a little SGI help, if anyone can...
a little SGI help, if anyone can...- special effects and filmmaking
Hey all, heres my conundrum....(and i can prove this)
I traded that sculpture of the alien i did for alias animator 5 and/or 6 that my godfather bought at a garage sale, since he had no way to use it. Now it turns out that my uncle can get a couple of SGI machines (well at least one) from a guy he knows that bought them from NASA. (they auction off their old computers and these were in with the other stuff he bought) but they wiped the drive first and i'm not sure what OS i'll need to run this. I'd love to get around to playing with this software
another thing, my uncle said the SGIs had audio/video in and out. if i cant get my grubby little paws on the right OS or get the software working, can i install another OS, say win NT and have myself some cheap video in and out?
obvilusly, i'm not to sure about SGIs, but i'd love to learn
any help would be appreciated
later
Tom
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What everyone seems to forget is that once we look past race, religion, gender, and all that, everyone on this planet is first and foremost...
...a PERSON
I know Unix will run on SGIs but what version of Unix, I don't know. You might be able to get Linux to run on it. Newer SGI workstations have Windows NT so you could possibly use that. A great operating system, if it will work, would be BeOS. BeOS is developed with multimedia production in mind so it would be great for you.
Do you know what the specs are for the machine? If you do post them here.
i dont have any specs. i dont think that this guy knows what he has, and thats why he wants to get rid of them cheap, i think if he knew they might end up on ebay, but as soon as i get some more info i'll be back with it.
later
Tom
Silicon Graphics aren't going to run on anything you'll find out of the box or at any Best Buy; especially if you're talking about an older machine like I assume you are, if NASA got rid of them, it's mostly a lot of proprietary code. You're probably going to have to contact SGI themselves on this one, and go through some sort of hassle if these are expensive machines and you can't prove you didn't steal them (ever try getting high-level tech support without a S/N in your name?)
As for "playing with the software," didn't you say the drives were all formatted? Doesn't that sort of rule out any software to play with? Sounds like you'll need to go buy some expensive Alias|Wavefront stuff, which granted will be very neat to play with.
Well that's all I got. Have a look at sgi.com or give them a call... later.
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Doug Spice
Mojumbo Jambalaya Productions
Los Angeles, CA
http://mojumbo.n3.net
Go to www.sgi.com and find out. I always go there to laugh at the prices.
E-mail lisalisa @ lisa@xs.mw, she just bought an SGI. I think she said she was running SGI Linux. It cost her about over $7,000.
like i said above, i have animator 5 or 6 sitting in a box next to me. . so that solves part of the software problem, the remaining thing to be seen is if i can get an OS.
i've been to sgi.com, not a whole lot of help there, they just have info on newer stuff for the most part, i'm going to guess that this is about 8-10 years old but since the software i have is old too, im guessing it'll run though
anyway, i guess thats that.
later
Tom
if someone spent 7,000 on open source software, somthing which is under the GNU license, i would have to kick them in the nuts. twice.
Oops, I meant she spent $7,000 on the total system. I think SGI Linux came with it.
I don't know about the software but I build SGI computer frames at work. Just wondering, How much will your uncle be paying for them.
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ajbolander@netscape.net
dont really have any solid numbers yet, but from the sound of it he might get one for free, and the other (identical as far as i know) for a couple hundred if not cheaper.
I'm planning on talking to him tomorrow evening so i'll get back to you then with some solid info.
later
Tom
My best bet would be that the sgi system is running Irix 6.2 or maybe 5.3. Alias should work on it fine, and usualy whan the say they wiped the drive it normaly means the installed a fresh version of system software, so any previous licenses(for programs) are gone.
if you have the box for Alias, it should say what it requires to run. most sgi's have audio in/out and some have video i/o. If the system has video capabilites then the system software should support it. You might need the Irix Distrubution CD's, for extra stuff that alias will need to run but most used sgi systems dont come with them. Hopefully the system comes with a monitor. SGIs use a 13w3 connector not your standard vga connector, so you should find out if a monitor is included.
You can get the monitors pretty stinkin cheap on ebay. I had an Indigo a while back and also got the software(Irix) for it on there. course then I needed a keyboard and mouse for it, and a connector for the monitor (make sure the monitor you get comes with a cable, or you can buy it readily, otherwise youll have a nice time trying to make one), so I sold it away. Thats fairly odd that it really does come with drives, the auction comps. Ive seen had their drives plucked.
Oh, to the best of my understanding, the older computers wont work with SGI linux, I think they work with...I want to say the indy2 and higher, but I could be wrong on that. hope this helps.
oh, and, NT Workstation 4 comes with a MIPS version of the OS on the cd, but it does NOT work for the SGI. Only the new sgi workstations run NT. 
[This message has been edited by Ivan (edited 02-07-2000).]
What kind of SGI is it? Indego, Indy, O2?
Does it have a CD ROM drive or tape drive?
If the hard drives have been wiped then a CD is the best bet for installing an operating system.
SGI computers run UNIX with IRIX on top for the GUI. Installing the base software is very hard unless you know exactly what you are doing. I know, I've tried.
Power animator should work on IRIX 5.3, the latest OS is 6.5.
Contacting SGI for the OS may be the best way to go.
Any questions, just ask.
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