The collected works of Black Cardinal - Page 2

hamei wrote: Interesting the way she has the lamp shining directly on the screen in a dark room. That's going to work real good

This is like how space and biosuit helmets in modern sci-fi shows have lights inside that shine at the face of the wearer, rather than out in front of them. Obviously this is done so we can see who is inside them, but it's ridiculously impractical.

Robespierre is referring to the Unix man pages. Try:

and

from a shell prompt on the system.

They're also available online:

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=0650&db=man&fname=/usr/share/catman/p_man/cat4/clearance.z

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=0650&db=man&fname=/usr/share/catman/p_man/cat5/dominance.z

There's an entire guide on this topic, which may or may not be useful:

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/browse.cgi?coll=0650&db=bks&cmd=toc&pth=/SGI_Admin/TCMW_AG

I really like your lighting. When I did my room, I considered putting in similar recessed lights to supplement the large fluorescent fixtures I installed, putting them on a separate circuit for more control of the "mood," but in the end left them out to save a bit on cost. After seeing how they look in your room, I'm wishing I'd installed them.

Your whole room looks spectacular! I would definitely be happy spending my free time there.

I stumbled across this last night while trying to figure out some POD-related stuff for my Onyx2. The Internet Archive has the SGI Hardware Quick Reference Booklet for Origin 2K/Onyx2 systems available for download. It contains a bunch of information about DIP switches, midplane jumpers, cable configurations for multiple racks, PROM, and POD commands. It helped fill in a lot of the blanks that I had in understanding my own system. I hadn't run across this on the SGI Support site or anywhere else, so I thought this might be helpful to some other folks here.

Link: https://archive.org/details/Origin2k_Hardware_Guide

The PDF with text is a scan of the PDF so it includes the figures but with searchable/highlightable text.

Yeah, the fact that it's called a "booklet" amused me as well. They must have had a massive stapler.

On page 185 it mentions an Origin2000 and Onyx2 Power-On Diagnostics manual. I bet that one contains a lot of useful information, but I haven't been able to find it yet. This "booklet" actually contains a fair amount of detail on the subject, though, such as which diagnostics require CAC mode instead of DEX, and which diagnostics should be run before other ones.

I still run mine from a 120V 15A circuit, but only because I haven't gotten around to getting the correct cable to plug it into the 240V outlet. (I specifically ran one for it in my new computer room but still haven't used it yet.)

That said, I've monitored my power consumption with a Kill-a-Watt on the Onyx2 and haven't quite exceeded 1kW yet, even with 2x 400MHz node boards and 2 RM10s in it. So I wouldn't worry about it too much.

And yes, it does make a good space heater. Even in winter I have to keep both windows cracked in my 12x8 computer room in or it will fastfan pretty quickly.

Edit: Actually it's running on a 20A circuit, but my power consumption numbers suggest that a 15A circuit is fine. Just don't try to run it with many other devices on the same circuit.

I have a vague recollection that the %foo% dereferencing only worked inside BAT files or in the environment passed to applications. I don't think it worked directly on the command line. I don't have a DOS system to try it out on nearby, though.

Mine is somewhere between IR2 and IR3. I still have a GE14 instead of a GE16, the last piece to my IR3 puzzle. That might explain why I haven't quite gone over the 1kW threshold yet.

A quick Google search for "DG/UX boot parameters" led me to

http://www.linuxmisc.com/14-unix-administering/4b7883b9fe7786ed.htm (forum post about boot command)

And

http://www.cilinder.be/docs/dgaviion/aviion9500.pdf (Aviion 9500 series user manual, look in chapter 3)

I don't know squat about Data General stuff so I have no idea if any of it is helpful, but I was curious.

The guide is over at Ian's web site: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/i2psu.html

There's a thread with some tips here: http://forums.nekochan.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16726076

I had to do this to my Indigo2 a couple of years ago and it came right back up. It's been running great ever since.

A minor niggle but it's actually in Canada, not the USA.

I've also sent a PM.

Very cool that this works. Thanks for sharing! I've got an OfficeJet Pro 8600 that I should try this on.

I've still got my old HP ScanJet 4p hooked up to my Indigo2 through SCSI. Works great with Impressario.

PM sent.

hamei wrote: The discussion of color management on Loonix sites really seems over-complex to me. There's a ton of discussion about applications using ICC profiles, &c &c. But ... why ?

Admittedly I haven't followed the discussion you mention so probably haven't considered some novel ways to screw it up, but your statement puzzles me. How would you propose simplifying it? It strikes me that using ICC profiles is precisely the correct way to do it.

Implemented properly, they provide a way to correctly map an input device's color space to a generic color space for processing, and then again to an output device's color space. The only way I could see to simplify it further would be cut out the generic color space and work directly in the input or output device's color space, but then once you try to use a different output device or share your file with someone else the color would break. This is the primary reason why we bother working in sRGB or other generic color spaces while processing image data on a computer.

ICC profiles are already a standard part of the workflow for anyone who cares about accurate color, i.e. professionals. They are used to deal with color management on both OS X and Windows. To not use ICC profiles would be reinventing the wheel.

The implementation probably has lots of potential for over-complication. But unless the device drivers are going to support ICC profiles directly, it will probably have to fall back to the applications to execute the mapping.

hamei wrote: So if the monitor is corrected and the printer is corrected, the stuff in the middle doesn't matter. It will get adjusted to generate the color the human wants by the human at creation-time. Not an absolute numerical color measured by the frequency of the lightwave, the color that the graphic artist wants to see !

That's the point of it all.

If you use a different input or output device, it should also be corrected. If it's not, then no matter what you do it will be wrong. Same with sharing files.

Agreed. But if you don't do this correction with ICC profiles, then you still have to do it with some equivalent mapping mechanism. Why not stick with the standard? On most modern systems, when you use a spectrophotometer to measure your monitor or printer output and get correction values, what you are doing is creating a custom ICC profile for that device. Nobody who really cares about color accuracy trusts the default profiles for devices, they measure and create a custom one for each set of variables. For printers, this would include paper type, weight, print mode, etc.

Edit: I just talked with one of my company's color science experts and he said that our ICC profiles transform between L*a*b (absolute color coordinates) and the device color spaces. I had mentioned sRGB above but that is apparently used more in the video world.

Just to be clear, are you saying that the libraries in the dependencies also downloaded from Nekoware don't match versions? Do you have an example or two?

99% chance it's the supply and it just needs a recapping. The parts are cheap and easy to get, and the job itself isn't very hard. I personally wouldn't spend a lot of time reverse-engineering it.

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/i2psu.html

I was one of those kids who always wore a watch starting in junior high. But about 5 years ago my trusty 20 year-old Pulsar died and I just started using my mobile phone.

About a year and a half ago I had the opportunity to get a nice watch for "free" (it was an award from work) so I started wearing a watch again. I had forgotten how much I liked the convenience of not having to get my mobile phone out of its holster and turn it on just to check the time. Wearing a watch again felt like coming home after a long time away. The watch I started wearing was this one:


However, I recently got in the habit of wearing a Fitbit and having a device on both wrists was annoying so I've stopped wearing my watch except on formal occasions and just wear the Fitbit instead most of the time. It turns its screen on automatically when I raise my wrist so it's almost as convenient as a real watch.

You may already know this, but the CD tray is just a standard CD caddy that was once common to many early drives. There isn't anything specific to the Indigo2's drive. I picked up a generic caddy cheap from Ebay that works great.

Oh good point, I didn't even think that he might have meant the drive sled.

Even if X isn't working, you should still be able to remotely log in over the network, or use the serial console. From a regular shell prompt shut down the Xserver with /usr/gfx/stopgfx , copy the backup files into place, and then restart X with /usr/gfx/startgfx .