[sbaiddn]

Im slowly making my 500 MHz 4 Gb SGI fuel my main workstation. I added a sata card to replace the spinning rust, and a gigabit ethernet. Swapping out the fans and the PSU to silence it and Im throwing my Ryzen workstation into my closet.

Why use a 20 year old 500 Mhz dinosaur? Time. This machine can do everything I need (terminal, emacs, ssh, old modeling software that has a better GUI than any modern counter parts, etc) and cant do anything I should not do (browsing the internet)

[don-code]

I'd be very interested if you chronicle this somewhere. A part of me long wanted to do the same with an O2 workstation, but in more recent years it became much less tenable due to the modern Web (half the web is already broken in minor modern browsers like Firefox), modern languages (Rust? or even Python, now that half of its ecosystem is dependent on Rust by way of cryptograpy), and modern tools (I'd be fired for disuse of Slack, which isn't open-protocol so that it could be used with a portable client).

[sbaiddn]

When Im done I might put an entry on sgi forums. Ill post a link on HN.

Just use the O2 as a very powerful "dumb" terminal that keeps you from wasting your time. Its a great little machine.

[mnky9800n]

Clearly it doesn't keep you off hacker news. Haha.

But I would be very interested in pics, screenshots, and a rundown of your workflow if you have the time.

[sbaiddn]

:D I was on my phone.

Seriously though, I never tried HN. Should work.

[MonkeyClub]

> and cant do anything I should not do (browsing the internet)

I’m increasingly shifting towards that side of the fence, looking at the web browser as the gateway to a toxic waste dump.

Luckily, I’m not doing frontend stuff, so I can survive (and blossom even) without a running browser.

The computer “feels” empty and quiet that way, like it used to feel back in the day when the modem was off.

[neilv]

Neat. One thing I've wondered about SGI workstations especially: have you noticed any eBay deals on SGI add-ons that were once prohibitively expensive, but now very affordable because they're obsolete to the kind of people who used them?

(I occasionally window-shop vintage Sun gear like this, but SGI seemed to have more exotic unobtanium artifacts.)

[jdboyd]

I noticed that someone with a bunch of O2 parts seems to have finally given up and started lower the prices. I've bought a new CD driver cover (they break notoriously easily) and a long coveted 300mhz CPU upgrade. I haven't gotten around to installing them yet though. I haven't used the machine in about 12-15 years.

I probably should be keeping an eye out for maxing out my Octane and Fuel as well now before it is really too late.

[sbaiddn]

You know, there's an after-market upgrade to 700 Mhz (and 4 Mb cache?) for lower speced O2 without using expensive SGI parts. Kinda hacky, but it seems to work.

If you google it you'll see what it is. I dont have an O2 so I dont remember the details.

EDIT:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/o2cpumod.html

[sbaiddn]

Depends why you want the machine. I doubt you want to re-live 90s TV editing, so all that stuff is out.

Full machines with graphics are expensive. Luckily I got my fuel for $200 back in '09. I scored a V12 from a broken machine at the time cheap.

Parts are generally cheap. At least for the Fuel, the community now knows which DELL or some other server parts are equivalent to the SGI branded ones (SATA or Gigabit cards) and a lot of stuff is useless (why care for a SCSI card?). RAM is cheap if you see this as largely a vanity thing.

Finally, if you're good at debugging X (Im not), an origin 300 is a great machine. I bought one but I have the fuel for X client (works great). If I understand the problem, around 2007-2008 something changed in X11 (Xorg??) that broke compatibility with the SGI for 3D graphics.

[hulitu]

As far as i remember SGI 3D stuff was based on PEX and xorg decided to drop this extension around that time.

[sbaiddn]

That's awesome! Thanks.

[rahen]

Are you still using your SGI box with IRIX, or did you move to something more modern like NetBSD?

[sbaiddn]

IRIX 6.5.30. I have a bunch of software that runs on it that I prefer to modern equivalents.

[hestefisk]

Very cool. Care to share more details on setup? What’s the power consumption like?

[wrp]

What is the current state of community support for SGI stuff and availability of hardware? I stopped following around the time of the demise of Nekochan.

[Suzuran]

I envy you.

[tibbydudeza]

You actually being serious or snarky here ???.

[sbaiddn]

A priest once advised me to just take people on their word; the cognitive load to second guessing them is not worth it.