[Raion]

For 2022, i want to eventually get the finances of the site as such that I can offer those who cannot afford SGIs a user account instance on a set of modified and secured Origin servers. This will likely be an inexpensive way that will be "pay as you go" meaning you pay only when you need access/usage by the day/week/month. 

I have only begun bikeshedding on the software side, but I have gotten quotes and information on getting the necessary hardware hosted and used:

For 2-3 servers in a private quarter or half rack that are in driving distance, I'm unfortunately looking at between $400-600/month. This is more than me or any of the staff can afford to front on our own, that's more than my car insurance, electric bill and credit cards cost per month combined. I am within driving distance of NC, VA and MD datacenters within a half day, but there's not a lot of options there. At some point, if we start looking for a full rack, that's up to $1200/month, and it almost makes sense to rent an office at that price. 

With all of this in mind, I cannot start this up right off the bat, and I'm not expecting to turn a profit or break even. I'm prepared to put between $100-200 of my own money a month towards such a plan, though. So I'm not begging for someone else to pay for this. 

But the idea is: Make IRIX accessible. We may even be able to offer X forwarding for testing X apps, just be realistic. Even if I get suitable gigabit cards and ethernet, it's gonna be a slog. 

But this can't be accomplished by a home lab or anything, so that's off the table. In my area, both of the homes I have access to both have relatively slow upload speeds (My current home is only with satellite, which has horrific latency) and we lose power, regularly, especially in the winter and spring (the latter due to storms). 

So with that all in mind, I think this is the most cost-effective option. I'm gonna set a new patreon goal of $300/mo. if we can attract enough regular patrons for that, I will start buying hardware for the site and me and Kaigan and others will start looking for the best colocation options. Kaigan, being halfway across the US, may have cheaper options available and I have yet to talk it over with him.

The idea I had was a user shell that would cost somewhere between $0.50-1/day, with discounts to patrons, developers and community repair people such as Weblacky and Jan-Jaap who have written repair info on important systems. 

Unfortunately, emulation, virtualization etc. are off the table. They don't offer a cost-effective usage of our systems.