[mamorim01]

They only other thing we have regularly done is use ftp to move files one at a time to the machines that need them. But that is usually only 3 files. To back up all of the work requires countless files and directories.

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I know I could tar -cf the directory to an archive file, then ftp it over that way, but I was hoping to be able to use wget, as it seems very powerful and flexible and would likely serve our needs very well. If I could get it to work on both ends.

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I am unfortunately not able to provide advice regarding installing/compiling wget under Irix, but have you tried mget and mput from within ftp? This would allow you to send multiple batches of files using wildcards (ie, mget *.tgz), the main drawback being it is not recursive (in other words, it will not copy subdirectories). Apologies if that is an obvious suggestion but I noticed you mentioned ftp'ing files one at a time, so this might be a workaround. Note that if you try to mget or mput files you may be prompted to confirm each file before the transfer begins, this setting can be overridden through the prompt command.

Having an openssh server installed on the O2 side, as suggested by dexter1, would allow you to recursively transfer files from the Mac using scp. This is a fairly powerful tool which you can use from within the command line, or even under a GUI such as Transmit, depending on your preferences. I am using a similar arrangement to upload files to a set of raspberry pi's (each one running openssh server) and it works wonders.