New (old) SGI Indigo2

[Steven N. Hirsch]

Just picked up an Indigo2 at a swap meet.  It came with no drives 
installed and, as a consequence, no operating system.  I think it's 
operational since I get the nice SGI ba-ba-dink! from the speaker when 
powered up.

SGI makes what they're calling Irix 6.5.22m available for free download.  
It is in (3) tarballs containing a bunch of tardist files.  

First question is:

Is it possible to do a bare-metal install of Irix over the network using 
these packages?  SGI manages to do a complete dance around the issue of 
whether this release is a maintenance ONLY (designed to drop over a 
previously installed system) or whether it can do a complete fresh install 
onto a bare hard drive.  If it cannot, would someone with the 6.5 Base CD 
set be neighborly and contact me off-list?

Second question is:

The unit came with the EISA "Extreme" graphics adaptor. When I connect it 
to my shop monitor with a 13W3 --> HD15 cable I get absolutely no display. 
Are these boxes like the Suns and Alphas where they default (or can be 
made to default) to a serial console under initial conditions?  If so, any 
pointers to the required null-modem wiring?  (The unit has Apple-type 
8-pin mini-DIN serial ports).

Any sage advice appreciated!

Steve


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