The collected works of pilot345

so, after a little tinkering and fabrication, I've managed to mod my v6 card to have its own locking mechanism.

*edit:
What this means is that the card will go into place, and lock without its "carrier" or whatever that holds the other two xio cards if you have em. This means
that two dual height Vpro graphics cards, can be used. And the XIO locking mechanisim on that block connector is retained, and able to be actuated, so they are
locked in like sgi wanted em to be.
What I have here was just a working test too, I plan on rigging up a little plastic screw down handle thing, that the other boards have, with the spares from the XIO tray. So it will look all "sgi" on the back.

Its been a while since I've had some SGI in my life, and even when i did, I never got to play with the hardware like I'd like to. I gotta say, this stuff is freaking beautiful. Every little detail in the construction, from the board layouts, backing plates, connectors. Its so well planned, and executed in an elegant manner. I mean theres not a single ribbon cable in the whole octane case. Even new top of the line hardware doesnt touch the build quality of this tank.

dont mind my rant. I havent had a chance to test the Vpro setup extensively, but seeing as it worked fine for me and others, without being locked in place, I doubt it will have any problems. Haha, I havent been able to test it, because I cant install irix on the octane yet, and that comes to my only gripe about the thing, who the hell wouldnt put an interal cd drive in a top of the line workstation, at a time when cd's were huge! So, I have an old 50pin cd dangling off of the indigo2 and I'm copying the cds over the network to a linux machine that will function as the install server. Jeez what a pain. My next project is going to be shoehorning a slot load atapi cd into the top of the case somehow, and cleanly integrating it with the scsi bus, to maintain the ribbon free cleanliness of the case.

But yeah, back to the vpro, heres some shots of the lock rod on the back in locked and unlocked positions. If anyone wants their Vpro's modded, for use in a dual setup, I will gladly perform this modification in trade for sgi goods.


ok, heres the top card in and locked


Close up of locked


Close up of unlocked


out..


and heres a shot of the new stuff + some pc junk. Indigo2, octane, and 2 20'' trinitron's

yeah, heres what im working with right now, gotta get the 68 pin to 50 pin cable though. I'm going to put a cd burner in there as well, and maybe a card reader, with a ide-scsi adapter on the top. Then I could have one enclosure with all my removable media needs.






I think im going to swap the centronics backplane for the hd50 one, I just like the sun hd50 connectors better. The centronics ones come disconnected if you jiggle them.

oh yeah, and im from ithaca, ny. cool to know theres some sgi fans up here. I'll try to get a pic of the mechanism up, when I get a chance to yank it back out of the machine. I'm installing right now, dont want to turn it off.

-joe

yep, its pretty nice here, I just moved back after being gone for a while. Lots of nice outdoors stuff to do. Plus, the air is clean and the people are friendly.

What might bring you to ithaca?

Ok, so my lazy ass finally (turned the octane off, sad) pulled the modded VPro out. I've included pictures, and explanation here
like I said I would a while back.

I put it in a new thread here, just for clean reference if anyone goes looking in the future (as I'm sure they will).


Heres the shots:



This is the LOCKED position.



This is UNLOCKED.



And a profile shot for good measure.

I constructed the locking mechanism using parts from the extra Vpro carrier. If anyone wants to copy this exactly I can go into detail
on what to cut, what I used where and where to drill. The rod is a a spacer from the single xio slots. It is "bonded" to the plastic rod, and metal
cam piece from the original VPro tray. This plastic and metal piece was the original actuator for the lock, so it fit in on the vpro right where it needed to.

The pieces were bonded together using hi temp foil tape, and then the foil tape was insulated with electrical tape, to prevent any shorts.
I completely removed the backing plate, and drilled the hole so it would line up with the locking cam.

Then its as simple as attaching the locking rod, and install!

This was able to be completed, using only pieces from the extra XIO carrier, which is cool, so the mod can be accomplished with
on hand parts most of the time. I plan on getting one of the Origin style latches to clean up the install in the future, but for now
it works great! My POST issues disappeared when I upgraded the Power supply to the newer cherokee.

Feel free to ask any questions...
Enjoy!

Note:
When installing both cards in an octane, the bottom card slides in, then you can reach into the XIO bay, and lock the card.
Only the top card needs the locking mod.
When sliding the top card in, it is very important to keep firm upward pressure on the card, into the guide rail, so that the XIO
connector seats perfectly straight, before locking. The card has no rail to support it on the bottom.
Make sure it is firmly, seated, then actuate the lock.

Haha, yeah, its a little ghetto. but I made it work with what I had.

That fancy latch is exactly what I was picturing in my head!
I had no idea it was a real part at the time though.

That push pull locker will accomplish the exact same thing for those who have it available.
Cant confirm that it will clear the memory chips, and the heatsink, like mine though... but
recondas says it should.

Edit:
Ok it looks like pierocks confirmed that this push pull locker WILL NOT clear the heatsinks and ram!
So it looks like my ghetto method is going to prove more useful than I thought.

On the topic of IRIX browsers..

I've been using konqueror/khtml recently, and I quite enjoy it. It seems to work
fast enough under IRIX, the konqueror interface is much more responsive than firefox.
Plus the rendering is much easier on the eyes. Granted the feature set isn't as robust,
and it doesnt load some pages as well, but its light and fast.

WebKit for apple's safari browser, is a fork of khtml correct? What are the chances
of webkit working for us ? I saw a mention of it not compiling, back in the browser thread
but it didnt go into details of why. Webkit has allready proven portable to many other platforms,
but I wouldnt really know what that means for irix, hence why I ask.

I guess theres also gtk interfaces to Gecko, projects such as galeon, skipstone etc.. but they are
still bogged down by our favorite firefox engine.

Nekochan seems full of former Japan residents and visitors... wonder why.

sgi fan's seem to be the geekiest of the geeks...
and there exists a high correlation between geekyness, and infatuation with things Japanese heh..

In all seriousness though, the whole "alternative" computing scene seems to go hand in hand with jap. culture fans..
I cant tell you why, I never got into the whole foreign culture thing.. but there is no denying the connection.

Over my many years of exploring different operating systems/hardware/software, there always seemed to be
very many people interested in dressing up their os'es with anime swag.. Seems like they look for the same layout,
simple desktop, sexy background, transparent term, osview prefmon, etc..

I mean what better way to use your retro unix gear than to display your scantly clad anime backgrounds, and
window sitters.. They sure do it in style!

Maybe a few of the japan fans could fill me in.. How did your interests progress? What ended up bringing you to SGI's ?
What drew you to Japanese culture?

sybrfreq wrote: The SGIs are cool because... I don't know. They just seem right.

I like that

They just fit, for me too.. I guess I could say they represent the qualities I scrutinize for in any product.. I wouldn't say I reach
the extremes in any sense of geekyness. Having, large in numbers, just for the sake of it has never been my objective.

Oh, and by recommendation of a couple of your posts, I've been looking at HP xw series workstations. They are some great systems..

sorry to get off topic...

smj wrote: I'd love to know what "alternative computing" means, if it's a term in general use.

Hahaha, I guess that word cant be used now without having some kind of conservation/eco-friendly connotation.
great mental picture with the alpaca fart cluster by the way..
All I meant by that, was non windows... I guess it would be better described as "computing for fun". Using rare hardware/
software just for the sake of it (putting up with bad software because its free? ). The stuff that we do, that will never make
sense to your average consumer. I guess I've had a hard time explaining my SGI habit to just about anyone I know
outside here.. including other computer enthusiasts!. Does that make sense?
Also, unlike a lot of people here, in my time in the computer field, SGI's werent exactly top of the line any more.
The unix hardware in general was looked at by the users as "antiquated".. So I'm not drawn to sgi's in a nostalgic "old glory days" sense.


I guesss I phrased it that way, because my first exposure to anime, came about because of my interest in computers.
I didn't encounter fan's of this stuff, until I started digging around the internet. I got the feeling that a lot of the people that
liked exploring computers as a hobby, also enjoyed anime/Japanese stuff.

smj wrote: the general obsession with Japan Inc in the early to mid-80s

Yeah, I'm not very old... sounds like this phenomenon was a bit behind my time.
That, and I didnt exactly grow up in the most "culturally enriched" environment, heh.

for the first machine, perhaps the SI board failing could have shorted into the backplane/riser board for the GIO/ISA.
May want to inspect all boards and traces closely to avoid roasting the replacement boards.

Just curious.. What do ya'll use your VBOB's for ? Do you guys actually have pro video gear that will interface to it? or are they just for kicks..

I have a purple R10k indigo2 with impact graphics, 10/100 nic, and the matching feet/stands.

Would just need some TRAM to max it out, and find yourself a teal chassis if you need the color.

PM me if interested, I can post pics and a hinv. She has been sitting for a while, and I would love for it to go
to a good home.

I was intrigued by reading through the old website for this office suite. Any reports on its usability? It looks like it might be worthwhile to play with.

Woww, another 24bit card for SBUS sparcs??

I only ever knew about the Fujitsu AG-10E and the rasterflex and rasterflex-hr 24 bit cards, never seen this!

Nice post! Any more information about it?