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Ian's...
The shipping box is reinforced with extra-strength brown tape on
all edges with the two main top and bottom lid seams triple-sealed.
Larger boxes are then extra-reinforced on all edges with fabric
gaffer tape, giving excellent damage resistance. The two main seams
(top and bottom) are also given an extra gaffer seal.
Every item inside a box is, if applicable, contained in an antistatic
bag, and then carefully wrapped in bubble wrap. All wrapped items are
then enclosed within a cushion of foam
chips and foam blocks. I position everything very carefully so
that damage is pretty much impossible, using foam blocks to prevent
unwanted movement of the packaging. Lastly, larger boxes have extra
strength 'gaffer' tape applied to all edges, and then red lettering
"Fragile!" tape is applied in key places to the outside surface of the
box - this prevents the edges of the other layers of tape from coming
loose during transit.
My packing may be considered a bit over the top by some, but it means the chances of an item I send being damaged in transit are very low indeed, plus of course I receive good feedback. My ethos is to try and utterly prevent any chance of damage, producing high buyer satisfaction/confidence.
Click on the images above for larger versions. They show how a typical large box looks after all the tape has been applied, in this case containing an Indigo2 which was sent to Holland. Other example images are accessible below within peoples' comments. For a detailed example with many pictures, read how I sent an Indigo2 and two 17" monitors to the University of Uruguay in South America.
Full details on my packaging methods and general shipping advice can be found on my posting advice page.
NB: by definition I often can't include feedback comments from people who collected in person, or those cases where I delivered in person, and most commercial companies don't tend to reply in any personal way when buying something. Suffice to say there are many other happy buyers out there besides those mentioned on these feedback pages. :) Lastly, I've been very much out of the loop since 2016 due to family matters, often away for long periods, so I've dealt with far fewer than people just in general. These issues are approaching their end now though, so barring force majeure I should be able to begin getting back into the swing of things around August, though it's going to take a long time to become as "current" about SGI stuff as I once was (it's been years since I was able to active on the forums). Anyway, please bare with me, and by the end of this year I should also be able at last to begin adding new content to my info site, aswell as correcting dead links, updating old articles, etc.
Disk sled for Indigo2 and RAM for O2 send to Germany:
Date: Monday, August 22, 2016 10:39 PM From: "Robert Rösner" <robert.roesner@me.com> Hello Ian ! I already received your package this morning - and I opened it now that I'm back home. It was a pleasure unbox it - so perfectly wrapped! :-) The drivesled -- condition like new and 4 memory modules for the O2!! Thank you very much - you made me very happy :-) I can't wait to install IRIX on my Indigo2 and to upgrade my O2! :-) All the best wishes to Scotland Yours, Robert
Front panel for Tezro sent to Germany:
Date: Friday, February 6, 2015 10:11 PM From: "Michael Zirbes" <zirbes.michael@gmx.de> Hey Ian. The Cover arrived today, great packaging, great part, now she looks perfect. Thank you so much :D And i somehow managed to get my V12 working... Very great day today :DDD [later...] Yes, sure, take the comments on your page if you want. See the picture attached (Sorry for mobile pic) Greetings Michael
Custom-mod R12K/300 O2 and extras sent to Greece:
Date: Monday, July 28, 2014 6:35 PM From: "riscknight" <riscknight4aga@gmail.com> Hello Ian; hope you're doing well. The O2 arrived inside one of your bulletproof boxes and it is *p e r f e c t !* I've known you for almost 4 years and you never stop to amaze me. You are a perfectionist and you take pride in every aspect of you job; I can assure you that people appreciate it more than you can imagine. I've had *really bad* experiences in the past with SGI computers and other sellers; you can see what I mean in the following photograph. To be honest with you, I wish that you were also selling vintage computers as well, besides SGI; youd make a lot of people happy. ... [IAN: I will be as soon as I can! I have lots of vintage items and a website, but so far not the time to set it all up] ... You're the only seller that I can trust when it comes to buying SGI stuff in general and you always deliver more than anyone could ask. It really felt good to know that I didn't have to worry if the O2 was going to arrive in one piece, if there were going to be any 'issues' with IRIX OS, or if the hard drive or the memory dimms will fail after some time... I didn't have to worry about a damn thing. The bulletproof box, the bubble wrap and the layers combined with the foam chips and your *knowledge* of packing everything safely, is by far the best guarantee that anyone can have that his computer can travel all over the world without any damage in any way whatsoever. This is how the O2 arrived initially in its box and the stages of unpacking it. No need for comments for this and the next photograph. The O2 removed from its box with the extra gifts included ( more on the extra gifts later ) Another shot of the O2 wrapped *perfectly* Removing the bubble wrap layers which *added even more protection* The O2 with the extra gifts, wrapped as well in bubble wrap. And the extra gifts unwrapped. All the above, equals to this picture that you first saw and *I truly adore!* Having a fully loaded with programs and perfect functional O2 again, was my main concern; and not just for programming, since I am hooked on SGI and its 'magic' for the reasons you know. Now thanks to you I have it. I am quite sure that after a couple of months I'll need more 'horsepower', so I will need an OCTANE / FUEL or both. Last but not least... If I was going to ask you about the last time when you bought something - a computer like I did from you for example - and someone gave you *for free anything important* with it, what would be your answer? I truly believe that I can't thank you enough for the extra custom fan you added to the O2. ... [IAN: I replaced the stock fan with an Arctic F8; much less noise, almost silent] ... The O2 camera - which other people sell for 35 or more GBP - the hard drive with the system disk backup, the sealed O2 owners guide & start here leaflet... the CD case with the SGI gifts and 14 CDs in total... even for the power cable. I wish I was living in Scotland, so I could shake your hand and talk to you, instead of writing those words to you right now. But I am quite sure that this time won't be long. I will need SGI computers; and I know the *right person* to buy them from. Be well, take care and well be in touch. THANK YOU IAN.
Custom 3930K-based PC build for use with After Effects and other image processing work, numerous parts obtained used, etc. to save massively on costs, collected in person by someone from England; system spec was:
Cooler Master HAF 932 case with rear Nanoxia Deep Silence (NDS) 140mm PWM fan Side panel fitted with 4x NDS 120mm PWM fans (detachable Y-cables for access) Front Bitfenix Spectre Pro 23cm exhaust fan (153cfm @ 29dBA) Thermaltake Toughpower XT Gold 1475W PSU ASUS P9X79 WS S2011 motherboard i7 3930K C2 CPU @ 4.7GHz (gives 13.66 for Cinebench 11.529) Corsair H100i CPU cooler with 4x NDS 120mm PWM fans GSkill TridentX 32GB DDR3/2400 RAM kit (4x8GB), set at 2133MHz CL10. NVIDIA Quadro K5000 primary GPU & CUDA acceleration in AE 2x GTX 580 1.5GB for extra CUDA power (total CUDA speed = 1.5X Titan Black) Startech 4-bay SAS/SATA 5.25" Enclosure (holds 4x 2.5" SAS/SATA) Samsung 840 250GB SSD (C-Drive) Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD (cache drive for AE) Samsung 830 64GB SSD (dedicated Windows paging file, reduces use of C-drive) 1TB Enterprise SATA (general data) 2x 2TB Enterprise SATA in RAID1 (archive/backup) AKASA AK-ICR-14 multi-card reader with USB3, in Startech 5.25" bay adapter LG 16X bluray rewriter (model BH16NS40) Windows7 64Bit Professional OEM IMAGES: Picture 1, Picture 2
Mark's Feedback comments:Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2014 9:29 PM From: "Mark Boyle" <markboyle063@gmail.com> Ian, I have done a few quick snaps [see above pics - Ian], I tried my best although I think this would benefit from some studio time if I had one!! Considering that this was done in my office with a 60W inspection lamp as the main light I think they came out OK.. I have taken some of the exterior, I have done an interior shot to highlight how well the whole thing is put together and the last picture I did for the hell of it!! ... As for feedback. After living with the machine for a while now I can only say that I am extremely happy with it. No problems with regards to stability at full speed; it manages all of the tasks that I can throw at it with ease. I have been doing quite a lot of scanning and processing of images recently and the computer gets through the largest drum scans that I do (2GB) with ease. Any adjustments that are made in Photoshop CS6 are visualised in real-time with no noticeable lag or pixellation before they are applied (I have never owned a computer that could manage this on files this size before). This seems to be a CPU intensive operation for the large part as there is very little GFX activity, although this does change markedly when touching up images as magnifications and translations of pixel data are involved and Photoshop does utilise OpenGL to accomplish this. With regards to image processing the machine is a dream to use, it makes me want to get a newer monitor!! Despite this the combination of my ColorEdge display and the Quadro K5000 allows me to visualise at least 95% plus of the Adobe RGB gamut which is quite remarkable, making adjustments to printing proofs far easier (let alone more accurate!!).. I have also been busy designing myself a new solid state power amplifier for my Hi-Fi system. As such I have been using the machine for circuit simulation using a program which uses GNU Octave as the backend for mathematical operations and simulations. A lot of this code seems to have been optimised for CUDA, especially the CuBLAS routines for performing linear algebra operations. This seems to make a noticeable difference to the speed of the circuit simulations that I am performing in order to get an idea of the overall performance of the amplifier that I am building, hopefully this approach will help me to iron out any difficulties that I may encounter with the circuits that I am testing before I actually put them together and measure them on the test bench.. To say that I am impressed would be an understatement. Even the boot time makes me smile each time that I switch the machine on! It must be well below ten seconds although I have not got around to measuring it.. I am also very impressed with the range and amount of storage that the computer has; the SSD's are great for performing everyday tasks on, and really help when assigned as scratch drives for photoshop (although with 32GB of RAM on board a scratch drive tends to be rather redundant!!!). Having super fast drives also vastly speeds up my import and editing times for pictures. Furthermore, the data drive and the two backup raid drives are proving invaluable; my digital camera relies upon an external hard drive and logic unit called an ImageBank (Hassleblad and Imacon terminology) which drives the digital back on what is essentially a film camera. I can back this up to the RAID drives every time I upload a set of images to make sure that the original Hassleblad fff raw files are kept safe should I ever need the originals, I can then offload them onto my shared network drive whenever I please. I also thought that I would find it difficult switching over to Windows for everything that I do; I was wrong. The array of software that you have installed on here has made it very easy to monitor things and keep things in check; I also find that the 64 bit version of Win 7 Professional does everything that I want and more. I can do everything that I used to do on the Mac with seeminly greater flexibility; in addition to this I can run all of my old UNIX/IRIX favourites (such as XFig, XMGrace, GNUPlot, R, LaTeX (TeTeX), and on and on...) using Cygwin which I have found to be far easier to get on with than the equivalent X11 set up on the Intel Macs. If I was to be really picky and attempt to find a down-side to this machine (and this is being really really picky) it would be heat generation (I expected this from such a monster of a machine anyway, lots of electronics, lots of Watts dissipated, lots of heat), but then again, I'm not a picky guy so I really don't care! I switch it off at night and there is no problem; then again the rise in temperature is a function of the fact that I have a relatively small office space which is incredibly well insulated. This will come in handy during the Winter months as I can leave the machine on and it will consume far less power than my oil heater (which is a big plus in the end really!!). Overall 11/10. Take care.. Mark :-)
Indy, keyboards and other related items to Greece (picture):
Date: Friday, December 13, 2013 12:27 PM From: "michael pastras" <1991michaelpastras@gmail.com> *Quick Message - will re-write another more extended e-mail soon!* :D :D :D :D You are the MOST AMAZING **by FAR** seller I have ever had the chance to know or meet!! :D :D :D The Indy is in Great Condition and Looks, Smells and Feels Awesome!!! :D Man, I have to tell you: I really felt like a little child unwrapping its presents on Christmas!!! It was an awesome feeling that reminded me of the good old times! :D I just saw the Smiley faces on the Gifts and found myself smiling like a little child!! (Obviously took some photos of them before unwrapping!!) The content of those Gifts of yours are ***One of the best Presents I have ever received!!*** (and I really mean it, cause I rarely receive gifts I really like (and never so many at once!!) -not that I receive many anyway...)!! Thank you!! Thank you!! Thank you!! :D :D Still smiling as I am writing this message! :D :D :D ... [two days later, 15/Dec] ... Hello Again! :D [snip] Will, however, send you some pictures after all the cleaning and placing is over to show you my computers (Vintage and New), and, obviously, the Crown Jewel of this Collection : The Just Received INDY! :D Alright, I will now Proceed to the Indy thing! :Still Smiling: :D :D *Chapter 1 - The Unboxing!!* I am telling you: It was EPIC!!! To Start, I really liked the Boxing! It had this nice color combination of Brown(Carton), Black(Tape) and Silver(Tape/Wrapping)... It Captured me from then! I saw the "Documents For Recipient" Section at the top of the Box, but didn't pay much notice then, cause I thought it would contain receipts/useless papers/etc... (:D Spoiler: Did open it later! :D) Next, I was really Eager to open it and See what was inside!!! So, used a key to cut the tape and open the contents (I had my keys in my pocket). I really regret having done that, because if I had opened it with a knife, the packaging would have been kept in MINT condition! (Ideal, if you plan to later Save it as a souvenir, which I did.) *The first thing that came out of the sea of these foam-ish white things (I don't know their name in either English or Greek...) was the Generic Keyboard! Actually, I could not see what was inside, because they were so many :D :D - it reminded me of these Playground plastic balls that form this sea and you can't really tell whether there is sth/sb hidden underneath :D So, I unboxed the keyboard and and there it goes : A very beautiful Black keyboard. (Actually this is the best looking PS/2 keyboard I have ever seen. Nice, clean and Black! :D) The Keyboard really reminded me of the later SGI keyboards (the ones with the "sgi" and not the "Silicon Graphics" logo!). Very Nice! So Far So Good! *While I was playing with the keyboard (making random button clicks), my brother, who was watching the whole unboxing, dipped his hand inside the box and a wide gray-ish oblect came out! To my surprise, it was an original, really old looking, nostalgia Silicon Graphics Keyboard! As you may imagine, while he was trying to understand what it was, a wide smile started to form in my face!! :D I then Said "Holly Shit! The SGI Keyboard!" And thought: "Somebody" was bluffing a couple of days ago, when he was assuring me that a generic PS/2 Keyboard would be the case! Sat down and took a good 360 look of it! Thank you for that!! :D :D :D It is a very nice gift for me! I do love Silicon Graphics and this keyboard brings up nostalgic childhood memories! (not because I ever owned it as a child, but it reminded me of the LOVED 90's :D :D) *Moving on!, I dipped my hand inside the box and it bumped to some funny feeling, but a bit heavy pieces! So, I grabbed one and lifted it up! :) I saw a QuestionMark followed by a Smiley face :)! It was then that I really started to Feel like a child unboxing its Christmas Gifts!! :D :D :D :D I have had a REALLY REALLY long time to feel so happy about simple (but Very important -just to me-) things! I mean, sometimes I act like a kid! (I like that :D). I can very easily get not impressed about some really important things/events/etc.., and, however, find myself acting like a child about silly/funny/small/special things! So, opened it and it was the Indy Cam!! :) I was trying to speak, but was so happy that the voice came distorted by the laughter and sounded really silly!! :) :) (hope I actually describe it in an understandable way....) I was really feeling good! First time I was getting hands on the Indy Cam! Discovered that the cover opens sideways, looked carefully at this beautiful "granite" color! 90ish! Took a big Sniff! (I tend to smell things when I get my hands on them for the first time!! :D) Smelled like 90s! :D *Next, Grabbed the Power Cable! Cool! *I Really wanted to open them one-by-one, but I also wanted to grab some pictures with all the Easter-Eggs and so, extracted all of those and took some, just to remember this very moment! :D *I can't really remember the order I opened the rest, but before the Gifts, I unboxed the Indy Itself!! It is a thing of beauty! :D :D I don't know where from to start talking about! :D It is in great cosmetic condition!! I really like its Color! It is Different from the Vault S! It is more complex! It has some nice tiny dark blue splats and some even smaller white ones!! Really special and beautiful feel! Turned it around and took a big sniff from the back of the PSU! I swear I could smell something between burned dust coming out of GPU heatsinks that fills the Lungs and ancient paper!! :D :D :D It was then that I started to notice all these ports on the Back of the Indy! So VASTLY expandable! Many ports! 8D I saw the 3-D Glasses port and couldn't believe my very eyes!! In an era when not all computers came with color, SGI was already in the stereo business?? Holly Shit!! The 13w3 port is nice, as well! What is the max resolution the Indy Supports? Man, thanks a lot! There must be at least one extra board in there!! :D :D I see Speakers out, Mic out, Line-In and Line-Out Composite and S-Video!! Amazing!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!! :D :D The Indy Camera Port is very Strange! Very beautiful, magic Stuff!! I can see a Network Port that is unknown to me... A 15-pin one... Anyway! (Not that I would use it but do you have a story behind it?) :) I Really Like this Computer! Thanks for making this unboxing a unique experience!! :D :D :D While other people go buy PS4s for Christmas, I honestly think I have the best experience with this Indy Computer AND Easter-Eggs!! :D :D *So, I then unpacked the Predictable Stuff, like the SCSI Cable, and the CDs! I can't believe you took the time to write so many CDs!! Thanks a lot!! I will soon get a CDRom in the Vault S and use these disks!! Thanks!!! :D *I also adored the Microphone you included!! So nice! I "installed" it at the Indy Cam's latch! Very nice! *All Okay with the SCSI Cable and Terminator! *The last things I opened, were the most mystery ones! They turned out to be the Indy's Owner's guide and the leaflets of the Indigo family and a magazine etc...!! :D Very nice additions to the whole thing!! :D Pure Epicness!! I will read them in depth very soon! I really like reading such stuff in bed before sleeping!! They tend to give me sweet dreams! :D However, I saw some very nice Silicon Graphics Headphones in one of the Leaflets! Do you happen to have a pair for sale?? *Ah! Almost forgot! The Backup HDD! Thanks for that, as well!! :D *P.S. Thanks for the 13w3 to VGA Adapter, as Well!! :D :D To sum up, this was one of the highlights of the year 2013! :) Really Nice Experience!! :) 10 out of 10!! I even recovered the shape of the mystery boxes after the unboxing was over, and kept then in a safe place along with the Big Box, just to keep those memories! :D Thanks for the Xmas Card as well! I extracted it before saving the Box! Very warm and nice! :D :D *Chapter 2 - My First Contact with the OS!* And yes!! Despite the mess, I found the Space to connect the Indy with a display and use all the embedded hardware for Serious Fun! :D I have only Spent very few time messing around with it, so far, but I will go a lot more in depth the following days! So! This is a FAST Indy! Very Very Fast!! It boots up a lot Faster than the recently obtained O2! I also like its Startup Chime! :D :D The Accounts are Awesome! I logged in to my account! What a Crowded Desktop!! :D :D So many Apps, So many Possibilities! I Couldn't believe it! It seems like a playground!!! :D :D I really Loved the Icons Setup! It reminds me of my own Icon Setups, back in the High School Era! OverPopulated Desktops foreveeeeer!! :D Although my current Desktop Setup is quite different, I ain't gonna change it because I love it! :) Read your ReadMe file! :D Nice! Useful Information!! :D I visited the http://localhost and I will very soon go ahead and navigate through all these links!! :D Did you make all that?? :D :D I also like the SoftWindows Emulator!! The Indy Runs Windows 95 in emulation a LOT Faster than most Windows Computers were running it natively back then and Even faster my PowerMac G4 Emulates it!! Amazing!!! :D :D :D This is a Very Fast Indy!! Also, visited the guest account and run some Demos!! Totally Cool!! Like the color Scheme of the windows the Guest Account has! Also checked the hinv Command!! I knew there was something extra installed in this Computer! :D Is the Iris Audio Processor an extra card? :D Thanks for all the Additions!! They really resulted to a MUCH better experience!! :D :D :D But I couldn't shut down without trying the Indy Cam!! :D :D It was a Blast! :D :D What a Nice and Vintage look the Video Coming out of it had!!! Excellent! Very Nice Quality and a Vintage tint, I cannot describe with words!! :D And there is TONS and TONS of Stuff Installed, not to mention these Insane Extras located in the CDs!!! Thanks a lot!! Overall Satisfaction : 100% :D :D Okay! That's it for now!! :D :D Thanks a lot, and please know that I really Appreciate this and I may be able return the Favor some time next year! :) ... Hope this feedback brought you a little bit of happiness and courage to continue!! :D Thanks again!! :) You are the best!! *by Far!* Cheers, and have a nice Sunday!! Michael.
36GB 15K SCA with full OS installation for O2 to Canada:
Date: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 3:00 PM From: "Richard Powell" <rbpowell.tpg@gmail.com> Hi Ian, This weekend I installed the disk with your new system in my O2+ and it is working perfectly after the initial glitch you had forewarned about: OSLoadFilename was blank and had to be initialized using setenv. I must say I'm amazed at the number and variety of software packages you include in your builds, both installed and as "gifts". I've always admired SGI's machines and software and this will mean a new extended life for my O2+. I bought it directly from SGI Canada just around the time they stopped shipping new systems. Thanks again for your system package, which I would recommend to anyone with an SGI system. Best Regards, Richard
Parts for IRIS Indigo sent to Russia:
Date: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:21 AM From: "Alexey Dozhdalev" <adozhdalev@gmail.com> Hi Ian! I picked up my parcel yesterday! Everything works just perfectly! Thank you VERY much for extra memory! It works flawlessly despite this message about memory controller update. Disks are in readable condition. ... Badge is just beautiful :) Thank you very much! Regards. Alexey.
Parts for Indigo2 send to Sweden:
Date: Fri, June 21, 2013 4:57 pm From: "Ella Olsson" <eon99001@hotmail.com> Hi Ian, I picked up the goods this week and I am very happy with it :) It was extremely well packaged. Thanks! ... Regards Ella
Custom CPU-mod R12K/300 O2 system sent to Germany:
Date: Friday, February 22, 2013 5:57 PM From: "Thomas Einsporn" <te@nexttuesday.de> Hi Ian, Wow! I'm impressed. From packaging to OS setup - everything is perfect and way beyond what I was expecting. It took me a while to unwrap the parcel and boy, that is the most thoughtfull packaging I have ever seen. System works fine and I appreciate the README very much. Wasn't expecting the CD case(!) and the backup disk(!!) either. I can see that you take this seriously and will definately nag you again if I need something some more toys :P Thank you so much! > PS. Can I include your comments on my feedack page please? By all means quote me. You rock! Cheers, Thomas
Mint-condition later-type SGI granite mouse sent to Greece:Date: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 4:32 PM From: "michael pastras" <pastrasebay@gmail.com> Hi Ian! I am glad to inform you that i received the mouse yesterday! All OK! It is in a great cosmetic and working condition! Thank you very much man! Cheers, Michael.
[earlier feedback comments dating from 2010 to 2012]
[earlier feedback comments dating from 2008 to 2009]
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