SGI: Computer Graphics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avid_Matador

cool!

I've never used Matador in production, but I have toyed around with it. It has a very unique interface - reminds me of 3D Studio for DOS. There's a full-size screenshot in my gallery section.

Runs fine on Fuel , by the way. There was a free download at one time, I think. Details in the sgi newsgroups archives.

I have Matador on one of my O2's and it works fine. Great paint program.

for some time you could get all of it on the softimage site. no lic tho iirc

Elastic Reality is the odd duck of the Avid apps.

It started as an Amiga app that then evolved into a Mac, then a Mac/Windows app, then a Mac/Windows/IRIX app. The functionality is exactly the same though the SGI version can load a LOT larger data sets (128MB of RAM was all a mac of the era could handle). UI wise, they are all pretty similar. I think I still have an old Mac copy.

I would love to see someone recreate Matador on a modern platform like OS X..

What makes OS X a "modern platform" ? And why would you want to recreate something from the 1870's on a "modern platform" if modernity is such an advantage ?

Just curious.

Nice, I'll bite, because this one is obvious.

What makes OS X a "modern platform" compared to IRIX is active development and support for hardware sold after 2006. The technical merits of any OS are up for debate - but the fact that IRIX doesn't run on any new hardware and probably never will return makes it no longer a "modern platform."

And that's why you'd recreate something on a "modern platform" - to take advantage of the speed and power of new hardware. Plus, while you were at it "recreating," the software would probably emerge from the "1870s" you speak of with modern features as well, possibly by accident (for example support for more modern container, compression, and interchange formats).

At any rate, Matador is an awesome app that I'd love to see stick around in some form or another.

the age of the platform is irrelevant, that fact that you can get modern software for it is.

I probably phrased that poorly. I'm wondering why anyone would want to "recreate" a DOS or Amiga program on a "modern" platform. It's an antique program in an antique paradigm. If modern is so great, then why long for an antique ? Modern is better, right ? Then make a modern program with all the wonderful advances we've seen in software over the past twenty years. I'm sure there must be some. Somewhere.


So the fact that it's actually NeXTStep, introduced in 1990, with pretty icons poured over the top, that has nothing to do with it. I see now. I believe Novell DOS 7 is actively developed and runs fine on new hardware, too. That makes it modern ? If I take a VW bug and slap a fibreglass Ferrari body on top, then it's a supercar ? Groovy, man, groovy.


Most likely correct. To which the answer has to be "Then who gives a rat's ass ?" I refer you to Eliyahu Goldratt, The Goal : "what's the effing point ?" Are we all mostly interested in playing with our peepees or is the hardware / software combination actually supposed to do something useful ? If we have people reminiscing over twenty year old software then obviously someone, somewhere has been missing the point for a long long time.

Or maybe that is the real point : they collect a lot of money which we happily hand over for the privilege of saying "My peepee is 4 ghz, yours is only 3.2 , ha ha ha !" That's so productive. I'm really glad we're an information and service society now.


You mean, something along the lines of multiple threads and processes, to take advantage of all these dual-core cpu's that are so popular now ? yeah, that'd be nice, wouldn't it ? There's only been common smp operating systems and hardware available for fifteen goddamned years . Maybe in another twenty the software idiots will actually get "modern" and take advantage of the "modern' hardware.

But I wouldn't bet on it.

What I would bet is that the useless software companies we have (yes, Adobe, you get to go to the front of the line) will continue to merrily produce absolute crap and the morons who happily buy it will continue to do so because hey now ! it's modern !

Software is shit. The people who produce that crap should be put to sleep.


Such as Fireflop, the "modern" browser that locks up the interface if you breathe hard, CS 4 "Creative Suite" with its wonderful modern interface and superlative programming that could bring Blue Gene to her knees but can't even save as pdf, Acrobat Reader for PORTABLE document format that is twelve versions outdated on anything but Winshit XP, Flash (sooo useful, improves my life immeasurably being forced to watch third-graders' artwork) ...

Yeah. Modern software. I feel so deprived having to run this lousy outdated Irix stuff ... Oh, wait ! I don't have to ! For a buck I can get any piece of software made -- but it's not worth the trouble to take it off the shelf because it's crap !

(I'm not entirely kidding. I have boxes full of this garbage that's not even worth the trouble to install. It's like buying an Andy Warhol poster of a soup can. Get it home, stick it on the wall, then what ? Whoopee. Junk, junk, more junk. )

Hey! I have a VW Beetle One day I'm going upgrade it with a Porsche 911 engine. Better upgrade the suspension too

I tried to move a Crimson in it once. That didn't fit, or at least not without removing a front seat (like a Mexican taxi )

Isn't that called a 914 ?


Should have seen me moving ... two electric tricycles piled ten feet high. Then the poor bastards had to carry a gdm90w11 up seven floors It died up there ... still there, I think. Probably won't come down until the next earthquake

I do have great memories of playing the quake port on my Onyx RE2 with performance that put my gaming PC at the time to shame.

One thing that always got me is the tank simulator, I can't remember if it was included with a full install of irix or off of one of the IndyZone disks. Shortly after I joined the army I got to use the tank simulator and it was identical to the sgi one. I always figured they had an old SGI Crimson behind the sceans driving it with a custom made cockpit to feel like a Abrams tank.

This thing is sweet... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE-Fge3gN9w&feature=search

Too bad its Weber/Vettel though.