SGI: Computer Graphics

That is both very interesting and nice to hear, I must say. Elastic Reality is also a very powerful Avid application, I believe it was more or less ‘bundled’ with Matador and/or Media Illusion .

i don't disagree! however, the real problem (as if!) is that standards that pervade the web, and content world are are moving targets. software that doesn't move with the 'progress' (tinkering is you ask me, mental masturbation turned loose on the world. all these would-be programmers making changes for changes sake) be comes 'obsolete'. it it better, but at what?

could a janitor do better?

I would hope that a janitor would have the brains to understand that when you "save as pdf" in Illustrator or PhotoSnot, that the average person does not want a 3" margin added to the right side of the page. Nor does the average person want to spend three hours hunting through the Internet trying to find a workaround. If I'd paid for that piece of shit I'd have been well and truly pissed.

Or even a janitor would understand that making the damned Fireflop actually work and be resposive to user inputs is more valuable than jacking off over anti-aliased fonts coming from a toolkit that's the least-optimized pile of crap outside of Mickeysoft.

Here's the janitor's addition to the matador discussion. Matador, even with a DOS interface running on non-current old crap, works just fine. (Gotta remember that janitors are only artists with their mops )

FOSS is terrible at this - it's as if the programmers were saying "it's free, so whats the problem with you needing to install 5 different toolkits with their ancillary support libraries, oh and by the way we've broken compatibility between major releases so you need to have 3 different versions of each library . . . Oh, and there's the KDE/GNOME/whatever else support daemons . . . but it's free, so what's the problem?"

That and the projects that don't list all the prerequisites. You'd think they'd realize that something such as "Linux 2.6.27 or better" is all but meaningless for a userland app.

OTOH, the willingness to shake things up can be a good thing - how many computer people complain about something on $PLATFORM that is an idiotic way of doing things, but it's been that way since 1992 and changing it would be difficult. The key is finding the golden mean between the two.

This discussion makes me wish I had downloaded Matador when it was available. I think I was still on dialup, though.

ah you noticed too ? we were over our headz, when Maria tried to export some vector work as PDF a few days ago





oh yeah! let's focus on quality again

it's not only computer people who are complaining, more often than not, upgrades of latest-better make no sense to us either

guys, please carry on such discussions (like the one you had about Office), it will only make things better.

strictly to the topic: Matador works fine on the o2, was used to push/pull stills/freeze frames to/from the art dept straight to on air spots/headlines etc..

Easiest way around it turned out to be installing a postscript printer and printing to file. Then we export to the antique useless SGI and run ps2pdf agaist the file.

Adobe can fry in one of the lower circles for Eternity. Those stupid, useless chimpanzees ...

^ dang! i mean thanks,

i wish i knew earlier, we ended up having to layout/paginate everything, messing with crosshairs, borders, margins and what not, just to export the frkn thing

We went through that garbage also. There was a way to restrict the output to the size of the artboard which we happened upon by accident but of course, when you get there by accident it's hard to find your way back again.

For future use, grab a generic Color PostScript print driver from Mickey (don't assume that a generic PostScript printer will do color, of course that would be too rational), install it, print to file and then ps2pdf on any *nix box will do the rest. Should be in nekoware.

I wanted to put ps2pdf on the Winnders box so the Assist could do everything locally but of course not. Simple commandline app but it needs an entire suburban housing development's worth of crap to work so wtf.

Download Distiller !

Piss off. Send it over to the Useful Red Box and get it done.

PhotoShop and Illustrator are twenty years old now and can't output correctly to pdf. If I did that kind of shit work I'd have starved to death decades ago.

I really feel sad that I can't run modern software on the Fuel

You know, I've actually been finding myself quite more productive under IRIX, without all the distractions of modern software. When I sit down to do something I'm thinking of, the tools are there,
they work, and they aren't bloated like modern versions of themselves on other platforms.

I just love how its so clean cut with IRIX, I know what software I have, and it does what its supposed to, and it doesn't get in my way. There are no gray areas, I'm not expecting it to do crap its just not going to
and chances are, if it doesn't do it, its probably something that's wastefully written, and I shouldn't be running it under such a beautiful streamlined OS anyway.

And let me say, IRIX sure does SHINE at what its really meant to do. Too bad more people didn't see that earlier. But on the other hand, I'm thankful that it hasn't been infected with modern crap, be it windows, mac, or FOSS. I just cant stand how open source software just try's to emulate the same shit that that our profit based enterprises turn out! There's no choice anymore, same applications on the same bad platforms, and no one willing to support an alternative direction because of financial constraints, and "bottom line" mentality.


Haha, for now I can dream that in 2013 or whatever, when SGI cuts support for MIPS/IRIX they release 6.5.30 source to all the nostalgic hobbyists, and IRIX can live!

Forget it. Until Americans quit jacking off over dreams of turning the poem Granny wrote that's been languishing in the attic for thirty years into an Olympic-sized pool stuffed with with greek statuary, it ain't gonna happen.

It's not really that common sense is rare. It's more that people would rather play with themselves than face reality. All this "intellectual property" crap is garbage. None of it is worth a nickel until you turn it into something people will pay to buy ... but fantasies die hard. Two years of Depression but the US still clings to the service economy myth while masturbating to the idea of moving upscale to white collar jobs. I'se gonna be impotent ! I'se gonna git me a MBA !

Fools.

Whoa, when hobbies collide! I happen to have a 914/6, which is what you're describing. Also have a 914 2.0, which uses a VW Type IV motor with a lot of massaging by Porsche. Since you brought it up...

In the mid 60s Porsche and VW were planning replacements for their entry-level models. Porsche was to turn a concept by Gugelot Design into a replacement for VW's Karmann Ghia (the later Type 34) and for Porsche's 912. The former would be fitted with a four cylinder VW engine while the Porsche model would receive the six cylinder 901. While Porsche and VW had done a lot of collaborative work like this on a handshake basis, VW chairman Heinrich Nordhoff passed away before production was started. His replacement was something of an outsider and decided to change the terms of the deal; between the increased costs and the changes in the global economy over the early 70s, the car was not as competitive as it should have been, price-wise. Which is unfortunate, because the 2.0 four banger is a lot of fun, and the 914/6 outperformed two of the three 911 variants available at the time...

Sorry guys, couldn't resist -- I'll take it somewhere else...

For the moment let's ignore any questions of "IRIX is going to be worth millions again someday" and concentrate on the liabilities of releasing the source.

First thing to keep in mind: releasing IRIX nets SGI nothing. Zip. Goodwill from hobbyists about something that you don't sell anymore and won't sell again isn't worth anything.

Second, what's going to happen if you release the source and someone thinks that you compromised their trade secrets/copyrights/etc. Yep - big lawsuit. Even if it's something stupid ("Hello, I'm the general counsel for SCO or it's successors, self-styled owner of UNIX. We noticed that you released source that looks very similar to our proprietary UNIX source. Let me draw your attention to the top of strcall.c. You will note the repeated use of #include, which we notice is also used in several files in our proprietary source code which we won't show you. Since #include doesn't come up in English very often, the only logical conclusion is that you have illegally misappropriated our confidential IP and trade secrets. Please send us $80 million.")
Yes, it's stupid. Yes, you'll probably get it dismissed. Yes, it'll cost you big bucks to get to that point. Imagine what would happen if it were another company with a valid concern? The only way to get around that is to have someone go line by line through IRIX and redact anything that is a problem. This too is expensive. Your shareholders/board/etc will ask why you are doing this. See point 1.

When you're done what will you have? See point one.

The only thing that could possibly work if SGI is amenable (though what do they have to gain?) would be for an organization to "buy" IRIX , inherit all the encumbrances, licenses and confidentiality clauses, take the liability on themselves and then sanitize it. Will this happen? Not likely, what does SGI leadership have to gain? What do they have to loose? As Hamei said, it's possible that someone's going to pay big bucks for SASH, and would you like to be answering the board's and shareholder's questions when it comes out that you released it open source? Safer to let it disappear, because the questions aren't nearly so scathing when the reply is "we seem to have lost the code you're interested in".

Issues how little of the IRIX source SGI actually owns aside, chances are it'd quickly turn into another we're-gonna-do-it-my-way open source cluster fuck.

SAQ - that's totally true. And Irix is only part of the entire ecosystem that's required. Even worsse, if it did get open-sourced the maroons that have ruined Linux would just ruin Irix as well. So what would be the point ?

On the other hand, if Franklin, Jefferson, Washington et al had thought this way, there'd be no USA today. If the US is ever going to get out of the pit it's dug for itself we've got to quit being ball-less snivelling little girls and grow up. All those concerns are a pile of crap. Intellectual property is a fantasy. It's what you hand over the counter to get the money that has value. "But we're intelligence workers !" Umm, no. You're a bunch of delusional fools playing with your sex organs.


More to the point, where were the concerned Board members while management was pissing away a billion dollar company ? Where were the concerned Board members when SGI was crushing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of salable goods ? Sales that could have gone into the stock holders' pockets ? "Board members" in the US are sooooo concerned about their "fiscal responsibilities" when that's convenient. Then they turn around and piss away millions of dollars in stockholder money when it suits their fancy. Carly Fiorina, Bill Agee, Eaton and Lutz, the list is a mile long. McKenna started to turn SGI around so the Board shitcanned him and put a twelve-year-old Bozo in charge. Smooth move, ex-lax.

Let's face facts : "Board members" should be burned at the stake. They are useless incompetent leeches who have driven the US into the gutter. It's about time they quit worrying about trivialities and started fearing for their lives.

Rather than release IRIX source, I wish they'd release diagnostics and the schematics of the hardware. It would make repairs and troubleshooting much easier. In the long run, if we want to keep these systems running, we will have to repair failed components because you will not be able to replace them any longer.

Haha, the IRIX source thing was mostly a joke. I figured it would grab a few responses about the legal/financial ramifications.

Isn't it every nekochanners dream that IRIX will somehow be placed back into an arena of continued development and love? Whatever that could look like, open source was a bad example.
Granted it IS something woefully impossible to wish upon.

Its pretty sad that our companies here have latched on to the idea that they "need" to milk "Intellectual Property" for all its worth; rather than come up with new and innovative products, and adapt to
the current marketplace. The way these old giants latch onto patents and copyrights, it really just stamps out new creative thinking, and small businesses. They've got their part of the dream, and they
want to stop anyone else from getting in. I mean didn't apple start in someone's garage? And now apple is the one to make sure someone now cant pull off what they did back then.

As much as we want it to, the rest of the world will never buy into our idealistic views regarding intellectual property, digital content, etc. We're the ones that based our economy around it. They'll probably just keep ripping off our stuff, while we squirm and whine.

I mean, I agree to someone having rights to something they created just as much as the next guy,but this goes much deeper than that. It has become a premise for allready bloated cash cows to continue
sticking it to consumers, rather than an artist/programmer protecting his work.

Good thing is that this is not a sustainable business model, so eventually I can hope that the companies with nothing to provide will be weeded out.

no, not really. whatever came together to produce what we enjoy is gone. to attempt a reanimation would be to birth some Frankenstein melding of open source, web apps, and cloud bull into the world.

the era of unix differentiation and excellent is gone. it's a 'crappy os' eat 'crappy os' running on x86 world now.

you can't go back.

boy do i miss the old minicomputer days of the 70's/80's

Yes, very well put.

I guess I contradicted my earlier post, touting the cleanliness of IRIX, new development would only serve to ruin that in all likelihood.

Computing for the masses dictates our age of unices has come and gone.

I'll keep enjoying what I've got though : )

I would like it if Rackable let someone mess with the kernel tho ... a company that size should be able to afford one person and there are still customers using Tezros and Origins. IBM did it with OS/2 for years. One guy was enough and he did a lot. Fixing firewire support, fixing fm, fixing the small nagging pain in the ass aspects of Irix would not cost that much. If they didn't value the SGI brand, then why did they buy it ?

One of the reasons SGI lost so many customers is that they treated their customers like dirt (aka cash cows.) It would not hurt to turn around that perception.

If that sounds naive, we just got a major account here - after two years of being cheated by other suppliers a major company came back to us because we told the truth and don't cheat people. Believe it or not, modern United States, the traditional values do have "business" value. (And I'm not talking about the pretense of having principles which you stomp on any time it's convenient, Mr Republican Party.)

Does anyone know if the Matador Reference Guide and Tutorial Guide PDFs are still available from somewhere? I checked the Internet Archive Wayback Machine and the Matador support page is still available, but unfortunately the links to the PDFs don't work.

Thanks in advance,
Goran