My personal view of sharing SGI apps.

kikems

Active member
Jul 22, 2020
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I want to give this message to all those SGI users who have original software and have never wanted to share it.
None of this is commercial or profitable for any company, our intention here is not to do warez, it is to locate, preserve and share all the IRIX software that is possible and if we can, in a functional state so that it can be shared and explored by all SGI fans. For those of you who treasure your collection of software and don't want to share it, I want to remind you of two things:

1- I´m sure that ALL sgi users enjoy and use some apps thanks that someone previously share it and later someone fix it to work.
Honestly, having the SGI machines only with IRIX without applications is not so much fun and even if you want to buy an application on ebay, the most possible thing is that you never find it or if you find it at reasonable price you can't use because the original company not exist to move the license from one user to another user.

2- If you have a node locked licensed app and not want to share I want to remind you that your SGI will not live forever and they are practically irreparable machines with very limited spare parts. If you share your installation CDs it's possible that other users can fix to make it works, can continue using your app in another SGI when your licensed SGI dies.

3- Sharing your applications, installers or licenses does not make your personal collection lose value, an SGI machine with real license or original install CDs and manuals always have the same value. It's like scan and print a Picasso picture, never take the same value as original Picasso picture but help to other people to appreciate the Picasso work and preserve the "historical value" in case of original picture lost or die in a fire accident.

4- When more software we can rescue and share, the more entertaining this hobby is with people sharing knowledge, tutorials, information about applications, etc ... All this would never be possible if we do not share.

What you think about this ?.
 

rpajarola

New member
Oct 13, 2020
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I wholeheartedly agree

All but the very latest SGI hardware and software has little commercial value left (except for collectors). Both hardware and software are rapidly disappearing, and unless a conscious effort is made to preserve it, will be lost forever. The same holds true for other 1990s commercial Unix (Solaris, Tru64, AIX, HP-UX etc.).

There is a strong networking effect here, too. The more software is available, the more people will tinker with it and attract more knowledge and more interesting stuff which will in turn attract more people.

I want to add that if you are not comfortable sharing publicly, please share a copy with a "trusted archivist" (I don't want to call out anyone else, but there are quite a few of us who will happily hold on to a backup of any vintage software for preservation until the time has come to release it)
 
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kikems

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Jul 22, 2020
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Scan manuals, promotion flyers, photos from original boxed app and CD are important too.
 

flexion

Active member
Sep 23, 2020
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I've got Maya 1.0 original CD-ROMs to share, but don't know how to create an image of it, as my SGI CD-ROM disk tray is missing :-(
Or someone knows where this is already available for DL?

maya1.JPG
 
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kikems

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Jul 22, 2020
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Great, I have Maya 1.0 ready for share but a limited version without Discover Maya disc, maybe your cd with Maya F/X comes with cloth, fur and Live modules that I never had in Maya 1.0.
Really I don't know if you need some special step for make an ISO from your Windows or Mac computer. I think if you use any program to make a full cd ISO it will work.

And if you post here separated photo for every cd, manual and box will be great. This will help to someone 50 years later how looks a Maya 1.0 cd.
 

flexion

Active member
Sep 23, 2020
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Switzerland
ok I have found an external USB DVD writer now, all my other computers don't even have a CDROM anymore. The discs aren't readable in linux due to "Partitioning: Unknown (sgi)" and isoinfo says not in iso9660 format.

I tried to just "dd" without further options (blocksize etc unknown) to create an image, but now I'm unable to mount it under IRIX. Any advice on how to properly image those discs under linux and mount in IRIX?

I will take photos of everything and share the discs (once I figured out how), but I think this has to be posted somewhere on an external site instead of the forum. Maybe @indigofan wants to host it?
 

kikems

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Jul 22, 2020
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I'm talking with @Kenezen to startup hosting files. Some time before we start this move in Irix.cc ftp , I loaded lot of content and other people contribute with very interesting software but one or two months later admins decide remove all from ftp.
 
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indigofan

Member
Jun 8, 2020
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ok I have found an external USB DVD writer now, all my other computers don't even have a CDROM anymore. The discs aren't readable in linux due to "Partitioning: Unknown (sgi)" and isoinfo says not in iso9660 format.

I tried to just "dd" without further options (blocksize etc unknown) to create an image, but now I'm unable to mount it under IRIX. Any advice on how to properly image those discs under linux and mount in IRIX?

I will take photos of everything and share the discs (once I figured out how), but I think this has to be posted somewhere on an external site instead of the forum. Maybe @indigofan wants to host it?
You can set up an account with mediafire and share it that way.. I do have a site, but I have to get things fixed with it again.. Mediafire works well, just drag and drop to share a file from a PC or Mac.
 

indigofan

Member
Jun 8, 2020
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There are many of us who have software for IRIX, but what's needed here is a RELIABLE place to host the various software packages!!!
Agreed... A place where someone has paid for the domain for YEARS to come... would be ideal.
 

Knezzen

New member
Jun 24, 2019
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Sweden
www.macintoshgarden.org
I'm one of the guys behind Macintosh Garden, if you've heard of that site. So we have all of the redundant infrastructure of Macintosh Garden at our disposal and that's where the files are hosted.

@indigofan I have to look into the FTP problem you're experiencing. Just tried to download some files and the links just fine over here.

I'm thinking of opening up the FTP server for public use with a dropbox (not the service, but a folder on the server) to upload new software into. The FTP server is rsynced against two other servers abroad every night, so there's no danger in it going down permanently or the files being lost.
 

Jacques

Active member
Dec 21, 2019
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Somerset, United Kingdom
ok I have found an external USB DVD writer now, all my other computers don't even have a CDROM anymore. The discs aren't readable in linux due to "Partitioning: Unknown (sgi)" and isoinfo says not in iso9660 format.

I tried to just "dd" without further options (blocksize etc unknown) to create an image, but now I'm unable to mount it under IRIX. Any advice on how to properly image those discs under linux and mount in IRIX?
Personally, I have only ever had success dd'ing SGI CDROMs with Debian as it includes support for the EFS filesystem out the box. There should be no magic involved. Your standard USB DVD drive will most likely not support 512-byte blocks.

Make sure you do not mount the CDROM, then dd it with the usual 'dd if=/dev/cdrom of=efs.img'

I've done this a few times on my 2010 MacPro with standard DVD-RW drive, booting via live Debian USB media.
 
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kikems

Active member
Jul 22, 2020
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The Maya version form Flexion is the same that we have. In 1997 Maya releas as Maya with artisan as option, one year later release Maya 1 Unlimited option with Fur, Cloth and Live modules. Someone have Maya 1.x Unlimited?
At least we recover Maya Discovery CD, that anyone have.
 

flexion

Active member
Sep 23, 2020
196
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Switzerland
Personally, I have only ever had success dd'ing SGI CDROMs with Debian as it includes support for the EFS filesystem out the box. There should be no magic involved. Your standard USB DVD drive will most likely not support 512-byte blocks.

Make sure you do not mount the CDROM, then dd it with the usual 'dd if=/dev/cdrom of=efs.img'
Thank you! The image I took using DD in ubuntu from the CDROM media was indeed OK. My fault was that I wrongly assumed the resulting image could be mounted as is under IRIX, just as we do in linux. So I was confused if my attempts at creating ISO and IMG files using various methods was correct, since it's not really an ISO standard disc.

Meanwhile I've been advised by kikems to just mount it under linux and then tar.gz the whole contents and unpack on IRIX, which finally worked well. (y)
 
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SantiDarkG

New member
Oct 2, 2020
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This is a great idea because new people like me, soon, I will get a SGI computer and not idea where to find software. Thanks everybody for this.
 

Irinikus

Well-known member
Dec 16, 2019
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South Africa
www.youtube.com
Here's a screenshot of the of the various applications I have available on my "disk2":


There are some arbitrary backup folders here too. (So excuse them!)

Toonz does run on my 320 Visual WorkStation, but we don't have a working flexlm for IRIX yet!

There are windows executable key gens for all of the software requiring node locking, except for Flame_2008_SP6. (I have a working licence for my Tezro but don't have the means to generate a generic one.)
 
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