New Indigo 2
============

Logout  [1] donated  the  SGI Indigo2  to me  yesterday.  It's a  later
(purple) model  which was used  for some solid modeling  in automotive
industry.

The  machine  is great:  judging  from  stickers  on  the back  it  was
initially the Solid Impact system with the older R4400SC processor (the
fastest available  R4400 at 250 MHz  and with 2 MB  of secondary cache)
and then it was upgraded to the R10000 processor. Also, it was the best
option available  as it  tuns on 195  MHz (the low-end  one was  at 175
MHz). Also the memory  must be upgraded as there are 640  MB of RAM. It
might look as  a small size today  but it was huge amount  in the times
when the Indigo  2 was still current  (the box is from  around 1996 and
was probably  upgraded later -  but who had  510 MB in  his/her desktop
even in  2004?). The graphics board  is the Solid Impact,  so the basic
one (with full OpenGL 1.1 support  in hardware except textures - it was
excellent  and fast  options  for  solid modeling  in  its time).  Yes,
HighImpact might be better (not speaking  about the Max Impact one) but
they produce much more heat than the Solid one.

The  machine had  two problems:  some  plastics in  the PS/2  connector
(obviously  from broken  mouse cable)  and  the failing  HDD. The  PS/2
problem turned  to be  the easy one  and it is  already fixed.  The HDD
problem will  be more  complicated as  there was the  4 GB  60-pin SCSI
drive  and it  is now  obviously  dead (the  drive spins  but it  emits
clicking sounds and the computer reports a lot of SCSI errors.

I have found a good and (well, relatively) quiet 50-pin HDD but I'm not
able to set  it with SCSI ID=1  (the Indigo 2 has  automatic switch for
this but  the connector is  not mechanically compatible with  layout of
drive's switching pins.

Anyway, it seems, that the drive can  run with ID=2 and the computer is
willing  to boot  from.  The only  problem  is that  the  IRIX must  be
installed first. But it seems that I  no longer have IRIX 6.2 media for
the Indigo2 and  a 2 GB disk might  not be enough [2] for  the 6.5 with
Freeware/Nekoware  applications.  So I  have  to  search for  something
bigger first (and thus also for a 68->50pin cable adapter).

I'm also thinking about different approach: to install of the system at
the small drive first and use  it for some time intensively (for finite
element modeling, for example) and if it will work reliably then decide
to replace the HDD with a better one.  I think that the Indigo 2 can be
a great second  SGI system for me:  it is not slow  and it's compatible
with the  Nekoware because of the  R10000 and its much  quieter than my
Octane. As my Octane has only the SI (SolidImpact) graphics (internally
the same as  the Indigo2 has) it can offer  very little benefits except
the pair of  somewhat faster CPUs (it seems that  extra CPU power helps
me often only little).

And the machine is much quieter than the Octane and (surprisingly) even
than my O2 with R10000 CPU. I probably have to service the O2's fan...


References:
[1] gopher://i-logout.cz
[2] http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/i2info.html




Psst! Now  I have  a complete  Silicon Graphics  desktop line  from the
times  of  the original  Indigo  to  the O2.  I  don't  want the  older
generations (4D  workstations and older -  by the way, the  Indigo 1 is
the last of such things, just in a newer package) and I also don't have
plans to get the last generation of SGIs (the Onyx/Origin 300/3000 line
- there were the Fuel desktop and the Tezro desk-side workstation).

Thus now I have:
* IRIS Indigo (both older with R3000 CPU and newer with R4000)
* Indy (with R4400 CPU and with R5000 CPU)
* Indigo2 (described above, just one, I don't have the older green I2)
* Octane (some hybrid with old IS graphics and fairly new R12000 CPUs)
* O2 (both low-end model with R5000 CPU and "high-end" one with R10000)
* some empty cases and non-working/incomplete ones: Indigo, Octane,...