Was CosmoCreate bundled with 6.5 on some other CD?!?! I don't recall seeing it before. I checked the "Webforce" CDs, but they seem to be server stuff. Or does this need some rulesoveride check to install another (6.2?) version? Seems odd that there would be a version in every other dist!

The on-line version of the product release notes for Cosmo Create for IRIX 6.5 mentions version 1.0.3. with a product code of SC4-CREATE-1.0.3.

If that's what you need, I found a copy of "Cosmo Create Authoring Environment, 1.0.3" on a June 1998 Applications CD <IRIX6.5.1>, I also found it on the Applications disk of an IRIX6.5.13 Overlay Set, but it's gone from IRIX6.5.28.

Apparently somewhere between the 6.5.13 and 6.5.28 Applications disks they stopped bundling Cosmo Create with IRIX <although Cosmo Player is still included as late as IRIX6.5.30>.

SGI sold Cosmo Create to Platinum Technologies Inc. - who were in turn sold to Computer Associates. A web search indicates CA has since dropped the product <there aren't any current references on their web site>.

As a semi-topical point of interest, the 1998 Silicon Graphics Annual Report includes a mention <page 7, last paragraph> that SGI had "terminated" its investment in Cosmo. The report <apparently the first issued after Richard Belluzzo became SGI's CEO that same year> makes for interesting reading from the historical perspective of SGI's fall from grace.

@dc_v01 - if you get it installed and running, there's an on-line tutorial for Cosmo Worlds. The author used the Platinum Tech Windows version, but the interface is similar enough you'd probably still find it useful. The tutorial site also mentions "Before the sale of the company to CA, Platinum notified the Web3D community that it was making the source code to Cosmo Player, Cosmo Worlds, and other applications available under an open source initiative." - though I couldn't google up a specific reference to an OSS version of Cosmo.

IRIX isn't 64 bit on all SGIs.
64 bit IRIX advertises itself as IRIX64 in uname (possibly with some parameters).

Indigo, Indy, Indigo2 and O2 (any CPU) all ran 32bit versions of the OS.

Most R10K and above machines run IRIX64 (Octane, Octane2, Fuel, Tezro).

Not sure what happens on an R10K I2.

Those also run IRIX64.

Correct.

64bit. R8000 Indigo2 as well.

Onyx/Challenge always runs a 64bit kernel, even is it has R4x00 CPUs. If you run IRIX 6.x on it, at least. If you run IRIX 5.x on it, is will be 32bits, because IRIX 5 wasn't 64bit at all.

well we could set the date to 2039 and see what happens...