วีดีโอ

@@arcee420 now, that you‘re saying it… ^^

You're welcome! See you next time! 👾

You're welcome. There's other ways, but this one is by far the easiest.

SGIs were no gaming machines. Although there were games for it, too. And even some popular ones like Quake II and Quake III Arena were ported by the vendor itself, to show the 3D graphics capabilities. And the powerful SGis didn't actually do too bad on this behalf. Still, given today's standards, these machines are not only old, but also slow. You can of course run contemporary software on them, like on any machine from that era, at the example of SGI, Maya, Photoshop, and what not. That was, what these machines were made for. But as technology, and also the software has evolved, there's no practical use except, as you say, for exploring how things were 10, 20, 30 years ago. I once did a video how to do video editing using Adobe Premiere on a SGI O2 workstation. Can it be done? Yes. Is it meaningful? No, except for the showcase. And show is the server functions, which actually did exist in SGI IRIX. It could run as web-servers, DNS, NFS, NIS, and what not. But mostly, IRIX servers were used as 3d render farms, or SGI's own video conferencing product, to just give two examples. But again, nowaways, nobody would do that, as even the most recent MIPS-based SGI running the IRIX operating system was released in 2003. I don't think anyone is still using nowadays any Tezro workstations or Origin 3000 servers anymore in a production environment.

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR Not so, there are vast numbers of SGIs still in commercial use in a number of sectors, mainly PCB production, textile manufacturing, medical, vis sim and defense industries (those that concern industrial control processes or management of external hardware). Most systems still in use tend to be Personal IRIS, IRIS Indigo, Indy, Indigo2, O2, Octane, Fuel and Onyx. Most company queries concern Indy, O2 and Fuel systems, though a major printer manufacturer bought some RAM kits last year, they're still using Indigo2s. AMAT SEMs were typically driven by Octane or Fuel systems, for PCB analysis, and its these which sustain demand for higher order parts such as V12, DCD, DM6, etc. Some people do use them as servers. Remember O2K type systems can have GigE, while O3K can use 10GigE. Personally I wouldn't, though ages ago I did use an Indy and then an O2 as a firewall box for a few years. I heard from someone who uses an IRIS Indigo for audio, because the quality of the audio chip is so good. The oldest system I've dealt with is a 12MHz Personal IRIS, still used at a textile factory in Ohio. I was also contacted by a US defense contractor looking for parts for a 4D Series machine, which is even older, probably an R3000 variant (perhaps a POWER Series, the guy didn't say). But where CPU performance is paramount, such as rendering, likewise raw 3D, then of course no, they've long gone from the market for that sort of thing, but a lot of people do get them so they can use older versions of pro apps which they favour, Power Animator 9.0 being especially noteworthy. Recently I sent an O2 to the US, to be used by a young guy who wants to learn old Maya, etc. I've talked to many in recent years who have setup old SGIs so they can explore or relive the 90s-style CGI that was popular in film, TV and animation back then (one guy was especially obsessed with Jurassic Park). One lady, a retired CAD designer, obtained an Octane so she could explore the work she used to do. You'd be surprised. However, companies that still have them tend to not want clients to know this is the case. I talked to a movie studio which still runs an Onyx3900 IR4 with Inferno, because the admin said it still worked fine for compositing (10GB VRAM and 1GB texture RAM), but they don't tell clients that's what Inferno is running on, it just runs very well and that's what matters. I'm helping a textile factory just now which is having problems with an Indy (called Stoll/SIRIX systems, they drive huge Jacquard weaving machines). Plenty of SGIs still around, but they tend to be in sectors about which hobbyists traditionally knew very little, and wouldn't immediately associate with SGIs. Texas Instruments, Digital Foundries, Canon Technologies, they all still use SGIs. Funny old world.

@@Lofote These old machines, no matter where they come from, have a 50 % chance to still have a hard drive, and if they do, it’s a 99 % chance of not being wiped.

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR I find that really dangerous. I mean if it was a private person, okay, they don't have the knowledge. But you said it was from a university, right? They should have IT staff :-o ...

@@Lofote No doubt and excuses about that. You'd be surprised though how many machines I came by which were obviously never sanitized. It's a clear indication, IT and security standards have not been very high years and decades ago.

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR I've dealt with hundreds of SGIs that still had their OS setups intact, none had any compromising data, but true enough, certainly a risk. Infact the only item like that I encountered was a SCSI disk that had originally been used at a high school in London in some kind of PC system, it contained all the exam report docs, ID pics, disciplinary reports for the students, staff info, etc. It came from an IT recycler which was clearly not doing its job. Naturally I wiped the drive.

I get pretty good results using T-cut to remove most marks & scratches, via careful motions with a box cutter knife (plus a combination of antistatic foam cleanser and WD40), but it does take some experience to do it right (I've been doing it for more than 20 years). It's a little harder with highly textured surfaces like Indy, but still works. Easiest with O2, Octane and IRIS Indigo, while it's also ok with Indigo2 but one must be wary with purple systems not to do it too much or it can over smooth the texture. Curiously, the process works very well with the black base for O2, even though it's highly textured like Indy. Discolouration can be dealt with via retrobrighting.

@@pianoman4Jesus yes, it‘s a TEAC

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR I've dealt with quite a few of these SCSI floppies supplied with SGIs, likewise the Floptical. It's hard to find units that still work ok, they almost always need some cleaning & servicing, sometimes proper repair.

@@mapesdhs597 yeah, I heard so particularly about the floptical drives.

@ You‘ll find a few OS/2 related videos on my channel. I‘ve personally largely skipped OS/2 4.c back in the days, but I used OS/2 2.1 and 3.0 for quiet a while because of my Dad’s, until I transitioned away to Win95 and NT4. I hve some ideas for OS/2 for 2025, with a video coming in around March.

My pleasure!

@@marcbarilla5584 you‘re welcome! 🙏

@@IntenseGrid IDK, as I didn‘t do a close-up inspection of the mainboard.

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR It's on the bottom edge of the board, and the Apollo Pro 133A brochure shows "ISA" off of the southbridge if your look on the retro web.

Indeed, Win98/SE would easily run on this machine.