Nekonomicon

SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5730 notes

Wrote on the subject of Nekoware-current at May 16, 2011, 9:22 p.m...

I remember one troubleshoot that was very troublesome - a program had -mips4 in one of the sub-Makefiles that was buried deep in the tree. I changed the global to -mips3 and built it, resulting binary worked just fine on my Origin, but failed on another user's IP22. There's plenty out there to bite ya, and though some testing should be done to get it out of alpha stage do remember that it's called /beta for a reason.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5730 notes

Wrote on the subject of Nekoware-current at May 17, 2011, 4:33 p.m...

I'm not sure if it's a general thing or special for me, but I can move over my packages when I feel they've been tested enough. Sadly, often I don't get very many reports of tests (don't know if that's MIPS-3 specific or general), so it's hard to gauge the quality. Hint to users: if you try something out from /beta and it works, let the packager know!

Good news, (possibly) - I might be getting a smaller build box (O300) that my wife will let in the house, enabling me to start building MIPS-3 stuff again.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Audacity and Pango at May 22, 2011, 9:02 p.m...

OK -looks like there's a packaging error. Please tell us what version you're using (full Nekoware package name and branch (main, beta, mips-3 main, mips-3 beta))

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of the new SGI cares! at May 23, 2011, 7:35 p.m...

deBug wrote:

.. and kick me off supportfolio registered area.
R.

Didn't you get the mail from SGI a couple of weeks ago instructing you to login to your account or it would be deleted?

No more women kissing as avatar?? (who where they anyway?)
//Harry

That's the free Supportfolio account. SGI killed all the IRIX developer programs, including Developer Online (which got you access to all patches and m-stream IRIX in return for building some IRIX programs) and Developer Plus which got you MIPSpro and discounts on HW if you had a commercial concern building IRIX apps. This happened a while ago, right about the time of the second bankruptcy/buyout.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of indigo2 at May 26, 2011, 7:58 p.m...

smj wrote: If that teal Indigo2 is sporting an R4400 then it might be limited to 512MB of RAM.

384MB, and the board will only work with R4k-series processors (R4000, R4400, R4600). IP28 (the R10k board) does 1GB of RAM but only works with R10k processors (usually not a big disadvantage).

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of WWDC, Lion (Mac OS X 10.7), etc. at June 8, 2011, 5:35 p.m...

ChristTrekker wrote:

sybrfreq wrote: Also, from what I understand, itunes store doesn't use mp3s but some proprietary format (aac?) which my mazda mp3 player does not support.

I have an iPod, and have ripped almost all my songs from CD to AAC, because the format offers higher fidelity with smaller file size. If I ever move away from Apple, I suppose I'd have to redo all that, though as ScutBoy mentioned, it is possible to convert. I don't know if a converted-AAC MP3 would be as good as an originally-encoded MP3, but it may be possible.

I'm pretty sure that AAC is a subpart of MPEG-4, so compatibility is more than just Apple devices. I think I even remember there being replacement software for several players that supports AAC/MP4 audio, though I haven't used it.

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:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Anyone running Linux on JS20? at June 25, 2011, 4:55 p.m...

A G5 is a PowerPC 970 that Apple's marketing department got to.

This should be a pretty standard CHRP machine, try throwing any recent CHRP PPC Linux at it. RedHat or SuSE should work, and Debian probably will.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of A story of web browsing at June 27, 2011, 7:55 a.m...

I was having problems with the script correctly executing the iconbookedit command to add Seamonkey to the toolchest.

Didn't get it fixed.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of A story of web browsing at June 29, 2011, 8:35 a.m...

Fabian wrote: I just had a look into Gettext package:

Mips4 one contain Libintl.4 and Libintl.9
Mips3 one contain only libintl.4. So, Libintl.9 is not on my system.

By the way, I just gave an additional try for Firefox but from Ximg on my PC and it works perfectly without bus error.

Computer technology is a great world

Is that still a version that I built, or is it a newer one?

Mine should be linked against the MIPS-3 libintl, and I thought that it was the one in /mips3. If there's a version in /mips3/beta you can check that (but dependencies should have picked that up).

I know other people had tested out my Seamonkey on different machines, so it shouldn't just be an oddity of my install.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of A story of web browsing at June 30, 2011, 9:10 a.m...

So it looks like I need to rejigger dependencies to pick up the correct version of libintl.

Of course, Seamonkey's so old that it should probably be completely redone.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Missing Silicon Graphics at July 13, 2011, 8:59 a.m...

Apple could have done it, but they tried to break into the commercial market without having the commercial-grade support to back it up.

I think you're shortchanging AIX. The IBM mindset is very different from most "UNIX mindsets", and the interface was/is pretty ugly, but technically AIX is a very strong system. It was the first where you could adjust almost any system parameter without rebooting, and JFS is still pretty good. The rest of the OS is solid and pretty secure. Of course, I really haven't played around with anything beyond about 5.1, as the new hardware is so expensive.

If you're expecting to be flamed for criticizing Linux then you probably need to find another forum. Linux has strengths, but it also has a number of deficiencies that we're well aware of.

SGI had a unique opportunity that will probably not happen again in computing hardware. They were doing flashy stuff that no one else was doing (bar E&S and some IBM stuff, but see point #2), and they were doing it with a very gonzo marketing department backing them up.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Missing Silicon Graphics at July 17, 2011, 2:36 p.m...

Ryan Fox wrote:

Its just such a pity that Sgi didn't continue providing 'affordable' workstation solutions. Imagine if you could buy
a workstation powered by a modern MIPS R2xK and PCIE graphics options ... -sighs- Maybe IRIX would have gone
the same route as Apple... -shrugs-

Didn't work then, wouldn't work now. It didn't even work for DIGITAL, and their boxes could even run Windows.

On introduction the MIPS Magnum was faster and slightly cheaper than a high-end Pentium, and the Indigo and Indy were both competitive with PCs of the closest to equivalent speed. People still bought PCs instead - for one thing neither SGI nor DEC had anything for the low-end/ midrange PC user, but my guess is that that wouldn't have changed things. For one thing there's software, and UNIX software was always priced higher than PC.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Lion, new Macbook Air, and new Macmini are here at July 20, 2011, 5:27 p.m...

tingo wrote:

New Apple products again. I'm trying, but I can't really get myself excited over this.

But - - they've updated it with last year's tech!!! And what's more they've dropped the price so it's no longer double an equivalently speced computer from someone else!!! what's not to love??

I guess if you look at it as a notebook it isn't quite as bad, but then again a notebook without a built-in screen, keyboard or mouse is pretty useless.

I strongly dislike gratuitous UI changes. I've just been putting up with two weeks of people complaining (justly) about IE9.

If true 10.7 not supporting multiple monitors is a big step backwards - Apple's done multiple monitors since the Mac II.

[edit] -, turns out it's not last year's tech. Intel's "new" model numbering drives me up the wall -- too many numbers to get backwards.

_________________
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Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Lion - the slippery slope for OS installations at Aug. 6, 2011, 10:09 a.m...

There are instructions for how to extract the install files from the downloaded install - they´re on the net somewhere (look up Lion DVD or similar). I think that you´ve hit the nail on the head precisely on how Apple and MS intend to do things (¨we don´t support that version anymore, so you can´t download it. Buy a new one). MS has already come up with creative new ways to make you buy a new Windows license - officially they won´t let you install from another Windows disk if you loose yours.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Cheap but Powerful UltraSPARC under $500 at Aug. 19, 2011, 7:34 a.m...

lyssdod wrote:

What do you guys think about expanding Sun Blade 150 or Sun Ultra 60?

I'm just trying to find optimal balance for pretty much powerful cpu (i can not let myself to have ultra 25/45 as they cost > $4000) and ability to extension.

Also, what do you think, is it possible to fire up Ultra 45 with modern ATi videocard? (just dreaming and wondering )

Thanks for replies

Both of those will likely have disk bottlenecks (60 has Ultra/Wide SCSI, 150 has not-so-good IDE). I'd look at the Blade 1000,1500,2000,2500 series if you can swing them. Not SATA/SAS like the 25/45, but def. faster/better HW.

_________________
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Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of What IBM hardware do we have..? at Aug. 19, 2011, 8:31 a.m...

thunng8 wrote: Looking to getting back into UNIX workstations and the 285 caught my eye .. and maybe learn AIX as well PCs and Macs are so boring ...

From a hardware standpoint yes, they're all based around the same commodity ASICs, but from a software standpoint they do have some interesting tricks. Definitely common, but that's not always bad.

Its down to trying to get a HP c8000 or a IBM 9111-285. How does HP-UX and AIX compare?

Given the choice of the two I'd go AIX, no questions. HP-UX is pretty plain SysV+Veritas, while AIX still has some neat tricks in it that other systems don't necessarily add (going off of what I've skimmed, as my systems are all old MCA-based so I've not played with 5.3, 6.1 or 7). If you know of a specific reason for you to go HP-UX that may swing things, but otherwise it's not too interesting.

It also doesn't hurt that POWERs are still being produced whereas PA-RISC has been on the dump pile for a few years. If you do go HP-UX I'd recommend looking for a Itanium so you're at least at the current version on current hardware. On the additional bump note there you can try out OpenVMS as well, and get the feel for another OS with some very innovative/well implemented features that may sadly be dying.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Cheap but Powerful UltraSPARC under $500 at Aug. 20, 2011, 3:50 p.m...

tingo wrote:

SAQ wrote:

Both of those will likely have disk bottlenecks (60 has Ultra/Wide SCSI, 150 has not-so-good IDE). I'd look at the Blade 1000,1500,2000,2500 series if you can swing them. Not SATA/SAS like the 25/45, but def. faster/better HW.

The Blade 1000 uses FC-AL drives. Are the so much better when it comes to bandwidth?

UltraSCSI does 40MB/Sec, 1Gb FC-AL does 100MB/sec. The Blade 1k/2k has improved memory technology, faster CPUs, and so it's likely that you will see an improvement.

FWIW my Ultra-10 440/1GB RAM is not too impressive, even with a SCSI system disk.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5632 notes

Wrote on the subject of You graphics geeks might get a kick out of this: Sun GT at Aug. 27, 2011, 4:12 p.m...

kurkosdr wrote:

+1 on the video, preferably it runnung Quake

I don't think the GT has hardware texturing (and might not even do OpenGL), which would make Quake somewhat ... unimpressive.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of what to do with a 128proc altic machine at Sept. 4, 2011, 11:06 a.m...

They're Linux based, so anything that will build under Linux and isn't inextricably tied to x86 should work. There's not much in the way of local graphics for them, though, so whatever you use will need to support a remote OpenGL protocol or other remote-3D app.

Your basic Linux ones should be fine: GIMP, Blender, whatever.

As far as proprietary apps, probably not much. You might be able to get some stuff that ran on the Prism to run on Altix if it doesn't require a local GPU.

Altix follows the modern "big machine" concept of them being pretty strictly computational back-ends to PC, Mac, web, or otherwise networked front-ends.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Cheap but Powerful UltraSPARC under $500 at Sept. 7, 2011, 10:24 a.m...

For a number of these type of systems a small server is the way to go - many of them have memory restrictions that, while reasonable for a few users, wind up not working under heavy workload (think O300's 4GB limit), or otherwise have been retired but are still working and were sold in much higher numbers then the later workstations. V210s and V240s are reasonable now, for instance.

A bit more work, but not too bad.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Altix 350 PROM update at Sept. 15, 2011, 6:04 p.m...

aperezbios wrote: Which Operating Systems can I expect to be able to install?

Linux.

Support is in the kernel, but it's likely that not all distributions have it in the default boot. SuSE and RedHat are the SGI supported distros, but rumor has it that CentOS will work if you have the correct console set.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Altix 350 PROM update at Sept. 18, 2011, 8:37 a.m...

You might want to try building a custom kernel if you haven't yet. There are/were quite a few SGI specific options in the kernel config that may not be enabled on a generic kernel. I don't have any Itanium boxes, but it looks like there is a SGI SN-specific PCI-bridge driver in the source tree that may or may not have made it into your production kernel.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5632 notes

Wrote on the subject of Just went mad and got a DL560 from eBay... at Sept. 20, 2011, 7:28 p.m...

edikat wrote:

... 3GHZ (x4=12GHZ) compared to my 2GHZ (x4=8GHZ) so 33% faster...

Best not to think that way. Tempting, but it never works out quite like that.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of What HP/DEC/Compaq do we have. at Sept. 26, 2011, 5:20 p.m...

edikat wrote:

Would love a MicroPDP 11/23 (a smaller 11/23 in the same BA23 as the MicroVAX II)...

I dream of running RSX-11 natively on a small compact 80's last generation PDP machine..

RIP Olsen... gone but not forgotten

Thought about it, came near to getting a LSI-11, then discovered emulation. With simh you can play around with a -11 and not have to worry about finding a working disk setup or other bits of old, delicate and/or rare hardware. With SIMH, KLH10 and Hercules I can have a -11, -10 and a 370 in one convenient desktop (or even laptop).

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5632 notes

Wrote on the subject of Just went mad and got a DL560 from eBay... at Oct. 5, 2011, 9:03 p.m...

mattst88 wrote:

I don't understand. These don't seem like interesting systems at all.

Not interesting in the "I want to sit down and figure out how they did this" sort of way, but good for when you want to get stuff done quickly and cheaply. A KL10 is a neat machine, but when you just want an answer fast...

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Dennis Ritchie has passed away at Oct. 13, 2011, 6:37 p.m...

miod wrote:

Pontus wrote: Today I'm sorry to learn that DMR passed away this weekend. It's hard to overestimate his contributions.

Yet you can expect that, unlike Steve Jobs, he won't get an obituary in the media.

Of course not. Olsen didn't, and the Woz probably won't . Steve was all about marketing.

Clark might get a mention because of Jurassic Park.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Dennis Ritchie has passed away at Oct. 23, 2011, 1:53 p.m...

FWIW Ritchie did get a brief 2.5" or so of column space and a picture on pg. 2 of the Seattle Times. What did others see in their papers?

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5632 notes

Wrote on the subject of Couple of New User Questions at Nov. 2, 2011, 10:58 a.m...

hamei wrote:

the very least, do a xfsdump and save it for when you want to go back. Display Postscript and Impressario and a whole lot of other utilities that SGI dumped at 6.5.22 are good. *

If I weren't running a Fool , that's where I'd be.

* They dumped them to save money, not for performance or quality reasons.

If you're careful you can have a .22 that keeps Impressario and DPS and all the like. The really irritating bit is the part where they have a recommended patch for .22 that removes DPS. You heard right, all it does is delete DPS and replace it with nothing.

I seriously doubt Adobe gave them any money back for that number, so why did they bother?

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Avid TrueVision drivers at Nov. 10, 2011, 4:56 p.m...

pentium wrote:

guardian452 wrote:

metallizer wrote: SPB090035.jpg

It will take some time to build a system around these, I have some other projects going on.

rawr! the ESD cop is here to shut you down! I spy, with my little eye... a polyester carpet and nonconductive plastic bags.
**ESD malarkey**

The super sensitivity of electronics to ESD is all in your head.

It depends on the specific electronics - some are, some aren't. 1970's MOS is fairly sensitive.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

"I am O SH-- the Great and Powerful"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Avid TrueVision drivers at Nov. 11, 2011, 11:04 a.m...

guardian452 wrote: New stuff, doesn't matter. It's hard to kill and even if you do nobody cares about a $.03 chip or $100 board.

Old stuff is more sensitive sometimes, and you can't just rush out to buy another one at the bigbuys store.

Speak for yourself, $100 boards ain't cheap, and the big problem is when the 3-cent chip isn't completely dead and you solder it in a particularly inaccessible location, put everything together, and then find out that you have oddities.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

"I am O SH-- the Great and Powerful"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5590 notes

Wrote on the subject of Downloading IBM fixes will require a support contract! at Nov. 11, 2011, 5:24 p.m...

I think SGI (per their last official published policy) and OldSun had the right idea. Security patches always available, but restrict the other patches for a time to paying customers only. SGI of course had the "N-3" rule on overlays (later ignored), and Sun "offered" the patches to everyone the next time that Solaris was reved.

It kind of throws the argument for high-grade systems. Before it was "yes, you pay more up front, but then your ongoing costs are lower". Now that you have to pay many $$/year for "service" to get required updates everything needs to be recalculated. On a personal note I certainly haven't brought up things you can do with Solaris to anyone since Oracle changed to their $1k+/yr policy, which for a small business makes MS software cheaper after only a couple of years (though to be completely honest no one took me up on Solaris before - they were a bit leery of being stuck with something that required a "UNIX admin" to run rather than just the administrative assistant).

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Avid TrueVision drivers at Nov. 12, 2011, 1:54 p.m...

guardian452 wrote: but generally, people don't care. Things, especially in the PC/wintel world, are expected to not work.

An absolute triumph of marketing, by the way.

"What do you mean by saying that you expect it to work? We don't do "work" anymore - we just take your money. Try buying the next version - it might be fixed in that one."

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

"I am O SH-- the Great and Powerful"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5590 notes

Wrote on the subject of Downloading IBM fixes will require a support contract! at Nov. 14, 2011, 4:56 p.m...

To start things off we need to be realistic. A build of Firefox, no matter how fantastic, adds little or no value to AIX for IBM. They sell servers, and servers don't really run Firefox. Case in point - how many "P"s have you bought direct from IBM? You care, sure, but most AIX users don't. And as far as "propping up the value of used POWER equipment and thus making them more attractive investments" - it doesn't work. IBM (along with most manufacturers) wouldn't mind in the least if the used equipment marketplace disappeared. To them it's only competition.

On the other hand there is a happy median. Look at MS - why do they give away so much software? Two reasons: first, if it's a market they're trying to move into or maintain a stranglehold on, and we can discount that. Neither IBM, nor Sun, nor HP Enterprise Systems are looking into moving into the hobbyist sector - there's no money in it. The second reason, the reason they've become so good about patch support (as well as the reason for MS Security Essentials), is because they have discovered that it looks really bad if they have lots of machines with bugs and exploits hanging around, providing fodder for bad news. It's this that so many "Enterprise" companies are forgetting. The chance of a major AIX botnet is small, but it does look bad. Provide security and "showstopper bug" patches free and you look good. I'm not sure about the medium-to-large business segment that IBM targets, but with the small companies I've worked with they tend to get service contracts for the essential software if they're affordable. Why? It's because they want to have someone to call up if there's a problem who can fix it. If they reserve other patches and the right to submit patch requests (provided they follow up on them) to paid service customers and then provide a sound pricing scheme they will get customers. They just need to show value.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Best desktop apps for SGI Irix at Nov. 17, 2011, 7:13 p.m...

vishnu wrote: Maya Unlimited 6.5 and Apple's Shake 3-point-whatever...

You forgot Smoke/Flame/Inferno...

In any case, I don't think any these count as desktop, but they do play to what were the IRIS' strengths. Note that the video apps generally require additional, expensive hardware.

If you find OpenOffice too slow there was a release of WordPerfect for IRIX. Version 6.0 I think.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Best desktop apps for SGI Irix at Nov. 18, 2011, 9:23 p.m...

Heard great things about FrameMaker, but never seen it in the flesh.

WordPerfect came on one of the HotMix disks - did Frame?

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Irix Install Problems at Nov. 21, 2011, 5:32 p.m...

It sounds as though it is hanging AFTER copying the miniroot to the drive and restarting from that, correct (the "copying" bar will go all the way across the box and the system will restart)

If you don't have a miniroot version that supports your hardware you'll run into that, also if for some reason the miniroot is corrupted you'll get that. If your disk doesn't specifically say "IRIX 6.5.22 installation tools and overlays disk 1" then it's possible it's not 6.5.22, or it's possible that bitrot has set in on recordable media. Try downloading the DINA and giving it a go with netbooting.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Looking for the list of Solaris proprietary software at Nov. 27, 2011, 12:40 p.m...

ComputerGraphics ran on Suns for a while, but that might have predated Solaris. The CADDstation that passed through my hands was based on a OEMed 3/160.

Wasn't Mentor Graphics Sun for quite a while?

FrameMaker was big on Sun as well, better than the Island ports (SunPaint, SunWrite, SunDraw) for big projects (though it didn't do the graphics).

For a while Apple had their Macintosh Application Environment (System 7 emulator) for Solaris.

Here's a quick list of the "Third Party" disks from the UltraPack v.2 (sort of a Hot Mix for Solaris)

Camelo (Caldera Imaging), HyperWave (Graz University), PolyTrans (Okino Computer Systems), WorkXPert (Mentor Graphics), EarthVision (Dynamic Graphics), EZ3D, ILOG Vision, Stampeder (Facet Decision Systems). Note that this was the time that Sun and HP were trying to go head-to-head with SGI, so there was some things on there that probably were not big on Sun (the 3-D software for one).

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of No green LED on otherwise-working Indy? at Nov. 30, 2011, 6:10 p.m...

Bad LED, driver, or wire. Don't worry about it unless it's a big deal to you, in which case throw an ohmmeter on the lead to see if the diode is good and a voltmeter to see if it's getting current. If the LED is bad (probable) then just get a tricolor LED (be sure to note if it's a 3-lead or 2-lead model). Bad driver may be more difficult.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of FS: Three 747 Watt Cherokee PSUs at Dec. 6, 2011, 6:35 p.m...

A hint about configs would help. There's a big market difference between 175/195MHz machines with SI and 400MHz/VPro boxes.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5590 notes

Wrote on the subject of Downloading IBM fixes will require a support contract! at Dec. 8, 2011, 4:01 p.m...

Maybe they thought better of it.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

The collected works of SAQ - Page 11