[rescue] SGI Indigo 2: Subtle Differences

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Lionel Peterson said ...

> MIDI is a serial prtocol for sending information
> between musical devices, not a sound generator...

and Dave McGuire said ...

> Uhh, there's nothing even remotely MIDI-related here.
> The sound (in all of these machines) is a sample stored
> in the ROM.

and Gerhard Lenerz said ...

> there was at least one Indigo 2 version that could play
> different tunes. I'm not sure if it was R4K, R8K or R10K
> but in any case you should see some difference in the
> PROM settings (refer to 'nvram' within IRIX or 'printenv'
> within the command monitor). Some quick googling turned up
> the information that probably only R8K/R10K have different
> tunes they can play (the variable is called 'boottune').

and Curt Wilbar said ...

> Having had a stack of Teal Indigo 2 boxes... there are two
> different "chimes"... some of the Teal have newer ROMs
> (I think the units generally with 250MHZ processors) and
> have a chime like the Purple Indigo 2 boxes....
>
> However, they are definately different.... if the two
> sound the same but one sounds cheasier... maybe the Audio
> sub card is on it's way out on the "cheesier" unit.  If
> you find that to be the case, contact me as I have some
> tested good audio sub cards.

OK, OK.  I meant "MIDI" in the "cheap-sounding, computer-generated music"
sense, not in the literal "hook up your electronic saxophone here" sense.
The "cheesy" one sounds like the "music" one gets on some websites.  The
"piano" one sounds like a, well, a piano.

This is a teal R4400, so the "boottune" thing doesn't seem to be an issue.

The "piano" one is a 200 MHz R4400, but, since it has the little round
"EXtreme" badge on the drop-front door, maybe it's an earlier model than the
"cheesy" one, which is also an R4400/200.

In any case, absent anyone saying "yeah, the piano-sounding ones are
infamous for torialization failure" or somesuch, I think I'll use the good
parts of the "cheesy" on to build out the "piano" one and use it until an
R10K/250 or something comes along.

Has anyone some 72-pin, 60 ns, FPM, true-parity, 32 MB SIMMs they want to
sell cheap?

Thanks.

-Shel