Nekochan Net

For historical interest, on the subject of the O2 PROM in particular.

The last IP32 (O2) proms were built using an IRIX 6.3 patch tree, the code was never properly migrated over to the 6.5.x codebase. Version 4.14 introduced support for the RM7000 and was implemented as a 6.3 patch. Version 4.15 was just a bug fix.

Digging out such trees and patches now would be work, given that the code is likely on some backup tape somewhere. The O2 proms were also built on an Indy running Irix 6.2 and some particular MIPSPro compiler revisions, which would take time to get going again.

The Octane, Fuel, Tezro, Onyx PROMs can be built, so far as I know, with the 6.5.x sourcebase and a modern machine; though apart from things such as USB or ISO cd booting support, I can't see what you'd add to them that would improve anything dramatically.

On the subject of X.org graphics drivers, readers may be interested to know that there was small but significant kernel involvement in swapping graphics contexts during process switch that you don't see in something like Linux. This allowed for efficient use of the GL hardware by multiple processes simultaneously. Also of note is that the SGI X server is multi-threaded, something even X.org lacks today. The bigger graphics pipelines (i.e IR2 & 3) had a lot of ancilliary processors, primarily ARM7 chips (if memory serves) to which microcode had to be uploaded in order for the pipeline to function. Writing the original drivers involved a lot of simulators, special debug configs etc - re-implementing, even with documentation, would be a massive undertaking.

If the SGI platform is to be preserved and enjoyed, the best route to doing so would be to work on a qemu style emulation of one of the simpler systems. I would suspect the O2 or Octane would be the best candidates. The Octane would get you 64bit potentially, but the vast majority of SGI binaries are 32bit. The O2 CRIME graphics were actually something akin to an additional MIPS chip with some DMA engines - certainly its the pipeline most likely to succeed in software emulation, given that so much of it is running on something akin to a general purpose cpu already.

What was added with versions 4.16, 4.17 and 4.18?

Ian.

Hey, mchu7gk2 - great post! Thanks for sharing the info!

page flipping, right? Also used in the network stack? A neat trick but intimately tied to the underlying TLB and page size. I believe even IRIX had to let go of some of that when they moved to 64bit because the page size changed to 8KB ...

Otherwise good infos. I was pretty sure the PROM source was tied into the IRIX source already all the way back to the 4D series. In those systems the PROM version even matches the contemporary IRIX version.

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Now this is a deep dark secret, so everybody keep it quiet
It turns out that when reset, the WD33C93 defaults to a SCSI ID of 0, and it was simpler to leave it that way... -- Dave Olson, in comp.sys.sgi
Currently in commercial service: (2x)
In the museum: almost every MIPS/IRIX system.
Wanted: GM1 board for Professional Series GT graphics (030-0076-003, 030-0076-004)

You sure mean 16KB - genuine Mips chips can only use even powers of two as the page size, therefore page sizes go 4KB, 16KB, 64KB, 256KB, 1MB, and so on.

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R4000 R4400 R4400 R8000 R10000 R4000PC R4000SC R5000SC R5000 RM7000 2xR10000 R12000 - 2x2xR10000 R16000
among more than 150 machines : Apollo, Be, Data General, Digital, HP, IBM, MIPS before SGI, Motorola, NeXT, SGI, Solbourne, Sun...

^^^ Me bad. Brain fart. Been sick for a couple of days.

_________________
Now this is a deep dark secret, so everybody keep it quiet
It turns out that when reset, the WD33C93 defaults to a SCSI ID of 0, and it was simpler to leave it that way... -- Dave Olson, in comp.sys.sgi
Currently in commercial service: (2x)
In the museum: almost every MIPS/IRIX system.
Wanted: GM1 board for Professional Series GT graphics (030-0076-003, 030-0076-004)

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MAYA, nut-
Octane 2 R14k 600 V12 4GB, Octane2 R14K 600 V10 1GB ,
Onyx2 IR3 4GB Quad R14K 500 DIVO, Onyx2 IR Quad R12K 400 2GB,
SGI Indigo 2 R8K75 TEAL Extreme 256MB,
SGI Indigo 2 R10K 195 Solid Impact 256MB, MAX Impact Pending ,
Apple G5 Quad, NV Quadro 4500 + 7800GT, 12GB RAM
Sun Blade 1000 Dual 900 XVR 1000

Looks like you're a little late to this party but yes, IRIX has support for ATI FireGL X1-256M

.....via an IRIX port of XFree86 (rather than Xsgi).

Ryan - if you're remotely curious, there's some details on various X server configurations for the IRIX version of XFree86 (and the ATI boards used by SGI) in this TechPubs document: http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi ... I/apd.html

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Welcome to ARMLand - 0/0x0d00
running...(sherwood-root 0607201829)
* InfiniteReality/Reality Software, IRIX 6.5 Release *
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And from all I know the quotes should be around "supported" rather then heard.

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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

(single-CM)

I haven't seen anything strange with it, but then I've not run many OpenGL programs on it, if anyone knows of anything to run on it to try, let me know.

Hi,



Who did the work? Is it available anywhere?


Regards,
@ndy

Stanislaw Skowronek did the reverse engineering of the Octane. See http://www.linux-mips.org/~skylark/

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My computers including Alphas, MIPS, PA-RISCs, VAX, and SPARCs.