The collected works of ClassicHasClass - Page 4

http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2013/02/ ... de-of.html

Loved all the car alarms going off in the video ...

Approaching old fart. Get off my lawn.

A very nice machine. I have a 9000/350 myself.

So my Indy has a gig drive, and almost all of it is consumed, as I found out the hard way trying to install gcc on it (I don't have the cash to spring for a MIPSpro license).

What are some things I could throw away that are not essential, short of digging up a larger disk and installing IRIX on that?

Memory is hard to find for those units. I've learned to be satisfied with 16MB (which is still a lot for HP-UX of that generation).

What I'd like to find is an HP-IB CD-ROM. I know they're out there.

Ah, I was hoping someone would say Java is not essential. That should get me to the right point. I don't see PPP in the software manager -- where is that in the file system?

It's 8.0. It seems very happy with that. Some pr0n of Homer (it even came with a Homer Simpson squeeze doll):

http://www.floodgap.com/iv/1572 (full enclosure)
http://www.floodgap.com/iv/1573 ("hinv")
http://www.floodgap.com/iv/1574 (old school X11)
http://www.floodgap.com/iv/1575 ("dmesg" from HP-UX)

Eventually I'll have to, and fortunately I do have IRIX 6.5.mumble install media, but I'm going to see how far I get with this first. As soon as I'm back from my folks I'm going to strip out Java.

Rumours are now circulating that Presto will be open source. Hopefully this includes their earlier releases which, as bluecode points out, ran on lots of platforms. Could even resurrect it for Mac OS 9 ...

Neither could I. I remember being a starving undergraduate reading in Wired about this new wonderbox called "Indy." Sounded like a computer I needed to have!

SPARC actually has a JaegerMonkey backend. However, assuming we can get it done, TenFourFox may be the only non-x86/ARM IonMonkey backend (PowerPC). I haven't seen any action from any other arch on that.

I'm still looking for a working MacIvory card. I don't really have the space (or room on my electricity bill) for a full-on Symbolics workstation, but this fits perfectly with my classic Mac fetish, and I have a number of NuBus Macs that will accommodate one.

Not anymore. Back in the day, however, there were hardware-specific versions. As mentioned the PowerStack needs the Groupe Bull-specific release, and 4.1.4.0/1 and 4.1.5 were available in special versions for the Apple Network Server. (Personal note: I loved the ANS. My server for 14 years was an ANS 500 until it got too slow and had some intermittent hardware faults, but I still have it and it still suffices for CDE and playing around on.)

3.0 had some pretty egregious leaks in it.

Found a 600MHz R14K Fuel for a price I liked. It needs a new hard disk, but I can refurbish. Other than a crack on the front panel it's in good physical shape. Should be here next week.

I can't really tell from other threads here how it will do with a USB-DVI KVM (I use an Aten CS1764A because it works perfectly with Mac OS 9, one of the few that doesn't screw up scroll wheel support and cause certain other glitches). I also have a Griffin iMic I got from my bro-in-law ages ago that I now finally have a use for.

The Aten can emulate a hub; I assume IRIX's USB support can handle HID devices behind a hub? For my HP C8000 I wired a bypass switch around the KVM since the C8000 didn't like using a USB keyboard behind a hub for its console; it wanted the keyboard directly connected, at least to get through the PROM boot stage. Once HP-UX was up I could take the keyboard away from it (flip the bypass switch back to the KVM) and it didn't care then. Strangely, it didn't have this objection to the mouse. Hopefully the Fuel doesn't have any irregularities like that ... ?

The current versions really are a lot better about memory use. 3.x could be a real hog. A 64-bit version might not be a bad workaround ...

Good deal. Then this might be doable after all. I'll keep the bypass hooked in just in case.



I bet. I saw some posts that said having PS/2 *and* USB keyboards connected to it (using the PS/2 as the emergency keyboard) can be troublesome. True?

Anyway, I'm excited. Love Big Red!

Damn. OpenVMS run well on those things, I take it?

Good to know. Thanks!

Oh, I still love my Indy. It's still a great machine. But this one will complement my PowerPC stable very nicely in power and functionality. And love that red!

PowerPC is the same way as MIPS. Unless you need more addressing space, 64-bit code is a bigger headache and slightly slower.

Picked up Big Red today. No hard disk, but that was expected. PROM hinv reports 512MB of RAM, but doesn't say what the video card is (any easy way to find out?).

With the KVM, the machine starts fine, but if I switch away the PROM monitor freaks and reports a message "usb_hid_reattach" or some such. Mouse still works, but I have to restart the machine. Hopefully it doesn't do this in Irix when the hard disk I have on order arrives. DVD-ROM seems to read the Irix install disc fine.

They do, but that's about all I know about the Intel Xserves. I really only worked with the PPC ones.

Sure. I'll fire it up this weekend and check. It's just what came on the machine; I don't know if that's HP-UX default of that vintage or not, since I'm this machine's fourth owner (at least).

Wow, a blue Fuel! Awesome!

Thanks, recondas, I'm going to try that when I get home. I also have to drop by WalWart and pick up a couple small tabs of Velcro. As mentioned the front door has a (repaired) crack in it, but it also apparently lost its locking tab, so I'm just going to give it a tiny smidge of Velcro to hold it shut.

030-1726-005! Woohoo! It's a V12!

Yep.

But I don't care much for OS X as a server platform; it's never been shockingly performant. Why not ye old Linux?

So I've wasted most of tonight on trying to get Irix 6.5.20 on the Fuel and I can't get a bootable system. I have (what I think is) a full set of install CDs: foundations I and II, four 6.5.20 overlay CDs, and the Apps CD.

After partitioning the drive with fx, which was no problem, I start the installer from overlay 1 and start with foundations. I "from", "keep *", "install default", "keep conflicting" and "go" for both Foundations I and II, and then the same for each of the overlay CDs (1 and 2 are the same, the difference being 1 has the miniroot).

The installs appeared to succeed. Or, at least it installed *something* because there's a regular file system with apparently valid files, but there is no kernel. When I quit the installer, it does rqsall, as expected, but autoconfig fails: no /var/sysgen/boot. There's a /var/sysgen, but there's no boot/ in it.

Am I missing a disc? Or, hopefully, just missing a step? The Irix install guides out there are not very detailed, at least not the ones that came up with a cursory Google search.

Incidentally, while the USB keyboard worked fine in the PROM command monitor, the actual install miniroot wants a PS/2 keyboard, even though it can see (and complain about) USB HID events.

The Fuel is (finally) set up with 6.5.20. I'm now considering what my next step should be to get it Nekoware-ready (see other thread). For future sojourners bringing a Fuel up from scratch:

- KVM is, as mentioned, an Aten CS1764A DVI-USB KVM.
- The PROM monitor worked fine with the USB KVM, but when I booted from my 6.5.20 overlay CD, the miniroot required a PS/2 keyboard; it would not respond to the USB keyboard on the KVM, even though it could see it and complain about it when I switched focus. The mouse still works.
- After installation, I unplugged the PS/2 keyboard, telnetted in and removed /etc/ioconfig.conf and let it redetect its devices. It looks like this now:



Yes, there are two meeses. 2/3/mouse appears to be the one actually in use; if I remove it, the mouse is not detected. However, even if I remove 2/4/1/mouse, it just comes back. I might need to fiddle with the KVM's mouse emulation to figure out why that is.
- In general the KVM just works (it still emits usb_hid_reattach errors to the console when I switch away, but unlike the Command Monitor, it redetects it fine when I switch back), *except* in this one case: if I log out as any user other than root. Then the mouse stops working and I have to restart the system. The keyboard works fine, but the mouse stops functioning. However, switching focus is fine, and it doesn't seem to happen if I log out if I was logged in as root. I wonder if there's a permissions problem somewhere, and I don't know if it has anything to do with "the two meeses."

Well, it turned out to be real simple: I screwed up overlay disc 2, so the required packages were never installed. (I'm using copies of my originals: those are gold!) So I reimaged it and it worked properly.

So now it boots 6.5.20 and that seems to work fine. (foetz: I got the "keep *" from Ian.) However, some of the posts in this thread make me wonder what the next step should be -- I definitely want to make it Nekoware-ready, but I don't want to lose something I might want later. I have 6.5.22 tardists from supportfolio, though I may also have a line on a set of 6.5.26 overlay CDs (crossing fingers). What would I lose, exactly, going to either .22 or .26? Where can I restore those lost tools from, assuming I want to?

PowerPC, he asked hopefully?

(well, by fine I mean the PROM monitor starts with it, but switching away you lose the keyboard but not the mouse)

@mia, yes, compared to the Indy it flies! Especially those V12 graphics. My folks were visiting and my father was captivated by the demos. He particularly enjoyed the "demograph."

@hamei, no, I figured that's what it meant. But why is it detecting *two* mice? That's why I think there's something afoot with the KVM's mouse emulation feature. Perhaps Irix is seeing both the emulated mouse and the actual HID mouse device on the hub. The real question is whether that's confusing it, or the "lose mouse on logout" issue is something different. Maybe this gets better with later releases of Irix.

Okay, I'll dust the 6.5.22 tardists off and try to get those on this weekend. Thanks!