SGI: Discussion

Photoshop is now 20 years old - and IRIX is also mentioned:





http://www.photoshop20anniversary.com/

1994, wow, and i'm still using it

Me, too! While I use the CS3 version on my workhorse Mac, I still look at Photoshop 3 as one of the best pieces of commercial software ever released. A terrific balance of power, performance, and reliability.

I agree, Jose. The addition of layers in v3 was really revolutionary. Every new version since then has merely added gradual refinement accompanied by massive code bloat. If v3 had multiple undos, I'd still be using it today. As it stands, I currently use v5.5 as newer versions don't offer any features that I need. I think most of the Adobe apps peaked in the late 90's: Photoshop, PageMaker/InDesign, FrameMaker, Acrobat, Premiere, After Effects - have any of them been improved on any fundamental level since 1999?

Heh. I was going to write that v5.5 is the second best version of Photoshop.

The biggest reason I use CS3 is compatibility with files that other people send to me, otherwise I'd be happy with older versions.

(Don't get me started on how much I like Aldus Freehand v3/v4 and still use the latter every now and then!)

especially the speed is nuts. already looking forward to see that running on the 1ghz r16k

It's damn snappy - no deep undo is awful though.

I got a copy of Photoshop 5.5 via some promotion on PC and never bothered to upgrade, and it hasn't bothered me. I've tried out all the newer versions and a lot of their features are really cool (perspective warp, especially) but not something I'd ever use.

It's quite nice on my 800 MHz R16k!

Another happy Photoshop IRIX user here, usually on dual R16Ks at 700 MHz. Like someone said, the only thing I more or less miss is multiple undo, as well as being able to map more than ~2 GB of memory as a swap/ “scratch” file (or whatever the limit was).

I see also a Solaris version mentioned, I never realized that. Did support end for that too with version 3.01?

They made a version of photoshop for almost every unix system in the 3.x era. If you look in the installer script you will even see that there was almost a version for NeXTSTEP but it was never completed/released.

It all started at version 2.5 which was the first version for IRIX, Solaris and Windows (previous versions of Photoshop were exclusive to the Macintosh).

UNIX systems enjoyed one more major release in 3.0, but by 4.0 the supported systems were pared down to just Windows/Macintosh. The UNIX Photoshop era lasted from November 1993 (IRIX/Solaris v2.5) until November 1996 (release of v4.0).

Interesting that a NeXT version wasn't released though - at the time, that should have seemed a more natural fit than Solaris!

Coincidentally, I came across this article today while searching for something completely unrelated to this thread:
Original link - http://www.macuser.com/huh/new_yorker_c ... cant_q.php
Link to some videos of the artist using Photoshop 3.0 - http://www.bobstaake.com/pixfix/films.shtml

It's been covered a little bit in a previous thread , but I've always thought that the story behind the core tech used to port the MacOS versions of Photoshop and Premiere to UNIX platforms was pretty interesting. Metrowerks, which purchased the core tech (aka Quorum Equal / Latitude), planned to use it to port its CodeWarrior IDE to NeXTSTEP and other UNIX platforms, and it was also the favored approach to early Rhapsody/MacOS X development before the Carbon API strategy matured.

Interesting 1997 interview with one of the Latitude principals at http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech ... index.html

Here are some photos of a boxed set of Photoshop 2.5.2 for Sun. Apparently it was originally sold to an Israeli company (the box contains a ton of old faxes and invoices). I'd love to install it on my SPARCstation but unfortunately it uses a flexLM license based on the system's hostid (making the registration number on the box more or less useless). Oh well, it's fun to flip through the manuals and the faxes between the buyer and the dealer - note the price on the last page! It's hard to imagine paying almost $2,000 for it, considering that most SPARCstations didn't even have 24-bit graphics back then.

sometimes I wonder whether Adobe will ever port PS to Linux in the future? Maybe not.....

Why? Corel just started shipping WINE with WP (back when they did that, what was it, WP9?)

I'd be very surprised if they did that. Adobe sells PS into the professional graphics market, and there really isn't significant customer demand for Linux workstations in that space. When Adobe made the SGI and Sun versions, there was a perceived market for systems with UNIX-levels of reliability in high end shops. It was the age of MacOS 7.x and Windows NT 3.x/4.x, which weren't always the most reliable system for production work. History suggests that there wasn't really that much of a market for Photoshop on *nix.

I must disagree on this.

Only thing that is holding Linux back from the professional market is the lack of professional software. I am sure, that with right software there would be plenty of users. The thing is that most people have been brainwashed to believe that if you don`t have workstation with an Apple logo on your desk, then you are somehow less pro. I personally see a huge market for cheap workstations with Linux installed. People who would buy them would be those who only care that the job gets done, not those that spend half day looking how beautiful their workstation is.

There would be a market for Photoshop on Linux , think of many of those post-production facilities who — after having used IRIX for so long — switched over to Linux , like D² ( Digital Domain ), Rhythm & Hues and ILM ( Industrial Light & Magic ), to name just a few. They all were early Linux users and I believe they still are. All since and right after IRIX (and to some extent, Solaris too) started to fade away... I know that the first two are big Linux -based Houdini users.

Say what you want about Linux , for all its quirks and faults, but it can be made to resemble IRIX more closely than anything else out there today. Especially with the help of the excellent XFS having been made open source, the excellent MaXX Desktop (for something quite visually reminiscent of the Indigo Magic 5Dwm ) and other additions.

That's a pretty big "thing."


For professional shops (aka "where the money is"), it's all about the workflow. There is *nix on the server side, but most of the enduser workflow revolves around PCs and Macs, and there isn't much of an economic reason for shops to migrate away from what they are already doing. Maintaining (or changing) the workflow is far, far more expensive than the cost of hardware.

It's also not about Apple. A lot of shops, including some of the largest, have been running their businesses on Windows boxes for a long time, and many people, including me, would argue that Adobe devotes significantly more attention to the Windows versions of the apps than the Apple versions. Want a new Adobe app? It'll come out on Windows long before it comes out on Apple.

I'm **not** saying that Linux can't do the job. I am saying that the business case for Adobe to invest in porting Photoshop to a third platform today (and supporting it tomorrow) isn't there. Most of Adobe's customers would probably scream bloody murder at the idea of Adobe investing resources to do that instead of focusing on the installed base.

Besides, I keep hearing that anything that can be done in Photoshop can be done in the Gimp, so the problem is already solved.