The collected works of jan-jaap - Page 22

ivelegacy wrote: seller: sgiclearance (664 Purple Star on ebay)

a.k.a. B&B Solutions, http://www.bbsolutions.com/

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=indigo2+r12000+site%3Anekochan.net

first hit

Some photos to show you I wasn't lying. Don't make me throw it in the dumpster plz.

Not really looking for money for this thing, I just want it gone. Local pickup *really* preferred, you'll have to come up with a convincing story to make me package this thing because it will be a real pain.

Skin is intact, the door mechanism works and all the silly hooks etc are there i think. The scruffs are superficial and should be easy to polish out.

FlasBurn wrote: How much would be shipping to Germany?

In the picture the metal chassis is still present, like that it weighs close to 10kg without packaging. But just the plastics should weigh much less.

If the package stays below 2kg shipping is €13,00, the 2...5kg range is €19,50.

This includes Track&Trace. Registered mail (with insurance) costs ~ €2 extra. On packages below 2kg you can save € 4,00 if you skip Track & Trace but if it gets lost don't come complaining to me. These prices apply to all countries in the EUR1 region: Belgium / Denmark / Germany / France / Italy / Luxemburg / Austria / Spain / UK / Sweden

ivelegacy wrote: @jan-jaap
what is the price to ship the whole ? metal+ plastics ?
there is a friend of mine that "may be" (he said "may be") interested

You (he) can have all of it, but the frontplane is not there anymore. It's on it's way to you already

Also, with the metal (what you see in the photo) included, it weighs 9.5kg on my bathroom scale. With proper packaging it will weigh more than 10kg, and shipping will be costly (€ 34,00 to Italy).

Bump.

It has to go. If you come pick it up you can have it for free

Bump. Price lowered

jmjsgi wrote: can used it with O2 ?

Nope.

Origin 2000, Onyx2.

Pontus wrote: Do you mean MMSC ?

Thanks for the correction

The silver pizza box, the front panel LCD assebly, the DB-something interconnect and a handful of mini-DB6 serial cables to be precise. I have a spare MMSC with infamously broken PSU but think that will go to the recycling because nobody will pay shipping for that.

Also, this item is now reserved.

SGI PNs 030-1240-003 + 2 x 030-1263-002. XIO carrier + 2 blanks included.

Passes the IRIX diagnostics and spins tex_cubes like nothing else so the texture modules are fine as well.

100EUR + shipping from The Netherlands.

This is a transparent caddy for a hard disk. SUN # 5402443-03, which is apparently a Conner 540MB disk drive for an SS20. This one has a 4GB Cheetah ST34502LC installed though. The disk is probably not worth shipping, but the bracket could be handy maybe?

5EUR + shipping from The Netherlands

You said you have (after a while) a login screen on the CRT monitor?

Just log in as the 'root' user, and open a UNIX shell from the Toolchest menu.

Then, as Pontus said, type

at the command prompt.

Next time you reboot the system, the graphical splash screen should show.

Still available. I have to weigh this thing because weight incl. shipping should be around 2kg. If it stays below, shipping to the US is € 24,30, if it's between 2 and 5kg it's € 34,30.

Install the eoe.sw.uucp subsystem which isn't installed by default I believe. Start from the overlay and fix up conflicts using the foundation disk.

I think IRIX 6.3 introduced the 'new' System Manager. Which make 6.2 the last with the old one.

hamei wrote: I think the graphics of the newer system manager also changed about 6.5.15 ? Originally it was sort of a Victorian look, then it went more colorful and less formal. But they didn't change anything else to match, so the interface became sort of a mish-mash

I think under the hood it's just an HTML widget, so changing the look probably wasn't too hard

Originally it looked like this: http://www.sgistuff.net/software/irixin ... 5-img3.gif

Octane video options are either low end (composite analog: Personal Video), or high end (digital: SDI and HD-SDI).

So you're probably going to need an RBG-to-(HD)SDI converter, maybe an AJA HD10A or similar? You didn't tell us the source of your RGB, if it's not broadcast video but VGA or RGB workstation output you may need something else.

An Octane1 Digital Video board has SDI input/output,
An Octane2 DM2 with VBOB has HD-SDI input/output (this can be rather pricey).

Don't forget that all video input is stored uncompressed so especially HD formats need ample disk I/O bandwidth (up to ~ 240MB/s for 4:4:4 I think). Fibre Channel is your friend.

Finally, it's possible to use an Onyx2 DIVO card in an Octane (if you replace the XIO latch with an Octane style latch). It provides SDI input/output. I have one of those left for sale and can replace the latch.

In Indigo2 IMPACT TRAMs the PCB is attached to a heatsink with kapton tape, which makes it bend slightly (mechanical stress). The TRAM chips themselves are QFP chips (the type with SMD legs on all four sides). This is not a good combination. The mechanical stress combined with aging (brittle soldering joints) and/or thermal cycling results in the legs of the TRAM chips letting go.

The TRAMs themselves don't even get all that hot, compared to the large heat sink on the top board of the MaxImpact board set. Also, I've seen several IMPACT TRAM option cards gone bad, but never the "base" 1MB TRAM which comes with every MaxImpact (and which is not under mechanical stress like the TRAM option cards). Admittedly, I have seen several MaxImpacts, but not enough to make this a statically valid statement.

Octane TRAMs are mechanically better. They don't flex anymore:

I've seen MXE TRAMs which needed to be re-seated, but never had one die on me. I think if they had develop a heat sink like the one of the Octane MXE TRAM, which doesn't flex the PCB, the Indigo2 IMPACT TRAMs would have been more reliable.

MXE TRAMs also have a larger heatsink surface, but I think the Indigo2 has better and more efficient airflow in it's graphics compartment.

ivelegacy wrote: do you think it's possible and reasonable to redesign the heat sink ( MaxImpact Tram option) with a modern CAD/CAM process, then to provide it as "kit" or provide the full service (something like … you send me your MaxImpact card, I will replace the heat sink for you, you pay the kit and the effort) ?
[...]
The point I want to ask: today should be easier and cheaper, because there are more CNC and know/how: what do you think?

I don't know much about CNC, so I can't answer that one.

But, presumably, people would best leave working TRAMs alone, so any TRAM which needs treatment has already failed. I reworked two TRAMs which cost a *lot* of time, and had a 50% success rate. If I had to put a price on it, it would certainly be a rather hobbyist-unfriendly amount of money. If I had the time in the first place of course, which I don't. I have a job, a family and a hobby which consume all my time already

I rather doubt there's enough of a market for TRAM repairs to make this an interesting opportunity for a business.

SpaceDebris wrote: having the fastest possible Indigo2 hardware configuration is just much cooler.

which is the reason why the "best" configuration can be quite expensive compared to the 2nd best or entry graphics options, even though in today's world it's the difference between very very slow and just a fraction less slow.

chicaneuk wrote: I swear the IMPACT power supplies are the flakiest crap!

You realize the Indigo2 was sold circa 1993 - 1997?

They are now 18 - 22years old.

I don't think many Xterms do OpenGL, and certainly not IRIS GL.

ivelegacy wrote: I'd like to know the reason why the IP28's PSU is warm (not hot but warm) when you forget to unplug the power cord while the machine is off: it means there is flowing current somewhere, that is also the reason why you'd better unplug the power cord once the machine is switched off.

Opinions on that last bit vary. If you do that the machine will warm up / cool down every time you use it and the thermal stress isn't good for the longevity either. But to be honest all my machines are disconnected as well when I don't use them. First of all, most of them are 20 ... 30 years old and I'm afraid something is going to set the fire to the house one day. I have a family with small kids and that's unacceptable. Also, each of them will use a couple of watts when plugged in (but powered down), and with two dozen systems this adds up. A powered down Onyx2 consumes ~ 25W if I remember correctly -- more than my fileserver (Supermicro Xeon / 32GB /10TB) when it's idling. I'm not an ecomentalist (I drive a VW with a 2.0 TDI engine ) but that's just silly.

ivelegacy wrote: In the PC world, [...] ATX power supply units do not really switch off like AT, and a 100 mA current flows through them, while all the AT units are really switched off, and no current flows through them.

Same for almost all SGIs, with the exception of the Professional IRIS, the Personal IRIS and the Indigo. They may not support wake-on-lan, but they do "soft" start. This not only avoids big clunky power switches but also limits the inrush current when the system is powered on.

robespierre wrote: But Sun had soft-power on/off at least as early as 1992 (SS10), and Apple had it since 1988. It wouldn't shock me to hear that some computer had it in the early '80s.

The PowerOne power supplies used in 4D PowerSeries had active soft start. PowerOne built them from the mid-eighties until circa 2008. Later series had PFC as well.

But with configurations ranging from 1000 - 4000VA, soft start quickly becomes a rather essential feature ...

silicium wrote: has anybody tried to remove fans and cool it in an oil bath like high voltage transformers ?

Considering that a greasy fingerprint can kill a compression connector, an oil bath might not be the best idea for an Octane.

Pontus wrote: I seem to recall that PSU:s tend to fail on these machines, perhaps a preventive recap is in order?

There are two types of PSUs for these systems: Power One ("silver") and Cherokee ("black").

The Power One is a modular PSU sold to many customers, in many different configurations. If they fail they tend to just not start up. The Cherokee is less fancy and tends to just self destruct (charred PCBs etc). For this reason, and the fact that they come apart nicely (easier to repair!) I prefer the Power One. Usually you find the Power One in older Power Series and the Cherokee in Crimsons. I have always suspected that the Cherokee PSU was a matter of production cost saving. The PowerOne PSUs were marketed in nuclear and medical applications so they probably did not come cheap.

Otherwise my biggest concern would be the cooling (fan tray), which is not monitored. For that reason alone I would probably pull the cards and do a test run without any cards in the card cage so you can inspect the fan tray. There were two different generations of fan trays for these systems: the original and the "RE-ready" one. You'll probably find the latter one in the Crimson, the fans are positioned slightly different to better cool a Reality Engine.

Next up do a test run with the cards installed and monitor the LEDs on the cards. If they are "solid" (there is supposed to be LED activity during operation): good. If they all blink "nervously" in sync: power down immediately because you've got a PSU problem. Do not run the system for too long with the card cage open.

Oh, and if you dig deep enough into the USENET archives (comp.sys.sgi.*) you'll find discussion about a 1050W PSU versus a 1500W PSU, with the latter assumed to be RE ready. This is all nonsens. Both the Power One and the Cherokee have exactly the same output specs. The Power One, being modular, has a chassis capable of (at most) 1500W power intake from the mains, but the modules installed in this PSU configuration have a combined power output of 1050W. A different module configuration might get closer to that 1500W number, and of course there's a loss between input and output. You have to remove the PSU from it's chassis before the label which spells it all out becomes visible. Bigger PSUs existed but were used in 4D "Predator" and "Skywriter" racks.

Random final remark: beware of the capstan rollers of QIC150 cartridge tape drives. They "rot" and turn into chewing gum.

Have fun!

Pontus wrote: Is the color of the PSU visible from the back? In that case I think both machines have the silver Power One PSU, but I'll double check.

Maybe with a flashlight. It's on the left hand side, upper half. There are ventilation openings, but there's a metal chassis cover behind the skin, still. This is what a Power One looks like installed in the system, with the skin and the metal cover removed: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16729650#p7379686

My 4D/440VGX is one of my favorite systems. Can't really explain why, it must be a combination of the SMP config, the "big" graphics and the deep humming of the system fans. I'm quite happy I brought it back to life

Pontus wrote: This PowerSeries is a 310, which makes it a single processor IP7 system (according to sgistuff.net). Your 440 is a quad processor IP15. The Crimson is a one processor IP15. Can the Crimson backplane handle one or more IP7 or IP15, to make it multiprocessor?

The Crimson is IP17 . The 4D/440 is an IP15 hardware wise, IP7 software wise. If you pull the CPU board of a 310 you'll see that it is essentially a half populated IP7.

Crimson uses the same MP backplane as the PowerSeries, but you cannot install multiple IP17s. The Crimson has RAM on the CPU card so it doesn't need to access it over the MP bus on a separate MC2. Crimson was a way to get the 64bit R4000 out there, SMP had to wait for Challenge/Onyx. The R4000 was already limited by the 4D backplane.

Pontus wrote: Oh, here are pictures:

Nice, looks complete and in good shape! Is that a VAX next the Crimson or an Abekas Framestore?

Pontus wrote: Doh, I meant to write IP17. Hypothetically, could the IP17 be pulled and replaced with an IP15 ? In other words, is the backplane the same?

'Yes' on both counts, the backplane is the same. If you want to install one (or two!) IP7 or IP15 boards you have to install an MC2 as well. You can't mix IP7 and IP15 in one system. Technically a Crimson is a 4D/510 PowerSeries, or put differently: a Crimson is a PowerSeries with an IP17 CPU board and an IO3B I/O board. Most PowerSeries came with an IO2 or IO3.

My first Crimson was probably an upgraded PowerSeries. It didn't have the red skins:

Pontus wrote: I've been looking for documentation, the techpubs goes back to Challenge and Onyx but nothing for the PowerSeries or Crimson unfortunately. There is some information in the hardware developer handbook which is nice. But aside from looking for actual dead tree media is there any other source, like the IRIX CDs ?

If you're looking for an online (InSight) owner's manual: nope. These systems used to come with ~ 2m of brown binders, mostly hardcopy of IRIX manpages, GL and Fortran manuals:

I think one is called the "Server Owner's Manual" or similar, but it's generic and not nearly as in depth as what you get for later systems. I have a scanned 3rd party Crimson Field Service Guide which has some info, but by far the most informative is probably This old SGI , and there's good info in Simon Pigot's Crimson/Power Series/Onyx RealityEngine/RealityEngine2 Info .

IRIX does include standalone diagnostics software for IP7, IP15 and IP17 so you can exercise the CPUs, I/O and memory. There's a separate field diagnostics disc for IRIX 5.3 which can exercise RealityEngine and VGX, probably GTX as well.

Pontus wrote: Are the board or board connectors themselves fragile. I've broken boards in other computers simply by loosening them (both retainer clips and components). I'll be careful of course, but it never hurts to ask.

Not especially. Pull the levers simultaneously, or "wiggle" them to release the board from the backplane. I've seen one or two boards with a missing or broken lever, but it never happened to me.

Be careful to to put stress on the boards when they're out, e.g. don't stack them.

bla bla ESD precautions bla bla. You know the drill.

Pontus wrote: I tackled the 4D tonight. [...] now it seems to start every time I power cycle it.

Awesome!

Pontus wrote: Then I tried for an hour or so to hook up a serial connection. But neither my laptop with USB to Serial dongle or my trusty VT220 got anything, not even garbage :/ Not sure what to do next, perhaps the check the SGI serial port pinout or give up on serial and put the graphics back in.

Any suggestions on how to get to the serial console? Is it the port labled 1A or one of the other that is the console?

Yes, console should be on the 1A, the top one under the keyboard port.
Serial pinout is not the same as a PC! Refer to techpubs for the pinout: http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi ... 7/serial.z

Also, the ports on the system are female, where PCs are male. You'll have to make your own console cable. Null modem (TX, RX crossed), 9600/n/8/1.

Pontus wrote: I haven't search my drawers for serial cables and adapters just yet.

But I read on sgistuff and noticed the backplane layout. Slot 1-5 is VME, 6-7 is CPU and 8 is MEM. My system has memory in slot 7. Which is correct?

I sincerely hope that this hasn't destroyed anything :/

For a single tower (Diehard) chassis:
1...4 are VME
5...8 are the PowerPath bus
9...14 are the graphics bus

VME slots are normally filled left-to-right, the exception is the IKON (genlock) board which must in in VME #4

The IO2/IO3/IO3B must be in slot 5 (and physically won't fit anywhere else)
Normally CPU boards are in slot 6 and 7, and memory in 8.

I happen to have a spare Diehard backplane here and had a quick look; I have the impression slots 6 .. 8 are functionally identical. I'd still move the MC2 to slot8, though.

I still have a couple of MC2 boards so don't despair

tomvos wrote: IRIX is now legacy software.

Software > Legacy Software > Operating Systems > IRIX

It seems to contains some of the previously available stuff. I did not manage to find the 6.5.22 update you could download with a free account. Oh, and many of the patches are linked to their describing document—hence they are in the category "Documentation".

I don't know whether it's the new organization but I'm finding lots of useful info

tomvos wrote: I hope they keep the old techpubs.sgi.com untouched since it is quite well organised.

I updated my mirror this morning just in case they decide to pull it...

I think you mixed up a few things as far as MIPSpro goes, at least.

The MIPSpro frontend (source parser) was licensed from the Edison Design Group . EDG supplied various other compiler vendors at the time and I believe the Intel Linux compilers still use it.

The MIPSpro intermediate (WHIRL) and backend was written by SGI. When SGI moved to IA64 years later, they added an IA64 code generator, and yanked out all the obsolete MIPS bits.

They open-sourced various parts of the compiler, but couldn't release the EDG frontend because it wasn't theirs. So they welded a GNU frontend on it which generates WHIRL instead of RTL. This MIPSpro-for-IA64 was released as Pro64 and was later renamed Open64 .

Open64 served as a research vehicle for a couple of years, new targets for x86-64 and MIPS (not related to MIPSpro!) were added, but seems to be dead now.

As far as I'm aware, clang doesn't use the EDG frontend. It would certainly be interesting to get a MIPS BE target of clang up and running on IRIX, but the IRIX implementation of the ELF format has a couple of quirks which might make that a challenge.

Good work, I'll keep an eye on progress for sure!

Nice!

I see you've got a few more units for some interesting experiments. That 10G adapter is SX I guess?

That's an SGI badged Neterion Xframe (S2IO). http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi ... 10GBENA_UG

Mashek has some: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111536736224
I've seen 'em for less than that but I don't have any 10G infrastructure to connect to..

Ghostery picks up (and blocks) no less than 14 trackers on forums.nekochan.net. Is that intentional or something that comes with phpBB?

False alert. Seems I have a Firefix addon causing this. When I nail the suspect it shall be killed with fire

Thanks

Edit: so it's not an addon, but the combination of Ghostery and the latest Firefox (42). If I browse e.g. Slashdot w./ Firefox 42 + adblock + ghostery (5 trackers) and then navigate to forums.nekochan.net, I get the same 5 trackers . Verified on Windows and OSX. A freshly started Firefox shows zero trackers on Nekochan. Safari (Mac) also.

Weird. Smells like XSS turned cross-site-tracking