IRIX 6.5.20 is releasing with all new systems shipping from SGI worldwide manufacturing centers. The IRIX 6.5.20 release contains both maintenance and feature updates.
SGI Releases IRIX 6.5.20
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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IRIX 6.5.20 release contains both maintenance and feature updates – as with all other releases except 6.5.1
Wow – finally we have native mp3 support (that took a while) AND WRITEABLE UDF – gee thanks SGI, you are the best
SGI policy is to provide freely IRIX releases (maintenance only) always 18 months older than the latest. That also means that now, IRIX 6.5.17m will be available to anyone interested.
Another thing : if you open a _free_ Online developer program membership, then you may open a _free_ supportfolio account with _exactly_ the same information and TA-DA! you’ll be able to download IRIX 6.5.20m!
it is a WORKstation not a PLAYstation 😉
My husband works on a WORKstation, but he needs his music when he is programming, or he would go coo-coo.
It’s amazing that Irix 6.5 also runs on older SGI’s like the
Indy (approx. 1994). Think that’s a form of backward
compatibily that others could take as an example.
I’m not even mentioning the reliability of their OS…
Indy was released in 1993, I’m fairly sure.
IRIX 6.5 also runs on Indigo (even older), provided said Indigo has R4000 processor. The Indigo was released ~1990. With IRIX 6.5 you can actually compile some software on an Indigo, run it there, and then copy the binary to an Origin3900 and run it there with no modification. (Of course, the reverse is also possible :-)).
Ralph
Hum, Solaris doesn’t have “native” support for MP3, neither does HP-UX, nor Unicos, nor openVMS, tru64, heck not even *BSD. So clearly those OSs must be a silly POS, I mean come on no MP3 support, everyone knows that should be a priority in computing nowadays!!!! Right? I mean it is only the most scalable single image OS on the market, with a real file system (XFS), but who cares about that… no real OS would not support MP3 natively, right?
Hint: MP3 is a data file, and it only needs at least one program that supports it. Download XMMS and be done with it…. I have been listening to MP3s in Irix since the mid 90s (6.2 days, I think I even had early mpgplay running on 5.3). So if you do not know what you are talking about, please leave your condescending uninformed opinions to yourself.
You forget in your little troll that IRIX was always the “multimedia” Unix, not just a server OS. If Mp3 is distributed by the OS to the apps, each of these high end multimedia apps would be able to use it natively, without the need to convert the file to an OS-supported or app-supported sound format.
For Solaris or AIX might not be a need for mp3, but for IRIX it might very well be one. Depends what the SGI partners ask for.
Eugenia, why exactly my post was a troll?
I can go and type: “xmms my_audio_file_or_else_I_go_coo-coo.mp3”
Done, was that so hard? In fact you were able to do that for many years…. And if you want you can compile all your apps against the mp3 libs and whatnot,
I can do the same in solaris, BSD, heck even AIX, btw.
This is what Irix was offering in the mid 90’s with the 6.2 release:
http://www.sgi.com/tech/faq/audio/bundled.html
I think you can even point 4DWM and define the .mp3 mime type to whatever player you want, in case that you want simple point and click behavior…..
OS7 didn’t come with MP3 support. What’s to stop you downloading an app that plays MP3s? What’s to stop you getting XMMS or something similar for Irix? Why not start moaning that Windows Server 2003 doesn’t come with PHP support, or Linux doesn’t come with .Net support.
better get the lads to get this on the Origin3800 over here, nothing better then codeing and listening to MP3’s on a machine that cost a million Irish at the time(about 1.4million dollars)
Indeed rasche its amazing, IRIX 6.5.17 still runs on my Indigo2 250MHZ R4400 with 160MB RAM and 8GB HD, but slow as hell, atleast for gui stuff, like mozilla is SLOW
doh.
It works thats certain, OpenGL works pretty good, the demo’s included run very smooth, but overall its pretty slow, workable…but slowish
hmmmm, in the mid 90’s.
http://www.sgi.com/tech/faq/audio/bundled.html .THAT IS ALMOST A DECADE AGO – ARE YOU LIVING IN THE PAST.
AND if you want to refer to the Digital Media tools that come with a default install of IRIX – THEY ARE IN SERIOUS NEED T>L>C. The tools to which you refer are outdated – they are redundant.
Quicktime 4 support?? FLASH 5 support, released 2003 and it is dog slow, No UDF writeable until 6.5.20, readable only at 6.5.18. No general firewire PCI card support (NO DV Media Support). slapstick USB Support.
Obviously you have not had the challenge of creating “Multimedia” on the *USED_TO_BE_MULTIMEDIA_OS_IRIX”. Try creating a VCD
(Video CD) on IRIX, using all possible resources including freeware.sgi.com, DEJA.com. Lets just say MAC OS X – came to the rescue.
Reasonbly priced applications, current support for new “Multimedia” technologies…
As another example create a Quicktime movie on IRIX 6.5.16 and try play it on your PC/Mac. The probability of it actually working is very slim.
I love my Octane R12000, but to survive nowdays it is Mac OS X.
m2c
..and again we see the ugly face of I-run-linux-and-therefore-everything-else-is-crap mentality that makes everyone a sudden expert and makes them bash and troll against anything that isnt Linux. Did anyone of you actually read the information on the link, and read up on irix in general before making yourselfs look like morons over that mp3 thing ?
Geez, clearly SGI is not the tool for your job. So what? Big deal, use OS-X… There are things that Irix is good at, and there are things that it is not, nor was intended to be. But trashing Irix just because it could not manage MP3s (which it could as I explained before) was just sophomoric.
I can give you a ton of examples for with OS-X sucks when applied to my needs, and that I can fulfill with Irix. Does that mean that OS-X is a POS? nope… it is not the right tool for my job. I understand that and I move on…
> But trashing Irix just because it could not manage MP3s ??? HUH ?
just who is thrashing IRIX because it could not manage mp3.