From owner-freebsd-chat Sun May 17 22:15:32 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id WAA06468 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Sun, 17 May 1998 22:15:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from softweyr.com ([204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA06377 for ; Sun, 17 May 1998 22:15:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (localhost.softweyr.com [127.0.0.1]) by softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA28613; Sun, 17 May 1998 23:14:39 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <355FC3BE.5F9C8BAB@softweyr.com> Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 23:14:39 -0600 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr llc X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2.6-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Greg Lehey CC: Dan Janowski , Bret Ford , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SCO offers Ancient Unix Source Code License References: <355FB8AD.E2779CDB@softweyr.com> <19980518144056.A5363@freebie.lemis.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Greg Lehey wrote: > > On Sun, 17 May 1998 at 22:27:25 -0600, Wes Peters wrote: > > Dan Janowski wrote: > >> > >> I used to work on old SGI 3130's and when those > >> geometry engines were really working, you could hear > >> some very high pitched harmonic sounds eminating > >> from the box, seemingly right from the chips, > >> although this was difficult to confirm. > > > > I cut my 3D teeth on a 4D/60GT, later upgraded to a 4D/70. The > > funny high pitched noise actually came from the capacitors in the > > power supply; the current draw of the Geometry Pipeline would pull > > enough current through them to start the squeal. I helped install > > these machines in South Dakota; on cold (COLD COLD COLD!) winter > > days we would come into work, take our shoes off, and fire up the > > 'drip' demo to warm our toes and ankles. The 4D's had an 18-inch > > long squirrel-cage fan that would blow 180F air when the drip demo > > was running. ;^) > > I was offered one of those a couple of years ago. Quite an impressive > machine. I took a 4D/20 instead (I think. It's a Control Data OEM > version, and the name written on it is "Cyber 910". R3000, about 20 > MHz, 16 MB of memory, IRIX 5.3. I've compared building software on it > and on a P5/133. You can build bash on the P5 in about 90 seconds, on > the 4D/20 it takes 40 minutes :-( Yeah, but does your P5/133 have multi-player dogfight? I thought not. You should've taken the 4D/70. The 4D/20 (also known as the Personal Iris) had quite bit more CPU power -- the 4D/70 was a 12.5 Mhz R2000, but the 4D/70 had the full Geometry Pipeline engine, as opposed to the stripped-down video in the /20. Of course, you probably couldn't afford the power for the 4D/70, it required 220VAC and drew more power than an electric clothes dryer. ;^) -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message