They're something splendidly entertaining about a big honkin' graphical
workstation that you can roll up to and poke around the GUI on.
Only the Onyx series has graphics :-) Most of ours at NASA were headless
with nothing but a serial console, and lots of CPUs. They crunched
satellite data all day. 96 Processors on Origin 3800, Normally 32 IIRC on
the Challenge XLs.
I have one of the full rack 3-phase ones in Seattle which, like the one I
gave away, has the Audio option.
I didn't know there was a 3 phase option. Was it an Onyx2 or Onyx?
My Cray uses 5 of the Sun E10000 style Pioneer Magnetics 5000 watt 48vdc
PSUs, and even it was single phase (although I had it sitting across 3
phases just to get the power to it over a 30 amp cable.)
J.P. (kiwigeek) helped me re-wire it to split phase, and I love showing
people Quake, Maya and Photoshop on this giant behemoth from 1993.
Very cool!
If we're rambling about SGIs now, my all time fav. is the Indigo 2 R1000
Max Impact. You see one, and it looks normal enough, but when you pop that
cover- there is so much logic packed into that box! It's one of the densest
machines I've ever encountered...
Yes, crammed full. The video cards are stuffed!
--
Ethan O'Toole
