Be prepared to _pay_ for SGI stuff. It's really cool, but really, really
expensive. I've been looking at this stuff for the past couple of weeks,
not that I can actually afford any of it. :^)
1) Try typing in SGI or Silicon Graphics at eBay. There is usually a good
cross-section of machines there (highest for workstation usage has been an
R10000 o2 that I've seen so far). Ideally, an eBay machine, in addition
to being fully functional internally, comes with media and manuals for teh
OS and any applications. Forget about support, though. This is probably
the cheapest way to get an SGI. For example: an indigo2 w/ 128mb ram/4gig
hd/max impact graphics (best in the indigo2 line, equal to a good Octane),
and otherwise a reasonably complete system, on eBay went for ~2k recently
iirc. The same machine refurbished from SGI (admittedly, you get support
and all that) was 11k.
2) There are a few SGI related FAQs and web-guides out there.
try: www.irix.org/Propaganda/pound.txt (irc sgi channel faq)
www.amazing.com/internet/old-sgi-faq.html (buying old sgis)
www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/faq/html-1/ (large but sorta old)
www.futuretech.vuurwerk.nl/sgi.html (very comprehensive, inc.
buying advice, tech specs, comparisons, sysadmining, etc.)
3) Try www.reputable.com and www.recurrent.com for buying. The first one
got high marks from the writers of one of the faqs I read. You'll
probably pay more than on eBay but you'll momst likely get a better system
in terms of completeness and you'll have someone to call if worst comes to
worst. Reputable has a _lot_ of info on their site (inc. pictures of most
every model curretnly available, and a woman ona beach wearing a a bikini
who supposedly has an sgi tatto, but I can't find it, even with much
scrutiny, heh heh).
4) If you are planning on 3D rendering / animation and stuff like that,
take this with a grain of salt and try to make your own decisions here,
but I'd guess you ought to look for at least an indigo2 of some sort
(unless your needs are modest). If you have the bux of course, get an o2
or an octane... ;^) Keep in mind that two different models with teh same
name and outward appearance can have drastically different graphics
performance because SGI frequently had 2-4 'levels' of graphics arrays
available within each product line (the indigo2 for example had 4
gradiations in the 'teal' first part of the line (for the box's color) and
3 in the 'purple' part of the line, and another 3 purple boxes if you
count the Imapct graphics sets (some of which as I said earlier perform
on par with a current day Octane) (all this AFAIR; the NL site has
detailed comparisions of all teh models and graphics arrays).
5) They have an o2 in the Welch computer lab if you want to go drool over
it. ;^) Mmmmmmmmmm.
Hope all this helps. :) (Lordy, how I wish I could afford one.)
Oh, one important point: GCC WILL NOT WORK ON AN SGI UNLESS YOU HAVE THE
IDO (something devel. option, provides the header files needed for
compilation). So forget most gnu software, unless you can buy or find the
IDO. Somewhere I think I saw mention of this changing on teh new
computers (i.e. sgi including enough header files to allow gnu software
etc. to be compiled).
Second thought: there is a site somewhere in the sgi.com domain that has
details about he effort to run/port linux to the MIPS architecture (i.e.
on sgis...).
*****************Michael Orion Jackson******************
***********TAMS Class of 96/UT Class of 200?************
*********************Random Quote:**********************
*Mnemonic | Operator Type | Operators *
*Ulcer Unary + - ++ -- [etc.] *
*Addicts Arithmetic (& shift) * / % + - << >> *
*Really Relational > < >= <= == != *
*Like Logical & Bitwise && || & | ^ *
*C Conditional (ternary) A > B ? X : Y *
*A lot Assignment = += -= *= [etc.] *
* From "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel :^) *
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