March 5, 2026
From boot tunes to boot blues
OpenBSD on SGI: A Rollercoaster Story
Retro SGI love story: fans gush, then grieve as OpenBSD bows out
TLDR: OpenBSD’s adventure on SGI’s retro MIPS machines is over, capping a long, passionate effort by a tiny crew. Fans are split between joyful nostalgia for boot tunes and colorful cases, and sadness that support ended—seeing it as a reminder of how volunteer love keeps vintage tech alive.
The saga of getting OpenBSD (a security-focused Unix-like system) onto SGI’s colorful MIPS machines had readers swooning and side-eyeing. The thread split into two camps: the nostalgia tour and the skim gang. justin66 confessed, “That was a pretty epic story,” then dropped the mood bomb: “Sad that it’s discontinued.” Many piled on with admiration that so much was done by so few people, turning the devs into folk heroes.
pjmlp took the memory lane exit, gushing about trawling SGI docs for OpenGL (graphics), Inventor (3D toolkit), and even the OG C++ library notes, with bored-day deep dives into Irix, SGI’s house OS. Meanwhile, jokes flew about boot-up tunes (“from boot songs to swan songs”), teal-and-purple boxes, and the “Song and Dance machine” label becoming today’s meme. People drooled over the Indigo/Indy/Indigo2’s toy-like looks, then roasted the O2/Octane’s rounded tops for being anti-monitor, calling them “no-stack zones.”
Amid the laughs, a real debate flickered: were these just pretty boxes, or legendary workstations worth preserving? The vibe landed on gratitude—and a touch of heartbreak. The story is less about chips and code, more about feelings: blue boxes, MIPS dreams, sgistuff rabbit holes, and a bittersweet goodbye. Those boot jams still slap hard.
Key Points
- •BSD interest in the MIPS architecture dates back to the architecture’s early days, influencing multiple Unix variants.
- •MIPS’ RISC/os and Digital’s Ultrix (on VAX and MIPS-based DECstations) were BSD-derived Unix systems.
- •SGI’s iconic MIPS workstations—Indigo, Indy, and Indigo2—stood out for colorful cases and unique boot tunes.
- •In late 1996 and early 1997, SGI introduced the O2 (replacing Indy) and Octane (replacing Indigo2), both adopting PCI expansion.
- •The O2 included an internal CD-ROM and one short PCI slot; the Octane supported an optional PCI cardcage but required external SCSI CD-ROM drives.