Yeap... Back in 1996 I built my first PC (Cyrix 6x86 something) with a 512M ram. Now years later, current computer rocks 64G ram. And almost nothing would start with that 512M memory which was back then a quite large amount. Even ran few times just for fun Quake or Doom from Dos ramdisk. But mostly that 512M were due using Windows NT4.0 back then to do things needed for the school. Looking back... Current computer has 128x memory, 7000x more storage (1G vs 7T). And it sounds quite amusing that current amount of ram is 64x that I had harddisk back then... 🤯
@@_..-.._..-.._ Sold my car back then as it was not needed where I did live back then. Cannot recall what it was back then - and also because currency has been changed here since (Finland did go FIM to EUR early 2000) it makes it even harder to remember and figure out... Probably it was a lot, but probably close 1k; "In 1996 memory was about $17/megabyte (decreasing from $30 to $8, $17 is the average)" (google). And as I did build that computer on late 1996, memory prices had been going down closer to that 8usd/megabyte.
It's amazing how much of a powerhouse the MIPS architecture was back in the 90s into the early aughts for high performance graphics systems. Now you just never hear of them. Apparently the company is still around but is focusing on RISC-V development instead.
My immediate thought upon seeing that custom flat flex cable was "how do they justify the cost of that at the volume they produce things". Then I remembered, it's SGI, cost never mattered :)
You could buy lower end models for $50 until recently. Hardware depreciation was crazy. Probably won't happen again given how usable even low end old AMD64 computers remain. Much cheaper workstations from fifteen years ago still sell for hundreds of dollars.
1998 My first Machine was Cyrix 166Mhz, 16MB RAM, and 2.54GB HDD with 14" AOC Monitor! This SGI Workstation was in Computer Magazines, and I just watched the photos like it is something from the Future! Another thing that is Still in my Mind and I check it now - SGI 320 Visual Workstation! Man, the Design of the Case back in '98 was Insane! Ehhh... memories... we are all getting old... ☺☺☺
@@miserj I'm not running latest version of KDE, but from my understanding it's coming back (just called "cube"), just not as pretty and flashy as compiz did it. It would be nice to see more attention to details, make it theme-able etc.
Many moons ago I ran Blender on my SGI Indy. I think I compiled it from source without problems. I'll have to see sometime which is the last version that still builds and runs...
Wouldn't be extremely hard - same CPU architecture (ish - N64 is MIPS R4300-derived, this is R10k, but IIRC, that's no different from say, running Pentium 4 code on a Core 2).
The official developer kit for N64 was in fact an SGI Indy with an extra board that was basically an N64 (which also used a MIPS processor) though the board only "joined" resources (RAMROM) with the host system for debugging purposes. Its video out was looped back into video capture so you could see it run on the same screen beside the code you were working on, and it had jacks that connected with a 4 port controller adapter. More to the point, I'm not aware of a software N64 emulator running on IRIX yet, however the N64 toolkit runs *natively* on SGI hardware, technically, because that's what the N64 is, basically a custom embedded Indy.
Nice to see some SGI love. Irix was a really nice operating system and i liked the Indigo Magical Desktop environment. Used to use O2 and Octan computers back in the noughties. I really loved working with them so have kept a bunch of SGI system. (A few Indy and O2s, an Indigo Impact with Solid Impact card and a Octane 2 with VPro 10 card). Also kept a large amount of Irix install and software discs and even a couple of starter kits for Indy.
Well SGI was the one with that ability for holding strong graphic images and 3d video. Which a the time, as of today requires big storage amounts of memory. Much it was used by TV stations for making 3d effects and animation banners for their TV feeds at the time. I used to work with an Indigo in 1996. The computer gets slow when you start adding graphic processing. Well it was 1996! When Steve jobs went back to Apple and the hype for computer graphics were at its highest with Pixar using SGI hardware.
This was the kit I had on my desk at my first 'real' job working the tech support hotline at Discreet Logic in 1999. To get enough bandwidth to playback uncompressed NTSC footage in the Flint video compositing software, Discreet used both SCSI buses in parrallel to connect an external 'Stone' disk array. One bus via a janky ribbon cable that hijacked the CDROM connector and was fed through some gap in the back... The other was via the 'regular' SCSI connector at the back.
Hi, a couple options for the front door. Both involve remakig the missing clip(s) 1) Do the old 'build up the missing part with super glue and baking soda', then file the lump(s) to shape. 2) Cut / file suitable plastic to shape as clip repalcements and super glue / epoxy in place. "I like to take a RISC every now and then", says the man with a MIPS CPU.
Never had an Indigo but back in the day an early Octane and an O2. Don't completely regret selling them as there wasn't much practical to do with them--now they're scarce and commanding money. Sometimes think it would be cool if someone made a retro Octane case for modern motherboards.
Thanks for a slight revision on your guyses process the look at the internals and a glimpse into how long these videos take. I remember old computers being slow but jeezm crow 90min?!?. Also if you guys decide to not continue doing the things thats fine by me if its not cost effective to do so and the retention goes. Happy New Year!
This would be a perfect application for one of those cpu thermal pads made of graphene or something since they're supposed to last forever and this machine has gone without thermal interface material for almost thirty years
I remember being absolutely blown away by a love demo in the SGI booth at CeBIT convention sometime mid 1990-s. They were manipulating live video in real time on an SGI Onyx with the RealityEngine graphics.
So very cool. I used to work for the SGI corporate NOC and owned a Maximum Impact back in the day. Always go with the purple chassis if there's an option.
Do you ever consider doing longer form videos? I'd like to see more of the troubleshooting you do in these. You may have a good reason for editing the videos to the length you do, but I always feel like the video is over too soon.
Tech Tangents has a video where he “rebuilds” those c hinges for the door. I thing he used super glue and baking soda. It comes out white, but it won’t be seen or you cold paint them. I like the look of this system. I was drafter back in the 90s, and it seems like this was in some of the ads from the magazines back then. Cool nostalgia trip.
To see that beast, look for Gamers Nexus ; "Rebuilding a $34K SGI Computer from 1994 | Indigo2 Extreme Retro Revisit". That is a Beast... And GN do teardown on that video for it to look what makes it tick...
I love that you 3D printed a stand, but I find it worrisome that it slid across the surface it was on when you tried to push the power button. If I had one I'd want the stand to be heavier, or I'd have to back it up against a wall so it didn't move when I turned it on.
During my brief stint in college, we had a Unix lab with some of these (mostly teal R4400/Extreme models with 256MB RAM, but we had two R10k/Solid IMPACT with 384MB), and some Sun Ultra 2s. Those had either 512MB or 1024MB and dual CPUs - they were beasts, except on 3D where the SGIs stomped 'em. (They had Creator3D cards, so they weren't completely useless for 3D graphics, just not nearly as nice.)
Seeing the inline power connectors for the graphics card makes me realize PC makers really need to figure this out, I hate the way we have to run separate cables to our GPUs in PCs nowdays. Why can't there be motherboard connector?
For the hinges couldn't you just grind off the remnants of the clips (their broken anyways) and 3d print new clips to bring back the original functionality?
If the original connection between CPU and heatsink was bare metal, adding a layer of TIM would likely slightly hinder the thermals. Not by much, but still.
I can't think of any way to fix the original front cover, but maybe 3D printing a new one would be the way to go. Surely, there's a print filament that matches the original Indigo color?
It might not work anymore with today's Linux distros running wayland, but I used to play around with an Indy which was also hopelessly outdated in terms of software, but it was UNIX and it ran X, and my main desktop had Linux with X, and so through X forwarding it could display a then recent version of Firefox running from the up-to-date Linux, which made the machine more useful than it had any right to be. :)
That's near identical to my former Indigo2. I was curious if you had non 200MHz chips maybe, but nope. I've got the same ones. I was going to flex, but your specs are indifferent. Hehe. You have achieved an SGI Nirvana. Those CPU's were 64-bit in mid 90's when nothing else was 64 bit.
I don't know if it would be compatible because I don't know a lot about MIPS version-ing but Debian has MIPS support. After you've explored all the SGI software, that could be an idea for another video that I would watch.
I would absolutely love to know how you managed to install irix with the bluescsi, as I have just gotten an Indy without a CD drive, and a bluescsi would really help me!
Back in those days 1 GB of RAM was a lot. At that time my computer only had a 2.1 GB hard drive. I think it only had 16 MB of RAM and could only support up to 128 so that is very different from what we have today. It had a 166 MHz Pentium with MMX. MMX was a new and it was a big deal back then. I think modern chips use it or something newer but similar. At the very least we see improvements of older stuff.
Someone imaged the n64 demo that used to run on sgi to you should download it and show it off before n64 was ready they would use sgi to run early demos.
Loving the SGI content, absolutely incredible machines. Shame all the UNIX workstations ended life towards the end of the 90s and Windows NT/Intel took over although we still have UNIX on the desktop running RISC chips thanks to Apple.
Bring back the beautiful quirky colorful case designs of the 90s!
I just remember the most PC cases to be gray. But the Unix guys were having fun.
@@hw2508 apple had some black ones
Kauf Dir doch einen iMac. Auch UNIX.
@@2xtreem4u Those were pretty. Mostly meh performancewise, but pretty.
@@2xtreem4u and that was a PC?
A gig of ram in 1996 is truly utterly wildly insane
real
My friends thought the 32 mb in my Mac clone was insane in 1996!
My computer at the time had a gigabyte...of hard drive space.
1 gb was a very good amount for 1996 HDD’s, so maybe 1tb of ram is about right for current comparison.
Quick online search 1996 DRAM price was 1060000 bits / dollar. According to my math, that works out to $7.72 per megabyte. A gigabyte would run $7905.
To think that in 1996, 1 GB was an unimaginably huge amount of RAM, but nowadays, our web browsers need that much just to open one new tab
Yeap... Back in 1996 I built my first PC (Cyrix 6x86 something) with a 512M ram. Now years later, current computer rocks 64G ram. And almost nothing would start with that 512M memory which was back then a quite large amount. Even ran few times just for fun Quake or Doom from Dos ramdisk.
But mostly that 512M were due using Windows NT4.0 back then to do things needed for the school.
Looking back... Current computer has 128x memory, 7000x more storage (1G vs 7T). And it sounds quite amusing that current amount of ram is 64x that I had harddisk back then... 🤯
Even for this massive Unix WORKSTATION, it was insane to put a gig of RAM. Now, we have Raspberry PIs with 16GB of RAM.
I imagine 1gb ram is at least equivalent to 192gb now
@@sasiuru Were you rich?!? 🤯 how much did 512 cost you back then?
@@_..-.._..-.._ Sold my car back then as it was not needed where I did live back then. Cannot recall what it was back then - and also because currency has been changed here since (Finland did go FIM to EUR early 2000) it makes it even harder to remember and figure out...
Probably it was a lot, but probably close 1k; "In 1996 memory was about $17/megabyte (decreasing from $30 to $8, $17 is the average)" (google).
And as I did build that computer on late 1996, memory prices had been going down closer to that 8usd/megabyte.
I enjoyed when Clint looked at these, but this is a very solid video too!
The triple slot graphics card is on ebay right now. They want around $260 for it with shipping
Less than a Voodoo2, it's a good deal :)
It's amazing how much of a powerhouse the MIPS architecture was back in the 90s into the early aughts for high performance graphics systems. Now you just never hear of them. Apparently the company is still around but is focusing on RISC-V development instead.
My immediate thought upon seeing that custom flat flex cable was "how do they justify the cost of that at the volume they produce things".
Then I remembered, it's SGI, cost never mattered :)
They might as well have made a quantum computer, at the prices they were selling them it was all profit anyways.
$50,000 in 1996 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $100,539.52 today
Putting the price fall of high end unix workstations after purchase into perspective I bought a used Impact for $1400 in 2000.
You could buy lower end models for $50 until recently. Hardware depreciation was crazy. Probably won't happen again given how usable even low end old AMD64 computers remain. Much cheaper workstations from fifteen years ago still sell for hundreds of dollars.
Greedflation
1998 My first Machine was Cyrix 166Mhz, 16MB RAM, and 2.54GB HDD with 14" AOC Monitor!
This SGI Workstation was in Computer Magazines, and I just watched the photos like it is something from the Future!
Another thing that is Still in my Mind and I check it now - SGI 320 Visual Workstation!
Man, the Design of the Case back in '98 was Insane! Ehhh... memories... we are all getting old... ☺☺☺
It's nuts how compiz was a thing a little over 10 years later. Really made me feel like we had entered that Jurassic Park future.
I always wondered what happened to compiz. Would love to turn my desktop into a cube once again.
@@miserj I'm not running latest version of KDE, but from my understanding it's coming back (just called "cube"), just not as pretty and flashy as compiz did it. It would be nice to see more attention to details, make it theme-able etc.
Many moons ago I ran Blender on my SGI Indy. I think I compiled it from source without problems. I'll have to see sometime which is the last version that still builds and runs...
The 90s/early 2000s was a wild time in the world of hardware.
It would be really cool if Super Mario 64 was ported to this, just for fun
Wouldn't be extremely hard - same CPU architecture (ish - N64 is MIPS R4300-derived, this is R10k, but IIRC, that's no different from say, running Pentium 4 code on a Core 2).
The official developer kit for N64 was in fact an SGI Indy with an extra board that was basically an N64 (which also used a MIPS processor) though the board only "joined" resources (RAMROM) with the host system for debugging purposes. Its video out was looped back into video capture so you could see it run on the same screen beside the code you were working on, and it had jacks that connected with a 4 port controller adapter. More to the point, I'm not aware of a software N64 emulator running on IRIX yet, however the N64 toolkit runs *natively* on SGI hardware, technically, because that's what the N64 is, basically a custom embedded Indy.
Nice to see some SGI love. Irix was a really nice operating system and i liked the Indigo Magical Desktop environment.
Used to use O2 and Octan computers back in the noughties. I really loved working with them so have kept a bunch of SGI system.
(A few Indy and O2s, an Indigo Impact with Solid Impact card and a Octane 2 with VPro 10 card). Also kept a large amount of
Irix install and software discs and even a couple of starter kits for Indy.
Well SGI was the one with that ability for holding strong graphic images and 3d video. Which a the time, as of today requires big storage amounts of memory. Much it was used by TV stations for making 3d effects and animation banners for their TV feeds at the time. I used to work with an Indigo in 1996. The computer gets slow when you start adding graphic processing. Well it was 1996! When Steve jobs went back to Apple and the hype for computer graphics were at its highest with Pixar using SGI hardware.
This was the kit I had on my desk at my first 'real' job working the tech support hotline at Discreet Logic in 1999.
To get enough bandwidth to playback uncompressed NTSC footage in the Flint video compositing software, Discreet used both SCSI buses in parrallel to connect an external 'Stone' disk array.
One bus via a janky ribbon cable that hijacked the CDROM connector and was fed through some gap in the back... The other was via the 'regular' SCSI connector at the back.
Censoring the CPU while applying the thermal paste is comedy genius.
Even tho he did an X ;)
I was trying to figure out how 12 went sensibly into 1024 for *so* long
5:20 - Hey, I thought this was a family friendly show
Unix-flavored Madness. My favorite kind of madness! :D
My first job at 16 was as a build and repair tech in Denver back in 1992. I'll never forget working on these old beasts.
When you said "SGI from a famous movie" here I was thinking it was where Jerry Maguire used an SGI for his accounting.
If you used a 3dfx powered 3d accelerator or video card or currently use an nVidia video card you've got some SGI DNA in your PC.
The idea of storing a quarter of your hard disk just in RAM, especially in the mid 90's, is insane.
Hi, a couple options for the front door. Both involve remakig the missing clip(s)
1) Do the old 'build up the missing part with super glue and baking soda', then file the lump(s) to shape.
2) Cut / file suitable plastic to shape as clip repalcements and super glue / epoxy in place.
"I like to take a RISC every now and then", says the man with a MIPS CPU.
5:04 those BGA form factor cache (?) chips were cutting edge for 1996.
Sean always brings the crazy to the Retroweb!
Never had an Indigo but back in the day an early Octane and an O2. Don't completely regret selling them as there wasn't much practical to do with them--now they're scarce and commanding money. Sometimes think it would be cool if someone made a retro Octane case for modern motherboards.
BWA HA HA HA... Gentoo. That is a shockingly easy computer to work in from what I've seen from you on here about it.
Why did you even mention gentoo?
Thanks for a slight revision on your guyses process the look at the internals and a glimpse into how long these videos take. I remember old computers being slow but jeezm crow 90min?!?. Also if you guys decide to not continue doing the things thats fine by me if its not cost effective to do so and the retention goes. Happy New Year!
This would be a perfect application for one of those cpu thermal pads made of graphene or something since they're supposed to last forever and this machine has gone without thermal interface material for almost thirty years
"Rare and Exotic E-Waste" sounds like a good name for a vintage computing themed prog rock band.
I remember being absolutely blown away by a love demo in the SGI booth at CeBIT convention sometime mid 1990-s. They were manipulating live video in real time on an SGI Onyx with the RealityEngine graphics.
Holy unobtanium, that's a gorgeous machine inside and out 😍
I remember being impressed with my 1GB Dell in 2004, so to have 1GB in 1996 is impressive
So very cool. I used to work for the SGI corporate NOC and owned a Maximum Impact back in the day. Always go with the purple chassis if there's an option.
OH man..Unix System 5....we still to this day use Ver. SVR 4 at my job, although they are in the process of phasing it out
Great machine. Happy New Year 🎊
If you're hunting that triple-stack GPU, keep an eye out for an Ultra64 board. Could be fun!
Do you ever consider doing longer form videos? I'd like to see more of the troubleshooting you do in these. You may have a good reason for editing the videos to the length you do, but I always feel like the video is over too soon.
Tech Tangents has a video where he “rebuilds” those c hinges for the door. I thing he used super glue and baking soda.
It comes out white, but it won’t be seen or you cold paint them.
I like the look of this system. I was drafter back in the 90s, and it seems like this was in some of the ads from the magazines back then. Cool nostalgia trip.
Hmmm my favourite flavour double stacked GPU’s… and also, TRIPLE STACKED? We need to see that.
To see that beast, look for Gamers Nexus ; "Rebuilding a $34K SGI Computer from 1994 | Indigo2 Extreme Retro Revisit". That is a Beast... And GN do teardown on that video for it to look what makes it tick...
this is kind of crazy because i saw one of these in person TODAY, just about an hour and a half before this was uploaded
This has inspired to start cleaning up and fixing the one I rescued from work a decade ago.
this is the RISCiest machine i've ever seen. bravo.
Please, we need more videos like this
I love seeing these once unattainable super machines of the 90s.
that feels like doing electron structure modelling at university in the late 90s all over again :-)
that's so much ram that back then most applications would not know what to do with it that's wild!
1gb of ram, what are you thinking??? That's insane back in the 90s
I love that you 3D printed a stand, but I find it worrisome that it slid across the surface it was on when you tried to push the power button. If I had one I'd want the stand to be heavier, or I'd have to back it up against a wall so it didn't move when I turned it on.
Or put rubber feet on the bottom
I love Your video with those vintage unix machines, and other vintage machines. So much memories from those old days 😍
Maximum Impact
That's it. That's the band name.
During my brief stint in college, we had a Unix lab with some of these (mostly teal R4400/Extreme models with 256MB RAM, but we had two R10k/Solid IMPACT with 384MB), and some Sun Ultra 2s. Those had either 512MB or 1024MB and dual CPUs - they were beasts, except on 3D where the SGIs stomped 'em. (They had Creator3D cards, so they weren't completely useless for 3D graphics, just not nearly as nice.)
Ah, my favourite kind of madness, Unix shenanigans (closely followed by totally normal computing) 😂
those are the most well organized pc internals i have ever seen lol
ah, all proprietary & non-standard design of 90's unix computers.
When I saw silocon graphics, I about did a backflip. These are SUCH cool rigs man. Would love to have one myself.
I want to get myself an SGI Indy at some point, though the Indigo... It's got a lot of appeal, too.
Seeing the inline power connectors for the graphics card makes me realize PC makers really need to figure this out, I hate the way we have to run separate cables to our GPUs in PCs nowdays. Why can't there be motherboard connector?
I've been subscribed for a while now, and you've become part of my weekend routine.
First of all this CRT is HUGE
For the hinges couldn't you just grind off the remnants of the clips (their broken anyways) and 3d print new clips to bring back the original functionality?
Imagine making old tech useful instead of generating more e-waste every year. AMAZING work actionretro! Beautiful 1 Gb ram monster!
Note that in 1996 I ran Linux on 12 megs and a 486 66. A MIPS R10000 with a gig of RAM is a bit overkill for contemporary software.
If the original connection between CPU and heatsink was bare metal, adding a layer of TIM would likely slightly hinder the thermals. Not by much, but still.
More Unix based magic,YES!
I can't think of any way to fix the original front cover, but maybe 3D printing a new one would be the way to go. Surely, there's a print filament that matches the original Indigo color?
It might not work anymore with today's Linux distros running wayland, but I used to play around with an Indy which was also hopelessly outdated in terms of software, but it was UNIX and it ran X, and my main desktop had Linux with X, and so through X forwarding it could display a then recent version of Firefox running from the up-to-date Linux, which made the machine more useful than it had any right to be. :)
I wonder if the torque on the CPU is right.. I remember the days of special pre-set tools for CPU remounting in this class of machines.
Fun fact Toy Story was rendered on 117 Sun SPARC Workstations It took 46 days to render the whole film.
I had a Power Macintosh 9600 with 1.5GB of RAM back in 2005 that I picked up at a yard sale for 20 dollars. It had a CNN property sticker on it.
im sure the new thermal paste will help the cpu out a lot, and one of these days, you'll max out this indigo
Hi. Do you can run linux or bsd on sgi?
Cool ! it would had been funny if it worked with that extra ram !
Oh man. I had found one of these years and years ago, but it disappeared during a breakup move. At the time I had no idea what to do with it.
That's near identical to my former Indigo2. I was curious if you had non 200MHz chips maybe, but nope. I've got the same ones. I was going to flex, but your specs are indifferent. Hehe. You have achieved an SGI Nirvana. Those CPU's were 64-bit in mid 90's when nothing else was 64 bit.
Try magnets or velcro for the front panel
I don't know if it would be compatible because I don't know a lot about MIPS version-ing but Debian has MIPS support. After you've explored all the SGI software, that could be an idea for another video that I would watch.
Those things are super cool, but I'm curious what can be done with one in 2024. Is it just for funsies and archival reasons?
I would absolutely love to know how you managed to install irix with the bluescsi, as I have just gotten an Indy without a CD drive, and a bluescsi would really help me!
It just worked! Blank 4gb image on the sd card, and it formatted just fine
@ActionRetro thank you! 😊 I'll give it a try as soon as I receive my bluescsi!
Bluescsi v1.1 will never work with SGI
@@somacruz8272 I found v2, so hopefully that one will work?
Back in those days 1 GB of RAM was a lot. At that time my computer only had a 2.1 GB hard drive. I think it only had 16 MB of RAM and could only support up to 128 so that is very different from what we have today. It had a 166 MHz Pentium with MMX. MMX was a new and it was a big deal back then. I think modern chips use it or something newer but similar. At the very least we see improvements of older stuff.
Wow Haven't seen one of those in like 25 years! Can you install a Linux version on it? Mint maybe?
With the meteoric increase of RAM, does that make it an SGI Indigo *Deep Impact*?
I'll go home, now
Yes. I enjoy wierd Unix graphics workstations please. So you got a like!
Ah, Re-Animator…such a Classic Horror Flick. 😎
7:52 _Look, the system is coming up!_ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Now we can see it
this is the best reason why its worth being a member lmao
Sean, is the 1GB RAM limit a hardware limitation or could a BIOS hack let you put those other four chips in?
In 1996 I had 8mb of RAM and I was balling
ProTip: pronounce it EARex as in irritating because that's what they were to admin/compile stuff on.
Can a case with that color be refurbished? It would look lovely without those scuffs.
Someone imaged the n64 demo that used to run on sgi to you should download it and show it off before n64 was ready they would use sgi to run early demos.
oh neat!
@ I forgot who showed it someone had a TH-cam video I don’t know i lf it is still up
This made me want to go and power up my Octane :)
Beautiful machine.
for indy2 parts, sgidepot is your friend, but not your wallets.
they made a triple decker graphics card, look for one of those
Loving the SGI content, absolutely incredible machines. Shame all the UNIX workstations ended life towards the end of the 90s and Windows NT/Intel took over although we still have UNIX on the desktop running RISC chips thanks to Apple.
Use the 3D printer and either print a new front door or the clips? 🙂