Thanks to Dave and Silke for their answers to my help message.
Indeed I had checked that the missing files were absent from my system, and
from the Irix 5.3 CD-rom. Finally I called Silicon Graphics (I should have
done that earlier !!!), and found out that all my stupid problems are
perfectly normal. Contrarily to what I had been told and believed, Indys
are not born with compilers, one has to buy them... I now have to convince
my director to buy what SGI calls IDO (nice name ;-).
Thanks again, and my apologies for my ignorance. I promise I'll
take an Irix course next year.
Nice Summer to all.
Pierre