SGI and IRIX Archive

The IRIX Network, the primary community for SGI and IRIX enthousiasts, has announced a fundraising effort to reverse-engineer the last 32 bit version of the IRIX kernel. IRIX-32, so named for its basis on kernel and APIs of the last 32-bit compatible IRIX (5.3) is a proposed reverse engineering project to be conducted by a team of developers in the US and the EU. Purpose: We will reverse engineer the version 5.3 kernel with future goal of producing a fully open source reference implementation. This is the first major step and the delivery will be documentation and reference material to enable effective emulation and driver development for IRIX. This is huge. If they can do this, they will save the operating system from an inevitable demise. I’m of course 100% behind this, and the total costs of 8500 dollars – 6500 from the fundraiser, 1000 as a donation from the IRIX Network itself, and 1000 from a few companies still using IRIX – is definitely realistic in the sense that they should be able to meet their goal. It’s not a lot of money, and it’s not meant as fair compensation for the work delivered – the teams of developers involved know this and aren’t asking for such either. The thread so far is a great read. They haven’t selected a fundraising platform yet, but I am definitely throwing money their way once they do.

I just finished my new project, it is called love. It allows installation of IRIX from IRIX, LINUX or WINDOWS. The reason for its existence is that IRIX installations are difficult, even for experienced users. New users almost always struggle with IRIX installations which can be demotivating and frustrating. My goal is to make this task easy, fast and accessible. This is absolutely amazing, and it works very well. This will make life for retro SGI users a lot easier.

The Linux 5.5 kernel due out as stable in early 2020 will finally have mainline support for the MIPS-powered SGI Octane and Octane II workstations that originally ran with SGI’s IRIX operating system about two decades ago. There have been out-of-tree patches for running Linux on the SGI Octane MIPS-based systems while Linux 5.5 is set to finally have this support mainlined for these two decade old workstations should you still be running the hardware and looking for something else besides IRIX or support in other platforms like OpenBSD. Mind you, these workstations were already succeeded by the SGI Octane III a decade ago with Intel x86. Better late than never.

SGI machines are definitely on my list of platforms to sink my teeth into in the future. I don't think I'll be focusing on these more eccentric supercomputer-type workstations, but they are fascinating nonetheless. I'm very glad there's an active community of people keeping these machines working.

The first release was released a few days ago. And yes, I used the SGI database category for this news item. Try and stop me.

The SGI font is classic. So memorable.

Niche server maker Rackable Systems said this morning that the U.S. bankruptcy court in New York handling the Chapter 11 proceedings for supercomputer maker Silicon Graphics has approved Rackable's acquisition of most of the assets of SGI. Under the deal that was announced on April 1, the same day that SGI filed for bankruptcy protection, Rackable said it would be shelling out $25m to acquire most of the assets of SGI as well as assuming "certain liabilities" that were not specified. In the announcement today, that figure has risen to $42.5m in cash. The liabilities that Rackable is assuming have not been detailed.

Silicon Graphics Inc., the perma-struggling workstation-turned-server-maker, filed for bankruptcy protection today, and was immediately bought by Rackable Systems. Rackable has signed to take on all of SGI's liabilities. The deal is expected to complete in 60 days. The combined company will target the hyper-competitive market for x86 boxes for cluster and high performance computing, internet and cloud services. "This combination gives us the potential for significant operational synergies, a strong balance sheet, and positions the combined company for long-term growth and profitability," said Rackable CEO Mark Barrenechea.

SGI says it has emerged from chapter 11 bankcrupcy protection and emerged 'leaner' and quite possibly meaner. Having dispensed with its own militant tendency, the company says it is now the 'New SGI'. It has slashed an burned a bit, dumped its old board of directors and management team and in the process saved a suggested USD 150 million a year.

SGI is ready to become emergent all over again. A judge has okayed the company's reorganization plan, paving the way for it to come out of bankruptcy protection in October. The 'new' SGI will be a trimmed down version of its former self with just 1600 staff. In addition, it will have a new board of directors to complement new CEO Dennis McKenna. With so much newness on its side, SGI expects to reach profitability in fiscal 2007.

SGI hopes to emerge as a leaner, meaner organisation by the end of the third quarter. The hardware maker this week filed an amended reorganisation plan that calls for it to finish off bankruptcy proceedings by September. If all goes as expected, SGI will trim its total debt down to USD 70m from USD 345m. Some of the debt will be removed in exchange for the privilege of investing more money in SGI 2.0.

Got $18m to spare? That's the market capitalization of one of Silicon Valley's most glamorous companies this morning, after Silicon Graphics Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The size of SGI's debt - at $664m it's twice the value of its assets - is enough to deter all but the most determined bargain hunter. Apart from a ragbag of trademarks - such as OpenGL - what growth has SGI left to offer?

SGI is not very willing to communicate about any strategic changes it is plannign to make in their product line up. "Thankfully, we happen to know a couple of SGI's largest customers - the kind of folks who actually receive information from the graphics beast. In order to help out the rest of you poor, informationless sods, we're going to don SGI's marketing cap for the moment and get out the good word to customers large and small. Here's where SGI is heading according to the insiders."

SGI's new CEO has wasted no time performing a major shakeup at the server company. Moves announced today include substantial layoffs, executive departures and SGI's plans to tweak its server business. SGI will fire close to 12 per cent of its workforce - 250 staffers - in the hopes of saving some extra cash. Word of the layoffs arrives just about a month after SGI moved former CEO Bob Bishop aside and tapped Dennis McKenna as its new chief. SGI heralded the layoffs as proof of McKenna's quick, decisive action, issuing a statement titled 'CEO Delivers Aggressive Changes in First 30 Days as Part of Turnaround.' The Inq speculates about nVidia buying SGI's graphics dpt. Update: Couldn't resist.