Sorry if this is not the right forum to post this in, but I figured this was obscure enough to post here.. I’m a bit new here and I mostly go around scouring the web from Roms/OS images and Bios/Firmware and this came up. unfortunately, I can't seem to open the image, even on my Ubuntu Desktop. If I’m correct about it being an EFS system, I’d have to start work on a driver for my desktop to read it. maybe someone here has the ability to open it. I was curious about it's contents, although I can probably just view them with a hex editor. Someone should be able to either open this image, or get some use out of it. When trying to open it, my Archive manager keeps giving a UTF-8 Error, so I’m not sure if that'll happen to you guys. I’d like to have more information for you guys but I have none at the moment. Please enjoy anyway. if this turns out to not be real, for some reason or another, I’ll remove this post. File: Irix-53.iso SHA1: 7a4be2fd7fea82e3c07ced4b63cab6020a11c9aa Link: http://www.filedropper.com/sgiirixos532723620
Hello! I'm sorry but this is totally unrelated... You'd better off to The Vitage Computer Forums at www.vintage-computer.com To use that image, which is an SGI's IRIX operating system disk image, you'd need something like Qemu-MIPS or GXemul. The filesystem is probably not compatible with any of the modern standards but, no, this isn't obscure at all. It's public domain by now. The only gaming-related relevance of IRIX could be that: 1. Nintendo 64 devkit was actually an SGI Indy with an additional card. 2. An SGI Origin supercomputer used to drive the GSCube By the way, you could find infos about IRIX just by googling it. There's a mile-long Wikipedia article about that.
Moved to the computer forum - this doesn't belong in rare gaming. If you don't have an SGI machine, there's no reason for you to have this. IRIX is definitely not public domain - it's a retired OS with no support now, but was closed source and licensed. It's just obsolete, and unlikely that SGI will care much about it now. https://web.archive.org/web/20130801110743/http://www.sgi.com/products/software/irix/eula.html
Sorry for not being clear. I meant that information about SGI IRIX is public domain stuff, not something known just by their employees. We are definitely not talking about betas or obscure software. SGI IRIX licenses and sources instead are, of course, closed and limited. By the way, it should be abandonware by now, as I guess that the old SGI itself is pretty dead, and it's been acquired by some other company, despite being using the same name. I doubt that someone lese bought the licenses, but I could be wrong. Totally different story: if you happen to get an IBM system such as an RS/6000 or an AS/400 with disks and/or tapes, hide everyting. IBM still holds strong on these things, and don't like them to be released around the net. EDIT I checked. Seems like SGI filed for chapter 11 and their remaining assets were bought by Rackable, which renamed itself SGI. Only a little part of SGI is alive and it's under a different name.
People need to stop thinking abandonware is a thing. SGI still have the legal right to the software - there's nothing that says just because they stop selling it, you can pirate it. So? Yes, that was years ago. They sold their assets, including the name AND their software (including IRIX) to Rackable, who became SGI. Hence SGI still exists and still own the copyright to IRIX, even if they're doing nothing with it. Just like Atari is really what was Infogrames... they're still Atari and still own the copyrights to old Atari games.
Saying that something is abandonware, of course, does not imply that we have the legal rights to do whatever we want with the software, but just that we've been 'granted' them by the company for various reasons. Without abandonware there would be no retrocomputing and retrogaming scene. I'd hate being called a pirate just because I downloaded MS-DOS 5.0 to keep my 386 alive, since it's damn hard to find good media for a reasonable price, and free software is not always the choice. If only every single company in the world had put up a system such as VMS's Hobbyist Program (you get free licenses limited to non-enterprise packages and standard VMS VAX/AXP/ia64 disk/tape images if you subscribe as a hobbyist) no one would now be arguing about this. By the way, I didn't mean to start a completely off-topic discussion about legal rights, and as I already stated, I meant a different thing in my original post. Sorry for any misunderstandings/trouble my posts may cause: not being a native speaker sometimes makes it hard to express complex thoughts in such a way that everyone understands them, and I clearly did it wrong. Let's just add the word 'informations' to my first post and consider this settled.
No trouble! Sure, you hit the nail on the head - abandonware is a really loose term where the company is non-contactable about legal use/support of software. It's a legal minefield! MS-DOS is still on Technet, so it's not really abandonware. Technically, nothing is... but we won't go there! heh Sometimes, the manufacturer will be willing to help. For example, Adobe will assist if you have a legacy copy of Photoshop and the activation server no longer works. Microsoft aren't so willing... they also took off all the products to do with the issues they had (I forget, Java or something) like Windows NT / 2000.
It may not be a thing set in stone for law but there are plenty of examples of "abandonware" I can come up with that aren't related to copyright law in the US. I'd wager you could apply them to software packages too. However I am not a lawyer.
Hi, BTW IRIX is an old OS but you still can buy support from SGI so it isn't abandonware.. and yes, you can mount EFS n Linux: http://www.nekochan.net/wiki/Mounting_IRIX_CDs_on_Non-IRIX_Systems
