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I have an old PC with a program called atomTV, for viewing, and producing movies from molecular trajectory files. I only have a binary, and the platform it ran on was 64-bit MIPS architecture, where I was running IRIX. I have spoke with the creator, and he says he lost the source. My IRIX PC has died recently, but I still want to use this program. What can be done?

The files are xyz, dcd, pdb and that type of thing. Preferably, I would like to know some way to run the program in a modern Unix/Linux environment. I have access to all the old files from the OS if that matters.

When I tried to run the program in Linux, I got wrong ELF type errors.

Jeff Schaller
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j0h
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1 Answers1

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I think the best bet is for you to acquire another SGI machine, unfortunately. There are several open source MIPS emulators but their functionality does vary.

Available emulators include:

Update: Newer releases of MAME are now able to run certain releases of IRIX, emulating an Indy. Instructions are available on the IRIX Network Wiki.

mjturner
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  • Thank Mario and Luigi! –  Jun 26 '19 at 20:12
  • I guess things have come full circle now - I'm sure many 90s arcade games were designed on SGIs... :) – mjturner Jun 27 '19 at 08:34
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    They were designed on SGI, and they ran on MIPS. Says Wikipedia: "Historically, video game consoles such as the Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable used MIPS processors." I was using a router until last year which ran MIPS, and there must be millions of printers with MIPS CPUs still in use. –  Jun 28 '19 at 10:01