The collected works of jan-jaap - Page 19

That D9 probably came with different disks originally.

What you want to do is control the order in which the disks spin up (staggered spinup). Disks often have a jumper to choose between spin-up when power is applied and spin-up on command. In the former case, the disks will all spin up at the same time and claim an ID from the SES more or less random. It also put a big strain on the PSU of the D9 when all disks spin up.

If you can make them spin up on demand, or after a certain delay, the outcome should be more predictable.

rem wrote: Just wanted to say this has found a good home

Looking at you .sig I'd almost think you like the Onyx2

You'd be right though, IMHO they combine the best of many aspect: the 'big iron' graphics in the deskside form factor, extensibility etc. And of course it doesn't get any better than the 500MHz R14K CPUs.

So have fun!

vishnu wrote: it's got Cosmo Player and Cosmo Create but no Cosmo Code.

Cosmo Code on IRIX was a paid and (FLEXlm) licensed product, IIRC it wasn't part of the normal apps/overlay discs.

You can find it on some other CDs though. Here's my IRIX discs which contain some version of CosmoCode for IRIX:

The last version I have appears to be v2.3 on the ITC disc.

None of these discs contain Windows media. The HotMix discs contain some download links to long forgotten beta versions of Cosmo Player for Windows, but don't mention Cosmo Code.

GL1zdA wrote: There was a free 30-day trial (this what I'm asking for), unfortunately not archived: https://web.archive.org/web/19990417230 ... /code.html

A quick search for "cc25demo.exe" turned this up: ftp://ftp.uniovi.es/pub/java/cosmocode/

recondas wrote:

RealityEngine2:
VGA up to 1600x1200

http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/onyxgs.html

Might be time for someone with RE2 graphics experience to weigh in. jan-jaap?

VGA up to 1600x1200 and HDTV display

(emphasis mine).

1600x1200 and HDTV resolutions are only possible with two or four raster manager configurations. HDTV in this era was 1920x1035 @ 30Hz or 1920x1152 @ 25Hz (interlaced), and even a VGX could do that (or at least the 1035i mode).

I don't have an Onyx RE2 anymore (I got tired of it's habit of eating a board or two every year), and my 4D/440 VGX has borrowed the PSU of the Crimson RE for the time being so I can't check. But my gut feeling tells me that 1920x1200 is beyond the capabilities of a Reality Engine.

Keep in mind that if you increase resolution without adding raster managers you pixel depth will decrease. Features like accumulation buffer, Z buffer, overlay planes and multisample buffers (for antialiasing) add up to a certain number of bits/pixel so even if you were able to crank up the resolution to 1920x1200 you'd end up with the equivalent of a very high resolution Indy XL24 unless you have 4 RMs.

I would settle for 1600x1024 or something similar with the proper aspect ratio.

vishnu wrote: many years of trying to find a quad 1GHz Tezro, I finally gave in to the inevitable, the quad 1 gigs are still too useful to their original owners, for them to sell them, or if they are for sale they're going for 10 to 12 thousand on Ebay as smoke/flint/flame machines..

I was in the same position -- I have this incurable problem that I like my systems 'maxed out' and I know by now it's usually cheaper to buy them as a complete max spec system rather than buy the premium parts individually and upgrade something (did that with my Onyx2 and it wasn't cheap). From casual conversation with 'the usual suspects' I remember that a quad 1GHz CPU board was in the 5K EUR range -- well well beyond what I'm prepared to pay.

So I held off on my desire to own this final piece that would complete my collection, the last system I didn't have yet.

Then someone got in touch and asked if I was interested in a quad 1GHz Tezro? Well, yes, how'd you guess

I made the guy a decent offer, he thought about it for a while, then posted it for sale here -- at which point I thought he would surely get a better offer -- but I didn't up my offer.

I did get the machine in the end. With all the DMedia stuff, the VBOB, cables, an FC array and some other misc bits and pieces. Shipping cost was half a tank of diesel fuel. And the price was closer to the to $1K figure Vishnu mentions than the 5K figure quoted for just the CPU board. That was still more than I ever spent on any other SGI

I get unsolicited offers on the Tezro or the CPU board from time to time, but she's my precious

TeamBlackFox wrote: The heatsinks are different, and they interfere with the placement of the DCD.

You mixed a few things up: a Tezro tower can have a DCD. I know, I have one

But the 1GHz nodeboards are taller than the 700 or 800MHz nodes. Because of this, a rack mounted Tezro (or Onyx350) module with the 1 Ghz CPUs does not have space left for a V12 graphics board.

I can take a picture if that's what it takes, but just look at some photos of Tezro internals .

The Tezro tower chassis has a vertical divider. One one side is the IP53 board, on the other side is the PCI/XIO backplane.

The DCD is with the V12 under a metal shroud on the PCI/XIO side of things. The nodeboard is on the other side of the divider. The height of the nodeboard is limited by the right hand side cover of the chassis, and the 1GHz nodeboard fills up all available space indeed.

The Tezro/Onyx350 rackmount is a different, more densely packed animal. If you look up the discussion threads in the archives of people (Recondas, Mopar5150) who modded a V12 into an Origin 350 you'll see that have to cut a piece of the V12 heat sink before it will fit over the shroud which covers the heat sinks of a 700 or 800MHz nodeboard.

With the even taller heat sinks of the 1GHz CPUs this mod is just not possible. But a couple of years ago there was someone else (bri3d) with a dual 1GHz O350 who installed a VPro card . He removed the shroud which covers the CPUs and to his luck the two unpopulated CPUs were where the VPro card goes. It seems Mopar5150 did this hack also .

None of these hacks are necessary in the Tezro tower. Just play and play.

EDIT : Now I get it. The wiki page you're linking is not about the DCD, but about a dual head ( twin V12 cards ) configuration. The Tezro tower takes only one V12 card, so this paragraph is about the rackmount Tezro. A rackmount Tezro comes as two nodes, so it takes up 4U rack space. One node has the V12, the second node can have a DM3.

Anyway, the limitations of V12's and 1GHz CPUs I mentioned above apply. You might be able to work around it with a quad 1GHz nodeboard in one node, and then the second node would be CPU-less and have space for the V12. But Tezros usually come with some DMedia bits and I have some doubts that a DM3 would still fit in the node with the 1GHz CPUs.

Finally, I'm pretty sure a twin V12 system would be an Onyx 350 Infinite Performance and not a Tezro, but that's a matter of badges and a bigger invoice.

gijoe77 wrote: Other then bragging rights, any benefit to having a twin V12 Tezro Tower or would one need a compositor to take advantage of that? I actually have Two V12 and this has me thinking...

Queue Hamei and the IBM T221 in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ...

ivelegacy wrote: shipping to europe from USA means … 22% of VAT in order to import the item (to italy, in my case)
so $520 USD is ~ 460 euro, + 22% = ~ 560 euro for a CPU Module X____X

You forgot shipping cost. Octane CPUs are not exactly light weight.

And then (insult to injury): import tax on shipping cost. Whoever thought that one up deserves to be shot.

Trekiej wrote: What is it like to use the Infinite Reality graphics?

Noisy

Also you can do without a sweater because it raises the room temperature a couple of degrees.

chicaneuk wrote: The NIC is a strange one actually. I've installed the driver from Ian Mapleson's site, and forced it into 100mbit mode. Admittedly I'm only using a power line ethernet adaptor at home which maxes out at I think 70mbit, but the fastest I've seen so far has only been about 1.2MB/sec transfers. Will need to do some more testing.

There's something about these cards if I'm not mistaken -- has to do with duplex auto-negotiation. You have to manually force the card to full duplex operation, or force the switch on the other end to half duplex operation.

Even when running properly it won't go faster then ~ 35Mbit I think, and it loads the CPU quite heavily. Other 1st gen 100Mbit implementations like the Challenge/Onyx VFE board are equally crappy

The Phobos G160 and the SGI FDDI cards can do the full 100Mbit speed and cause hardly any CPU load.

seanwg wrote: BTW, does anyone know, of a media converter for the front that will actually let the door be closed?

I'm using the short version of the CentreCom transceiver, on the left in the picture. This leaves enough space to close the front door without damaging the ethernet cable. Transceivers with an angled RJ45 connector exist(ed) but I don't know the brand. Alternatively you can also use a short AUI extension cable and put the transceiver in a more convenient place.

seanwg wrote: 100 MB ethernet seems crazy expensive for this box??

Yes, and the performance is rubbish.

You get better performance with FDDI. There's also a Prisa FibreChannel card which can do IP over FC -- this would give you Gbit. This is an extremely rare piece, though. Both FDDI and FCIP are not ethernet, so you can't hook them up with a simple media converter. But FDDI is very well supported on IRIX, and is your only option for fast(er) networking on older SGI's, all the way back to the first 4D/xx systems. I have about a dozen or so SGIs with FDDI networking, a Cisco WS-C1400 concentrator (think: switch), and a dedicated mini-ITX PC to route between FDDI and ethernet. Works like a peach

If you want to improve performance you should look for an IP25 (R10K) CPU board, but beware that the IP25 requires later revisions of various other boards (MC3, IO4) also. Oh, and all but the last revision of the OLS (the big PSU module in the back) can overheat and burst into flames! They (SGI) had a free exchange program for them, but a lot of the systems out there don't seem to have the 'safe' OLS.

PS: you are aware that the internal hard disks in these systems are high voltage differential SCSI? If you put a regular ultra wide disk or LVD scsi disk in, magic smoke will surely escape somewhere.

nekonoko wrote: I ran two very loud O350s towards the end, and dealing with the noise and [...]

And then there's the power consumption. I think an O350 module consumes around 250W, so running my two-module O350 at home where I have to pay €0,23 per kWh would cost about €1000 annually. That just crazy.

Oh, one more thing: the Challenge DM is restricted to a single CPU board. You can 'unlock' it (effectively turning it into a Challenge L) by removing a screw form the backplane: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=16722728

Don't let my remarks turn you down. Challenges are fun boxes, but the learning curve can be steep.

hamei wrote:

jan-jaap wrote: I have to pay €0,23 per kWh.

I s'pose you know, you have the world's most expensive electricity ? Even post-Enron California is only about a third that price. There must be a reason ?

I looked it up and it breaks down roughly like this:
43% is the cost for the electricity
17% transportation cost
40% taxes (VAT and environmental tax)

josehill wrote: I remember that the default SCSI bus was HVD, but for any additional buses, it depends on the types of mezzanine cards you have in the system...or is that only for the Challenge L and XL?

For a deskside, you've got two SCSI channels wired to the disk bays. Normally, one is HVD (for disks) and one is SE (for CDROMs, tape, ...).

If a channel is wired to a red mezzanine card on the IO4 it is HVD, if it wired to a green mezzanine card on the IO4, it's SE. The terminators and jumpers on the disk bay backplane and the configuration jumpers on all disk sleds must match the configuration of the mezz cards.

It is possible to reconfigure the whole system to SE, but you have to replace the red mezz card, the HVD terminator and reconfigure all jumpers. I did this with my Onyx1 and Challenge -- I don't like HVD SCSI. You can also install SE disks on the chain with the CDROM etc.

The dangerous bit is when you think 'lets pull this noisy, small disk and replace it with that shiny LVD disk I still have'.

seanwg wrote: Is there any way to determine how all the SCSI is wired in it?

Ie how to find out, if its HVD?

Easy, it's all in your hinv:

SCSI channel 0 and 1 are provided by the IO4
SCSI channel 0 is regular (SE) SCSI and there's nothing attached. This channel is normally wired to the disk bays and where CDROMs, tapes etc attach to.
SCSI channel 1 is HVD SCSI and you've got 5 HVD disks in the disk bay. If you run 'diskpatch -v' the system will return the disk model(s). Genuine SGI disk trays have an ID selector on the front. disk(1,1) is the system disk.

SCSI channel 2 ... 4 are provided by an addon board installed on the IO4. These are normally used to attach disk arrays and other external SCSI devices. You will find the 68pin connectors on the bulkhead of the card cage.
SCSI channel 2 is SE mode and you could attach an external CDROM for example
SCSI channel 3 and 4 are HVD again. I've used it in the past to attach a SUN D1000 disk array.

PS:you can (could) find a ton of information about the Onyx/Challenge on Simon Pigot's former site. It doesn't exist anymore, but mirrors exist: http://www.sgistuff.net/mirrors/sgi/index.html

Alver wrote: But I suppose they made "just" racks as well?

The storage racks are probably 'standard' 19" racks but an O3000 rack is not .
A standard 19" rack has square(ish) holes in the vertical stands for cage nuts:

Have a good look at photos and techpubs what is there instead in an O3K rack, it has some mounting holes spaced at the height of a C-brick, specifically for the sliding rails that the C bricks sit on. So you might be able to mount "something" every 4 or 5U, but as a general purpose 19" rack it's useless.

Ask Rusti about his O3200 half high rack -- I saw it when I was at his place and while stylish, it just isn't a very functional 19" rack. Or go see him, he's in the Brussels area.

PS: I like your ambition

ivelegacy wrote: unfortunately it is too expensive for me: i was asked for 500/600 euro for such an SMP CPU module

With a bit of patience and luck you should be able to pick up a 4*600MHz Origin 300 for half that. They make excellent compile servers. Origin 350 is even better but they are more rare (and expensive).

The AIC-1160 is not SAN capable if I'm not mistaken, but for a direct attached (FC-AL) JBOD it should do just fine. I used to have one in my O2K deskside with a monster SUN A5200 array attached.

My SGI's are like recreational drugs to me: I use them to unwind after a busy day at work, but there's the danger of addiction.

The 300MHz R5000 hardware didn't exist when IRIX 6.3 was released, so it probably doesn't support it. Your best bet is to boot from the "6.3 recommended/required" patch CD. The last one was from late '99.

From this miniroot you can install the original IRIX 6.3 CD, and then you swap the "6.3 recommended/required" patch CD back in before you quit the installation, and install the applicable patches. Otherwise you will be left with an installed, but unbootable system.

Alternatively, you could put in a supported CPU (e.g. 180MHz R5000), do the base installation, install the "6.3 recommended/required" patch CD, and then put the 300MHz CPU back in.

The PROM version shouldn't matter. An older OS will work fine with the last PROM version.

hamei wrote: so MIPS supports simd but the gnu assembler does not ...

SIMD extensions to the MIPS ISA exist , and the GNU assembler has supported them for more than a decade.

robespierre wrote: do any of the R10K/R12K/R14K processors actually implement MDMX? I didn't think so. Those were the SGI SIMD extensions, but their implementations (code named H1 and H2) were cancelled in the shakeup that was happening around Itanic.

And that's why GCC won't enable SIMD/MDMX code generation

ivelegacy wrote: which machine do you have guys, to run this marvelous application ?
i think an O2+/R12K is not enough, am i wrong ?

Alias|Wavefront used to publish 'qualified hardware' lists, but I can't find them right now. But this software is from 1995. It's almost certainly for IRIX 5.x, and might even still come with COFF binaries for IRIX 4.x

In 1995, the SGI 'entry' workstation was an Indy, and the IMPACT Indigo2 (with R4400 CPU) was as fast as it got without moving up to big iron.

I'd like to run this on, let's say, a 4D PowerSeries with R3000 CPUs and VGX graphics, or a Crimson Reality Engine

hamei wrote:

ivelegacy wrote: my friend wants to sell all his SGI machine in order to buy an O2+, so he wants also to sell his Impact,

I understand the desire but this would be a mistake. An O2 is a dog turd compared to a Barney Box, in almost all respects. I did exactly this and regret it to this day.

Hamei is right. An Indigo2 always has that 'snappy' responsiveness that even the fastest O2 lacks. The R10K/R12K are rather restricted by the O2 architecture.

ivelegacy wrote: i have an O2+/400Mhz, which i can carry on my car

Well, your O2 looks reasonably rugged , but I wouldn't carry any other O2 anywhere unless securely packed (which takes a lot of time so that kind of defeats the whole portability idea). The skins get very brittle with age and shatter for no reason at all.

ivelegacy wrote: O2+/R12K is not able to run linux at all, but it is a pretty and small machine
and i can change the main board, putting an R5K on, in this case it run linux

If you want a portable non-x86 Linux system, try a Raspberry Pi

If I wanted to take an SGI with me on the road and not worry about it, I'd take an R5K Indy. It's light weight and reasonably indestructible. Hell, I think it even runs Linux if that's your thing.

I have Pascal 1.3.1 and that's for IRIX 4.0.5, so I imagine Pascal 1.3 is for IRIX 4.0.

The dependency is for the 'dev' subsystem (assembler, linker and other basic dev tools). It is on the IRIX 4.0 OS installation CD.

If you're handy with a soldering iron you could try to replace a couple of caps (4 of them). Success rate is roughly 50-50 in my experience, but it costs almost nothing so why not try.

The procedure is documented on Ian Mapleson's site I think

ivelegacy wrote: i can't find "inventor_dev.sw.base" in my Foundation2 CD

It's on overlay disc 3-of-3, for IRIX 6.5.22 ... 6.5.30

ivelegacy wrote: how to make it to work under Irix ?
i got a lot of errors because crt1, crtbegin, etc are missing

(edit:
and things put into the wrong place)

OK, I had a look. Haven't looked at Pascal in 15 years or so, but hey ...

GNU Pascal, like Fortran, Ada and a couple of other languages is (was?) an add-on to GCC. you need(ed) the matching, and patched, GCC compiler version to build it, and to run it.

That's why there are two versions on the download page: one with the GCC version included, and one without. That's also where they screwed up . Neither of these two packages includes the CRT files you mention, crtbegin.o and crtend.o. GCC (and GPC) will not work without.

I copied them from a GCC 3.4.6 into the correct directory for GPC (where libcgcc.a is) and then it works. At least, it works enough to compile a working hello world program.

Now, normally copying binary code around between different compiler versions is considered evil. YMMV. You may also wonder how much of your time you want to invest in a compiler where the last version is based on GCC 2.something, incomplete and nobody bothered to fix that in 13 years.

Trippynet wrote: Then just to complicate matters further, Fuel has faster disk I/O than Octane, so tasks involving a lot of data transfer may benefit from the U160 SCSI bus on the Fuel

U160 SCSI is possible in the Octane, but only external (and it requires a PCI shoebox / shoehorn).

Then just to complicate matters further, Fuel will work with an U320 SCSI card, but performance of that particular card is ... underwhelming. Fuel will take a SATA card (disks limited to 2TB), that can be quite useful.

ivelegacy wrote: i have not understood: is it XIO24 SCSI card or XIO-PCI (through PCI cartridge and then) PCI-SCSI (plugged in the cartridge) ?

C'mon ... http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/SGI_Octane#Add-On_Options

Qlogic QLA12160 is a dual channel U160 SCSI card. Since this is a PCI card, you need a PCI Shoebox (3 slots) or PCI shoehorn (1 slot) to mount it in the Octane.

Due to the bandwidth limitations of the XIO-PCI bridge in the Octane / O2K series, you will not be able to use the Qlogic QLA12160 to it's full potential.

ivelegacy wrote:

jan-jaap wrote: Fuel will take a SATA card (disks limited to 2TB)

which SGI P/N is such a PCI expansion ?

No idea but if you just buy one with the correct chip from eBay it should work. Many people around here (incl. myself ) did that with good results. See also viewtopic.php?t=9046

ivelegacy wrote: i mean SGI 4-Port Differential Ultra SCSI XIO Card for Octane, P/N 030-1281

That is not an Ultra 160 SCSI board.

A Personal Iris from Cortaillod? That's unusual, that facility didn't open until late '92, more than a year after the Indigo was introduced.

My wife worked there for a short period of time (she's from Neuchâtel, Switzerland)

dhjj wrote: define reasonable cost?

If you're referring to reworking the capacitors: there are four of them per PSU, and they cost maybe $0,10 ... $0,20 a piece from Farnell, DigiKey, ...

There's probably an MOQ of 10 but a couple of bucks is enough to rework a dozen or so PSUs.

The guts of a switching PSU can be lethal if you don't know what you're doing.

TL;DR : 400Mhz R12000 works on '887' main board .

duck wrote: The Xbow doesn't matter, but IIRC the system board does, you might need the 1467 (later, octane 2) for dual R12k 400 and up. If I could be arse to, I would search the forum and find out for you. *hint*

OK, I'll bite .

I know the 270Mhz R12000 requires the 1467 main board. Some have said any other CPU including the 600MHz R14000 runs on the 887 board. Xbow matters only if you want to install VPro graphics.

One of the differences between the '887' and the '1467' board is that the newer board can run the SysAD bus at 120MHz rather than 100MHz. I can't be arsed to figure out which CPUs support this also, but if you're going to splash serious money on that dual-600 CPU you might as well replace the main board and get the best from it.

ivelegacy wrote: i was offered to sell out my friend Impact for just 100 euro plus shipping, which appears me as … not acceptable, but which is there right price ?

Well, this one has been repainted which I think most people would consider a turnoff, Indigo2's are heavy so expensive to ship, and (nothing personal, but) the Italian Post office has a reputation for destroying things or valuable items simply vanishing.

ivelegacy wrote: So i was just trying to understand the correct money i have to ask for this machine

i mean, it has

• Phobos G160 (with manual and CD)
• 3Com for SGI (not the hacked one)
• 40Gbyte 2U SCA SCSI disc
• 8x128Mbyte (that we have understood … they are extremely expensive, btw i do not want to ask to much, it's insane)
• a not hw patched revision of the the motherboard (like happened for RevA, i mean, this one

I have an Indigo2 R10K myself; I added the full 1024MB of RAM (two 512MB kits from an HP NetServer) for 40 or 50EUR per kit years ago. The G160 used to fetch a similar amount, not sure anymore what I paid for it or how much they sell for these days.

Value of a system is never the sum of the values of the individual components, especially if you want to sell in a hurry. If you want to maximize money I advise you to part out the G160 and the memory, they might sell for the amounts I mentioned above and shipping will be reasonable. There was someone interested in an Impact Indigo2 PSU recently.

mapesdhs wrote: No price is insane. It's always about supply & demand. if a price seems high, that's probably just because the seller is perfectly able to sell them elsewhere for that amount, in which case, er, tough luck.

Seller is a business, sitting patiently on it's stash, waiting for another company in need to extort ^H^H^H do business. That doesn't mean a hobbyist can sell *today* at those prices. Most businesses don't even want to buy from individuals.

mapesdhs wrote: But look elsewhere, it varies, and there's always the used market (I obtained my kits from HP systems). My own price for the 512MB kit equates to about 37 UKP per SIMM, ie. 150 for one kit.

I'm using the same kits here. Downside to the HP kits is they have tin plated contacts rather than gold. This causes bad contacts over the years -- but nothing that a little cleaning won't fix.

Trippynet wrote: For what it's worth, I paid just over £300 for a SolidIMPACT system with 36GB HDD, 256MB RAM, 100MB EISA NIC, foot stands and decent-quality case from Ian last year.

I would say half of that is so you can feel assured that someone will answer the mail if you run into a problem. Not that there's anything wrong with that, on the contrary. Ian can simply demand a higher price than you or I can.

ivelegacy wrote:

jan-jaap wrote: Post office has a reputation [...]

that is false [...] The secret is just choosing the right shipping agency e.g. UPS, Fedex

I think you just confirmed what I said ...

(emphasis mine)

pentium wrote: I seem to recall when SAQ was burgled they took everything BUT his SGI's.

The one who raids my place for SGIs will have to deal with an alarm system, the neighbors (systems are linked), and the alarm company. You will have to bring a truck with a tailgate lift and I promise you it will take you all day. I would probably take it as an assault on my wife and kids rather than an attempt to steal some old computers, and act accordingly

Burglars are usually interested in cash and things which are light *and* can easily be converted into cash. I would expect them to snatch a smartphone, a MacBook and maybe some AV gear and vanish before anyone can react.

I don't have the relevant link to prove it, but IIRC you can't use more than two of the GIO64 slots at the same time.

If true, you would have to pull the graphics card before the 2nd G160 works.

Edit: FOUND IT

I got my desk from my old university. Used to belong to some group's professor so it's really big (more than 3m x 2m), adjustable, good build quality, and came with matching drawer block. And the price was unbeatable: free. OK, I had to rent a trailer to take it home.

Desks on four legs are usually more stable than those with two "inverted T" legs, but have other drawbacks (harder to adjust, no power or cable management). But it varies, I still dare to climb on mine even though there's a Tezro, an Octane2, a heavy old CRT and a very heavy power amp sitting on it, plus the usual assorted junk.

I don't know how it is these days with the economy picking up again, but a couple of years ago you could get really fancy office furniture 2nd hand for next to nothing. Watch the bankruptcy auctions but beware of the small print and hidden costs.