Nekonomicon - vishnu

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 1158 notes

Wrote on the subject of xtdigvid software question at Nov. 13, 2012, 4:32 p.m...

Yes, the test requires the HD and SD outputs and inputs to be looped together with BNC cables, but I'm pretty sure I did that right, there's only one input for HD and SD but two outputs, I just assumed those were for fanout and didn't T the second set to the inputs, but maybe I should have, the instructions weren't perfectly clear about that, I guess the easiest thing to do would be to dig up a set of T's and try it again....

_________________
Project:
Movin' on up, toooo the east side
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 1158 notes

Wrote on the subject of xtdigvid software question at Nov. 14, 2012, 1:27 a.m...

Well I tossed the joint like an FBI agent but I could only find 1 BNC-T, so I installed it and reran the test (I need three more T's to tie all the SD and HD ins to their respective outs), but anyway there was no difference in the test output, whereas if leaving only three of the four outputs floating (as before) was the problem it should have shown 25% less errors (I'm assuming).

I'm getting a ton of these: I/O ERROR communicating with VBOB: : Resource temporarily unavailable (the test runs for about 10 minutes so there's page after page of this kind of output):

So at this point it seems that either I need to find a white LVDS cable to tie the DM2 and DM5 together (in conjunction with one of the two black ones that I aleady have), or something is wrong with the DM2, the DM5, the VBOB, or any combination of the three. I have a spare VBOB here that I've not tried yet, but no spare DM2 or DM5, and (as I'm fond of pointing out) no white LVDS cable.

So much to do, so little time... 8-)

_________________
Project:
Movin' on up, toooo the east side
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

vishnu
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of xtdigvid software question at Nov. 14, 2012, 2:44 p.m...

If that's the case then the Centronics 14526-EZ5B-050-02C cable should work just as well as the SGI branded one, digikey has 27 in stock at the moment, not cheap though: http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?lang=en&keywords=14526%20ez5b%20050%2002c

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Octane > all at Nov. 19, 2012, 7:20 p.m...

Adrenaline wrote:

I could have sworn Octane's graphics was on it's own XIO 1.6gb/sec channel.

It is; I think SAQ might have meant "Origin/Altix"... :?:

I love my Octane (2x600MHz/V12/8 gigs) but the faster disk transfer rate of the Fuel is nice and cables or not I'd trade my kingdom for a quad 1GHz Tezro... :shock:

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of CDE Code From 1999 Open Sourced at Nov. 20, 2012, 12:09 p.m...

Actually I think it was the utterly collapsed revenue stream for The Open Group and ICS that freed it up. I remember back in the day when a source code license for Motif was $50,000... :shock:

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of STRICTLY for amusement :-) at Nov. 20, 2012, 2:37 p.m...

Oskar45 wrote:

Why not? Because you could have said that I will neither give you exactly ten boxes nor exactly all of the warehouse's boxes [or, if suitably phrased, truckloads of pies or all the porsches in the world, or - for that matter - 100 million dollars] - and so you could win whatever you want and I would be completely bankrupt... :-)

I don't think I would have thought of that, very sneaky... :mrgreen:

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of Irix 6.5 with no extras installed, asking for trouble? at Nov. 20, 2012, 11:09 p.m...

On my home network, all my computers have static IP's (but my firewall runs dhcpd to give IP addresses to any guests who happen to bring their laptops), but if you go through the pain of coordinating all of your computers hosts files with the names and the IP addresses you've assigned to everyone (yes, even Windows has a hosts file), then ftp-ing - telneting - ssh-ing - opening windows between your computers is automatic using their hostnames; super convenient...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of Bog standard 6.5 -> 6.5.22 at Nov. 22, 2012, 12:42 p.m...

I've always found it interesting that though SGI claims to have merged feature stream and maintenance stream in 6.5.22, uname still keeps track of which you came up on, for example my Octane still seems to think it's on the maintenance stream:

Code:

  uname -R
  
  6.5 6.5.30m

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Octane > all at Nov. 22, 2012, 1:04 p.m...

Well that is impressive but how about this; from the US Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Center (named for General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, once parodied in The Simpsons as Colonel Leslie "Hap" Hapablap):

"This test program marked the first-time AEDC on-line use of the new Silicon Graphics workstation. It was used during testing to compare engine math models to on-line test data. This assured proper data validity and prevented a loss of air time for repetition of test cases," the Rolls-Royce F402-RR-408 Pegasus (since guardian452's engine posted above is an airplane engine, I hasten to point out):

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of Bog standard 6.5 -> 6.5.22 at Nov. 22, 2012, 2:59 p.m...

SAQ wrote:

The "interesting" question (for degrees of interesting that are near infinitesimal) is whether or not inst is smart enough to let you switch from F to M without reloading the base disks on releases >=6.5.22

The mind boggles... :shock:

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of Bog standard 6.5 -> 6.5.22 at Nov. 22, 2012, 9:07 p.m...

Last Dallas chip I bought lasted about three months...

You'll want to be careful, because when the Dallas finally goes your system date will revert to the Epoch (Jan 1 1970) and will be essentially useless until you put in a new one...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Octane > all at Nov. 23, 2012, 11:56 a.m...

Crackers!

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of DMediaPro DM-2 ( 030-1653-002 Rev. H , XT-DIGVID) at Nov. 23, 2012, 2:57 p.m...

They go for about four times that on Ebay... :shock:

Actually, they list for about four times that; don't know if any of 'em ever get bought for that... :lol:

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Octane > all at Nov. 23, 2012, 7:10 p.m...

The German's had a lot of weird ideas at the time... :lol:

Not the least of which was the multi-stage V3 cannon:

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of Thinking about cars (wankel cars)... at Nov. 23, 2012, 9:02 p.m...

Sure I remember the wankster engine... :lol:

Didn't Mazda use those exclusively back in the day? I don't think they have for a while though. Not sure, never owned one.

I wonder if Wikipedia allows their images to be hot linked, let's try it, the Wankel rotary engine principle:

My place of employ made a fortune off the same concept, in rotary pumps, starting back around a hundred years ago...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of DMediaPro DM-2 ( 030-1653-002 Rev. H , XT-DIGVID) at Nov. 24, 2012, 2:54 p.m...

The LVDS cables were part of the deal? The 3M version of those are about a hundred bucks apiece... :shock:

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of Which version of IRIX best for O2+ at Nov. 25, 2012, 10:53 a.m...

Have a look at this: http://www.sgi.com/products/software/irix/releases/

You do not need the Development Foundation to upgrade Irix, it is part of the MIPSPro compiler suite.

Patch 5086 is a free download if you have a Supportfolio account: https://support.sgi.com/content_request/20030515204501-IRIXPatch-6438/index.html

18GB SCSI hard drives go for about 5 bucks on Ebay these days, so, limited budget or not that's pretty affordable...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of DMediaPro DM-2 ( 030-1653-002 Rev. H , XT-DIGVID) at Nov. 26, 2012, 10:20 a.m...

It's pretty useless without the LVDS cables, but you gave him such a good deal on the card that even if he has to pay full price for the cables he's still golden...

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of CDE Code From 1999 Open Sourced at Nov. 26, 2012, 10:39 a.m...

SAQ wrote:

Would be nice, but the 5DWM guy already has a license and has put it quite a bit of work on a Linux port.

Browsing the source at the maxxdesktop website, two things come to mind; development has been stalled for three years and he either hasn't or can't release all the source code, for example there's nothing there for the file manager or the toolchest or any of the players/recorders/mixers, etc...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of Irix 6.5 with no extras installed, asking for trouble? at Nov. 26, 2012, 11:07 a.m...

sgtprobe wrote:

But there seems to be some problems after all, even if it works. Copying files to my Indigo2 is really slow. I know that the Indigo2 only has 10Mbps interface (my Fuel has a Gigabit interface, thanks Ian

), but it is going way slower than that. Any idea what I have might done wrong, or any tips or places that I should look in?

/Jonas

iftop, ideal for answering the question "why is my network so slow?!" Link: http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pdw/iftop/

I don't think I've ever compiled this for Irix, basically because I've never needed it my Octane is lightning fast on my home lan, but it would be a nice addition to nekoware...

vishnu
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of xtdigvid software question at Nov. 26, 2012, 11:20 a.m...

recondas wrote: Have you already taken a look to see if the VBoB will pass power-on diagnostics?

Excellent thanks I'll try that tonight when I get home from the 'ol salt mine!

recondas wrote:

In another topic Vishnu wrote: Could someone with a DM5-equipped VBOB please post the results of `gfxinfo -vv`

The same thread includes a link to post by neko with a gfxinfo -v (from when acquired a VBoB/DM5).

That tells me exactly what I needed to know, in terms of where the monitor listing shows up. In mine, it doesn't show up through the VBOB but if I attach the monitor directly to the DCD, gfxinfo sees it, definitely a problem. Fortunately I've got a "backup" VBOB that I haven't tried yet if this one is toast, I just have to move the DM5 from the current one to the backup...

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of DMediaPro DM-2 ( 030-1653-002 Rev. H , XT-DIGVID) at Nov. 26, 2012, 11:28 a.m...

Do you have any ideas on where you might be able to get the LVDS cables cheap? The SGI-branded ones are almost impossible to come by and the 3M made Centronics ones are always listed full price...

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of DMediaPro DM-2 ( 030-1653-002 Rev. H , XT-DIGVID) at Nov. 26, 2012, 11:44 a.m...

I don't think that's right, you want the ones with the side locking clips not the screw ins, like this:

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of DMediaPro DM-2 ( 030-1653-002 Rev. H , XT-DIGVID) at Nov. 26, 2012, 11:50 a.m...

That would be scary...

My Spanish is terrible, that's a 26 position MDR? The 3M's I've been looking at are P/N 14526-EZ5B-050-02C, like this: http://circamicro.com/p-977791-14526-ez5b-050-02c-cble-assy-26pos-mdr-mdr-plug-5m.aspx

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of CDE Code From 1999 Open Sourced at Nov. 26, 2012, 2:11 p.m...

recondas wrote:

If you like additional detail, there are a few MAXX Desktop threads in the nekochan archives , and the MAXX Desktop developer is a nekochan member. He hasn't logged in in a while, but contact info is available in his profile .

Oh sure, I've been using Max on my Linux computers for years, in trying to recall how long I've been using it I can see a post I made to the Slackware newsgroup about it in 2005, the 10th message down: http://unixresources.org/linux/lf/48/archive/00/00/16/99/169914-2.html

According to the Max website they're still on for "Development Release 4" in 2012/2013. Unless they plan to really get on the stick I think they can drop the 2012 part of that statement: http://dev.maxxdesktop.com/trac/maxxdesktop

vishnu
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of xtdigvid software question at Nov. 27, 2012, 8:25 a.m...

So much for the hope that these stupid things might be COTS... :evil:

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 825 notes

Wrote on the subject of Thinking about cars (wankel cars)... at Nov. 27, 2012, 8:29 a.m...

guardian452 wrote:

The best transmission is the toyota HSD.

I don't think my 1986 Celica has one... :cry:

vishnu
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of xtdigvid software question at Nov. 27, 2012, 9:48 a.m...

recondas wrote: How'd the power-on tests go?

Well I tossed the joint like an FBI agent but couldn't find my RS232 cable; so I will have to pick one up at Microcenter on my way home and do it tonight...

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 825 notes

Wrote on the subject of Thinking about cars (wankel cars)... at Nov. 27, 2012, 11:47 a.m...

What about the GM Turbo-Hydramatic? It was pretty darned indestructible, back in the day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-Hydramatic

vishnu
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of xtdigvid software question at Nov. 28, 2012, 7:07 a.m...

This is odd; I looked at the wiki before my shopping excursion to buy a new serial cable, and it said to use a NULL modem, which I already had, so I skipped going shopping and used that, but found it couldn't send any keyboard commands through to the VBOB. :?:

This was using minicom 9600 8N1... :cry:

But the good news is that the diagnostics that ran automagically looked exactly the same as those posted earlier by Neko, so that at least is promising. I'll try a DB9 cable tonight and see if I can't get the keyboard through to test the VBOB RAM...

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

vishnu
Donor
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of More Primary Mirror Stuff at Nov. 28, 2012, 8:48 a.m...

If you were getting colo for $60 a month you were stealin' it! :shock:

Around here it starts at ~$260 a month, for which you get 1U of rackspace which is capped to one byte per day... :lol:

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...
:Tezro:

vishnu
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of xtdigvid software question at Nov. 28, 2012, 1:11 p.m...

PymbleSoftware wrote:

vishnu wrote: This is odd; I looked at the wiki before my shopping excursion to buy a new serial cable, and it said to use a NULL modem, which I already had, so I skipped going shopping and used that, but found it couldn't send any keyboard commands through to the VBOB. This was using minicom 9600 8N1...

But the good news is that the diagnostics that ran automagically looked exactly the same as those posted earlier by Neko, so that at least is promising. I'll try a DB9 cable tonight and see if I can't get the keyboard through to test the VBOB RAM...

If the wiki is wrong fix it.

R.

Well it's the old "...hit ESC to halt the boot process and go to the diagnostics menu," and I'm hitting the ESC button like a mad fool but the VBOB either never sees it or ignores it, who knows why. So I rebooted the thing a dozen times and tried META-ESC, ALT-ESC (which gets captured by the window manager), CTRL-ESC, CTRL-META-RT BUTTON-ESC, etc., etc., all of which were summarily ignored. This was all from Linux using minicom; I'll try it from my Octane tonight, using cu, which is the way it's detailed in the wiki...

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 826 notes

Wrote on the subject of Places to see before you die at Nov. 29, 2012, 2:23 p.m...

Volgograd, Volgogradskaya oblast, Russia. Seriously...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Linus about SGI and Linux at Nov. 30, 2012, 5:14 p.m...

That's why I was so surprised when SCO went after IBM, since SGI was responsible for basically all of the non-trivial SMP and NUMA code in Linux. IBM's contributions were relatively paltry by comparison...

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Linus about SGI and Linux at Dec. 1, 2012, 3:10 p.m...

Are there any computers in the Top 500 that aren't running Linux? Maybe a few but not many... http://www.top500.org/

It's so funny in TFA where it says Linus' job at Transmeta `didn't work out,` well sure the company tanked but he and all the other founders made out like bandits off the stock...

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Linus about SGI and Linux at Dec. 1, 2012, 11:52 p.m...

R-ten-K wrote:

I don't know how one can "make out like a bandit" off a tanked stock exactly.

On the day of Transmeta's IPO Linus' shares were worth, at one point, $3,360,000. Now I'm sure he didn't sell that many shares at that price, ever, but he still sold a lot, and made a lot of money doing it, as did everyone else who got in on Transmeta's ground floor. Sure Transmeta tanked in the end, but they flew pretty high for a while...

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Linus about SGI and Linux at Dec. 2, 2012, 2:04 a.m...

Linux and gnu; and there's your answer, it's the gpl. If you want to make vast fortunes, keep your source closed and hope for the best, if you want your code to be used by potentially the most amount of people, open your source. And that points out a big difference between the gpl and bsd licenses, none of the bsd developers are living in houses as nice as Linus'...

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Linus about SGI and Linux at Dec. 2, 2012, 12:19 p.m...

The commercial Unix vendors tried to do it all themselves, and by the time they realized they couldn't compete with the specialists (Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, Linux, GNU), it was too late. Jim Clark was ringing the warning bell as early as 1993, but he was a voice crying out in the wilderness. So he stormed out of SGI in a blaze of smoking carpet fibers and made a fortune at Netscape, which, just like Transmeta, was a company that only made money for it's pre-IPO stockholders...

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Linus about SGI and Linux at Dec. 2, 2012, 1:19 p.m...

Then again Apple is probably making more money from a free software product (FreeBSD) than anyone else is making selling Linux-based systems, and it's precisely the GPL that precluded Apple from using Linux in OSX...

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

vishnu
Who joined March 18, 2007, 2:25 p.m.
and authored 989 notes

Wrote on the subject of Linus about SGI and Linux at Dec. 2, 2012, 5:05 p.m...

A lot of people argue quite cogently that one of the main reasons for the success of Linux was the Unix System Laboratories vs. BSDi lawsuit in the early nineties...

_________________
Choosing stones, big enough to drag me down...

The collected works of vishnu - Page 5