I've played with a number of SGIs over my career, both at home
and at work. I put up a web page a while ago with most of the info I've
gleaned ("This Old SGI",
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/2258)
Unfortunately, the web page is woefully out of date as I haven't
had time to go back and restructure it the way I'd like.
I am still quite interested in SGIs, but I've broadened my interests
to include DEC (PDP-series) and SUN (both old and new) stuff as well.
BTW, I agree with the approach below... although you can do quite a bit
through the serial console, getting the graphics console up would be
much better. The 4D/35 keyboard/mouse is proprietary, but should be
available from places like www.reputable.com, www.mce.com and www.mashek.com
(and many others who's name escape me at just this moment) The mouse
might be fudged using an old Sun mouse and some mods, but I would still
recommend getting a "real" SGI mouse as the modified sun mouse doesn't
work as well as the real SGI version.
Just as in the comments below, I recommend going with Irix 5.3. It will
run reasonably on this machine (with sufficient memory), and provide quite
a bit of functionality.
One thing I _strongly_ recommend... Use an air gun (or canned air) to blow
out the dust throughout the entire case (including air plenums, power
supply and e-module(where the circuit cards are)). I disassembled mine
(including removing the power supply and popping it cover) to clean it.
This critter acts just like a vacuum cleaner and will suck dust and dirt
up from the bottom airgrate faster than you can imagine. At work, we
mounted these things on small (6") pedestals to try to cut down the
amount of internal dust they sucked up. I imagine the accumulated dust
might contribute to the fire problems mentioned below.
BTW, as far a CDROMS go, SGI used Toshibas (I think the models were
3401 or 3501)for quite a while. The important thing is to make certain that
they are jumpered for 512K bytes/sector. I believe some of the older Texel/
Plextors will work also. The recommended SCSI ID for SGI CDROMs is ID 4.
Another Gotcha... SGI uses scsi ID 0 for it's controller ID, so you should
jumper all your scsi drives/devices for id 1-7.
...Good Luck!...
-al-
-acorda_at_1bigred.com (also acorda_at_geocities.com)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Green [mailto:mark_at_cs.ualberta.ca]
> Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 2:47 PM
> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Need SGI Classic Cmp Help
>
>
> > 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 - 14:40:04 GMT