Sorry for the late-ish response everybody, but the Forum Gods forgot to tell me there were new posts related to my post.
The system I purchased (on EBay, of course) came with a Debian Linux disk, and three big fat system manuals. (Two were different versions of the same book).
I also took pains to download every bit of info I could find on the system, which resulted in over 100 PDFs at last count.
I ALSO queried SGI for a service contract quote, just out of curiosity. The first quote they gave me was hysterical - over $44K! Once I explained to them that I was merely a poor schmuck who had rescued a derelict system from EBay, they gave me a 'much better' quote of only $4K.
If I wanted to have them send a guy out to give the system the once over, I would have to pay to fly him to Chicago, since they have no local office in the Midwest (!), then pay at least $500.00 for him to step into my door, and about that much per hour to inspect the system, minimum amount, 2 hrs. worth! (I'm presuming I wouldn't also have to get the guy laid, but who knows?)
The system itself was in decent shape, once I removed the crate, which weighed over 300 lbs all by itself. (It has a door with a built in steel ramp for unpacking and installation.) There were some dings and bruises, and some of the plastic port grills (that cover the power bays and such like) had been loosened and shattered.
The system had been in storage for about 3-4 years, and originated from Wichita State University, where it was called 'Jupiter'. I renamed it 'COLOSSUS', a fitting name, considering the size.
The first hurdle was getting it delivered. It required at least 8ft of overhead clearance, and the garage door to my workshop ('Utopia Planitia') has that and maybe a half an inch to spare. It also required a certain amount of floor space, front, back, and sides.
The first week it was supposed to be delivered, we had three blizzards, and I (eventually) had a death in the family, which resulted in over 3 weeks of re-schedulings and aborted delivery attempts by the freight company.
When the delivery guy finally showed up, he 'chickened out' and refused to delivery. (The crate was much too big and heavy at well over 2000 lbs, and HE was really old and frail. And his boss said he was a chronic complainer.)
Finally got the thing delivered when the weather cleared up, and after my family obligations were completed, and the freight company sent their best guy - a wiry old dude whom I dubbed the 'Rambo' of delivery guys. He slung that monster crate around as deftly as a really big carton of eggs, slid it into the shop, right into place, and drove off into the sunset! :laughing: (At one point we had a scary moment as he was using a pallet jack to roll it to the lift gate. He came so perilously close to the edge, I thought he'd dump it on myself and my son for sure! Doing the fatherly thing, I pushed my son out of the way, even though we were both supposed to 'walk our hands up the crate' as the driver lowered it, to make sure it didn't prematurely tip off the truck. Needless to say, I survived!)
I spent the next several weekends getting the crate open (sans the 'official uncrating instructions'), inspecting the system, contracting an electrician for the system's massive power requirements (and having him think I was either crazy or working with the NSA), and assessing what the system needed.
I also spent many nights reading documentations and working on my other project, the Beowulf Plateau.
Right now I'm shopping for that R-Brick replacement, and finagling the system into direct video output in addition to using a dumb terminal. I also have my eyes on a couple of other 'supercluster' machines, an SGI, and a (gasp!) Cray!