The collected works of thisoldsgi

Here is a post on comp.sys.sgi.hardware by SGI systems engineer Alexis Cousein mentioning the problems.
VenomousPinecone wrote:
So true, but I would imagine most production linux systems (what TFA was talking aboot) would only have gcc.

Actually, the hack described long predates Linux and gcc... these are the old, original Unix systems from pre-breakup AT&T which ran on PDP11's and the like, before 1984. gcc didn't exist until 1987, and Linus Torvalds started working on Linux in 1991.

The entire article by Thomson, "Reflections on Trusting Trust," is here:
http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/
It's an entertaining read.
FWIW, I got in touch with "Sketch the Cow" who is uploading those SGI disc images to archive.org. He indicated that he would love to get more uploads and can provide an archive.org FTP account for anyone with "a ton" of stuff to upload.

PM me if you would like his email address. He seems to take a while to reply to emails, but be an overall good guy.