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Domain: blinkenlights.nl

Stories and comments across the archive that link to blinkenlights.nl.

Comments · 9

  1. Re:They do need counselling by BlueStrat · · Score: 1 · on Police Called Over 11-Year-Old's Science Project

    Snip: ...and there were probably some blinking lights too.

    ACHTUNG! Alles touristen und non-technischen peepers!

        Das machine control is nicht fur gerfinger-poken und
        mittengrabben. Oderwise is easy schnappen der springenwerk,
        blowen fuse, und poppencorken mit spitzensparken.
        Der machine is diggen by experten only. Is nicht fur
        geverken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseenen
        keepen das cotten picken hands in das pockets,
        so relaxen und watchen das blinkenlights.

    From http://www.blinkenlights.nl/

    P.S.: Please do not forward this to the vice-principal as I'm certain that the F.B.I., D.O.J., State Dept., C.I.A., and D.H.S. would be annoyed having to explain to him that it's not a terrorist threat or bomb instructions, especially as the latter group of agencies & departments seem to be displaying an increasingly-shaky grasp on the definitions of such as of late, and we wouldn't want to confuse them further.

    Thanks,

    Strat

  2. Re:eight? by dwater · · Score: 1 · on FreeBSD 7.0 Bests Linux In SMP Performance

    Considering those SGI's 1024 CPU thingies are not SMP machines I'm guessing it's established who the idiot is... Well, I don't think that quite qualifies as 'idiot'. NUMA scalability is still relevant and interesting - and some such systems are indeed SMP (ie systems with a single node) - their Altix ICE seems to go up to 2 quad-core Xeons per node, which would be 8 (it seems to be very similar to one of the configs they used in TFA).

    In any case, I didn't mention which "serious SGI" kit. Even their power series systems back in the '80s went upto 8 CPUS (4D380S), and they've had several different architectures since (though mostly ccNUMA). Their Challenge XL (hehe)series also went upto 8, and applications scaled very nicely too.

    Of course, other manufacturers continued making even larger SMP systems - wikipedia mentions "ASCI Red had 4,510 [cpus]".

    Perhaps the linearity of the scaling performance from 1-8 shown in TFA is interesting, but 8 is pretty where things start to get interesting (scalability-wise).

    As a side-note, I read this in wikipedia's smp article :

    "It should also be noted that dual socket Opteron designs are technically ccNUMA designs, though they can be programmed as SMP for a slight loss in performance."

    So they could have run in SMP mode, I suppose, and wikipedia doesn't mention the Intel's design (so I suppose it's SMP, but Intel can do some weird stuff too).
  3. Re:IR4 by dwater · · Score: 1 · on U of CA Constructs 220 Million Pixel Display

    missed the link to futuretech.

  4. Re:Remember those old SGI o2... by pruneau · · Score: 1 · on 'Xtreme' Equipment That You Have Borrowed?
    You're probably !$&"! right, now that I had a look here, I can tell that we had a mix indy, indigo 2 and indigo.

    Of course, they might not be expensive for you guys, but from the point of view of a poor student, they were top of the line thingy... And they were coming with the biggest screen we had a that time too.

    It might not correspond to the "extreme" definition, but it certainly felt like it !

  5. Re:The low-end ones sucked, but still... by RageEX · · Score: 1 · on Reliving The Glory Days of SGI
    8000 Euros is about 10,500 USD!!!

    I think an entry level Indy with 8-bit graphics, no L2 cache, and a small amount of RAM would have cost half that in the US. But still unless you needed some of the built in features it was too much money to pay for just a desktop computer.

    For an arm and a leg you could get a faster CPU with L2 cache and 24-bit graphics (24XL). For another arm and a leg you could get an Indy 24-bit color and hardware accelerated 3D appropriate for running 3D CAD (XZ).

    I have an Indy XZ now and it runs an older version of Pro/ENGINEER surprisingly well.

    Here's a great article from PCW in 1993 about the Indy.

    For a long time SGI was the Ferrari of computer makers and it is sad that no one seems to have that title anymore.

  6. youngsters, SGIs used to be ugly too! by _randy_64 · · Score: 1 · on Reliving The Glory Days of SGI
    Everyone's talking about how cool the SGI boxes used to look, but I guess none of you are thinking back far enough! I started with SGI 2400 machines, which were big and beige and just as ugly as any other computer. They probably weighed at least 200 pounds.

    Back in the mid-80s these puppies cost $50-60k each. For that price we got 4MB of RAM (yes, MEGAbytes), a 15.67 MHz 68020 processor, and no X-Windows. Their windowing environment at the time was something called "mex", which was probably worse to use than twm. But their graphics capability for the time was unmatched.

    My name's even in the SGI 2000 FAQ. We used to walk their support people through hardware problems, because we knew the hardware better than they did.

    We eventually upgraded to the Indy, then jumped all the way to the Onyx with Reality Engine. Took a long break from SGI, but starting to play with their Altix 350 these days.

    Man, things change!

  7. Re:Three degrees of seperation. by RageEX · · Score: 1 · on Reliving The Glory Days of SGI
    Interested in selling any? If they are in perfect condition I'd be interested.

    Remember to set a static route and add a search or domain line to your resolv.conf, that usually trips people up when they're trying to get a system on the net.

    BTW, I wouldn't bother installing Linux unless you're interested in improving the port or just messing around.

    For good links try nekochan.net, sgi stuff, and Ian Mapleson's site.

  8. Re:Nice... by sql*kitten · · Score: 4, Interesting · on SGI Releases New Workstations

    Though its worth bearing in mind that you can still pick up some half decent SGI workstations on eBay.. seen some SGI Octane / 20" Monitor / 768MB RAM bundles on UK eBay for around £350 which is a superb deal.. these things might be getting on a bit, but they certainly do shift.

    Try here or here.

    I used to own both an old Indy and an Indigo2, both of which would be the equivilant of an 8086 in PeeCee computing terms.. but they still cruised along even on the latest version of Irix, and were surprisingly usable :)

    A PC is a general purpose device that is designed not to suck too badly at anything in particular. A workstation is a specialist device that is designed to retain some general purpose capability. Back in its day, the Indigo2 IMPACT was an impressive machine... you couldn't buy a PC that could do what it could do at any price. Even now, they can hold their own in solid modelling and CAD.

    I have an Octane SE here, 1997 vintage, and my 2002-issue Dell beats it for small CPU bound jobs... but for anything involving a lot of memory accesses, or disk I/O the Octane wins hands down every time. And if I'm not using textures, SE graphics can easily beat a GeForce2.

  9. Re:Only time I ever see ascii related stuff is by Menkhaf · · Score: 1 · on Appreciation For All Things ASCII

    I have to admit that sounds good... I have to check that out, once I get familiar enough with Debian to do that...

    Another good thing is the Star Wars Episode I ASCII version... telnet to towel.blinkenlights.nl (port 23) and there you go!
    Btw, that guy hosts some pretty cool stuff... http://towel.blinkenlights.nl/services.html...