[Tech_and_Music]

Once again, thanks for all the comments and the welcome!

Another vote for Ian, I've gotten quite a bit of stuff from him over the years and he's always been extremely professional, reliable, and friendly.

Oh, and welcome to the forums!

Ian definitely does look like the way to go! Unfortunately though, I just noticed (I'm once reading over fine details here) Ian is currently out of all R10K/12K O2s, so at present I wouldn't be able to buy one there. Here's hoping that in the meantime while I'll set money aside for the modded R12K 300MHz model, he'll get in some more parts to start taking orders for those again. It's still convenient to be able to pick out a specific set of specs and peripherals, and buy with some form of warranty, the knowledge that the seller will pack it well and has intimate knowledge of what they're selling, and the overall service (which so far, my impression of has been very positive by the mentions of Ian across SGI related sites and content online).

My first SGI was my Indy.  I'd say it makes a fine machine for your first SGI.  Yes it's slow, but quite well built.  It's easy to get into and all the hardware is very easy to see once you're inside.  I took mine with me when I went on that road-trip to Montana last year.

I'd say that a 195mhz O2 is a perfectly fine starter SGI. I wouldn't go with an Indy as while they have that oldschool pizzabox unix "cool" to them... they're SO MUCH SLOWER. An Octane would be notably faster, and much more upgradeable, but also a lot bigger, heftier, and just more you have to know. Plus if you're wanting to do SD video, the O2 is literally the machine MADE for that, unless you want to go Octane + video option boards which will all add up to quite a bit more money.

The Indy is definitely a cool system, but it would be perhaps a system I would try and find a cheaper model of later, as a secondary machine to the O2. Maybe getting an in-need-of-repair one to fix up would be fun.

I know that NIDEC Indy power supplies tend to go bad. I was just curious, what goes wrong on them? I'm not shy of solder work, either through hole or SMD, so getting an Indy with a dead NIDEC PSU on the cheap could be an interesting option. But I think I'm getting ahead of myself here