SGI Origin 200

[Darshevo]

I ended up with one of these monsters in a lot I bought from a car dealership that went out of business. It will be a day or 2 before I fire it up as its going to need a very thorough cleaning (worst I have ever seen inside). It does not have a monitor plug, and from what I can gather on the net its designed to run mainly as a file server. I'm curious about 2 things, 1. since it has a keyboard and mouse input can I put a PCI vid card in it (it has an odd slot style, but I pulled a standard Qlogic PCI SCSI card out of it. and 2. barring that can I use MS Remote Desktop Connection to connect to it (I'm still running win2k and use Remote Desktop to control a windows based file server on my home network)

-Lance

 

[Chuckster_in_Jax]

I believe it uses a serial terminal. This link may give you some helpful info:

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl...books/Origin200_OG/sgi_html/ch01.html#id93509

SGI computers generally run the IRIX O/S. Many of them can run Linux also.

 

[pontus]

SGI built neat machines. I recommend that you join http://forums.nekochan.net.

I doubt that you will be able to use Remote desktop though. A serial terminal (or emulator) is a good start.

 

[Darshevo]

Thank you for the replies, links and information. I got the better part of a pallet full of terminals with the deal, so I should have all of the hardware around here I need to get connected to it. I'll get it all cleaned up and inspected over the weekend. I'm sure I will have more questions when I start trying to get the terminal hooked to it (nothing I have ever done before)

-Lance

 

[NeXT]

Fro starters, connect the serial port (I think TTY1 is the terminal port) to a terminal and use the usual 9600, 8, n, 1 settings to get something (you might need a null modem cable though).
I recommend you reach the command monitor and type in hinv -v to see what the specs are like.
Unfortunately, all SGI systems (excluding the newer stuff made from garbage pc-grade stuff) have their own and proprietary video pipes and yes, the O200 is just a headless workstation/server.
Irix can still be easily found on ebay and I don't recommend linux as it's always a pain to work with (saw it running on my O2 and it made the the system feel like an 8088 trying to run windows 98).
Too bad it was not an Origin 2000. I have one and after you swap in an IO6G, you usually can start using mgras graphics boards from Octane systems.
Also, yes, I highly recommend you poke through nekochan and more importantly, their Irix freeware called nekoware.

 

[Securix]

Thank you for the replies, links and information. I got the better part of a pallet full of terminals with the deal, so I should have all of the hardware around here I need to get connected to it. I'll get it all cleaned up and inspected over the weekend. I'm sure I will have more questions when I start trying to get the terminal hooked to it (nothing I have ever done before)

-Lance

Is yours the rackmount version or the pedestal (basically a rackmount dressed in a pedestal kit) ?

I have three Origin 200's in storage. Used to use them as database servers for our mail servers few years ago. They ran great actually. And yes they ran headless.

Worst thing about them is that the front door was very fragile and the pins would break off rather easily.

 

[pontus]

Worst thing about them is that the front door was very fragile and the pins would break off rather easily.

SGI choose to use a kind of plastic that doesn't age well. I have a Origin 2k deskside with plastic skins that are in a horrible state due to the fragile plastic.