The collected works of vmul

Hello folks. Been a very long time since I've been anywhere near SGI hardware but I recently found a nice, tidy Octane setup so decided to grab and have a play. Here she is : https://i.imgur.com/8gOhUHi.jpg

It arrived with a 36GB Barracuda in an external SCSI enclosure ( https://i.imgur.com/NgBeFmH.png ), and has a bunch of DALiM software on it (LiTHO et al) .. along with what looks like the sprawling remnants of a graphic design company - 8GB of DTP files for clients like AVON and the RSPB. Most bizarre.

The installed-software list is over here for the interested: https://pastebin.com/raw/6NtXX4EK - the Barracuda seemed to house a mirror of the install CDs + a large set of DALiM install packages.

Here's the pile of stats! + a couple of Q's for the more enlightened...

- the serial for the IP30, 030-1467-001, suggests it is a later revision but it has a black handle. Is that normal?
- XTALKPCI 030-0952-005 - is that an SGI PCI cage? if so, that is what the "CAD-Duo" card honking out the back ( https://i.imgur.com/YXzdLCS.png ) is plugged into, right?

HINV -VM


GFXINFO


SCSI -I (not including the external, I didn't have it powered on at the time)

Been poking about in my recently acquired Octane. In its previous life it was the DTP workstation at a graphic design company, so the majority of it is taken up with DALiM LiTHO 4.6, TWiST, UfoDesktop and friends.





The licence works. An archive of licenses is present with dates expiring around 2002, at which point it looks like they switched to a "perpetual" one (ie. the magic 01-jan-00 date that flex treats as 'permanent')



Anyhow, I'm not really sure what do to with it all (and don't want to blunder into breaking any forum rules). The drive in the external enclosure has what looks like a backup of the install CDs + patch pile, documentation and such. I guess I could just mothball the pair of them when I get my nice new boot drive from Ian

I can't see it discussed much here .. either because it's not terribly sexy .. or perhaps just not widely found?

Looks like TWiST isn't actually on the box - only reason I mentioned it is because the manuals are there.

Regardless, I've pinged them a mail. I imagine the response will be ".. what?" .. but if they would allow a backup of the install CD at least, that would be nice. I hate to see software vanish

Heh, those are exactly the things I'm getting off Ian

Have cleaned about 5 years of dust out of it now and fixed up the busted lightbar with a nice shiny green LED. Managed to crack the root password using Jack (2 seconds), all works great. Would love to quieten those fans a bit though .. I'm totally spoiled by my silent PC

The pair of which I'm probably going to sell on. I've seen some high prices around the various suppliers, I guess that those prices are high because they might not be in huge demand until some company needs one really urgently

ref 030-0952-005 for the cage, 030-1155-002 for the card - both working and in good condition. Any opinions or insight welcome

Thanks!

UK, I'm afraid. PM me though if you're really keen, I'm okay with shipping to the US, just might get pricey

I was a keen 3DS user back in the day but only learned recently that Autodesk had ported the R4 network renderer to IRIX ( http://www.4crawler.com/Docs/sgirender.txt ). I don't recall much being made of this - I suspect the fact that any plug-ins involved a render would need recompilation to run on an SG combined with the imminent arrival of MAX and the shift to NT makes it unlikely to have been used much.

Just in case though - anyone here ever use it?

Agreed, I suspect either this was a miscalculation or a bit of frivolous corporate chest-beating. Heck knows where one could dig up a copy. I imagine Autodesk tossed the cupboard full of CDs into a skip about 20 years ago.