The collected works of jan-jaap - Page 26

Blast from the past!

I dug up CorelDraw 2.01 from an old Hotmix CD. I used to have this on my first PC, a 286 ...

It is a COFF executable but I it works just fine on an Indy with IRIX 5.3. Won't run on IRIX 6.2 or newer.

Protected with FLEXlm v2

Toxiccameron wrote:

Raion-Fox wrote: If you have Linux with EFS support, you should be able to mount the images.

Do you have a example of a distro that supports that? I messed with Ubuntu for awhile with no luck.

Debian 'stable' here:

For historical reasons I chose to name my disk images *.efs. The ones from archive.org are *.img. All irrelevant as long as it's a straight 'dd' stye copy of the entire disc.

And this is the CorelDRAW 3.0 demo version from Hotmix 8:

The demo version cannot save and print. I have the feeling it could be a full featured binary once some special sauce is applied.

Raion-Fox wrote: So yes this conbines 2-4 VPro inputs and makes a 2-4kimage out of it.

Nope, the output is a single link DVI so still limited to 1920x1200

IIRC it interleaves the pipes so you can get 4x the frame rate. Or maintain framerate with a more complex scene.

spiroyster wrote: Can it AA the final output, rather than splitting the workload, or increasing the complexity?

It appears that each input is a tile of the output. From the SGI™ InfinitePerformance™: Scalable Graphics Compositor User’s Guide :

The scalable graphics compositor is a hardware graphics compositor that is capable of
receiving two or four DVI digital video inputs, and then combining them into a single
video output to increase graphics performance. Each input is from one SGI
InfinitePerformance graphics pipe (VPro V12 board) residing in a V-brick. The video
output can display on digital and analog monitors at the same time.

I was interested in combining two DVI output (a V12 w. DCD) into a single high resolution output, but the Compositor is not the answer to this problem because of it's single link DVI output.

Y888099 wrote: anyone has already tasted?

Tastes good:

Notice the lack of "Demonstration" in the window title, and the activated "Save" and "Print" menus.

CorelDraw 3 is an ELF binary. Interestingly, the help (hyperhelp) is a COFF binary.

Nice Octane. Just get rid of that fire extinguisher -- the powder inside is highly corrosive and of you ever use it you can throw away all electronics items in the room ...

Same for cars, btw. At least where I live, if the car burns to a crisp, it's insured. If you kill the fire with one of those, the insurance is probably happy, but if 6 months later all electronics fail it's not covered.

The CPU with the weird FP bug was almost certainly the 400MHz PMC Sierra RM7000. They ended up recalling them and replacing them with slower chips because of weirdness in Maya iirc.

The PROM binaries are built from the same source tree as IRIX and the standalone utilities. You might as well ask for the release of IRIX source.

Intel's Itanium, once destined to replace x86 processors in PCs, hits end of line .

Well, I guess we saw that one coming for a while.

I have an Excel sheet of parts, with part#, name, status (untested/good/broken), test date, purpose (spare/sell/junk). I use it to print stickers to put on the ESD bags with the parts, to decide whether to buy something that shows up on eBay (do I have that already?), or decide whether I can sell something.

It happened too often that I looked at a box and thought (1) what's in there and (2) does it even work.

Achilles heel: you have to keep it up to date.

Oxygen2 wrote: May I ask a question? I've seen one Indigo, there wasn't any cooler on CPU. Just clean copper square. Is it ok? Just planning to grab, but have some doubts yet. Thanks

Sounds like an R3000 CPU board (image from Gerhard Lenerz):

This is perfectly OK.

CATIA uses IBM LUM licensing which has it's roots in NetLS. On IRIX a nodelock license should be in /var/lum or /opt/lum/ls/os/svr4.sgi/bin.

If this system used a floating license you'll never find it, of course because you don't have the floating license server.

Come on, these rants are getting silly. What's next, a rant about the pains of switching from a.out to ELF and glibc? We all need to vent from time to time, but if you are stuck with a 9 year old kernel then stay with equally old tools, libraries and what not.

The prehistoric Linux pthreads implementation you want back wasn't fully standards compliant. You *need* kernel level support for a conformant POSIX threads implementation. Deal with it, the world moved on. Long ago.

gijoe77 wrote: I suppose the TMDS version for IR3/IR4 graphics serves the same purpose.

Correct. I have a DG5-TVO in my Onyx2, which connects to a VBOB w./ DM5 with a pair of DVI cables. This a HD-GVO (graphics to video) option. The system has a DM2 as well, which provides the regular (HD/SD) video I/O.

What it lacks is a Discreet Inferno installation, so it's not very useful

You should really use the serial port. I'm not sure the port is PC DB9 compatible, you may have to create your own cable.

The trick is essentially to boot it in single user mode from the boot rom. If the boot rom is password protected and prints out a boot password recovery challenge I can solve that puzzle

Be careful not to scramble the CF card, because the feature license strings are stored on it.

johnnym wrote: So why not use a directory structure like an inventory?

This focuses very much on *where* a part is. As if things stay in the boxes they arrive in, in chronological order. I try to keep related parts together, i.e. I have a place for Octane/Onyx2 related parts, ditto for Challenge/Onyx1, 4D series etc etc. Only generic parts (SCSI disks, cables, books, keyboard & mice) stay together rather than with the "system" category. The purpose of my inventory is not to know where things are. This should be obvious.

Like many of us (I suspect) I have amassed a lot of parts over the years. Many of those came in large batches. Many of them are not relevant to the systems I own, some I have (too) many of, often their working condition is unknown. This takes up a lot of space while not bringing me anything. The moment comes when you either have to give/throw away everything (I'm not a hoarder) or you have to sanitize the lot. I chose the latter option. This means you have to test everything, and this takes up an unbelievable amount of time. It's like ripping a large CD collection: you want to do it only once, so you want to do it good the first time. So I threw away everything not worth that time (nobody wants a 1x180MHz CPU board for an Onyx2). If you test something you have to (1) then package the item such that it will not get damaged after you test it 'good', and (2) keep a record of it, and that's where the Excel sheet was born. It's trivial to create a 'mail merge' and print stickers from it.

The outcome is boxes full of neatly packaged, quality spares. And boxes full of electro-trash, and boxes full of neatly packaged, but useless (to me) stuff. The useless stuff has to go (I'm still not a hoarder). Some of it ends in the 'for sale/trade' forum here, some of it goes to local market places. If nobody wants it it goes to the recycling. In the end, I only want the boxes of neatly packaged, tested, labeled parts for my personal use. It will take time and dedication to get there. Maybe I never will.

The second purpose of my inventory: to help make a decision on whether I need to buy something if it pops up. I do not want to buy something I have (as a spare) already. And I will never remember what I already have.

It's really a matter of keeping it simple (the KISS principle). It has to be easy to edit or I won't bother and that would make it worthless. The little Excel sheet gets the job done, if I need a complicated system it's probably a sign of a bigger problem (like way to much crap I should really get rid of instead of cataloging it).

X11 display server : X11.app on macOS "sierra"

I telnet into my Indy running IRIX 5.3, and start a winterm with display output to the Mac.

When I start to type into the winterm window, I get this:

Some special characters work (^L clears the screen, ^H erases, ^D closes the window), but most characters are echoed back as 3 character garbage. 'enter' is garbled as well. In the screenshot I typed "ls<enter>". The 'You have mail' text and the prompt string are good, so I think text output from the Indy is good.

What's happening here, is the Mac sending UTF to the poor old Indy?

NB: the Indy is running pretty stock IRIX 5.3, with ~ 40 patches (probably the recommended/required set), but no freeware, tgcware or other add-ons.

OK, I fixed it but I don't understand why. It's the 'Option keys send Alt_L and Alt_R' checkbox:


Now to set up XDMCP

Shiunbird wrote: In Excel, it would be very hard to track the specifications of such different devices, unless you would restrict yourself to tracking only things like manufacturer and device type.

I do not care about specifications. My inventory exists primarily to help me make decisions about buying and selling spare parts. I do not track what's in my systems (well, I guess I have 'hinv output...). I do not track generic or easy to replace parts like disks or memory. I only care about two things: (1) does it work and (2) do I need it. It is utilitarian, and not a purpose in itself.

Keep it simple. For me, that means I don't set up a database, or deal with java, LDAP, XML etc etc. when a simple flat list will do.

But hey, it's a free world.

IRIX is a bit in between. Too old to be useful in a professional setting, but new enough that many of the applications are still actively maintained on other platforms.

Which means I cannot buy the IRIX application because the vendor isn't willing to sell / support it (probably a valid business decision).

But at the same time, if I then keygen the thing, crack dongle protection etc etc, I cannot share this knowledge because it may very well invoke the wrath of the Adobes and Autodesks of this world. Also, though reverse engineering is allowed in many places, circumventing copy protections usually isn't. And as far as sharing goes: try to seed a torrent of PhotoShop v2.5 for IRIX. Thoroughly obsolete and useless. But it won't be long before the nastygrams show up your inbox. Been there (accidentally, really!), learned my lesson.

Maybe in another 5 or 10 years everything will be a cloudy web app and things will be different.

Trippynet wrote: I did like the image that Ars Technica used to illustrate it...

Nice catch, it's the Espressigo !

Man, I want one of those ...

If I'm not mistaken, the O2K series can be partitioned at the module level. Every module needs base IO. For an O2000, a module is basically an O2K deskside. For an O200, a module would probably be ... an O200. And, this being an O200, two modules would be the minimum (duh) but also the maximum configuration. So, if you pull this off, you'll probably end up with two O200 systems (modules) with a rather fast interconnect. I don't know how the interconnect is exposed (MPI?). An interesting experiment, but I'm not sure how useful it is. Then again, that's true for most things I do with my SGIs

In general, I have the feeling that prices are slowly rising. It used to be you get an Indy, Indigo2 or Indigo for $0 ... $50. I still frown when people ask $200 for an Indy because I'm so used to them costing ~ $25. I pulled PowerSeries desksides out of garages for $25. But those were all systems that either came from their first owner, or somebody who took it home from work (= first owner). Then when they're done playing they want their space back and you can (could) have it for little money.

Those systems are all gone now. The rest is a matter of supply and demand I guess.

Y888099 wrote: my plastic-pass can just open the door of the toilet (and only the one at the ground floor)

You're allowed to go to the toilet on your own? That's relaxed I've been to places where someone had to accompany you at all times, which meant walking with you to the toilet, and waiting outside to make sure you really didn't go anywhere else.

And then there was that time I had a marine jump in front of my car with his rifle pointing my way because I forgot to put my visitor badge on my dashboard (the reflection in the windshield was really annoying). Won't happen again, no sir ...

Oskar45 wrote: Trying to figure out new tricks with my hand spinner - it's Father's Day anyhow

I was going to say you're a week early, but fortunately I looked it up first so now I know it's not the same day around the globe.

It looks like one of your TRAMs is faulty, resulting in the interleaved pattern.

I would run the IDE diagnostics from the PROM menu, from a serial console if you can. See if it narrows down the problem to one of the two modules. Leave the other one alone, because whatever you do can only hurt it. I've never seen a faulty Octane TRAM (yet), but have 'fixed' MXE TRAMs by cleaning the contacts of the connector with a bit of pure alcohol and reseating the TRAM a couple of times while the connector was still wet.

I've seen similar problems with the Indigo2 IMPACT TRAMs and they were caused by mechanical and/or thermal stress on the TRAM modules. The TRAM chips are QFP chips, not BGAs (what you typically see these days). They are sensitive to PCB warping etc, causing solder joints to crack, pins to lift or make bad contact. I've reworked failed Indigo2 TRAMs before: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16728901

The Octane TRAMs are a much better design than the Indigo2 TRAMs, the heat sink provides mechanical stability.

Raion-Fox wrote: You can try taking the heatsinks off and re-padding the chips, or check for corrosion.

Re-padding the chips is not going to fix a bad contact. But the mechanical stress of pulling the pad off a QFP chip after being stuck for 20 years might very well cause more bad soldering joints. So I would not do this, unless you have no other choice.

If you really have a faulty TRAM and you feel up to it, you could try what I did for the Indigo2 TRAMs. But even with a lab and knowledgeable people to guide me my success rate was only ~ 50%.

Elf wrote: What I am starting to worry about with the age of the SGI gear are things like PROMs decaying, whether single (E)PROM chips or inside other things like PLDs. Supposedly they have a ~20 yr lifetime from when written.

That's why I've made backup copies of them. That includes GE boards of GTX or VGX graphics. I already had an EPROM burner, the other day I received an UV eraser as well

Have a look here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=16721462

The airflow is downwards. There's a box (exhaust plenum) underneath the unit. The metal front face plate is the height of the Origin/Onyx2 + the exhaust plenum so it covers both. There are two Onyx2's in that rack, I mounted a second exhaust plenum upside down on the bottom Onyx2 to act an an air intake. I lacked the slide rails so I mounted two shelves in the rack to carry the weight. of the systems.

Pictures of tall rack Origins and/or the handbook may have some information as well.

NB: I'm decommissioning these systems. 4xR12K @ 300MHz, 4GB RAM, IR2E graphics and a PCI shoehorn. Two units available, pickup only, 250EUR per system. If I end up parting them out I'd be happy to ship the exhaust plenums and other bits, but transatlantic shipping is going to be crazy expensive.

You have to remove the black top lid of the case first before you can remove the CD tray bezel. To do that, you'd have to remove the PSU cover on the back side first, then there's a lever attached to the lid you can reach and push towards the front GENTLY just enough until the top lid pops upward and can be removed. The O2 case being extremely fragile this has to be done with extreme care or it will shatter.

But if I understand correctly, you only want the CDROM disk tray to eject? Just take e.g. a paperclip, unfold it, and insert in the little hole next to the CD eject button. This should manually unlock the tray, then you can pull it out.

I have the whole series. But it's mostly the old ones that have interesting software on them. The later ones are more a HTML-ized product catalogues than anything else.

MrBill wrote: it is sold. i drive to get it saturday.

Congrats. Hope you have fun with it!

guardian452 wrote: Looks like it has 2 RMs so you need to run it on 240v (208 at least...)

There are only two cards under the big FP clam thing, and the right is the DG. So only on RM. But the ASO and ethernet options are worth something.

guardian452 wrote: But they are (supposedly) finicky..

Tell me about it. They can be a reel pain to diagnose.

AIC 1160 is FC-AL only, not SAN.

So you can direct attach a disk array, but the average SAN switch won't talk to it. Some 'smarter' SAN switched can effectively 'tunnel' FC-AL, so you can still talk to an array behind a switch.