Totally OT, but someone might know

Bit pricey but might be what you're after,

That's what I need.... but there's a couple of problems.... first is that he says he'll post to the USA only, and secondly, I need to know if I should be able to boot one up without a keyboard before I decide to spend the money.

"Will post to Worldwide" and "$10 to pretty much anywhere in the world by USPS Air Mail" on the auction listing would suggest otherwise.

If you can't get an AUI to RJ45 adaptor, try and find an old Netgear hub. Some had an AUI port on the back, and RJ45's on the front :)

Or

Heh. Missed that... only looked at the postage bit at the bottom.

Steve, are these the beasts you keep trying to deport to Scotland? ;)

Richard

Yeah, but I figure getting one working would be cool.

A lil piece of Co-ax? I just bought some cctv cameras for home, gonna need to run four lengths of co-ax I think, not done it for years!

Nah, the AAUI cable from my old 9600 - I have a Thin ethernet drop cable on my Workgroup Server, and found a twisted pair one - I've cabled upstairs with cat 5 so being able to ditch the coax makes life very easy (think I might need it for one of the older Macs still, though).

Richard

I have a purple Indigo^2 just like the one in the background. :)

Shouldn't need a keyboard. My suspicion would be a dead NVRAM (CMOS) battery - may need soldering. :(

Ian Mapleson's great SGI site:

Mail me about getting Irix...

I should have some of those...

...somewhere.

Linux or NetBSD should work well.

Hmmm, I'll have to pull one apart tomorrow and investigate that.

Handy link, thanks. Almost worth buying a keyboard from him if I can get it fired up.... ISTR the mouse is a standard serial or PS/2 job.

I'll see what I can get working tomorrow, I reckon.

That would be good, if I can get one to boot.

Can't remember what it says when I boot it..... I have had it hooked up to a Mac so I could have a poke around, but it appears the OS is corrupt

- the biggest problem is how to install an OS given the lack of floppy or CD drive.

You should, even with a dead battery IIRC, get something on the 1st serial port (/dev/tty0) if you attach a terminal (emulator) - minicom?

There is (I^2 at least) a *very* basic Stand Alone SHell - sash - in firmware which lets you set IP for netboot, partition disks, etc...

It only understands EFS file systems and TFTP (NFS too???) so its not that useful unless you have a(n Irix ideally) network available - it's not as useful or friendly as Sun's PROM monitor. 8/

Irix is SGI's UNIX and really the only thing most will run.

Do you have a suitable (sync on green?) monitor? If not you need to speak to it via tty0 - it may be called a /Personal/ Iris but it is a UNIX network host not a PC - no mouseyness till it's booted to a graphical Irix session...

I have a feeling a PI needs Irix >> Especially if I can get an AUII (I think) to RJ45 ethernet

I'll have a look... I may be some time.

Netbooting from the (friendly Forth speaking) PROM monitor (BIOS done right) should be possible in the absence of CDs or tapes...