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unxmaalon Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables

Parts age into tools.

As time and attrition happens, those 30 VGA cables turn into 10, then 3, then 1. What was once a bag of unimportant parts labeled “VGA” is now a single tool with a specific use case and that is critical for solving certain narrow problems.

Don’t let anyone take your big box of tools.

unxmaalon Why MySpace fans want it back as relaunch hinted

Facebook (and the other “social media” platforms) are now Memetic Distribution Systems.

unxmaalon Ripgrep is faster than grep, ag, git grep, ucg, pt, sift (2016)

It ebbs and flows.

SGUG tried hard to port newer packages for IRIX for several years but hit a wall with ABI mismatches leading to GOT corruption. This prevented a lot of larger packages from working or even building.

I picked up the effort again after wondering if LLMs would help. I ran into the ABI problems pretty quickly. This time though, I had Claude use Ghidra to RE the IRIX runtime linker daemon, which gave the LLM enough to understand that the memory structures I’d been using in LLVM were all wrong. See https://github.com/unxmaal/mogrix/blob/main/rules/methods/ir... .

After cracking that mystery I was able to quickly get “impossible” packages building, like WebKit, QT5, and even small bits of Go and Rust.

I’m optimistic that we’ll see more useful applications built for this cool old OS.

unxmaalon Ripgrep is faster than grep, ag, git grep, ucg, pt, sift (2016)

I just got ripgrep ported to IRIX over the weekend.

It’s fast even on a 300mhz Octane.

unxmaalon MCP server that reduces Claude Code context consumption by 98%

I did this accidentally while porting Go to IRIX: https://github.com/unxmaal/mogrix/blob/main/tools/knowledge-...

unxmaalon DuckDB-PST: ultra-fast querying of MS PST files

“A DuckDB extension for efficiently reading data out of Microsoft PST files, with rich schemas for common MAPI types. It is fully integrated with DuckDB's filesystem allowing direct reads from local disk or object storage (with globbing). Use it to query PST files using plain SQL, or to import their data into DuckDB tables (or any other supported federated write).”

unxmaalon Microsoft Copilot AI Comes to LG TVs, and Can't Be Deleted

Yes. I just got a new LG C3 OLED. I skipped the guided setup, then disabled any “smart” video manipulations. I connected it to an Apple TV, made sure the ATV’s remote worked, and Velcroed the LG remote to the back of the TV. The TV works great and hasn’t yet nagged me for internet access.

unxmaalon Building a T1D smartwatch for my son from scratch

xDrip4iOS has recently updated its Apple Watch app to have screen complications that show near realtime blood glucose levels.

unxmaalon What did Unix fans learn from the end of Unix workstations?

The SGI Users Group is actively working on porting (relatively) current Linux software to IRIX.

SGUG-RSE includes over 2700 packages ported from Fedora Core 31 SRPMs.

https://github.com/sgidevnet/sgug-rse for all 3 of you with SGI machines here.

unxmaalon Detailed notes on creating a new kernel patch for IRIX

Do it!

These days you can get an enormous 300gb 15krpm LVD drive off eBay for less than $100.

Then use https://github.com/unxmaal/booterizer to install IRIX 6.5.30 in a half hour.

unxmaalon SPARCbook 3000ST: The coolest 90s laptop (2019)

SGUG has a nice Discord chat, and we're porting current FOSS to IRIX.

We've recently ported Netsurf latest, which gives IRIX a working modern browser, and have a mail client (CLAWS) and a Discord client (Adium).

Here's the ports: https://github.com/sgidevnet/sgug-rse And here's the main user group page: http://sgi.sh

unxmaalon Oldest Viable Laptop (2017)

You might check on https://forums.irix.cc/ .

I have an Origin 300 rackmount with upgraded Noctua fans, and it's quiet enough to not be a bother.