> I posted this earlier but never received any response or a return message
> myself so forgive me if this actually made it to the list and I am
> re-posting........
I hadn't seen it either, otherwise I would have replied.
>
> Just got 2 SGI Personal Iris's 4D/35's today (Thanks again Tom) and no KB,
> Mouse, monitor for either. Finally got dumb terminal hooked & working, and
> was pleased NOT to find boot password protection, HOWEVER....
I have about 6 PI's, covering most of the models and options. The
4D/35 was the top of the line. There are basically two generations
of PIs. The first generation is the 4D/20 and 4D/25. The 4D/30
and 4D/35 were added a few years later. There is considerable
difference between the two generations. For example the memory
architecture was changed rather drastically. The 4D/30 memory is
the same as Indigo memory (but not Indigo2). There were also several
changes in keyboards. In addition, there was an upgrade path from
the 4D/20 to the 4D/30 models, which didn't quite produce an off
the shelf 4D/30. There are a number of very interesting bastard
configurations out there due to the different upgrade paths. Some
of my answers will be kind of vague because of this.
I would strongly advice getting the console working. The monitor
part is easy, most VGA monitors will work. Depending on the graphics
option that's installed in your machine you should have either a
VGA or BNC connectors (some of the later graphics options used
13W3 connectors). I've had success with a wide range of monitors.
The standard resolution is 1280x1024 I believe (they came standard
with 19 and 21 inch monitors), but I've used 1025x768 monitors, a
bit fuzzy, but it works.
The keyboard and mouse is much harder. There were several models
of keyboards used on these machines. What type of keyboard
connector to you have? The popular ones were DB9 and PS/2 (note
I don't think a PS/2 keyboard will work, but I haven't tried).
I can look up the part number tonight when I get home. The keyboards
are not that common, but I have seen them on eBay. The mouse attaches
to the keyboard.
The easiest way to get these machines running is through the
console. There is a way to set a terminal to be the console,
but I'm not sure how its done on the PI. On some SGIs there is
a hardware mechanism, but on others the console must be use (this
won't help you much).
>
> 1 of them still has a working OS, and the other doesn't. I do not have any
> OS media for them at all, and the one that IS working has (Of Course) a root
> password which I do not have. What I really need here is a copy of the
> installation media here. Pleeeaaaasssee Contact me if you can assist in
> getting these systems running. I believe the 1 with the OS problem has the
> OS, but has no scsi disk label. Perhaps if someone were to have a root/boot
> disk they could copy off for me, I could get them working. I believe they
> run Iris 4.0.somthingorother.
>
Its difficult to do much without a console, since all the installation
and maintenance procedures assume that you are working through the
console by default. What devices do you have? There are two forms
of the OS media. The older systems were on tape, and the newer ones
were on CD. A may have IRIX 4 tapes at home, which could get you
started. The 4D/35 will run up to IRIX 5.3 (something I recommend),
and the CDs can be found regularly on eBay. Note that these machines
are a bit picky about the CDROM drives they use, older ones are
better.
It sounds like the previous owner on your second machine wiped
the disk. The lack of a disk label is a good indication that there
is nothing on the disk. Note, these machines can be network booted,
so you could boot from the other machine.
Do you have access to any of the accounts on the first machine?
Quite often the guest account had no password, so you could
try that. If you are successful, run hinv to get your machine's
configuration.
If you have a console the easiest way to change the root password
is to boot a mini-root (this may be on partition 8 of your disk).
>From there you can modify the /etc/passwd file.
SGI tended to use there own file system structures, so you may
not be able to read the disks on other UNIX systems.
Let me know if this helps you. My machines are at home, so I
can provide any detail until tonight. One word of warning the
4D/30 series machines had a habit of catching fire. The CPU
used in the 4D/30 machines generated much more heat than the
4D/20 machines, and the cabinet really wasn't designed for them
The upgrade included an extra fan. If any of the fans fail the
system overheats. Also run with all the skins on for better
heat flow. One of the 4D/35s I had a work caught fire one
day, filled the room with smoke.
PS: Are there other SGI collectors on the list? I have a fair
amount of documentation on the early systems, I also have a
working 3130 at home.
--
Dr. Mark Green mark_at_cs.ualberta.ca
McCalla Professor (780) 492-4584
Department of Computing Science (780) 492-1071 (FAX)
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada
Received on Mon Nov 20 2000 - 13:47:16 GMT