Silicon Graphic Indy
The Silicon Graphics Indy, code-named "Guinness,” is a low-end multimedia workstation introduced on July 12, 1993. Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI) developed, manufactured, and marketed Indy as the lowest end of its product line for computer-aided design (CAD), desktop publishing, and multimedia markets. Various Indy configurations existed and sold at price points between $5,000-$16,495 new. Indy was the first computer to come standard with a video camera, called IndyCam. Indy was discontinued on June 30, 1997, and support ended on December 31, 2011.
Acquisition
I acquired this Silicon Graphics Indy R5000 from Ebay.
I believe in a previous life it was used as some sort of color matching system. It came with some specialized hardware that was not complete, and I couldn’t really find any relevant information about hardware on the Internet. Cosmetically and functionally, this Indy is in great shape. It came with a granite-colored keyboard and mouse, both in working condition. When I purchased the Indy it came with a SGI 17” Trinitron CRT as well. Unfortunately, the display has some significant issues so it’s on the shelf until I devote time to figuring out its problems. The LCD monitor that is pictured is a retro-recreation that I created from a SUN LCD screen from the 2000’s era, painted and badged to match the Indy. The machine also came with an external SCSI CDROM drive that did not work, and a complete set of CD Installation Media for Irix 6.5 including developer CD’s.
Configuration
This Indy has an R5000 processor running at 180 Mhz, which was the higher end version of Indy line. Various other Indy configurations were released with R4000, R4400, R4600 chips. The Indy is the first SGI machine to utilize the QED R5000 microprocessor, which offers significant advantages over the R4400 and R4600 it replaced. This box came configured with 256 Mbytes of RAM installed. It has the entry graphics subsystem that is 8bit 1024x756. While it has a standard VGA connector, it also has a 13w3 connector. Both ports show the same image, however.
All Indy models shipped with AUI/10BASE-T Ethernet and ISDN as standard equipment. The Ethernet ports are half-duplex only. Notably, I have seen the machine Kernal panic with some network gear that is configured to auto-negotiate.
Hard Drive Replacement
The functional Hard Drive was replaced with a new ZuluSCSI card.
I exclusively use ZuluSCSI RP2040 cards in my workstations. Initially, about half of my systems were equipped with SCSI2SD V6 cards, which worked great. However, during the pandemic, parts for those cards became nearly impossible to obtain. Toward the end of the pandemic, ZuluSCSI cards were introduced to the market, offering significant improvements.
One of the main enhancements is the use of standard files for disk images. This was a game changer, making it much easier to back up and share images.
Link to ZuluSCSI overview here
Photos of the SCSI2SD board mounted in the Indy Floppy Bay
Download the STL file for the SCSI2SD to Indy Floppy bay adaptor
Operating System - Irix 6.5 Installation
The machine came with a full set of OS Media on CD. As it also came with a SCSI CDROM drive, my first attempts to install the OS were using this device. I had little luck with this drive as read errors were common. I happen to own a Sun CDROM drive as well, so I set it to correct SCSI ID and gave it a try. It ended up working perfectly, and the OS and Developer CD installs went flawlessly.
Retro-Reimagined LCD Display
When i found my Indy, it came with a keyboard, mouse and CRT display. They were all in the SGI “Stone” motif. The CRT was in bad shape so I set it aside and started using one of my Sun LCD monitors with it. Sun monitors work well with workstations of this era.
After completing the job, I just didn’t think the Sun monitor did the Indy justice, but wasn’t sure exactly what to do about it. I went on to do a NeXTstation Color restoration and at the end of that I got the idea of doing a retro-recreation of a NeXT LCD Monitor using one of the Sun Monitors. The NeXT turned out really well, and so I decided that I would do the same for the Indy.
Obviously, the Indy was more difficult as it was a more complex color than black. I started poking around at the hardware store and found a base color that looked like a possibility.
In the end it turned out great! If you want to learn more about how I recreated something that never existed, check out the link below.
Final Thoughts
I originally bought the Indy because I wasn’t having any luck finding an original Indigo. I had the opportunity to use an Indigo at NASA back in the day and really loved that machine. I settled for an Indy (a much newer and faster machine). Once the Indy was up and running, I was amazed how current the Indy felt aside from the lower screen resolution. It’s fast, responsive, and even compiles code fast with the GCC Compiler. It feels the fastest of all the Unix machines I currently have in my collection. Amazing SGI didn’t make it in the end; I really feel like it could have challenged the PC dynasty.