[Irinikus]

Sometime in the hopefully distant future, all of our machines will break down to such a point that they will no longer be able to function and will thus be doomed to becoming display pieces!

At some point we are going to have to focus our efforts on coming up with a plan to fully understand and maintain a particular model of machine that's relatively simple and powerful enough to give a "good enough" IRIX experience. Machines such as the Octane I and II, Onyx2, Fuel and Tezro are extremely complex and will be almost impossible to maintain in the distant future.

My guess is that it will have to be a machine such as the Indigo2 or O2, as the Indy and IRIS Indigo machines are just not powerful enough to offer a truly respectable IRIX experience.

What are your thought's regarding this, as its a problem we'll have to face in the future.

[commodorejohn]

Eh, all things must pass sooner or later. I'll enjoy 'em while they're here.

[Raion]

I believe that unsaddling IRIX from the underlying hardware will become crucial to the OS being preserved.

For the hardware, we will have to document as much as we can and hope that their engineering holds out enough.

[Irinikus]

I think that gaining a grasp of the types of failures that would occur in a non-IMPACT Indigo 2 and how to fix them would be key here.

This type of SGI is particularly robust and I personally think that it would be the best candidate to develop a long term service strategy for. As it’s far more capable than an IRIS Indigo or an Indy and there’s not that much energy involved. (Less thermal dissipation, resulting in less thermal stress on the various components.)

And lastly, there are no ball grid arrays involved, as far as I’m aware. Ball grid arrays will certainly become problematic in the future.

[Raion]

The O2 has defective power supplies that thus far seem to not be replicated.

the Indigo2/IMPACT also has PSU issues, and again, you can't really substitute it. But I see your point. Shame they're impossibly fragile and still pretty slow as far as SGIs go.

I really think Octanes will last the longest, but Tezros too as long as you don't take it apart often.

[VPCII]

lmao, most of the machines in circulation now are already display pieces and are not even used on a regular basis. Face facts: they are not perfect, they are not permanent, and they will never be complete. That is the alluring aspect, that is what makes them keep going up in price.

[thunderbird32]

Unlikely. No one can even seem to sort out Neko/IRISware.

And its that reality, that someday none of these machines will run ever again,

This is sadly probably true.

that scares me away from buying anymore vintage computers.

For SGI systems (where there aren't that many, all things considered) I can see your point. That said, there are people still running PDPs and S100 systems (Altair/IMSAI/etc), so I think we've got a ways to go before that becomes a reality for most vintage computers. Especially ones with bigger userbases.