Yes, you need a Silicon Graphics workstation, a system created by geniuses for geniuses, a system molding the best elements of a graphical user interface with the best of the old style command line, a system that really can make anything you dream of possible.

And then you look at a price list:

W5-180P-1G32

180mhz R5000PC, 32MB Memory, 1GB System Disk, 17" Monitor


$ 5,995.00

Well ... cough ... choke ... well, you know, that's really not that bad, all things considered, is it? You get their Unified Memory architecture and no Windows. You get a 17" monitor and no Windows. You get 1280x1024 30-bit colour and no Windows. Not to mention no Windows; no Windows crashes, no Windows incompatibilities, and no Windows fake multitasking. There is really no better way to turn your nose up at Bill Gates' vast, ugly empire of mediocrity.

And thanks to the O2, the used systems that seemed impossibly out of reach only a month or so ago are plummenting in value, so even if you don't have $ 5,995 to spend, you can still get a wonderful SGI system at a decent price. Yes, these are happy days for SGI fans, friends.

Only a few short minutes ago, this was the Buying Old SGI Systems FAQ. But guess what? It just doesn't make sense to talk only about used systems with the new ones so keenly priced, does it? So we're going to cover everything from O2 to Onyx here, in the hope that you'll join the expanding ranks of SGI owners.

What about using Linux instead? Well, that's still a PC at heart, and still has the same old PC problems of incompatible hardware, unreliable IRQs and an operating environment without Magic. Worthy, for sure, and I'd take it over anything of Microsoft's any day - but it doesn't satisfy my craving for something exotic, something that took the best design brains of our decade to come up with.

So what about a used (or even new!) Silicon Graphics system? Why not get a used Mercedes instead of a new Toyota? My hope is that this FAQ will explore the ins and outs, the joys and pains, of getting away from the beaten path and buying a real computer, cheap.

When I started writing this FAQ, I was in the process of buying a used SGI box for approximately $ 2,000. I figured this would be a good way of sharing my experiences and getting the opinions of others during my purchase process. After all, even a $ 2,000 purchase, while nothing compared to the cost of a new machine, is nothing to be sneezed at.

And it seems so bewildering, these Indigos and 4D25s and 4D30s and all sorts of funny model numbers and clock speeds and what-not. What I really want to know is what models are good, which ones are dogs, and what are the hidden problems behind each.

Most of this information has been taken from heresay, from people who have posted on USENET or answered my questions. When I started this FAQ, I had not yet even seen a SGI system, other than an Indy that I was able to check out for about 24 hours. I fell in love with that darned thing and its Irix 5.3 operating environment, and that made me determined to get a SGI of my own.

I figured that anyone else who was looking for used SGI boxes would benefit from the research I've done and the questions I've asked. And perhaps people can gradually build on what I've produced with their comments, and we can slowly get a better handle on the old machines.

And, now, the new ones.

But what I've noticed is that lots of people on the net are willing to share their expertise with someone who at least asks a bunch of intelligent questions. So that's what I did; I posted messages asking about the utility of these old systems, got a bunch of responses, and went to work. And when I realized how confused I was becoming, I thought it might be useful to people considering the same path to have a FAQ on this subject.

So if there's something wrong here and you want to set me straight, drop me a line. I'll be very happy to hear from you.

At this point, I can pretty much withdraw my recommendation of Personal Iris systems as an entry system. Although I love mine, the fact is that a used Indy now offers such an excellent value that there doesn't seem to be much reason to go the older and slower PI route.

So be patient and you should be rewarded with Indys at very low prices. That's the best thing to concentrate on at this point.

Indigos - particularly R4000 Indigos and Elans - still have substantial collector value, and prices still seem to reflect this.

System	Processor	Memory	Graphics	Surveyed Price
Remarks
Indigo	33mhz R3000	Custom 64-pin ASIC, about $ 495/32MB. Sample system had 24MB	Entry 8-bit color, 1024x768	(very low)
Processor speed said to be the rough equivalent of a 486 DX2/66, although floating point performance is 8-12 times faster. Graphics upgrades are very expensive, so you should steer clear of Entry Graphics if you can afford better. People on the SGI newsgroups who don't own a brand new whiz-bang machine will look at you with considerable envy if you have the top of the line Indigo Elan, which has by far the best graphics. I now own a Personal Iris 4D/30TG, which should perform in a similar way to this machine. I've included some of my performance observations below.
Indigo (R4000)	100mhz R4000	Standard 72-pin	(varies)	(unknown)
John Kraft <jfk@cthulu.engr.sgi.com> calls this "one of the best used SGI systems available." "It has all of the advantages of the original Indigo, but it includes a 100mhz R4000. The one disadvantage is that most people love theirs, so they can be hard to find." Additional comments below.
Personal Iris 4D/25	20mhz R3000	Standard PC memory. 16 slots. This is by far the cheapest inexpensive system to expand to 32 or 64MB.	24-bit colour; Z buffer.	(very cheap)
This is the slowest recommended system; Carlos Simmerling, the seller, recommends that we steer clear of the 4D/20, which has a very slow bus. Compile of a 400-line C program is about 40% the speed of a Sun SPARC 5 (which is blindingly fast for that application). Irix 4.x is the recommended software for this machine unless you have 32MB RAM or more. Unfortunately, Irix 5.x is required to run Netscape, so I suspect there will be few converts to the older version of the OS. Irix 4, however, does run amazingly well with just 16MB RAM, which would be the equivalent of 8MB on a non-RISC box. It has been said on the SGI newsgroups that Irix 5.x is actually only marginally slower than Irix 4.x if you remove all the graphical glitz that exists in 5.x. So you should still be able to run 5.x in a minimal system if you want to forego the slickness that makes a SGI workstation really worthwhile. Somehow I doubt that there will be many takers :-). This system sold for approximately $ 1,600, including a 20 inch Sony monitor, a tape drive and a bootable CD ROM. Irix 4.x or 5.3 and the IDO were included. Matt Jurcich tells us that with 16MB RAM, "the speed was like a 386 with Windows 3.11 and 8MB RAM. Way slow. They say with 32MB it should be like a 486SX/33 box. I hope it is that much faster." Stay tuned for more updates.
Personal Iris 4D/30TG	33mhz R3000; same as Indigo	Same as Indigo	24-bit Turbo Graphics; 1280x1024	(very cheap)
This machine sold for $ 2,000, including shipping. System includes a 19" Hitachi monitor, 32MB RAM and a tape drive. The Hitachi monitor is positively wretched; it's dreadfully blurry. But put this in perspective: I bought a brand new 20" Sony with my first Sun, didn't like it and picked up a $ 2,600 NEC XP21. So I'm not sure how much better a Sony would be than the Hitachi; my eyes are sensitive. The TG option is strongly recommended on any Personal Iris system. (Per Greg Douglas) One person told me this was a 29mhz processor, considerably slower than the 4D/35 (which he was trying to sell me). However, the boot-up diagnostics on mine (yes, I received it at last!) say 33mhz, which is the same speed as the Indigo R3000 and just a tad slower than the 4D/35.. The speed of this box is a rather interesting question. People in the know seem to say that it should be about 20% faster than a 486 DX2/66 in integer operations, about 2.2 times faster in floating point. Benchmarks, however, really say very little; what matters is how you find the machine to be in day to day use. Curiously enough, I have some very mixed results to report. The bottom line is that the system performs superbly in every way but one: The straight entry of text. Typing text into xemacs lags about 1-3 characters behind my 120-odd wpm typing. Other than that, the system works beautifully, including the wonderful desks feature and all the sleek graphical geegaws. I'm still trying to figure out why this is. Running top shows CPU usage of up to 30% when typing fast. (In an experiment of just typing "fdj...." as fast as I could, I was able to get up to 70% CPU use). This is even more usage than I see when I change desks or do similar things I would think would be much more expensive. I wonder if the new xemacs is more CPU-grinding than its predecessor, since I'm comparing it to an older Xemacs I was using on my Sun. Curiously enough, just about everything else is very crisp. In particular, the desks feature, which lets you store multiple desktop arrangements on your system, is a real gem. You might think that the complete screen redraws necessary when switching between one desk and another on a 1280x1024 24-bit screen would be sluggish and disconcerting; you would be wrong. Certainly Irix, even on this slow machine, is far superior to any version of Microsoft Windows I know of (including NT 4.0). I have only begun thinking about tinkering with my system, so it's hard to say whether the delays I've experienced are just the price of getting an older version of a $ 6,000 machine for $ 2,000, or if there are things I can do to help. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the real memory hogs are the freatures I'm most enamored of: The desks and other sleek user interface items. Something called the Objectserver appears to use lots and lots of memory. However, that's just because it maps certain sections of the disk into memory; it's not actually using all of it. When using top, only concern yourself with the Objectserver's resident size and ignore the bogus high numbers.
Indy	100-200mhz R4000; 150-180mhz R5000	Standard 72-pin SIMMs, dirt cheap, available anywhere	Entry level: 8 bit colour, 1280x1024	$ 900 - $ 2,000 Prices dropping fast
See below for comments
Indigo2	100-250mhz R4000; R10000 coming	Standard 72-pin SIMMs, dirt cheap, available anywhere	Really nice, really expensive; I'm not sure of the details	$ 900 - 2,000 for R4000
See below for comments
O2	180mhz R5000PC/SC 150 & 175mhz R10000	Special O2 memory; available from SGI at massive expense ($1,500/32MB); soon to be made by Kingston, other suppliers at around $ 795/64MB.	8-30bit graphics, 1280x1024; flexible; graphics memory same as main memory; expand main memory and you expand graphics, too. All VGA resolutions supported, although you'd be mad to go below 1280x1024.	$ 5,995 to $ 20,000 Used Prices: $ 2,000-4,000
Bus speed for memory/display/disk is 2.1GB/second. The "buzz" on these machines has been outstanding. 30-bit graphics standard in all systems; ultra-fast bus; 10/100mb autosensing ethernet; built-in CD ROM (quite important when you consider their old CD ROM pricing) and much more. Note that the video package with the O2 cam is a $ 1,500 option, a sad break from the IndyCam days. I had previously posted O2 pricing here. Unfortunately, the nice folks at SGI say that pricing is "confidential". I'm not sure why it has to be such a state secret, but since they have spoken, I'll accede to their wishes. I still have some general comments that might be of interest. One respondent reported getting an entry level O2 (32MB; 1GB disk; 17" monitor) for $ 4,800.

The SGI Personal Iris 4D25G was said by many to be a hideously obsolete model. Nonetheless, the deal I was offered was tempting: The system, 16MB RAM, a 1GB hard disk, a bootable CD ROM, a tape drive, a Sony 20" monitor, a fairly high level of 24-bit graphics, Irix 5.3 and the IDO for $ 1,600.

I tried it and it compiled my benchmark C program at about 40% of the speed of my 85mhz Sun SPARC 5 clone. Faster would be nicer, but considering that SPARC 5s go for about $ 4,000 on the used market, that's not a bad price/performance ratio at all.

This Personal Iris model takes standard memory, which can be had for around $ 5-7 per megabyte. This was perhaps the most appealing aspect of the PI; although its existing 16MB RAM would have to be upgraded to at least 32MB for Irix 5.3 to run well, such an upgrade would have been quite cheap. In fact, upgrading all the way up to 64MB RAM would have cost less than $ 500. That's less than I paid to put 32MB RAM in my PC not too long ago!

Note: I hear contradictory statements from people who tell me about the memory capacity of the 4D/25 series. Some say 128MB, others say 64MB and still others say 32! So watch out for that. I /think/ it's 64MB in 4MB SIMMs (16 x 4MB SIMMs), because the arithmatic works out that way, but you never know.

Processor: R3000; clock speed: 20mhz. I would guess it's comparable to a 486 DX/33 in CPU strength. Don't be confused like I was; this is not a 25mhz machine.

The basic configuration, which is the most commonly seen on the net, has the rather uninspiring "entry graphics": a 1024 x 768 display and 8-bit color. Most people I talked to told me to avoid this configuration if possible, simply because it was too expensive to upgrade to something slicker. On the other hand, the "Indigo Elan" is a true collector's item due to its superior graphics combined with the traditional Indigo advantages. The standard entry level graphics users RGB sync-on-green monitor or a VGA unit if it can handle the signal; only newer monitors can. The connector for sync on green is 13W3.

One real strike against the Indigo is high memory prices. The proprietary SIMMs will cost you about double what regular SIMMs would cost. My best quote was $ 325 for 32MB RAM. One of my friends bought this upgrade and found it worked fine; it's almost $ 200 under the lowest price I've seen for it, so I'll have to dig up the email address to add here.

The asking price for an 30 mhz R3000 Indigo with entry graphics, 24MB RAM, the IDO, a 424MB disk and a CD ROM drive was $ 1,700. I believe his eventual sale price was about $ 1,600. The main reason I didn't buy this machine was the expensive memory and the lack of 24-bit graphics. I felt like I'd need at least 32MB just to run Irix 5.3 properly, and it would have been too expensive to upgrade.

Memory must be added in groups of four SIMMs, and there are a total of 12 memory slots. The largest SIMM supported is 32MB, so the machine supports up to 96MB.

Two serial ports, one parallel. An Ethernet connection is included, but you need an AUI transceiver (about $ 45) to hook it up to your network. (This is true of virtually all workstation models I know of).

It supports SCSI-2 single-ended (not fast, not wide, not differential).

Much of this information was obtained from a USENET message written by Walter Roberson <roberson@zeno.ibd.nrc.ca>. I can't resist quoting the last paragraph of his message in full:

I can't think of one bit of the Indigo that is PC compatible. Nor has Microsoft ever written any software for it. [There are definitely people who count both of these points as being substantial "pluses" for the Indigo ;-) ].

The 4D30, 4D35 and Indigo all use the same IP12 family of processor chips.

What's the difference between the Indigo base and the fancier units? According to John Kraft of SGI, the base Indigo is only 8-bit graphics, and has no geometry hardware. The Elan has four Geometry engines and can thus render in 3D far faster. The cheaper XS system has fewer geometry engines but otherwise the same design as the Elan.

Because this is the machine I bought, however, I have the most information on it and the best review. More details will come when I actually get it to do something!

The Personal Iris 4D/30TG system requires proprietary RAM like the Indigo. However, the specific example I'm considering has 32MB of that RAM already, so it probably doesn't need to be upgraded. The seller (Chris Hammack, qwerty@amug.org) says:

Personally I think it runs great, we run Netscape 2.01, IDO and even Alias WaveFront (yes, the $4000-10000 software package) on it. Granted it's not an Onyx or an Indigo^2, but I think it makes a fine machine.

The system was on maintenance at the time of sale, which makes it very attractive to me; it means that it passes into the buyer's hands in tip-top condition.

It includes Turbo Graphics, which include a Hardware Zbuffer, a turbo card with 4 TI DSPs and 24-bit colour. Irix 5.3, the IDO and Iris Impressario were all loaded.

His asking price is $ 2,200 and the negotiated price was $ 2,000.

A Personal IRIS is a large deskside tower case, which has to sit on the floor like any other large tower. Chris says that it consumes a moderate amount of electricity, not enough to make a dent in the bill.

The fan on a Personal Iris seems very loud when you first start using it, but the noise quickly fades into the background. After a while, it becomes almost soothing to hear it.

The 19" monitor is a Hitachi, not a Sony as in the 4D/25. The seller said it was the best monitor offered and has impressive graphics. Unfortunately, when I received it, I found that it doesn't age well; it's a bit fuzzy and ruins the clean, crisp image of the SGI Screens. Fortunately, if you happen, by an astonishing coincidence, to have a NEC XP21 monitor, you need fear nothing: the BNC cables will plug straight in. Note, however, that this is only true of a NEC XP-series monitor, the only NECs that have BNC cables.

One might note, however, that I own a NEC XP21 because I'm very picky about my screen. The average person would probably have considerable less trouble with the 19" unit's image quality than I did.

The keyboard looks identical to any regular PC keyboard, but is actually a custom SGI design. I found it to be of good quality, although not as good as the best IBM keyboards.

Clock speed: 33mhz

24 bit color, Z-Buffer, turbo graphics, 32MB RAM, 760MB disk, 19" monitor.

Irix version not specified, but I suspect Irix 5.3 would be made available. The seller didn't know what the IDO was, which made me a little leery. Since the IDO would be required for this to be a usable system for me, I decided to pass.

Some people have mentioned that this machine is significantly less reliable than the Indigo. It's also very noisy, without the "low noise kit" sold later.

CPU: R3000, 36mhz.

Unfortunately, the prices reflect this - and then some!

Fortunately for buyers, with the rumoured new SGI line coming out in October, Indy prices - even WebForce Indys - have gone down considerably. For instance, I was recently offered a WebForce R4600 system with 24-bit colour, a 20" monitor and some assorted goodies for "$ 5,000 or best offer". This is a far cry from the $ 12,000 or so I've seen these machines go for even as recently as a couple of months ago.

[Update: This system would now sell for about $ 2,000, as of 15 March 1999]

Used Indigo² machines now go for anywhere between $ 900 and $ 2,500. As of now (15 March 1999), they strike me as the real bargains of the current market.

Used Indigo² machines have also gone steadily down in price since I last updated this FAQ. When I first wrote it, R4k Indigo²s were running around $ 15-20k. Now there are several available on the newsgroups for around $ 8,500. If you want a new Indy, you should be able to get between 10 and 20% off the list price if you go through a reseller. SGI itself doesn't give discounts at all, unless you're giving them a truly massive order. However, they do give you a trade-in allowance for your used workstation - and if it's a rival, you don't actually need to give it to them to get the allowance. The amount is between $ 1,500 to $ 3,000 depending on the system purchased.

One important note I came across when talking to people who have actually purchased new SGI equipment. Like any large company, their sales reps are really looking for the big score. My guess is that, if you're responsible for purchases of large amounts of SGI equipment, or if you know someone who is, you might be able to get a system at the corporate discount by just asking to have it added to their order. Obviously, company policies vary about such things, but if you work for a company that's buying significant amounts of SGI equipment, it would be worth checking out. You'll certainly get the lowest prices that way.

Even my SGI rep admitted that memory and disk drives were quite expensive direct from SGI. If you're a huge company, and you need SGI support, you pay those prices, and SGI support is very, very good to you. But if you're a private buyer, get third-party equipment; it's all you can do to keep yourself sane:

Me: The $ 1,200 quadruple speed CD ROM drive? (Sinister chuckle). The $ 3,000 2GB external SCSI disk drive? (Loud Gulp) And how about (gasp) memory upgrades? How about a snappy $ 3,000 for a 32MB upgrade?

hinv gives you a complete inventory of the system hardware.

/usr/gfx/gfxinfo gives you complete details on the graphics hardware.

versions tells you the versions of installed software.

(Thanks to Carlos Simmerling for this tip).

Software. Generally, it will not be practical to purchase new software for the machine, because packages like Photoshop and Illustrator go for around $ 1,000 each. Instead, count on the massive array of public domain software available for all Unix systems. In particular, a public domain package called GIMP promises to give Photoshop a run for its money.

Operating System Media. It seems very difficult to get a SGI system with operating system media (i.e. an Irix 5.3 CD ROM). This is more important than it might seem, as I found very much to my cost. When I bought my system, I somehow managed to damage the boot sector on the disk, making my system basically an expensive paperweight. Without something that can boot the system, I'm completely stuck until I can buy a bootable SGI CD ROM drive and borrow a 5.3 CD ROM from somewhere. So if you can, be sure to get a bootable CD ROM drive with your system. XS sells the CD ROM alone for $ 275 plus shipping, and there's no other way I've found to quickly get a CD drive compatible with the PI.

Basically, it's easy to get an OS license, but tough to get OS media, because many of these workstations were networked together in large offices where there was only one copy of the OS CD shared between several machines.

At the very least, you should back up your system to the built in tape as soon as you receive it. The system will boot from a tape. Unfortunately, you can't get an OS tape from another user unless he has the exact same configuration (processor and graphics board) as your own. So make your own as soon as you get your system if you don't have a CD ROM. At the moment, I've had my system for about a week and still haven't been able to get it up, despite the willing help of some very nice people.

I've found a clear path to doing this, but I will have to buy the CD ROM drive to do it. No fun.

The Root Partition. I have heard from some usually reliable sources (whose names I have lamentably forgotten) that filling up the root file system can wreak havoc on your system disk. However, Irix initially creates an absurdly small root partition - I think it was around 24mb on the 3GB system disk I installed.

Matt Jurcich had an interesting solution to this problem: He copied /unix from the boot disk to his second disk so as to save disk space. Needless to say, his disk wouldn't boot thereafter. This is, as you can probably tell, not a recommended solution to the problem. :-)

You can use FX's repartion command when you format your system disk to change matters. Since a large root partition would seem to be crucial, be sure to make that change when installing Irix on a new system.

Overheating. If you are running a Personal Iris system without its "skins" - the plastic case that looks pretty junky - you may be asking for trouble, because this distorts the normally efficient ventilation system. It turns out that big fan that's roaring all over the place in the system won't actually blow any air around unless you have the skins on; otherwise, it just dissipates in the surrounding air. So if you want to prevent your drive and CPU from overheating, be sure to put the skins on after any fooling with the system.

Obsolescence. Irix 6.x is here, and with it comes the "end of cycle" for the R3000 processor. This is SGI's polite way of saying that the R3000 is no longer supported and will not run the new OS version nor the new software which will start coming out requiring 6.x. You should bear that in mind when buying an R3000 machine; It will be increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to find new software for it in the coming years. But as I said in the previous paragraph, it hardly matters; new software is too expensive for the buyer of one of these machines anyway.

One of my correspondents commented that an insider at SGI tells him that Irix 6.x might work on a R3000 after all, with some tweaking. So perhaps R3000 fans should be encouraged. Still, if Irix 6.0 is anything like OS releases from other companies, it will be yet slower and bigger than its predecessors. (If someone has some hard information on this, let me know). I have since received email from at least one person who says that there is little difference between 5.3 and 6.x, other than the 64-bit support. It seems like 5.3 will be alive and well for some time to come; many people who have been given 6.x have not yet installed it, so 5.3 software should be available for quite a while.

Fairly well informed opinion on USENET, incidentally, tells us to stay away from early 100mhz R4000PCs. Apparently they were slower in many respects than the R3000s they replaced. So watch out for bargain R4000s; they may not be what you'd had in mind, although they will run the new software. Fortunately, there apparently aren't many 100mhz R4000PCs left, since the embarassed company quickly came up with an upgrade to a more powerful processor, the R4600PC. Needless to say, most people took it.

I heard some strange rumours shortly before I got my system working that said that Netscape was not supporting the R3000 processor. Someone even showed me an email from Netscape support stating this. Oddly enough, however, both the recent Netscape 3.0 Beta 4 and the FastTrack server work fine on my 4D/30TG system In fact, they work significantly better than versions of Netscape for Sun.

The IDO. The Iris Development Option, or IDO, is necessary to compile C programs on a SGI system. Unlike the more charitable folks at Sun, SGI gives you no include files with your SGI system, so unless you get the IDO, you cannot compile any programs. Period. GCC won't help you here. SGI's price for the IDO is a mind-bending $ 1,200, which my local reseller would discount to about $ 960.

The bottom line is that, for anyone who wants to write their own software, or even enjoy the wealth of public domain software available in source form on the net, a machine without the IDO is basically worthless.

Fortunately, I have been told that Irix 6.2 now includes enough include files to compile most programs, although apparently the Motif libraries and some other things are still missing. However, your older machine cannot run Irix past 5.3, so buyers of older hardware are still out in the cold without the IDO.

Better make sure that SGI system you're buying has it ...

Note that if you have friends with SGI systems, and they have the IDO, it is physically possible to pirate it; there is no license manager or similar tool protecting it. Personally, I'd rather buy a system with the IDO included in the first place - but if it's the difference between killing a nice machine with plenty of life in it and pirating the IDO, I know which direction I'd lean towards.

Fortunately, most owners of older SGI systems I've contacted have the IDO, so this isn't really as much of an issue as I had thought.

Incidentally, I would like to mention for the record that the IDO may well be worth the price. I used it to compile a couple of C programs I'd written using GCC. It not only pointed out a couple of errors I didn't realize I had - the messages were also far easier to understand than GCC's. For instance, in a type mismatch error, it gave the type it was expecting and the type it got. In some cases I know of, this would have saved me hours of frustration.

But that doesn't give me the $ 1,000 it takes to buy it.

Note that Irix 6.2, installed on new machines, has apparently added enough include files to compile many programs, although some of the OpenGL stuff is apparently missing. However, these old machines cannot run Irix 6.2 anyway. If you have a machine that can run it, and have a choice between 5.3 and 6.2, it looks like you really should get 6.2. In particular, if you want to use the machine for web serving, it's apparently a lot easier to get virtual domains working on a 6.2 machine than a 5.3.

This section contains a few tips for keeping your old SGI system healthy and happy; many of these, of course, would apply to any system.

Craig Magaret <cmag-is@seatimes.com> has this suggestion, concerning the Personal Iris tower system:

You might want to keep the tower off the floor, because it'll vaccuum your carpet really well, and whenever my Indigo has problems, it's usually related to dust inside the CPU (always curable with a good pair of lungs or a couple minutes of shop-vac therapy).

Matt Daly <jobs@tezcat.com> writes, about my problem of a Personal Iris that won't boot: Your PI problem is not completely fatal. You need to reformat your drive, and install 5.3 back on it. (I know, but now that 6.2 is coming out, perhaps someone would be willing to part with their 5.2 or 5.3 CD's) You also need some way to boot the system standalone. You either need a distribution tape, a bootable CD drive (a 2x cd-rom with sgi eproms), or access to an ethernet network of sgis, with said distributions) One last thing. All sgi's spit out boot progress messages out serial port 1 at 9600/8/n/1, so attach a dumb terminal or pc with emulator with a null modem cable, and you can see what is going on. (and also halt the machine gracefully) Heart-Stopping SCSI Errors. The problems with my system were eventually traced to problems with SCSI cabling in my drive sled. Today, I finally decided to take the bull by the horns and buy a brand new external SCSI enclosure, put my 3GB 3.5" drive in it, and see what happens. Well, as of now, the system's been up for over two hours without a single "Critical Alert" error, which makes me think the problem is solved at long last. So if you have disasterous looking SCSI errors, start by putting your drive in an external enclosure. As a bonus, it might also help with any cooling problems you might have with the system.

If you have the skins on, attaching a SCSI cable to your PI can be a big pain; it has a way of slipping off and causing all sorts of really awful looking diagnostics to enter your screen. This is particularly dangerous if you're expecting trouble; check to see if your SCSI cable has slipped off (again!) before panicing.

So be sure you find and use that little clip on the socket; press the cable in as far as it will go and use the hook to make it firm. Then your cable will work and won't spontaneously detach itself.

Cooling Problems. You might find it pretty odd to hear of cooling problems with personal Iris systems after listening to that fan, which is one amazingly noisy piece of equipment. It certainly gives you confidence that, if nothing else, your system is being cooled.

Unfortunately, that sometimes isn't the case; it all boils down to the plastic skins that surround your system. Apparently, if the skins are damaged in shipping, as they were on my system, they become very hard to put and keep together. And when the system is run without the skins on for a long period of time, it becomes hot in areas that aren't reached by the cooling system unless the skins are present. So you have been warned: Don't operate the system without the skins. This seems to be a particularly important thing when internal disks are used in the system. It might be a better idea to put them in an external case, even if your skins are fine.

Have any more tips? Send them to the FAQ maintainer!

I'd also like to hear more about maintenance - getting parts, diagnosing your system, etc. See the section immediately above.

What happened can be traced to the fact that my SGI was not packed carefully. The original seller had to rush out of town, and he gave the packing job to one of his assistants. He did a great job on the monitor, but when I opened the system unit package, the case had fallen open and some of the plastic case parts were damaged. I felt an awful premonition as I took the system out and started to set it up.

To make a long story short, the system disk was apparently damaged during shipment, leaving me with an expensive paperweight until I could get a functioning disk and copy of the OS, both of which have been tougher problems than I had anticipated :-(.

Here is some information I've found out so far that should be useful to people trying to recover from SGI problems:

If you have a system but no software, and you have managed to get hold of an Irix 5.3 CD ROM (by hook or by crook!), here's how you can format a new system disk and install Irix; it's not as obvious as you might think.

What are Drive Sleds, and what kinds of trouble can they cause you? Includes discussion of how I accidentally smoked a 3GB drive that was the first one to actually work in my system. Ouch.

I really love this one: Ariel's SGI Myths page: "Help! The company I work for is dying! It in about to join the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. ..." Read this to find out why that won't happen any time soon.

If you're looking for a system from a private party, check out the news:comp.sys.sgi.marketplace, news:comp.sys.sgi.hardware, or misc.forsale.computers.workstation newsgroups.

This Old SGI gives excellent detailed information on how to nurse an old SGI system back from the dead. A serious pat on the back to Scott T Wilson, its creator.

At Silicon Graphics' Silicon Surf, drool over the latest SGI dream machines. Unfortunately, the section on bank robbery techniques so that you can afford one seems to have been unaccountably left out of the site, an unfortunate omission that reduces its helpfulness significantly.

SGI finally releases prices in this online catalogue. What a relief; no more cloak and dagger! A reseller should give you a discount on around 15% on this pricing.

The SGI FAQ Archive contains the excellent series of SGI FAQs. They are wonderfully comprehensive and complete - in every way but a listing of the relative merits of used systems. Particularly useful in the preparation of this FAQ was the Hardware FAQ's definitive guide to SGI memory configurations.

Search the SGI Newsgroups and other resources through this clever WAIS script. Invaluable when you're looking for specific information of any kind. [Suggested by Carlos Simmerling].

Guide to PPP for your SGI System

The Used Workstation FAQ gives you some useful hints and advice on buying and/or selling a used workstation. (Suggested by Matt Jurcich).

Stuck for information on your Irix system? SGI now has a wide range of their technical publications online, including the Iris Indigo Owners' Guide and Indigo Magic information. [Suggested by Matt Jurcich]

When you're done here, you deserve a break! Stop by my Electronic Mansion and enjoy the spectacular views, glass elevator and a taste of luxury.