The collected works of sgifanatic - Page 2

sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 318 notes

Wrote on the subject of SGI back in the black - cash up, earnings up, revenue push at Jan. 21, 2013, 6:29 a.m...

SGI is not doing badly. Revenue's pushed a bit, but that's not core weakness - more Fed buying delays due to all the tomfoolery around Q3/Q4 fiscal cliff shenanigans. Despite all that, the cash pile has grown around 10%, the company turned a profit and things are looking pretty good. The stock has rallied significantly. Titinger seems to be doing well on the financial metrics. Note also that Cray's been rocking (relatively) in the recent past. There is sustained demand for this family of computer - good to watch for fans like me :-)

Here's a good piece from the Reg. Hope y'all enjoy!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/20 ... y_numbers/

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of Illumos at Jan. 22, 2013, 11:59 a.m...

tingo wrote:

sgifanatic wrote:

... it's simply the most convenient, self-contained way to do things... ZFS taking care of things is a blessing in many ways. Soft raid, SSD-aware placement, built-in snapshotting, integrity, performance, relatively simple management etc. are all good ... There's also the added benefit that ZFS implementations are available for ... FreeBSD ...

This.
I have used FreeBSD since the 3.x days, and a while after ZFS came to FreeBSD, I had to try it out. I found out it was quite easy to learn, and relatively maintenance-free.
Now I use it for all my storage needs (fileservers, NAS boxes (using FreeNAS) and so on). It hasn't let me down yet (knock on wood).

Yeah, it's really very nice. I am setting up another FreeNAS box right now. Love it.

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of Illumos at Jan. 24, 2013, 1:01 p.m...

Let 'em laugh, my friend. Life is too short to not share cool ideas and work on cool stuff. If you think it's worth doing, do it. And not every idea has to be a 100 million unit idea. There's room for open source hardware stuff, hobbyist stuff etc. Check out the Firefox phones. They may sell a few units, but if they make the folks that use them happy, great!

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of SGIfanatic is back... with a laptop Kickstarter! at May 27, 2013, 8:03 a.m...

Hello Old Friends... and new ones!

You may remember I did the Indigo Reborn project a couple of years ago. In case you haven't seen it, it's this one: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16724795&hilit=indigo+reborn&start=75#p7349612

That project got me thinking about rapid prototyping technologies, how to build custom cases, custom systems and so on. And soon, thinking turned to doing.

So here's my Kickstarter which went live just a few days ago: The Darkmatter, 3D printed, Laser-cut, Xbox Laptop!

http://kck.st/15WvpJx

I wanted to share it with you guys and see what your thoughts are. It hit Engadget and a number of other blogs, so it seems to have struck a chord with some folks. The vision is to take Darkmatter to a point where it becomes a completely Open Laptop framework. We're already looking at retrofitting Beagles, Pandas, NUCs, Raspberry Pis and more into this framework. However, to get there, we want to get this Kickstarter off the ground.

If you guys are interested in stuff like this and can back us, I would greatly appreciate it. If you can't, that's cool too... but do spread the word amongst friends, hackers and makers who might be interested.

THANKS!!!

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
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Wrote on the subject of SGIfanatic is back... with a laptop Kickstarter! at May 27, 2013, 3:52 p.m...

Adrenaline, thank you so much :-)

Appreciate it!

guardian452 :-)

Thanks for the support! I haven't used connect360, but just looked it up. Sounds pretty cool!

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of SGIfanatic is back... with a laptop Kickstarter! at May 28, 2013, 4:28 a.m...

They will be sold. That's essentially what the Kickstarter is doing; taking pre-orders. Right now, however, the process seems to be going very slow. If there's not enough interest to get 25 systems pre-ordered over a month...

And I'm sorry some of my friends here find the community aspect to be repulsive, but if you've interacted with folks at the Maker Faire, for example, you do actually get a sense of community. It's a very approachable lot and generally willing to help each other out. I saw some of that at the past few Faires I've been to.

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of SGIfanatic is back... with a laptop Kickstarter! at May 28, 2013, 4:36 a.m...

PymbleSoftware wrote:

hamei wrote:

sgifanatic wrote:

I wanted to share it with you guys and see what your thoughts are.

It's an Apple I

http://www.latimes.com/business/technol ... 0683.story

They look nice. But why the Kickstarter ? Why not just sell them ? That whole commuuuuunity thing is sort of ... repulsive

Everything has to be social(ist) these days, don'tcha know? Facebook, twitter it does it all!!! It also works as a kitchen appliance.

R.

It's not *quite* socialist :-)

The reality is that a lot of folks don't want to go through the hassle of buying their own 3D printer, learning how to use it, getting access to a laser cutter, ordering custom PCBs (for the Xduino360 board that's inside the laptop), building everything up, including soldering SMT components and then putting everything together. All the plans are indeed available to do this, but very, very few would want to do it this way.

Some successful (capitalist!) businesses use open products to arrive at a pretty healthy annual income statement :-)

As for us, the idea is to evolve this into an Open Laptop - something capable of housing myriad types of boards, and in some cases, multiple boards in a single system. The problem is getting enough interest going to make it a viable enterprise and secure at least a minimum number of pre-orders via the Kickstarter campaign. We've had people contact us about PS3 versions, Xbox + x86 versions and on and on. But I learned a long time ago that asking whether something is possible doesn't mean people will exchange US $ to obtain that thing they are asking about. If we can't get the Kickstarter funded, that would say something... So the first order of business is to get across the finish line.

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of SGIfanatic is back... with a laptop Kickstarter! at May 28, 2013, 8:42 a.m...

hamei wrote:

Did community, when the moon was in the seventh house and jupiter aligned with mars .... The computers look good tho, hope you do well.

Thanks for the good wishes :-)

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of WANTED: Indigo and Teal feet for Indigo2 at June 7, 2013, 8:11 p.m...

Would like a few pairs of teal and indigo feet for my I2 systems. Indigo higher on the list of priorities.

Please private message me if you have some that you can trade or sell. I have some Indy cases and motherboards I could trade. Am in Austin, TX.

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sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of My new computer room at June 7, 2013, 9:07 p.m...

jan-jaap wrote:

jan-jaap wrote:

What an absolutely gorgeous eye-candy photograph! Congratulations on such a spectacular looking computer room! I am waiting with baited breath to see future pictures of the completed setup and of the environment you have running on individual systems. Will you have a couple of work areas/workstations where you will temporarily move machines in when using them? I have often wondered about a few desks each with a single KVM setup tied to several machines so that all or most machines can always be connected and ready to go. But then KVMs are a pain in the rear, they don't quite work with everything and for me, there's something a lot more appealing about a workstation set-up for a single computer, with peripherals, display & keyboard all arranged together. The many systems/one display/KB visually steals the beauty from the machine because no one computer is arranged together with all its peripherals. The physical aesthetics of an SGI setup are a big part of the experience. Good lighting to show the machine off, environs that focus attention on the system and a display/keyboard/mouse setup that allows you to see the whole system as "one" are all elements to consider in a computer room as beautiful as yours.

The glam pics that got me into SGI as a kid were the famous BYTE Indigo cover, the (also BYTE) Indigo2 with the huge CRT on top showing a cow (!) render, as well as that awesome Indy article with the SGI CRT and video cam all installed and ready to go. The peripherals etc. made at least two of those pics far more beautiful.

sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of SGIfanatic is back... with a laptop Kickstarter! at June 9, 2013, 11:38 a.m...

Why not? Let's see where we get with this Kickstarter... we are pretty close now and still 7 days to go. But basically the idea behind Darkmatter is to do an open laptop framework that can be adapted to anything. Here is where we stand right now:

70 backers
$18,714 pledged of $25,000 goal
7 days to go

And BTW, on the SGI side I have an AWESOME (at least in my mind ;-)

) project in the works. I literally get butterflies in my stomach when I think about that one... once again it has to do with my love for the Indigo, but a different spin to my earlier IRIS Indigo Reborn project.

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of WANTED: Indigo and Teal feet for Indigo2 at June 9, 2013, 11:40 a.m...

miod wrote:

SAQ wrote:

Never seen Indigo feet before - were they some sort of marketing thing, or did they serve a purpose (increased stability?)

I think he is referring to purple Indigo2 feets.

Yes. Sorry about the confusion!

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of Indigo2, R4400@250MHz, Extreme Gfx, 320MB Ram. New Images.. at June 9, 2013, 9:36 p.m...

sgtprobe wrote:

ajw99uk wrote:

oreissig wrote:

an R4k Indigo² with Pre-IMPACT graphics in a purple case?

an early "IMPACT-ready" model? or perhaps someone has swapped skins, so there's a teal R10K MAXIMPACT somewhere

sgtprobe - how many GIO slots?

Hello, It's an Impact ready machine. PSU and the GIO slots are ready for Impact. Might upgrade to MaxImpact one of these days maybe, but I really like the Extreme graphics inside. Quite potent actually, especially in Softimage, besides, the Extreme boardset looking so damn sexy in there I think I might just let it be where it is.

Considering how hard the MaxImpact is to find these days plus the cost of the same, maybe it's for the best. Oh well, one of these day's I might get lucky and find a set of boards locally, but wont hold my breath for that to happen.

As a side note, I might add that the inside is just as clean looking as it's exterior.

Pics of the interior, PLEASE!!

And btw, did you do anything to restore the case? Looks fabulous! Any tips will be deeply appreciated!

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
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Wrote on the subject of Mac Pro 2013 at June 10, 2013, 9:44 p.m...

I don't like the way it looks. And nothing else about it is new or different or worth comment.

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of Mac Pro 2013 at June 11, 2013, 8:08 a.m...

SAQ wrote:

The NeXT Cube had the DSP, the SGIs and Crays had (in their heyday) unique graphics and computational features under the skins.

The New Mac Pro has a fancy case.

that and the fact that it's the first "pro" level computer since what? The DECstation 5000 to likely not offer sufficient internal storage capability?

Even the fans they crow about are pretty thoroughly described in a 40-year old book on boilers that I have.

Spot on. Nothing different, nothing new, no pushing of the envelope. For a half a trillion dollar company to not push the envelope should be seen as a disaster for the industry. Shameful.

In other news, I hear the recommended place to store this thing is under the grill. Fits perfectly in that propane tank holder. And it comes from Apple, thus no shortage of hot gas on the inside.

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 336 notes

Wrote on the subject of Indigo2, R4400@250MHz, Extreme Gfx, 320MB Ram. New Images.. at Aug. 25, 2013, 5:55 p.m...

Awesome pics! Thank you. I am so behind on all my SGI projects that it is getting depressing!

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sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Indy R4600 133MHz, 128MB, 24-bit Newport NG1 at Aug. 14, 2014, 5:44 a.m...

Great looking Indy... Complete with Indycam!

sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 359 notes

Wrote on the subject of Vintage hardware buying binge and other projects at Sept. 4, 2014, 4:59 p.m...

Despite being absolutely inundated at work, I've somehow managed to spend a few thousand dollars recently on a range of vintage systems. I suppose it's a case of geek retail therapy to deal with the stress :-)

Here are some of my buys:

Also picked up a Fujitsu Stylistic 5010 Tablet PC at the local Goodwill. Didn't have an hdd, Athereos wifi, RAM or any of the back covers, but it was cheap so I gave it a shot. The thing actually powered up. The "really really custom" IDE cable was missing, so I added some RAM & booted off USB (Linux). It worked great, other than the fact that it had a missing Wacom stylus. I was pretty intrigued with what could be done with this, so I gave ebay a visit to see if I could get the missing parts. Before I knew it I had convinced myself that it was a "better deal" to buy a lot of 5 of these things, with some extra bits!!! Other than one, they all work and have good battery life. I've been messing around with different OSs on them and am pretty impressed over all. Now thinking of ways in which to use these.

The other projects I've been doing involve setting up a DOS/Win 3.1 environment on a TU Vortex86 PC, setting up some Raspberry Pis with ownCloud, rebuilding the kids' desktops and getting a couple of older (but still respectable!) laptops upgraded. Want to share more on all of these, but probably as separate posts.

The SGIs are not to be ignored, however. Thus, an O2 was upgraded to 1GB RAM - I had bought the RAM more than a year ago from a fellow nekochan comrade, but didn't have time to install it until recently. Unfortunately two of the 128MB modules are causing issues (mem errors - despite reseating and switching slots) and the plastic latch on the top (black) cover broke during the upgrade (!!!). But other than that, the O2 is so much slicker than before :-)

I suppose I will have to look for replacement memory modules at some stage.

About 20 of the Indigo2s and Indys from the big haul of 2011/2 are still in the garage waiting to be brought back to life. As is the Sparcstation 10, an Origin 300 and a couple of Octanes, but a man can only do so much!!

I'll add pics and updates on my adventures with all this stuff in subsequent posts.

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sgifanatic
Who joined July 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m.
and authored 359 notes

Wrote on the subject of Vintage hardware buying binge and other projects at Sept. 5, 2014, 4:13 a.m...

Thanks a lot for the battery tip. I will be careful about that and will do some web searching on recommended replacements.

I don't have docks for the Stylistic tablets, but yes, they do have a wacom sensor. The stylus works very smoothly once you get used to it. I've managed to have the wacom recognized under Linux... Xp tablet edition works great, ofcourse, and I was quite impressed with the handwriting recognition! You can't install windows 8 on these, but win7 should work. I will try that and see if it affects performance any. These things can be beefed up quite a bit - more so than modern tablets. 5010 and 5021 tabs have a 1ghz processor and the chipset should do 2GB RAM, even though Fujitsu officially supports 1GB. The ATA/IDE drives are a bummer, but I am researching CF IDE + a high speed CF card as an alternative. There are Transcend and Kingspec IDE SSDs available, but pricey for old gear like this. Here's a link to the Kingspec: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/cr/B008RVN9 ... f=mw_dp_cr

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sgifanatic
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Wrote on the subject of Vintage hardware buying binge and other projects at Sept. 6, 2014, 5:17 p.m...

MrBill wrote:

Wow, that is quite a find on the fujitsu Tablet. I was not aware they made newer versions of it.

I myself have an older stylistic Lt-500. Came with a fancy little dock and a serial pcmcia card. Actually makes a really nice tiny serial terminal.

http://s20.postimg.org/ms8lp5mp9/fujitsu.jpg

Cool! There are a number of later-model Stylistic tablets that developed the series beyond the models I have (5021 and 5022). For example, this recent one:

http://www.fujitsu.com/fts/products/com ... stic-q702/

I've attached a picture of the stylus that came with the 5021s. Ordinary styli/touch won't work with these tablets.

What I like most is that there is a LOT of room to expand the capabilities of these systems. There are several expansion ports available, such as:

The internal HDD can be replaced with an IDE-SSD, RAM can be maxed to 2GB, and with a 1Ghz processor, you have a pretty decent system. I'll post a video soon demonstrating a few common tasks.

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sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of XPhoon background at Sept. 6, 2014, 6:18 p.m...

This is great! I'll be sure to try it soon.

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Vintage hardware buying binge and other projects at Sept. 9, 2014, 8:12 p.m...

Ok! The IIgs arrived today. Missing mouse, but powering up. That's a start!

Looking for IIgs games, I found this site: http://www.theoldcomputer.com/roms/inde ... r=Apple/II

Does anyone know how to write Apple IIgs roms to floppy disk from a PC?

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 18, 2014, 12:15 p.m...

Bought a Mac Color Classic which was described as having a "power on" problem.

Plugging the power cable into the unit, it make a short whine and then nothing happens.

I added an ADB keyboard and used the soft on button to turn it on. That didn't do anything.

Then I removed the motherboard and powered up the unit again. After 4-5 seconds of nothing, the PSU starts up and the fan beings to spin

While it's running, I plug in the motherboard. The systems continues to function, but no display. I see the green front panel light still on (left) but nothing else.

I plug in the ADB keyboard and try a soft start again. Nothing.

I remove the power cable, wait, unplug the motherboard, turn the unit on and after a few secs the fan comes on.

Not sure what is going on here. Any thoughts?

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 18, 2014, 3:29 p.m...

Thanks. Definitely won't do that with the mobo again.

So the next thing to try would be a pram battery replacement.

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 18, 2014, 5:30 p.m...

The caps seemed ok - no oily residue or anything.

I have removed the 1/2AA 3.6V battery but do not have another with the same voltage. Will order a replacement and try again. Did a general blower clean to get (considerable) dust out of it. Of course, that made no difference either :-)

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 18, 2014, 5:41 p.m...

Here are some detailed pictures of the motherboard with the battery removed. The battery had not leaked, btw.

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 18, 2014, 9:38 p.m...

1/2 AA batteries ordered. In on Monday. Hopefully that will do it.

This thing didn't have an HDD. If it works - fingers crossed - that would be the next mission... along with system software, which I don't have.

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 19, 2014, 5:07 a.m...

robespierre wrote: Just to add some extra flavor, I had a PPC clone mac that wouldn't soft-start if the power key was hit quickly, it spun the fans for a bit and then stopped. You had to hold the key in for almost a second, and it was like this when new. The kind of thing that could be very frustrating to diagnose if you didn't think to try holding the key in.
There is also a technique to force a mac to boot without a PRAM battery: turn it on and then use the reset switch. If there is no reset switch you can sometimes mimic the effect by quickly flipping the power off and on. Looks like there's an unpopulated S1 on that board, hmm.

An unpopulated S1? That sounds dangerous. Could you please explain?

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 19, 2014, 10:49 a.m...

Oh! Got it. Thank you for explaining. I take it this is not an issue, and merely a "defeaturing", at the factory, of an optional feature.

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 20, 2014, 6:06 p.m...

A quick update. The quick on/off to emulate reset didn't work. Did that in conjunction with the soft ON on the ADB keyboard. Left the system on overnight and then tried to turn it on; no cigar.

The 1/2 AA battery hasn't arrived yet, so that's the only thing left to try, short of recapping. It really doesn't appear that the caps are in bad shape, but maybe there is a failure mode not involving visible residue or blown tops?

Any other thoughts would be appreciated. One thing I should mention is that the ADB keyboard I am using came with my Apple II GS. ADB is ADB is ADB, I believe, but just thought I'd be explicit about stating this in case there is some keyboard soft power on weirdness at work.

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 20, 2014, 9:41 p.m...

Thanks! I used the link neko provided to order replacement tantalum caps. I don't trust myself enough to do SMT part replacements, so I will have to find someone to actually do the repair.

In the meanwhile, that PRAM battery arrival on Monday represents the last ray of pre-re-capping hope.

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 22, 2014, 7:41 p.m...

Gosh darn it. Battery didn't do anything. Recap here I come.

Any recommendations on recap service in the central Texas area? Guesstimate of a fair price to pay?

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 22, 2014, 9:25 p.m...

Brilliant. Thank you, neko!

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need help resurrecting a Mac Color Classic at Sept. 28, 2014, 7:58 p.m...

Ok, everything has been shipped to Charles. There is another Mac Color Classic arriving in the coming week, with a similar power up problem. If this one works out, then I'll know who to send that second board to. Thanks to everyone here for suggesting Charles.

Once/if the board works, I'll be looking for an HDD for the Color Classic.

I've just ordered a set of System 7.1 disks from here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Macintosh-Syste ... 35dc7fa21a

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of WHat do we all do (occupation)? at Sept. 29, 2014, 8:21 p.m...

skywriter wrote: Fellow Emeritus for EMC Corp. Retired at 53 after 26 years. Work mostly on Symmetrix/DMX/VMX the last 5 years. HW design, System Architect, Chip/board designer, 48 patents. Even got my picture in the lobby, heh!

I liked the ASIC design stuff the best. I did the first ASIC for Symmetrix, a Dual port BUS and TAG controller. My favorite design was a 3 ASIC chipset that totally 256 chips on the largest sized system. It was a fault tolerant shared memory controller for 1st gen synch DRAM with chip kill. Although the basic control logic and datapath wasn't that complicated, trying to design chip level systems with a 'pair and spare' architecture with 'totally self checking' check logic, using logic synthesis and a layout tool with logic resynthesis that loved to remove all the redundancy was a lotta fun. I never worked on a chip 'as a team'. I did everything soup to nutz. As long as they threw everyone else on simulation I was happy.

I didn't want to retire late in life with my hearing and vision impaired. I planned on working on music and astronomy in my retirement. At 53, I'm in pretty good shape for that

Very impressive list of accomplishments, and well played on the retirement timing, sir! Hope you enjoy the next 3-5 decades and more in good health and high spirits.

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Indigo2 - Scan at Oct. 1, 2014, 10:11 a.m...

Oh wow! Thank you so much. Getting this printed for the home office. Beautiful.

2 x

2 x

4 x

20 x

15 x

BeBox133 NextCube 3 x NextStation PcJr Gateway486DX25 XTClone8088 ATTPC Tandy100 Atari800 Atari1040ST C64 Amiga CommodorePET Kaypro 2 x Osborne RS/6000 PS/2Model60 SparcStation5 AppleLisa SE/30 2 x MacColorClassic MacClassic 3 x FujitsuStylistics CompaqPortable Audrey ToshibaLibretto20 Tandy1400LT MacClamshell 2 x PowerMacG4Tower PowerMacG4Cube Dozens x x86/ARM/tablets/embedded and assorted...

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Ars on reality of using old 'puters & SGI accelerator idea? at Oct. 2, 2014, 5:03 a.m...

Here's the link:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/09/my ... amusement/

While many of the points made herein are Mac OS 9 specific, such as the poor multithreading which is probably what manifests itself in the brief "lockups", in general, the browser focused commentary we can all relate to. The browser is the one application which has well and truly left old computers behind. And while my old-schoolness is rearing its head here when I refer to the browser as an "application", the fact is it's not. It's a platform for uncountable numbers of applications. We might complain about bloated web pages, and slow Javascript, and N-layers of containment, sandboxing and inefficiency that browser based apps dictate, but... whatever. Fact is, that's where much of the new app dev is happening.

As painful as it is, an old gen-1 Atom N270 has about 4 times the MIPS (the measure of compute, not the proc :-)

) that a Fuel 700Mhz does. I can still play more concurrent video streams on a Fuel than an Atom will handle, but in the web browsing department, it's a different story.

There have been all sorts of custom add-on boards designed for the Apple II, Commodore, Amiga and Atari communities. Stuff that lets these machines access SD card storage, provides proc acceleration, etc. I wonder about a little browser offload card add-on for our SGIs... it could also provide USB ports, storage, wireless & security services (firewall)... I'm thinking a dual NIC BananaPi connecting directly to the SGI NIC, providing DHCP services, a modern browser via XDMCP and firewall services. Second NIC on Banana goes to uplink. This also adds USB ports to SGIs (exported auto via NFS to host) and wireless. A nice 3-d printed case to match the design sensibilities of *pick your favorite SGI*, and voila!

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Ars on reality of using old 'puters & SGI accelerator idea? at Oct. 3, 2014, 5:17 a.m...

guardian452 wrote: My complaint with their newer versions is that sometimes the pointer will disappear. Randomly. Either that, or I am starting to go blind

You are not going blind. This happens to me at least a few times every single week.

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Ars on reality of using old 'puters & SGI accelerator idea? at Oct. 3, 2014, 10:28 a.m...

sgifanatic wrote: There have been all sorts of custom add-on boards designed for the Apple II, Commodore, Amiga and Atari communities. Stuff that lets these machines access SD card storage, provides proc acceleration, etc. I wonder about a little browser offload card add-on for our SGIs... it could also provide USB ports, storage, wireless & security services (firewall)... I'm thinking a dual NIC BananaPi connecting directly to the SGI NIC, providing DHCP services, a modern browser via XDMCP and firewall services. Second NIC on Banana goes to uplink. This also adds USB ports to SGIs (exported auto via NFS to host) and wireless. A nice 3-d printed case to match the design sensibilities of *pick your favorite SGI*, and voila!

Thoughts on the above viz web browser acceleration?

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of First Nekoware package: NetHack: Falcon's Eye at Oct. 3, 2014, 8:16 p.m...

Wow, that looks pretty fab. Thanks for the contribution. Will be sure to check it out!