The collected works of josehill - Page 13

If I recall correctly, MPI and MPT were on one of the IRIX 6.5 Application CDs. It used to be downloadable directly from SGI and available from them as a separate CD that also supported earlier versions of IRIX, but neither are options any more. It's been a long time since I've installed MPI on IRIX, but you may also need to install the Array Services package, which also would be on the IRIX Application CDs.
jan-jaap wrote: 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.

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?

My old 4x200 R10k Power Challenge L was the best all around production server I've ever had, adjusting for performance expectations in 1996 versus 2015, of course.
miod wrote: I'm not sure putting a ``warning: hamei inside'' large sign on the forum new member registration page would be of any help :lol:


I'm now cleaning coffee out of my keyboard. :lol:
jan-jaap wrote: 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.

Ah, thanks. Now the old memories are coming back to me! I had both HVD and SE drives in my old beastie, and that's exactly how it was accomplished. You're right, though. Best to get rid of HVD entirely to avoid accidental burning smells.
josehill wrote: If I recall correctly, MPI and MPT were on one of the IRIX 6.5 Application CDs. It used to be downloadable directly from SGI and available from them as a separate CD that also supported earlier versions of IRIX, but neither are options any more. It's been a long time since I've installed MPI on IRIX, but you may also need to install the Array Services package, which also would be on the IRIX Application CDs.

Hey, I just noticed! That was my 3,000th post to this forum! :mrgreen:

The years have gone too quickly.
If I remember correctly, the demo WP file at Corel's site is corrupt. There used to be a fixed version somewhere out on the net, but I haven't been able to find it.
ivelegacy wrote: what about the guy who is selling "WordPerfect For Unix"
it is an original set of CDs for UNIX, IRIX is in this set

i have not understood the license question: should i have a license in order to run WordPerfect on Irix ?
Does it run on 6.5.22 or 6.5.27 ?

The boxed version that is on eBay appears to be the full, commercial package. People have reported that it works on various versions of IRIX 6.5, including earlier in this thread :

hoosyny wrote: I have installed WordPerfect 6.0 on my Fuel/6.5.30 and it works.
I had to enter the licence number.

Perhaps you can contact hoosyny for more details.

ivelegacy wrote: On my SGI-box i'd like to have something to self-document my fun

A lot of people just use the graphical NEdit text editor that comes with IRIX for documenting stuff on their systems. It might not be very fancy, but it is very fast and quite capable. You won't get "word processor" features like bold, italics, etc., but it's great for taking notes. As I said, it's included with IRIX, though there is a newer version of it available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/nedit/f ... table/5.5/ .
nekonoko wrote: Might be on the Nekochan FTP someplace. I seem to remember having it there.

Edit: I couldn't find it, so I stuck a copy I found in my archives there. Not sure if it's different from what's out there or not though.


Cool! Thanks! The nekochan file is a few hundred kilobytes bigger than the one at Corel, so I take that as a good sign.
tomvos wrote: This leads to a huge 34.7 GB download. The URL is like this.

http://download.sgi.com/content_request ... epo.tar.gz

I haven't finished the download yet, but perhaps somewhere in this big pile of bits may be a SLES 9 ia64. Or perhaps it's really just a pile of bits. I don't know, but it may be worth a try.

That sounds like a little more than just the pro pack. If it's the full SLES distribution, that's worth archiving somewhere for the day SGI decides to save space on its servers. (FWIW, at one point, you used to be able to download the SLES ISOs from Novell. IIRC, a big "if", it would install, but a license code was needed in order to enable updates and other features.)
ivelegacy wrote: if i write that I want to use wordeditor to document my things (things that MUST use a word editors features like notes/bold/italics/underlined/font/size etc etc ) i perfectly know the difference between a text editor and a word editor !

A lot of people who join the forum are new to the platform, and I was just trying to help, in case you were in that category. Frankly, when we get questions about desktop programs like WordPerfect, they're usually from people who are coming from a PC environment, are new to Unix, and they don't usually know the difference between a text editor and a word processor. No offense intended.
/usr/sbin/snapshot
uunix wrote: My first guess would be a dns issue.

I agree. In my experience, DNS timeouts are the cause of this at least 90% of the time. Next most likely: hard drive starting to fail.
Welcome, pettersson!

uunix's advice might fix the problem, but the problem might also be that the O2 doesn't know what to do with a 2560 x 1440 resolution display. Is there some way to set the display to use a lower resolution or to use a different display? You might try setting your display to run at 1280x1024 @60Hz or even 1024x768 @60Hz, if possible.

SGI has a lot of documentation at its Techpubs site, including an O2 hardware guide .

PS. O2s do output a SOG signal, so while many modern displays will show the O2 desktop, if they are not truly SOG compatible, the display will have a green tint. For what it is worth, I just plugged an R5k O2 into an older, non-SOG Dell display, and I took a screenshot of the supported resolutions . Notice the green tint.
uunix wrote: josehill, where did you get that resolution from? I can't see it in the OP?

I looked up the specs of petterson's display on the Dell website .
Look at DNS, especially how the Indigo2's hostname is configured, then. The IRIX desktop is a little quirky in that it assumes almost all resources are shared in a networked environment, so it uses DNS even for accessing many local resources, where you wouldn't expect it to be used. (Search for posts or techpubs articles about Cadmin and objectserver if you're curious for details.) Among other things, check the /etc/resolv.conf file and /etc/nsswitch.conf files. Any time you see something like "nis dns files" you probably are better off dropping nis (unless you know you are using nis) and putting files before dns (files meaning /etc/hosts, primarily). There are a few threads about this on the forum.
uunix wrote: What you looked up sounds like the max, I think all monitors will display 1280x1024 etc heck I may be wrong. I've never heard of a monitor that wont go down to required res automatically. BUT.. if the o2 (or any unix machine) is set to a certain display, then that of cause is a different matter.

Yeah, his display supports 1280x1024, which is why I suggested using it directly. However, I've run into the problem several times when an O2 and a modern monitor are unable to come to an automatic agreement on resolution. In some cases, it seems to be a timeout issue, where if agreement isn't reached quickly enough, one or the other gives up. In those cases, I've either had to manually set the monitor to a known-good resolution, or I've had to toggle display modes manually.
ivelegacy wrote: i feel the IP30 as an "heavy an noisy machine", so i have put "the heavy big iron" remotely somewhere in the room under my father's roof.

One of the best investments I ever made for working with SGI equipment was a pair of good quality, noise canceling headphones.
Cool! Congratulations!

...and "well done" to uunix, who nailed the solution!
pettersson wrote: Good morning guys,

thanks a lot for your help! Setting the console to g did indeed fix the problem. About the Monitor: It auto adjusted to 1280x1024 and scaled the picture to fill the screen from top to bottom with black bars on both sided. Looks quite good :D So I guess it's safe to say the DELL u2711 is compatible.

Now I need to get a compatible HD. I can't wait to play Quake on this little machine :)


uunix wrote: There may be a possibility the Console (in the PROM) output is set to 'd' and 'g' meaning that it will not display anything until it passes diag.
thomasrichinger wrote: Seems like the installation of Irix 6.3 is not so easy as 5.3 or 6.5.

Well, again, the issue is that the base 6.3 installation cd didn't support the 300 MHz cpu. Most people who had 300 MHz O2s either bought them new, in which case they came with IRIX 6.5 as the original OS, or they were upgrading an existing O2, in which case they had to install the patches before putting in the new cpu. When the hardware matches the software, installing 6.3 is at least as easy as installing any other flavor of IRIX.

Personally, I think IRIX 5.x can be a much bigger challenge. Since there were so many 5.3 installation cds tied to specific hardware, it's often difficult for hobbyists to find one that will work their machines.
Which leads to things like this - http://www.jumboprawn.net/jesse/projs/laptop.html
Lots of SGI benchmarks at http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/sgi.html#SYSCOMP

ivelegacy wrote: Also there is a gfx gap, so i launched Alias Wavefront (my friend used it for his previous job so we have samples to be used for benchmarks), i know this App uses the gfx very heavily, and as result in this case the Impact was impressively faster than O2+


I am Mathematica addicted, that is the reason why i feel the O2+ is faster than Impact, but it is just relative, perhaps, it is just related to Mathematica.
google for lmgrd server line
armanox wrote: still curious why someone would want the overlays for every version....

There are people who ask the same question about individuals who use IRIX computers, period! :D
chicaneuk wrote: Why bump a nearly 8 year old thread?!

You're asking this on a board that focuses on 9+ year old hardware? It happens all the time around here. ;)
foetz wrote: ah yeah so you think the dp4 was axed in favor of the beta1?


FWIW (not much), that is how I interpreted the sentence. The project has not exactly maintained a strict release schedule, so I just check in over there every now and then. If there's something new, then great, but I don't lose any sleep over it if there's not.

Old man comment of the day: "There was a time when dp, beta, and production all meant different things."
Thanks, foetz. Good idea.
Sigh. I remember when we gave a close look at strapping together a couple of O200s as a less expensive alternative to a deskside O2000. We still were talking about serious cash, though.

Strange to see devices which were so highly sought after back then now in such rough shape and priced so cheaply. Then again, the Mrs says the same thing about me. ;)
Quartz wrote: Usually when posting to forums in cases like this I always put in a link to the images instead of embedding them inline, so people with slow/mobile connections aren't forced to load stuff they don't care about. Am I allowed to do that here, or are inlining images preferred/required?

Thanks for asking, Quartz. We don't have a hard rule on the subject, but there is a bias toward using the "Attachments" function, particularly for equipment that might be older or relatively rare. A lot of people come to the site for research purposes, and by using the Attachments function, we avoid broken links to external sites and ensure that useful historical information is preserved.

That said, we definitely discourage people from placing full-size, ultra high resolution pics directly inline.
I found Letterman entertaining, but quirky, when I was in college in the late 80s, but as time went on, he became more prickly and political. I get enough of that elsewhere, so I stopped being a regular watcher many years ago. I can't remember the last time I saw a whole episode -- probably the mid-90s. He has been able to attract some great guests to the show throughout the years, especially musical guests. Personally, though, I get the sense that he has become a bit of a cliché or a caricature of himself in recent times.

Then again, people probably say the same thing about me.
hamei wrote:
foetz wrote: why did you run the disk exercise at all?

Because when it blew up and dropped me into pod, I figured I'd try to clean out whatever was making the mess in the miniroot. No luck with that, tho. I've got a 2940 around here somewhere, some day I'll wipe that disk and try again.

Did you try repartitioning as an option drive (i.e. no swap partition), laying down a new filesystem mkfs, and then repartitioning as a root drive (or root/option drive) and laying down a new filesystem on the root or root/option drive? That process blows away the old swap/miniroot and has always cleared up any odd miniroot problems I've ever had.
Horrible!
opcode wrote: Is that the news window manager before 4dwm?

No. The poster shows an early release of 4Dwm.

The first release of 4Dwm came with IRIX 4.0, and when the Indigo2 first came out, IRIX 4.0 is what was shipping.
GeneratriX wrote: Greetz for you and all the forum folks! ;)

Welcome back, G. Nice to see you! :D
GeneratriX wrote: Hey, by the way: Happy Independence Day to the U.S., and Happy Birthday to myself... yep... it is today! :-)

I just launched a pyrotechnic device in your honor, Diego! Cheers!
calvin wrote: It's not very secure, nor is it optimized for server workloads and applications.

By 2015 standards, sure, but by the standards of its time, IRIX was an outstanding server OS.
sgifanatic wrote: Nonetheless, reading this NYT piece on Amazon and its culture still rattled me for some reason.


"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know." ― Michael Crichton

My last firsthand experience with the NYT: Once upon a time, I spent twenty minutes of an interview with an NYT reporter talking about how great something was. The story came out, and they used one sentence I said. It was a verbatim quote, but they put it in a context that made it sound like the exact, total opposite of my intention and the opposite of the tone of the entire interview. In retrospect, it was apparent that the article was intended to be a hit piece all along, it was all but written before anyone was interviewed, and the only reason for interviews was to cherry pick some useful quotes to support a preconceived narrative.

Lesson: don't believe everything you read, even if it comes from a "reputable" source, and especially if it can be interpreted as advancing an agenda.
ClassicHasClass wrote: Fox Butterfield, is that you?

;)
FWIW, csh/tcsh was IRIX's default interactive shell for a while back in the late 90s and early 00s. Back when I was at the fabled Global Megacorp, we set up everyone (hundreds of IRIX users) with tcsh as the default shell on IRIX. The history and command completion features were much more accessible to non-IT end users than the equivalent features in ksh.

Of course, ksh works very well, too, if you put in the effort to learn it well and to customize your environment, as jimmer hinted in the OP. There was a time I enjoyed spending inordinate effort trying to develop the "perfect" .profile/.kshrc files. I never succeeded and always returned to tcsh. :lol:

As an aside, early versions of Mac OS X also used tcsh as the default interactive shell. Apple switched to bash in Panther (10.3).
Great idea! I just chipped in.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it took me a minute to find the link. I was looking for the word "PayPal" or the PayPal logo, so I just skipped right past the "Donate" link. :oops: For those who may be similarly clueless, the link is in the navigation menu above the board index.

nekopaypal.png
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I suppose I could've shared this on the for sale/trade board, but I thought it was unusual enough to deserve a place here in the hardware section.

I've heard of SGI-branded Kennedy drives, but I've never actually seen one until this Craigslist ad (see attached) - http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/sys/5332950111.html