ok, since the consensus will probably never be reached on using this
list for such purposes, and i have *free stuff* i'm just gonna drop
this bomb here.

does anyone have a genuine interest in IRIX and SGI hardware?

i have some machines (an indy w/indycam, an indigo 2 r10000 cpu, max
impact graphics, and an O2 (r5000 chip, but with the pricey
media-adaptor add-in and 2 o2cams and almost every spare part
conceivable except for the case)).  all of them are maxed out on
memory, have a hard drive with irix 6.5.x installed (for values of x >
10...don't recall exactly which one).  i have install media for a
somewhat recent (.18?) patchlevel too, in case you want to reinstall,
though i warn you it is not for the faint of heart (only the O2 has an
optical drive).  they all have network ports built-in.

funny enough, except for the indy, the other two are still pretty
acceptable in terms of CPU power and graphics responsiveness, for
someone who isn't into the latest games.  even the indy isn't as much
of a slouch as it might be, it just chokes when you try to do anything
fancy on the cpu at the same time (it had just enough juice to play
mp3's OR do fancy 3d graphics demos, but not both).

obviously, you will be building a lot of your own stuff (you can
download pre-compiled gcc and friends--the systems ship with
unlicensed compilers which work as is but are really annoying (they go
really slow and whine constantly about not being licensed.  compiling
gcc might take you a week.).  there probably isn't a recent flash
player for them.  i built everything under the sun as far as gnu tools
about 5 years ago---autoconf/automake support was pretty great.  xmms
and mozilla worked.  i built several working gcc's with the gcc you
could download.  hell, you can probably still download most stuff as
binary packages from here: http://freeware.sgi.com/.

irix has been on its way out for a long, long time.  there will never
be a truly new release.  these machines are pretty impossible to get
real paid support for, outside of rather expensive reseller houses.

all of these machines will run linux.  none of their framebuffers are
supported well enough to be used in any GUI, though.  the indy might
have better support in netbsd.  they all might, actually.  but it
won't be anything like as zippy as irix.

not enough catches yet?  here's the big one:  you could still sell
these on ebay for probably a few hundred bucks, so they're not
worthless.  but really i want someone who will have fun playing with
them or anyway go to the trouble of finding them *another* similar
home when they're done playing to have them.  i don't want to see them
in the recycle bin @ free geek, and i don't want them trapped in a
basement for years (mea cupla, they've already been that).  they also
don't come with a monitor, and you will need a 13w3 connection monitor
for the indigo2 and the indy.  the o2 just uses analog VGA.

they are well-engineered and weigh approximately as much as a
boat-anchor.  i will not be bicycling to your house carrying them =)

so if you can swallow all that, if anyone wants them and can pick them
up from inner NW, they're yours.  if you just want the O2 that's fine,
the other two should probably go as a group, since compiling on the
indy is pretty painfully slow but you can build indy-capable binaries
from either of the others, despite them having slightly different
CPU's (r4400 vs r5000/r10000, which are more alike).
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