It’s been a long time since I’ve posted something, but not for lack of things going on in both the SGI/IRIX and general retrocomputing world. I’ve picked up numerous machines, books and peripherals over the past few months, but most of them haven’t been tested. I figure it’s probably not too interesting just taking photos of the machines without actually doing anything with them first, but if anyone wants to see them let me know and I’ll post a few.
There have also been a few interesting IRIX software releases that have come about recently that I’ve not personally tried. Powering up my Tezro to try out software during the summer is just an invitation to misery — it easily boosts the already uncomfortable indoor temperatures by an additional 10 degrees in short order. Thus, most IRIX hacking will need to wait until the fall. I’ll post up some links shortly regardless, with the caveat that I’ve not personally tried the software myself.
The following are some photos I took the other day for the RetroMacCast website of a prototype Apple Disk III drive I picked up last year with a lot of Apple III parts, peripherals and software. It’s basically a Disk II chassis with a prototype Disk III analog card and some interesting Apple “racing stripes” on the sides. There are also Apple inventory stickers complete with “Property of Apple Computer Inc.” on the top and front of the unit.
For comparison, here is a production Apple Disk III analog card:
