The collected works of sbarton

I've sent 2 messages over the past week that still seem to be in my "outbox" and don't show up in "sent messages" is there something I can do to bump them out?

Can't belive some of the advice your getting here. There are way better deals than $300 for 300Mhz 512mb Octane. You should just wait it out until something shows up near you. I understand it has a few nice extras, but I don't see any of them really adding all that much value. A member on this board was kind enough to sell me a dual 360 octane2 with vpro graphics and 2gb RAM for half that shipped. Also, I just picked a spare Octane 400Mhz MXE+MXI and 2GB RAM here locally by trading a P IV system (which was worth maybe $150), hell he even through in a 21" sgi tube, and a R5k Indy. There are several octanes with 400Mhz Cpus and 2gb RAM on fleabay right now that are $150 shipped. PS/2 kb/mouse and 13W3 to vga adapter and what else do you need? Look around for IRIX, older sets are cheap and you can dl 6.5.22 from SGI.

Don't limit yourself to just an Octane2 until you understand the differences (or lack of), you will find there really isn't that great of a difference in many configs and _zero_ differences in the particular config you are looking at But, you asked for opinions and thats mine. Good luck.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sun-13W3-M-to-HD15- ... _500wt_868

If your planning on using an LCD then list the video type (mgras/vpro) you received in the octane.

Every sun 13w3 adapter I have (about 4) from various places has worked on all of my octanes and indy. I even have a sun branded 13w3 to vga cable that works as well. I think the confusion is around the older sun gear that used a different 13w3 pinout...like the Sun 4d era and before....those use to cause confusion when trying to do VGA and SOG. I think that adapter I listed above combined with a more modern 21" monitor should be fine at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200. Or he could just look for one of the later 21" sun tubes on craigslist or something. Those work without an adapter on both MGRAS and VPro. With Vpro just make sure it can do the higher scan rates if you want 1280x1024. Or lastly, look to getting one of the LCD panels listed in the Wiki that have been confirmed to do 1600x1200@75. Probably the fastest easiest is just to pick up a sun tube, they are cheap and plentiful and I see them all the time on craigslist.

I just finished building my SS20 a few months ago. Started with a SS5/170 chassis that has the full height drive bay (replaced the badge). I ended up with 2 x SM81s in mine. I have 2 ROSS 250Mhz CPUs but they aren't even in the same league when using the system as a desktop compared to the SM81s. For awhile I used the SX graphics with an 8mb VSIMM, but the library/driver that supports it in X11 is a bit flaky I found when running newer software. However, I was able to obtain an Fujitsu AG10e and it is rock solid and just as fast. Gives me the side benefit of being able to max the RAM to 512mb. I run Solaris 9 with the latest patch bundle (yeah good luck finding it now) and use BlackBox as the windowing system. Very nice little box and I'm amazed at how beautifully it multitasks. There are no heat issues with the SM81s, in fact they run cooler overall than the ROSS processors. Doubt I'll ever get rid of it.