The collected works of mapesdhs - Page 10

First time I ever played golf (aged 12 IIRC), very first hit of the ball, it landed only about 2' from the hole.
Brodick Golf Club, Isle of Arran, 1982 or somesuch. I was somewhat chuffed. After that though, never played
golf again I think.

Ian.

Not a native. Born in Buckinghamshire, England, 1970, moved to Scotland when I was 9.

Ian.

Found this old thread via the wiki, thought I'd add an update...

I've tested a lot of SCSI disks, including the Seagate mentioned earlier. So far the quietest
disk I've come across, ideal for O2, is the Fujitsu MAS3367NC. Helps to replace the PSU fan
aswell though, which I do using an Arctic F8 (temp control cable removed); end result is a
near silent O2.

Best of all of course is an SSD. Today I sorted out an R10K/250 O2 running IRIX 6.3 with a
Crucial M550 128GB in an ARS-2160H SCSI/SATA bridge box, an upgrade for an industrial
customer over their original R5K/180 which had a typical 9GB 7200rpm IBM DNES-309170.
Their work (textiles) involves lots of small files, typically 1K to 4K, a perfect fit for an SSD.

I tested how quickly the system could search their main archive, simply by using a find
command with a file name that doesn't exist, forcing the search to scan the whole archive.
Here are the results obtained via timex in seconds (the 36GB 15K referred to here is indeed
a MAS3367NC, which also happens to be the 2nd-fastest SCSI disk I've tested for access
time, the MAX3036NC being just fractionally better):



ie. the combination of the CPU and SSD upgrade means the new setup is almost ten times
faster for file access response, though even the change to a 36GB 15K gives a 3X speedup.

Hope this helps!

Ian.

PS. For those who may be wondering, I used the Crucial M550 because it's the only decent
consumer SSD which has proper capacitor-based power loss protection. Even the latest
Samsung 850 Pro doesn't have PLP of this kind. Apart from this though, pretty much any
SSD will work ok.

PPS. The best and highest capacity SCSI disk for Indigo2 is either the Seagate ST3300007LC or
ST3300655LC (10K and 15K respectively). Both support narrow/SE and are low-noise. I've fitted
them into IRIS Indigo systems in the past. Or of course, just use an SSD; I've tested with
a Samsung 840 Pro 512GB, works ok.

I have loads of SSDs, including several in my Fuel. Every time I have to use a rust spinner, I'm amazed
that I was able to put up with how slow they are.

See my post on the ' quiet SCSI drives ' thread for an example speedup with an SSD in an O2.

Samsung 850 Pro works ok in a Fuel btw. Ditto the Crucial M550, all OCZ models, Sandisk Extreme II, etc.

Ian.

O2 is a fun little box, and with an R10K/R12K it does have the raw on-paper integer benchmark
performance one might expect in tests that takes some seconds, minutes, etc., but hamei & others
are correct, it does not have the snappyness of an R10K Indigo2 and certainly not of Octane/Fuel
(and remember it's fp performance sucks compared to all other SGIs from the same era, reasons
why given on my site). However, people like O2 for other reasons, eg. its small footprint, low noise
(use a Fujitsu MAS drive and replace the PSU fan with an Arctic F8, it's basically silent), low-cost
real-time video functions, etc. Depends what one wants from an SGI I guess, which is why for newer
enthusiasts I suggest a long term plan to obtain several different systems, contrast & compare.

However, I'm not posting because of all the above factors. Rather, I wanted to mention that O2+ was
a total marketing/PR con: there's no such thing as an O2+ in that the only differences between an O2+
and any previous O2 was packaging/plastics. Every part of what will always be in an O2+ was already
in use with older O2s, namely the 030-1327-002 mbd and DVDROM. I've obtained plenty of older O2s,
even some with original logos, which have exactly the same mbd and 1401/1711 DVD. Absolutely nothing
changed hardware-wise; the same R12K/400 was already available, and although SGI used the O2+
launch to announce R7K/350 availability, that was quickly recalled due to a manufacturing fault (and its
performance wasn't that good anyway, see my site for examples).

The only unique thing about an O2+ is its purple skins. Commercial buyers will pay a lot for an O2+,
but not for any sensible reasons; they often just have to source the same named item as they already
use, so the value is artificially high. I suppose a hobbysist might prefer the colour styling of the O2+,
but don't convince yourself it's better than a normal O2 because it's not - they're exactly the same.

Lots of benchmarks on my site if you want to compare performance , though they can't really convey the
snappyness factor so well. I did once separately test an R12K/400 O2 vs. an R12K/400 Octane MXI
for running Avid; the Octane wasn't just 5X faster for doing general stuff like AV clip import, as hamei
implies it was also a lot nippier in general (R10K Indigo2 would be somewhere between the two).

O2 is a great system in various ways, and I use one for MJPEG editing, but I wouldn't use an O2 for
'productive' work (I have a Fuel/900MHz for that), not when there are better SGI alternatives, and certainly
not when it makes more sense to use something else entirely, eg. I have a 3930K @ 4.8 with quad-GTX 580
for converting video data. From a collector's perspective though, I'd say owning an O2 practically compulsory,
as it sums up so much about what SGI was up to back in the day (a friend of mine who used to work at SUN
once said, "I wish we'd made something like this.")

For those who have commented on its performance (heh, including me), do remember that when O2 first
launched, it was 4X faster than the best Intergraph PC one could buy for running apps like Chalice/Shake;
we forget this now because today it's too easy to compare it to the best of what is possible with other SGI
models, but at the time it was a very good system (that is, when its unique arch matched an application
suite spot), and for some apps it was 10X faster than anything else available in its price range, eg. volumetric
medical imaging; I talked to a doctor in S. Africa who said it cut his preparation time for CAT scan followups
from an hour to just 5 minutes, which was life-saving stuff, he was delighted.

If a hobbyist asks though, I tell them there's no need to hunt for an O2+ in any technical sense, only if
they're seriously obsessed with that colour styling (in which case, why not get a normal O2 and have
it painted?), because they're going to be expensive unless one gets really lucky on eBay or something.
Except for the skins, a normal R12K/400 O2 with a 1327 board and DVDROM is an O2+, and they're
much easier to find. For those who struggle to locate a unit in good condition, the CPU-mod R12K/300 units
I have available are a good compromise (they'd be 350MHz if only I could be certain of what resistor
positions to use in the mod), though note they don't come with a 1327 mbd by default since that's simply not
necessary for a hobbyist system at all. See my feedback page for example comments from someone who bought
such a system from me last year, and I'm just about to begin preparing another for someone in Sweden.

Ian.

I bought a lot of SCSI disks recently; they came on HP server sleds which I don't need, anyone want them?
If not then into the trash they go. The sleds look like this:

http://galleryplus.ebayimg.com/ws/web/1 ... 0x1000.jpg

They have the following part numbers in different locations:

- On the lever catch: 289241-001
- On the yellow alert label: 186037-001
- On the lower side of the base: 349469-5
- On the upper side of the base: 349471-003

Just cover the shipping!

Ian.

Me better, free with just shipping to cover.

Ian.

ivelegacy wrote: @mapesdhs
Performances was also explained in the wiki page

Heh, think you'll find my site is somewhat older than the wiki page. I helped launch the O2 in the UK. I had the tech info 2 weeks
before most other people; I put out a summary file after launch without the PR blurb for those who wanted such a thing. I think I was the
first to obtain the O2 Technical Report aswell. I researched & covered the performance issues a looooong time ago.

Btw, O2's texture fill rate is less than half that of HighIMPACT, never mind MaxIMPACT. There are a lot of minor errors in the wikis like
this, but I don't correct them, don't have the time. That O2 summary contains several others, but nothing serious.

ivelegacy wrote: about CPU clock speedup, i have seen the R7K @ 600Mhz hack made by Joe Page and Ian Mapleson. I have read something about, never seen a @600Mhz CPU module for sale. It's very interesting, do you know if it is available, yet?

You've linked to my mirror site, I'm the latter guy.

The CPU is not available from me atm because hobbyists are not willing to pay an amount high enough to cover the value of the base
CPU + the cost of the mod + any kind of profit margin to make the venture worthwhile. I had 7 CPUs modded way back, made a loss of more
than 400 UKP overall (one didn't work, and the person who organised the mod work didn't reply to my contact attemps to get it sorted); in
the end I kept the last CPU for myself. I was only able to sell one of the CPUs at a break-even price, the other four went for a loss amount.

By contrast, the modded R12K/300 is IMO a far better option. It's much cheaper to produce, easier to sort out, and it's not that much
slower than the R7K/600. People assume the power consumption is much higher, but it really isn't. Some assume the noise must be an
issue, but I fit a better modern fan. And if I can find out the resistor positions then I'll offer an R12K/350 aswell, but haven't got the info
for that yet. Only caveat is such systems are limited to one internal disk by default (some people mod their chassis to get round this).

The mod cost situation could change in the future if the R5K/300 stops being so valuable, or if the mod work becomes a lot cheaper
(it was 180 UKP per module when I had the batch done way back), but not atm. However, sometimes they turn up on eBay, or here in
the for-sale section.


Nice work on the respray btw; I wouldn't worry too much about the shade of purple though, I've seen quite a bit of variation over the
years, usually due to light exposure but in some cases, with the asbence of marks/scratches, I think the original paint job was sometimes
not identical anyway.

I've not done too much with resprays, though I have been experimenting with redoing spare Indy cases in black + gold trim, a nod to
the Cray T90, hehe.

uunix wrote: Pros and Cons for me, Form Factor, Noise, Power Consumption, 1600sw and cuteness.

And one other thing, you'd be amazed how many times I've heard hobbyists say that in the face of objections
to possible techno clutter, O2 is the one SGI system which wives/gfs seem happy to have around. "cute"
has been used on many occasions so I gather.

So, tip: if you have a techno phobic other half, start off with O2, work up from there. They won't realise what's
happened until the Onyx rack gets delivered.

Ian.

I know, just couldn't resist a giggle.

Either way, I'll leave it for a bit, try a Freecycle too, but most likely they're out to trash, along with the
three industrial crates they came in (the latter also available for free + shipping; two smaller crates
fit insider a large unit, so just one shipping cost for all three, pics on request, or of course collect
in person if anyone's that close).

Btw, removing 760 screws from HP server sleds is REALLY BORING.

*cough* Sorry, felt the need to vent there a tad... :}

Ian.

I've never seen any consequence of the cache structure with R12K (apart from the well known fp speed hit),
but then I don't use Linux with O2 and I never would (don't see the point) since everything that's unique
about O2 can't be used. I understand the challenge of getting it to work, but not beyond that.

Ian.

The grind continues with testing the drives, two torx screws to hold each disk in a Sagitta sled for two 12-bay JBODs (connected to a Fuel with
two QLA12160/66 cards), so four screw/unscrew events per disk overall; another 760 twiddlings to wade through, though now I have to do them manually with an Allen key as the torx bit I was using snapped for some reason. :\ Testing 24 disks at a time, next batch going through a full read/write/compare fx scan as I type... *yawn*

Ian.

AFAIK Octane does not support the relevant LSI chipset. It's for O3K-type systems only.

Ian.

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. 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.

Ian.

Alas you're in the hobbyist realm here, ie. you can't expect to get top prices for this stuff, especially given you cannot
provide any proper warranty. Sure, in theory on paper the system is worth 'quite a bit', but that has nothing to do
with what any particular person is willing to pay, because the people who would pay more are those buying for
companies, not hobbyists, and they mostly do not look in this forum.

When it comes to hobbyist sales, let me put it this way: if someone asked me about your listing, whether they should
buy it as a hobbyist looking for their first SGI, I would normally say no, because an Octane2 400/V6 is so much better
in various ways. But this doesn't take into account the broad range of hobbyist bias; some prefer specific systems,
some care about particular tasks or features, others just want a basic SGI for learning IRIX. Some want the fastest
possible and thus look for Fuel, Tezro, etc. This is why I usually go through a Q&A process to find out what a person
is looking for - do they care about noise, what about size/weight, specific apps they want to run, future upgrade
potential, and so on. This may lead to a different recommendation such as an O2, or indeed an Indigo2. It varies.
In that sense it's hard for me to answer a question such as, what is this system worth, because I can't put myself in
typical hobbyist shoes anymore, too familiar with it all.

Dealers will not offer much because, no matter what they can sell a system for, they can obtain them fairly cheaply,
in some cases even free (when companies are ditching old gear). I've heard of some reseller used kit sales involving
markups of 10000% compared to how much a system was sold for vs. how much it cost to obtain. That's at the extreme
end of course; my point is one can't say any particular item has an objective value. It's always down to whatever
someone is willing to pay, and the sheer luck if you happen to attract the right person who's willing to pay that sum.
On eBay it's a total crapshoot for this sort of thing.

Trying to get a fast sale for what's effectively a specialised item, at a good price for the seller, will be difficult
unless the right person is around at the time. You could have a dozen replies saying ach, don't be daft, Octane2 is
better, that thing's not worth more than 100E, and then all of a sudden a buyer comes along for whom Indigo2
brings back the best memories of working at a movie company or something, and so they're happy to pay 1000+.

I'd buy it for 100E, but not more since atm I'm up to my eyeballs in Indigo2s (I have seriously a lot of them). Plus of
course I buy SGI stuff to sell on, so an item's "value" means even less to me, as I try to get things for as little as
possible (for obvious reasons).

NB: I have a feeling that those who have asked me over the years if I had a good condition purple skins set for
Indigo2 would probably not want a repainted set. Such buyers tend to prefer originality. Others may not be
so bothered though, who knows.

Btw, whatever an item sells for on eBay means *nothing*; never has done, never will do. Again, stop looking for
'objective' values for things, because they don't exist. Just pick a price you'd be happy with and try to sell it for
that much, but do remember you're always going to get more by splitting it for parts and selling things over a
longer period of time. If you want a fast sale then it's very unlikely you'll get a high amount because by defintion
buyers know you're in a hurry, so they have the advantage. It doesn't matter a hoot if you bought an O2+ for 250E,
because an SGI reseller can easily sell such a system for 10X that much to a company; ditto R12K/400 modules, etc.

I don't understand why you think this is all bizarre and weird when you're talking about eBay. It's not a normal
shop, just a totally random auction-fest by different people in different countries. Could be, for example, that
one person has been given advice on how much to list a system for, whereas another person is simply happy to
recover how ever much it cost them to originally obtain - likely two very different amounts. Sometimes a seller
just doesn't care, they want rid of it, so they list it with a low start & no reserve, and if luck of the draw means
not many people see it then it'll go for not much, but that's their choice not to use a higher start or a reserve.

Ian.

jan-jaap writes:
> from an HP NetServer) for 40 or 50EUR per kit years ago. ...

Yup, classic source for a hobbyist, hence why in the hobbyist realm, it makes no sense to expect a high offer for the RAM.

I sold two 512MB kits last week half-price to a movie company acquaintance for 75 UKP each, he was very happy with that.


> The G160 used to fetch a similar amount, not sure anymore what I paid for it or how much they sell for these days.

It's still an item that's not really in demand, but OTOH they're moderately scarce, so at least atm it's highly variable.


> 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.

That's absolutely correct, and is precisely what I meant.

Plus, how much dealers charge for stuff is also very greatly influenced by how much stock they have, how bulky it is, all
sorts of other factors. I hear of dealers all the time selling certain items for low prices because they have a lot of them
and just want rid of them. I've done that myself, though usually just in the form of giving them away (guess nobody
wants free JBOD units, oh well.


> 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.

Ach people keep saying that about such kits but it's FUD. I've worked with these for more than a decade now, never
seen or heard of a single issue of this kind.


> 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.

Actually that was with a big discount. Because I can get half that much *just* for an IMPACT PSU these days. Indeed,
the last time I sold an R4K/250 Solid system with the same RAM/disk, it was to an aerospace company for 645 UKP.
They thought it was *cheap*.

And btw, at times in the past I've been told by some dealers that my prices are too low! (most recently last week) This is
because some companies will not buy parts/spares/systems if the prices are waaaay lower than how much they originally
cost to buy, ie. it raises awkward questions in finance depts. I found this was exactly the case with Indys. When I had a
mountain of them, I listed them crazy cheap, but never sold any to companies. Once I upped the price by about 4X, bingo,
companies started buying. In each case there can be thresholds of cheapness tolerance. The last max-spec Indy I sold
(except the gfx was 8bit XL) went for 700 UKP to a textile company, though 150 of that was for a brand new Dallas chip
(again, for them, cheap, because if they asked their original system vendor for a replacement it would cost 1000).

It's a crazy world, but that's sometimes how it is.

Ian.

PS. Nobody does an OS install as good as I do for hobbyist use. Not by miles. Ditto packaging; get it from me, it
will arrive intact. Get stuff from eBay, it'll likely arrive in a million bits .

Trippynet wrote: I know you can get Indigo2s a fair bit cheaper if you really shop around and look for a bargain, but I don't begrudge for one minute paying a bit more for one from Ian

And that's exactly the market I'm aiming for, those who want a complete system, fully ready to use, cleaned, with an excellent OS
setup, lots of extras like a CD set, locking bar, power cable, etc., and yes I T-cut the case if asked, which does work very well (even
I am amazed at how well sometimes). I also setup the OS with a normal user account already configured in the user's preferred name,
with the network settings they want, host name, gateway, etc., so they're able to just plug it all in and they're connected straight
away, barring some unexpected issue. And I intialise all the various system apps so the user doesn't have to do that, everything is
immediately ready to use.

I have no interest in the eBay-level of selling stuff, for reasons mentioned elsewhere. I have a particular ethos of system selling to
which I adhere, something I want to carry over into the 1980s vintage systems I'll start doing hopefully this year (more than half my
storage space is now 1980s fear - Acorn, Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore, etc.)

It really does make me giggle when I see a hobbyist who's horrified at some price they've been quoted for something, or an item
that sold on eBay for more than they would have thought possible. Heh, they have noooooo idea.

An item is only ever worth what someone (or a company) is willing to pay. Sometimes I come across hobbyists who do have some
money to splash around, but often I just include big discounts anyway for hobbyist buyers, and/or I include free extras with the
system they're buying as a nod to their choosing to get it from me. I'm about to send a max-spec Octane2 to someone; the guy
doesn't know he's getting a whole pile of free extras which normally would cost a lot more than the 700E Oct2 system the OP mentioned,
but he paid a good amount in hobbyist terms (even with the 50% discount I included) and I like to make it so a buyer feels it's been
worthwhile. That's my MO.

Heh, the number of people who've bought a system on eBay and end up coming to me for replacement parts, CDs, disk, OS install,
kybd, mouse, etc... one guy who did this with an O2 eventually said he would have been much better off just buying a system
from me in the first place, after he had to replace the skins (bad ebay seller packaging of course), sort out a disk and OS setup
(useless 2GB in the system with an old basic 6.3), etc.

Ian.

PS. Closest I come to anything akin to eBay is listing certain items on eBid, but I don't have the time to list a lot of what I want
to add, it'll just have to wait.

ivelegacy wrote: yes, you are right, @mapesdhs has explained me that fibreChannel card is the only solution to speed up the storage of an Impact's storage. ...

By any major degree that is. Striping across the two included channels will help, but it's still nowhere near Octane's built in bus.

ivelegacy wrote: I have read that such an FC card have two ports, ...

Yup, as I explained in my emails, but really, put it out of your mind, they're soooo rare. I've never seen one and I only know one person who
has one; he gets 87MB/sec. That's great for him, but for anyone else I'd say forget it, just get an Octane2 or Fuel instead.

Ian.

For big & heavy, try shipping a POWER Challenge rack , more like 180kg. It was quite a job.

I've bought crazier though, eg. 36-CPU Onyx3800 .

Ian.

I was going to link to a post I made way back showing how this works with an O2 top lid, but I see the neko
search system does not allow the use of hyphens in search terms, so I can't. Possible for someone to fix
the search function? I ought to be able to search for "T-cut", ie. an expression within quotes.

Ian.

Yes, that's the one! Odd, I have a different URL:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16722890&start=11

Ian.

Most welcome!

If you can btw, do experiment on unimportant pieces of scratched plastic first (re my email on technique with a box cutter knife).

Ian.

FOR SALE: Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 motherboard (boxed): 75 UKP + shipping

Comes in original box with all accessories (many never used, still sealed,
including the I/O shield), BIOS has been upgraded to the latest F20,
previously used with a 4820K; here's a CPU-Z .

Supports 4-way SLI/CF, etc. Full overview/specs on Gigabyte's website . This is a Rev 1.1 edition.

Here's a box picture:



Full pics including CPU socket images on my site .

Email/call/PM if interested!

Ian.

PS. Numerous PC parts & complete systems coming soon, eg. 3930K with
Quadro 6000, 3970X with Quadro K5000, all oc'd, water cooled, etc. New
section coming soon to my main site.

:D

That's a new one for sure, never heard someone act like some modern utterly different tech is in any way inherantly equivalent.

In the end though, it's always going to be hard to get a higher price if you're in a hurry, because people know that
and will act accordingly.

Ian.

ivelegacy wrote: [*]Octane can have up to 4Gbyte of ram, and Octane2 can have up to 8Gbyte of ram, ...

Found this while searching for something, minor error, thought I'd post a correction: older Octane mbds have
a max of 2GB RAM, not 4GB.

The max for later 1467 mbds is indeed 8GB though.

Ian.

I have lots available aswell, and I do the best hobbyist OS installs on the planet, plus the best packaging.
I also include a free extra disk which is a clone of the system disk, some OS CDs, etc.

Ian.

There's one guy lurking around here who has a modern dual-XEON mega setup for Maya, but he also uses a Fuel/V12
he bought from me way back aswell since he said it's still good for some of the basic stuff and he likes how it behaves.

It's a mixed bag. I know another guy who's still happily using an IRIS Indigo because its audio is so good, whereas others
might say even the quickest SGI can be annoying re the js hog in Firefox. Indeed, it depends on what you want to do.
Use them for whatever matches their capabilities the best.

Note that complex renders on a Fuel/600 can match or outperform a dual-400 Octane (differences in L2 cache size,
RAM latency and bandwidth). Check the Alias render test results on my site.

Beyond a certain point though, if one is wanting to do some serious work, it's hard to push even the best SGI given
the potency of modern tech. I'm in the process of sorting out a 5GHz 2700K system for someone with just two
Quadro 600s, leaves a Tezro V12 in the dust speed-wise (yes, I build custom oc'd PCs now).

Ian.

Ok thanks dude!!

Presumably, from what else I've read, trying to port any significantly newer version is proving very difficult, yes?

I recently had to stop using my Fuel for internet banking, which was a shame (browser version too old, now blocked
by my bank), and it's become increasinly difficult to use the Fuel for eBay stuff (inevitably much more productive with
a 5GHz 2700K). Would be great if a newer version could be done some day.

Ian.

I didn't do anything, just connected it up as normal and that's it. Note that nowadays I use the other version of the F8 which doesn't have the temp control, so no need to meddle with the cable.

To clarify: I've never used the Noctua that's the subject of this thread, I use the Arctic F8 instead. Basically the same idea though.

Sad to report though I stopped using the O2 as a gateway a while ago, as I couldn't get the Phobos GigE card working properly, and I wanted better speed than 100Mbit. Thus, I built a Zenyal-based uATX box with a simple uATX board (and Intel model that has two GigE ports), Pentium G2020, silent fans, etc. However, I've done further fan mods since then for other people.

Ian.

Sounds like key elements keep changing with each release, so presumably something a lot more up to date like V35 is totally out of the question.

Edit: just updated an Indigo2 to your builds, diegel. One minor note, had to update sqlite3 first. I guess a few packages have been updated since I last checked.

Ian.

foetz wrote: so you're running a gtk2 firefox on an indigo
now that's brave

Ach it's not that bad given the CPU is only an R10K/195.

diegel, I hear ya on the modern web. I remember the early 90s at uni, fast(ish) net link, not really any advertising back then.

Ian.

Recently some guy on a tomshardware forum who looked at my site asked with amazement how come my site loads
on his phone so 'goddam fast'. I said it's because it's hand-coded and not full of junk. Blows my mind when I check the
contents of a modern web page just how stuffed with rubbish it is, sometimes a font/colour definition for every word
or even every character. Nuts...

Ian.

Feel for ya dude, bling is the curse of the modern web, or 'bells & whistles' as my uni HCI lecturer used to call it.

Ian.

I think the DailyUK site host has had a few problems at times, as indeed on occasion I've not been able to access my site at all.
It normally doesn't last long, but certainly kinda bad for what's supposed to be a reliable setup.

I pondered the idea of having a mirror of the for-sale site, but that would be costly, and I can't do that on the existing mirrors
as they're not my sites.

Ian.

Geoman wrote: That's actually not bad!

Indeed! Hmm, I have other systems I could try, 4.8GHz i7 3930K, 3970X, etc. Also have a Phenom II 1090T but it's not oc'd yet.

I suppose results would be better with Linux, but I don't have any Linux setups atm.

Hey, I thought mining had moved away from Bitcoin anyway? Because the whole influx of ASICs and accelerators made it
uneconomic for desktop/GPUs. I read that Litecoin was a more productive option now as there was still no ASIC-based
method available, so CPUs/GPUs were still viable.

Ian.

Actually I think that's been on QI...

Who tests with just texcube? I use more than a dozen different tests, not just some of the demos.

Heh, you wanna job fixing TRAMs? I have about 20 that need repair.

Ian.

I agree it's the best web browser build for IRIX atm, but sadly it's so old now version-wise that I can't use my Fuel for a lot of the web stuff I do these days, which is rather sad. Find myself using my 5GHz 2700K more and more. :\

Ian.

:D

Online banking, tomshardware, eBay, etc.

Ian.

I don't aim them at hobbyists. I currently act as support for a couple of airforce training setups where they're still used.

Pity it isn't possible to respin the tech in a modern shrunk process, stick it on a single chip card (but with the same I/O ports), allow
for Max + many options. Oh well.

Ian.

See previous post. Why should I sell something cheaply when I don't have to ? All that happens is
that dealers buy the items and sell them on for a huge markup; this occured with R10K boards for Onyx,
dealers bought a bunch from me because my price was low (yet high from a hobbyist viewpoint), I found
out they were being sold on for a +1K markup.

Really wish hobbyists would get a grip on the reality of the tech they're meddling with. I mean jeez,
the 'main' dealers sell this stuff for oodles more than I do much of the time, whereas I'm lucky if I break
even each month. I hardly ever sell Max sets, and they're hard to obtain. The notion of what something
is worth has absolutely nothing to do with whatever anyone wishes something would cost just because
it's old, or based on what they can afford. That's not how supply & demand works, and SGI stuff is a
perfect example of the ebb & flow of the proverbial S&D equation. An item is only ever worth what
someone is willing to pay.

Anyway, I digress. If hobbyists can get a Max set for very little then that's great, but I'm not going to
throw away more than a month's rent just because someone wishes something were cheaper.

Ian.