The collected works of japes - Page 4

I saw the donations opened up last night and reached the goal quickly. I'm really pleased that nekochan.net forums and wiki haven't fallen into the silicon dustbin like some other SGI oriented web resources.

I hope the community continues to support the site and it's able to stay vibrant and free of ads. I wouldn't mention the ads except I was searching a forum for another community and (at least without logging in) the search feature had a video advertisement (Progressive Insurance) captcha that you had to watch to get the code to enter (and it had sound).

Thank you Peter for putting up with this unruly gang of enthusiasts. I hope we're more enjoyable than annoying.

Thanks, sounds like a great idea.

Not sure what you mean about the power supply. There's an APC rack PDU above the top node. Each machine is connected, along with the monitor. The cord on the left ran off to an extension cord that was plugged in behind the camera.

I was playing a track from the Moby CD "Play" in the first node, but no speakers were attached to hear it.

Full disclosure this was my friend's front yard, the mosquitos were eating us alive as it was about an hour before sunset. I was going to take this at a park. By the way that's a heavy case with two nodes...and think I was considering putting a router in the back.

This thread reminded me that I could look up the Cod features for ebay machines where serials are provided - my credit card is sore now. But a machine with vet is coming.

ibmfiles wrote: Proposal: if you buy a GENERIC (like LSI / Adaptec) SAS controller and ensure it has the correct miniSAS connectors to connect to the backplane, in theory the firmware should give boot control to the generic SAS card and then boot from whatever disk you want. This is assuming of course the motherboard firmware will work with it, and isn't performing any additional checks.

EDIT: by 'backplane' I mean the PCB that the HDDs connect to / typically backplanes and controllers use MiniSAS.

Sadly, or awesomely depending on if you want to hack or easily service the system, but the Power6 p520 backplane has a board to board connector with the main planar. There is a card that adds RAID capability and i think it works without the card fine - that might change the boot behavior. For alternate card the drives would have to be in an external shelf or in the tape drive bay.

edit: nice job getting a p520. I picked one up a while ago but haven't had time to do anything but install AIX on it. The seller did a terrible job packing it - so I got a second for parts (and virtualization license) and again packing was a challenge but that seller did better - haven't had a chance to try it yet. At least the faceplate isn't falling off the dvd drive of number 2.

vishnu wrote: It had been off since we hit the target the first time...

I think this is the third time it's been active. I like that it has been off/on, gives me a reminder to donate.

I would be unsurprised that it was manually updated. And of course the content here is very valuable. The other day I noticed the phpBB statistics show the most active day as "Sat Oct 15, 2016 10:08" I was a little surprised it was this year - but it does track all the search bots as users and a small contingent of them always seem to be listed.

PCI Card Cage hanging out the back (nickname shoebox) with a IOC3 or CADduo card. Since you have only a single graphics board I imagine it was added to provide a second ethernet port.

Years ago I had an Octane2, then another so I could upgrade my 400/V6 to 550/V8. Well I traded or sold those off. But I cycled back to wanting an Octane2 again. Several years ago I got a pretty good looking one, 400 MHz w/V8. Then I noticed the fan on the midplane was not working. After replacing the fan I kept seeing crashes, sometimes I couldn't even get IRIX installed.

Last week I was modifying a light bar with LEDs for Raion-Fox and made enough room for the Octane2 on my workbench. With some part swapping and luck I have a working Octane2 again! Now with dual 600 MHz CPUs, 2 GB of memory and V8 graphics.

Y888099 wrote:

japes wrote: But I cycled back to wanting an Octane2 gain.

Why? Any hidden plan ?

No plan, just wanted a blue, hard to stack blob.

vishnu wrote:

japes wrote: Monitor 0 type: DEL 16472

So this would actually be a Dell P2012H? Green tinted, which is to say, no sync on green?

This is a 17" Dell P170St, 1280x1024 with DVI and VGA inputs and an USB hub built in. It's working fine either ignoring SoG or syncing with the SoG - no green tint. I'm using a SGI VGA-13W3 cable - it's a little on long side, probably 10 foot. I don't remember checking the pinout, it may be dropping the composite/separate sync signals for all I know.

I like fast prime lenses. I usually run Canon, and have a couple film bodies and a several revisions old crop sensor DSLR. I don't have enough primes though, just a 50/1.4. I would like to get the SIGMA 85/1.4 ART but it's a lot of money and it's a lot of weight. Now that it's getting bright out I can play with my EOS 1N RS some more.

On the Nikon side I bought a N90s to scratch an itch (remembering the Kodak DCS 420 I had access to when they were new) - it has a sticky button but otherwise nice, came with an AF 50/1.8 which seems to do a little nicer work than the Canon 50/1.8 so I haven't been bothered by it at all. I picked up a F100 at the store though and that led to finding one on ebay to replace the N90s which went to my wife who reluctantly started enjoying it after sticking with her FM10 for years. We had a roll of film get double exposures in the FM10 so it might be on it's way out. All this new film camera action led to picking up Nikkor AF 50/1.8 D for the F100 - it's smoother, but doesn't feel as solid as the non-D. Also an AF 28/2.8 and most recently AF 85/2.

As much fun as these lenses are on the film camera, my wife shoots a Nikon DSL and they're a great fun on it. It's crop too so it's like another set of lenses to learn.

I was wondering if anyone has a system, or is considering some kind of catalog or inventory for their hardware (or not so vintage, or other hobbies, or ...).

I have been looking to have spare parts or a second machine for most of my collection. Many of the spares are getting packed up and stored in a storage unit, as are systems that aren't being used often. For insurance purposes having an inventory would be good, but also just logistically. If I know what Origin 350/Tezro parts are in boxes in storage I don't have to go to the unit, dig out the box, etc.

I have had my eyes out for the follett library software that ran in DOS on the library computers in my high school, but I haven't found it. I'm beginning to consider building something - or just use one of the many home inventory programs? I don't know yet.

Anyone doing anything awesome?

Possibly a V-Brick with a V12 in it (or presumably any Octane style V-Pro).

Or modified X-Brick maybe? I recall someone was trying that and it didn't provide power, but they piped in the power and it worked?

Finding an Origin 350 will probably be easier. Getting a G-Brick would be nice if you have the space/power.

Or you can get the impact ready powersupply and if you ever want to run an impact graphics card you'll be ready (well, you need the riser too I guess). Just make sure you plug the impact/gio power into the terminator on the powersupply if you don't have an impact graphics card installed (regardless of having the riser)

I have some nodeboards for your Origin 2000 or Onyx 2 system. Someone out there?

They're 300 MHz, four three of them.

I had a deskside I built up with the 300s and then...upgraded to 400s...then sold. Now there's a box of nodeboards in my closet and I don't have a machine for them. Let me know if you have a need.

Dodoid wrote: Computers fail. I would rather the failure happen in my house, next to my reinstall CDs and screwdrivers, rather than in a datacenter where they're doing who knows what.

Depends, there's a lot of things I'd rather not run. If I can find a trusted partner I'm happy to let them deal with screwdrivers and software deployments....CDs, how cute, sadly CDs aren't part of software distribution anymore - you have to be (fr)agile and cloudy and stuff - more buzzwords.

What happens with the Continue button in the screen shot, and what is the context? Is this a poor license enforcement scheme preventing you from using a product you're licensed to use because someone bungled up a server somewhere? Or is this failed access to a project stored in the clouds? The former being a bad design, or bug-I expect a product with internet based license servers to work untethered for a reasonable period in case of server maintenance or lack of network access. The latter being a workflow problem where the user should use on-prem storage, or accept the risk that the service might be down.

When services work it's great not having to fix stupid computer problems and maintain this crap. When your business is printing banners or designing circuit boards any time not doing that is time you can't bill for. So outsourcing the problems that aren't your core strength or core business makes sense. You get to focus on what you're good at. When you're a computer professional it's easy to think that you're giving up control. From the business side they already feel that way. They are at the mercy of in-house IT or someone-else IT.

The trade off is you don't always get to pick when maintenance or failure happens. You don't always get to choose when failure happens on-prem either though.

Try pulling the graphics and starting up without them. I have a SI board in my parts pile that when installed causes the same - well, almost...the PSU fan make about 1 turn before it shuts off with this bad card.

Asking price $75 + shipping. Also open to trades. Sure you only want one?

Came across this gem from the mid 1990s on YouTube.