The collected works of MrBill - Page 1

Ive gotten a few sgi machines in the past months and have been debating on getting an altix 350, they look like really interesting machines, and the price seems to be low enough that I can build up a respectable system in a few months, however I dont know anything about them, so im hoping someone here can fill in some of the blanks for me. Ive been digging through some of the manuals and documentation, but there is quite a bit to go through, i was hoping someone here could give me some clear answers. I really dont want to drop a lot of mony and end up with something i cant use.

1- I see you can connect multiple machines together with numalink cables, which is kinda one of the main selling points for me, but im unclear on how exactly it works. If it like a fast cluster, or does the memory and cpu's across all the machines appear to all be on the same machine? Do I need software written specifically to take advantage of this, or can i just run any old program and it will be none the wiser that its all on seperate machines.

2 - Can I use just a standalone altix 350? As in just buy one and connect more later as i need? I dont see much in terms of io on the back of them, just a console port, numa link, power. Can I just add any old pci card in there or do i need a special SGI ones? I suppose my end goal here is to get a system with enthernet I can ssh into. Possibly vga too if its posible.

3 lastly, i see there appear to be several different versions of the Altix 350, different outer appearances. Links to different ones ive seen on ebay at end of this post. Can i use these different ones together or do they all need to be the same. Does one of these have better features than the others that I should be more inclined to buy?

Again, any advice is much appriciated. I really rushed into buying my Indigo, and the unseen costs of getting the extra proprietary keyboard, mouse and memory really added up, I dont want to make that mistake agian, and really be clear on what im planning on getting this time

--thanks

Links to different Altix 350 models :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/350868875661?ss ... 1423.l2649

http://www.ebay.com/itm/190914296364?ss ... 1423.l2649

Yeah the origins look much more stylish, especially in that fancy rack. You can numa link them together like the altix ones?

Ill be honest, I would kill for a deskside or rackmount origin server. The problem is that I just cant feasibly ship them to me, and driving to get them is equally expensive.

Heres a bunch of complete racks full of 16 Altix 350's on ebay, loaded and ready to go. $800 per rack , again, just no way of getting it here, so im going to have to build one up peice by peice, probably paying more for it in the end. If anything is a disappointment its going to be having a load of these servers and not having that fancy rack to go along with it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Server-Rack-w-S ... 2eca9d750b

In response to PymbleSoftware,

Thank you for your response. Its good to know that I wont need specially written software.

(There is a limited list of cards supported, what are you expecting graphics?, these are run headless)

Alright, good to know, at least i know now that not every pci card is supported. As for graphics, i did not know weather they supported it or not. Not a setback, i actually will prefer it that way.

Again, the info is very much appriciated.

I realize that It is not X86 and software is going to need to be ported. Im fine with that. Im all for IRIX and mips stuff, i just haven't seen much of it on ebay, and what I do find generally tends to be extremely expensive. If it crosses my path at the right price im more than willing to throw together an origin 350 rack as well.


I think im going to grab a couple of these and pray I can find A base system later, as I dont want to be paying a fortune finding all the hard drive caddys, getting the rails,and numa link cables.

won't be as expensive as your electric bill.

To be honest I completely forgot to think about what it will take to power this. oh well, worst case scenario I can just run the base node like BetXen said, and run all of them when they are needed. I had 3 dell quad xeon rackmount servers in the past, if power usage is similar to them with just these 3 nodes i can manage. Ive actually got a watt meter here, ive been meaning to post a listing of the power usage of my octane and indigo with different cpu / disk / power supply options. Ill post how much it uses once it gets here.

I ended up buying 3 of these. I got everything needed to run the system, and the base node is coming with a debian installation ready to use.
The base node also comes with a fibre channel controller installed, the guy I bought it off of said there is a fibre channel disk array that goes with it, im might grab that too.

I want to thank everyone here for the insightful info.

I guess I should start reading over all the documentation in detail before it gets here

I have a SGI indigo with it's proprietary keyboard and mouse, I really like the keyboard, but unfortunately it can only be used with my indigo. Was there a ps2 keyboard made with the same keys / shape? I would really like to be able to use such a keyboard on one of my other more capable machines.

The keyboard i'm talking about is like this one here :
http://davy.nyacom.net/machines/img/sgi ... ms_top.jpg

thank you all for the helpful information.

I'll keep an eye out for either the granite or the "indigo2 slab" keyboard. Id much rather get the slab. Is that what is pictured here along with this indigo 2 at auction? http://www.ebay.com/itm/141651640986?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

That looks to be exactly what I want, although I already just bought a indigo2 so I cant justify spending that just to get the keyboard.

I did read a little into making a converter to go from the proprietary connector to standard ps2. I actually just recently got an ardunio,I don't want to risk breaking the keyboard, it took a while to find and was expensive. I'm surprised I didn't burn up the indigo itself when i first got it. Figured it was just ps2, plugged in a nice DEC branded ps2 keyboard i used for everything, plugged it in, all the num lock lights glowed real bright and there was a burning smell. I figured out what i had done wrong, surprisingly once i got the proper keyboard the machine still works fine.

I'm a bit of a keyboard snob, and very much like the SGI granite big slab (along with the IBM Model M and the earlier Apple Extended keyboards).

I actually have a bunch of ibm model M keyboards here(found them at the scrapyard), I actually liked the keyboard for the indigo better. It's just as big but quite a bit quieter.

Hey, thats what i paid for the propritary one for the indigo, but yeah, i could have had another indigo2 for that price.

I know the main focus of the forums here is SGI hardware, but i figured I would ask this here because I'm not really sure of where the best place to get information for sun machines would be. I picked up 2 SUN IPC workstations today from a warehouse.Pretty neat looking little machines. They are both in pretty rough shape, bits of rust on the case and corrosion on some places on the motherboard. They were not stored in ideal conditions. I did alot of cleaning of the motherboards, however upon trying to power them on i get a soft click, a quick flash of a green led, then nothing. Im not sure weather to suspect the power supply or the motherboard, If it's the motherboard i might as well pitch them. The power supply uses an odd short 12 pin cable, i was curious if there is a pinout for this so i could test to see if the power supply is the issue. They both give the same behavior when trying to be powered on. Short click, green light quickly flashes, and then nothing.

At any rate It was worth it just to get a pile of simm memory and a couple scsi disks i can use in my SGI machines.
Any help or suggestions are appreciated.

I decided not to try and make any sort of adapter for my indigo keyboard and just bought a granite ps2 slab keyboard. Works great, exactly what i wanted. Space bar seems oddly yellow compared to the rest of the keys, but i don't imagine a beige one would have been in much better condition.

Ive gotten a couple of calls in a similar format. I think they pull my number off adds for things i have for sale on Craigslist.

Difference being i described the face of the microwave rather than my SGI machines. They did not call back.

Kinda excited about this so thought i would mention it here, although Ive been slowly accumulating a good pile of sgi machines over here I decided for a change to get something big and get a pdp11 with some related gear. Ive been looking for a pdp 11 for quite a few years, but due to their size it is not really an option for me to go get one, but i managed to luck out and find one within driving distance in my state of Florida. Its going to be a big haul, It is a couple of racks worth of stuff. I kinda jumped at the chance to get it and didn't really factor in that it is well.... going to be heavy and a big job to load up, but i think it will make for a interesting trip. Honestly, anything to get out of Vero Beach for a day. I leave Tomarrow with a group of friends to go load it up.

Anyone else here have an interest in the pdp 11? Would anyone be interested to see pictures of the machine and equipment i manage to bring back?

I just picked up another octane from a nearby city. This is my first SGI machine to be picked up locally. The seller did not seem to know much about it, he actually had it connected to a cracked monitor.

Anyhow, got it home, and fired it up. Seems fully functional. Dual R1200 cpu at 300 MHZ, 256 mb of memory, and 2 9.1 gb hard drives in caddys. The machine does not boot to irix. It displays the following message then reboots.



IM not sure what to make of that. Id like to try and get it to boot, as a last resort i can pop it into one of my other machines and see whats on there. There is a sticker on both the back and under the front cover, seems to list some kind of software installed, any idea what that could be?

I never thought I would ever be able to own one of these. I ended up renting a car and making a 4 hour drive both ways to go pick it up. Looking back the day after Christmas may not have been the most calm time to be on the highway,quite hectic.

Meh looks cool. I guess the next order of business should be to get a keyboard.

Between this and the altix 350 the power meter spins like a top now.

smj wrote: Wait, there's a machine that miod *doesn't* have an example of?!?

Glad to see they included the remote control, MrBill.

Congrats though - nice score. It'd be easier to get the keyboard converter though link (I'm not affiliated).

EDIT: Also, what's that bit of DECish looking gear in the right foreground of your photo?

Thats not a remote, that's actually my cell phone. beats the iphone by far.

Good call on the dec gear. That is the corner of a microvax 3800 that I just recently got running. One of the power supply's was bad. I pulled out the failing supply and i managed to get to the boot monitor on the Vt100 on my desk. That's about as far as I got with it. I was going to try and netboot netbsd on it, it has 64 mb of memory, i think that will be enough, but I have no tape controller or hard drive.

I actually just bought the microvax 3800 a little before the Crimson. It was within shipping range, I had it shipped to my workplace, but then my focus shifted to getting the crimson paid off and picked up. I'm probably going to end up with both the crimson and the Microvax on a network side by side in the same room. Ive also got a couple racks of pdp 11 gear in the garage, but ive yet to get that going, it ran for about 5 minutes then i ran into power supply issues.

miod wrote:

smj wrote: Wait, there's a machine that miod *doesn't* have an example of?!?

I'm staying away of the large iron those days. I mean, I'd love to get my hands on a Crimson or a Challenge, but I don't have room for such a machine and this wouldn't be a reasonable decision.

It was not a reasonable decision for me either, there is about a foot of clearance to get into the room, and between that pile of dell servers and the mound of laserdisk players there is next to no space to move anymore BUT BUT BUT ive got a crimson. I may not have the space to stand back and look at it, but ive got one.

skywriter wrote:

kshuff wrote: As jan-jaap says, been there done that...

Times three!



Yu're gonna shoot your eye out with that thing!

Ogod do you still have all 3?!?
how did you manage to get 3 of these? they seemed pretty rare and hard to find to me.

jan-jaap wrote:

ivelegacy wrote: the real problem is: what do you run on them ?

Duh. FSN of course

Fsn is pretty neat.That was the first thing i tried out once i got my octane going.

I'm not sure of the capability of this machine. As seen on the picture, ive got it connected to that large 50 inch plasma monitor. I see it has a audio jack, i was unaware the machine had audio capability. Would it be possible to watch video's with sound with this machine? Perhaps Ill keep it connected to that monitor full time and use it for displaying video streams from the security cameras.