SGI: Discussion

Using Unix makes perfect sense to me. Back then what other options did you have? Windows? Don't think so, compared to Irix, Windows was a joke and some (a lot?) still thinks that, even though I don't agree I sure can understand that sentiment.

I started out making computer generated graphics and 3Danimations back in the 80s on the Amiga, so I guess I'm quite old. So lusting after real-time 3D capable workstations is only natural for me, since it was basically the holy grail for me and many others. PCs back then was something you didn't even look at as a serious option for 3D work, same thing with Macs. I do admit I was quite the fanboy then, but for good reasons. Remembering the good laughs at people trying to convince you of the Macs so called graphical prowess at local graphic expos in the 80s and early 90s, but the PCs where even worse.

Of course I had heard about those almost mythical/legendary computers called Silicon Graphics back then, but never seen one in person. But then in 93/early 94 I think (maybe earlier, memory isn't that good any more, lol), I visited a friends friend (which is a dear friend of mine today, and the best 3D artist I know of) workplace and he used Softimage 3D on an Indigo, think it was using the Elan or XZ graphics, and when I saw that beautiful computer handling all those nurbs in realtime I was in heaven, and when he switched over to shaded mode I almost passed out. So, yeah, that did make one deep impression on me.

Eventually I end up working on PCs running windows, and I did some work infront of an Octane (which was awesome) in one of my jobs and had access to several Intergraph computers, but never owned one myself. So in the end, PC killed Amiga (well, maybe commodore and greed did that) and in the end SGI. Funny, isn't it? People in general doesn't care, and why should they, for most a computer is a computer no matter what drives it, as long as it does what it should, noone today gives a rats ass if it says Dell, HP, Mac (well, except Mac fanatics and fanboys) or SGI on the front.

So while todays computers are silly fast and basically can do anything faster than you can say compute, I can with a hindsight, using my old SGIs running Irix, say that some things where actually better in the past. Too bad I never actually had the funds to own one back then.

Sorry for the long rant, but maybe gives an insight to how I became a fan of Silicon graphics, and I'm sure there are many stories like that among the other members of this fine forum.

Funny, UNIX and VMS were as much about workstations as timesharing for me. I was getting exposed to Sun, DEC, HP, IBM and SGI in the late 1980s. I burrowed into UNIX and DEC history like a good larval stage, had actually used ASR33's and timeshared BASIC in middle school, Apple ][s in high school, but it was all about the "3M workstations" (1 MIPS, 1 Megabyte RAM, 1 Megapixel Display) that had become widespread in university settings... The latest VAX supermini was great for what it did, but with the first wave of the "killer micros" you could actually have a real, useful windowing system atop a multi-user, multi-tasking OS running on (or more likely under) your desk - so thanks, that VT220 looks very nice, but I'll take the Sun-3/60 w/ color framebuffer and 16" Trinitron!

Anyway I got to see Luxo Jr. and other bits of film at SIGGRAPH 1988, and that sortof set the tone - over the subsequent couple of years SGI was associated with all that in my mind because the SGI gear I occasionally saw was so much better at interactive 3D than anything else I could access...

According to Jim Clark (in his book "Netscape Time"):

"In 1983, Kipp Hickman singlehandedly ported the UNIX system to the computer we were using at SGI, so I'd always considered him responsible for getting us into the UNIX workstation business."

So yeah, in 1983 what version was DOS at, about 2.1? Not exactly a workstation-class operating system at that point...

The irony is that in 1983, Microsoft was probably one of the larger Unix software vendors.

Ah yes, Xenix, I remember it well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

You got to be %@#!&* kidding me!

Au contraire, from my beloved copy of "Understanding Unix, A Conceptual Guide":

One of the best known versions of UNIX is the XENIX operating system from Microsoft. Microsoft has heavily promoted and advertised XENIX as an "improved" version for commercial use on microcomputer systems. It was derived from UNIX Version 7 and later, System III. XENIX's extensions to standard UNIX include file locking, interprocess communication, and various performance modifications for microcomputers. XENIX has been ported to the Intel 8086, Zilog Z8000, and Motorola M68000 microprocessor families.

Microsoft licenses XENIX to microcomputer systems manufacturers, who offer it as part of their product line. A new vendor of UNIX-based systems can thus purchase a XENIX port and avoid using its own engineering personnel to adapt UNIX to its particular hardware. Altos, Intel, and Tandy are the best known hardware manufacturers offering XENIX ports to date. XENIX is also available for the Apple Lisa and IBM PC systems.

Paul Allen also runs/supports a group that maintains a TOPS-20 machine (more than one) because MS used many DECsystems in their early days.

I imagine that many of us are still able to remember after MS bought Hotmail and then had to go back to Sun because Windows wasn't capable of running it.

UNIX became big in the workstation world sort of by default. It was available cheap (comparatively), would do what the workstation vendors needed, and (most importantly) it boots fast.

Thanks for all the good points here. It's always interesting to hear about what perceptions were at the time, especially from those who were into Unix even back in the 80's. I appreciate that type of perspective, and it's something that I missed out on at the time. It sounds like the first experiences with SGI workstations were quite similar for many people.

Hotmail relied heavily on FreeBSD as well, for a while Microsoft was operating one of the largest FreeBSD server farms. Microsoft still sells lots of Office for OS X licenses, so technically they are still a pretty big unix software vendor

I read somewhere, probably it is an apocryphal rumor, that Microsoft initially offered Xenix not DOS to IBM. Now, the OS for the original PC being based on Unix would have been an interesting turn of events for an alternative reality...

SGI had very good integration, a nice user experience, and did something that very few were doing at the time (E&S did it, and several other companies (most of the biggies) popped in for a while and then back out, but few kept it up). For what IBM, HP and Sun was doing most of the time computers were pretty interchangeable. They also have the cool factor for people who remember the '90s and late '80s. From a equipment availability standpoint, one hypotheses could go as follows "SGIs often look different and "cooler" than other generic computers of the time, so they stand out and may be more likely to be picked up rather than tossed".

Add to that the idea of "critical user mass". Nekochan exists, there is a community, therefore people join it and contribute as they learn things. Sun used to have one, but it's falling apart (partially because the bar to entry is a bit higher - Solaris 11 requires newer/more expensive machines and Oracle doesn't necessarily push it to hobbyists anymore). DEC OSes also have a pretty strong community, but it's often not as pretty (PDP-11s have great support on several mailing lists for one).

Huh, I don't remember any advertisements anywhere. But back then I was truly sick of computers (even as I was pursuing a comp sci degree). As a kid I'd owned an Atari 800 (and loved it) but I didn't get the appeal of later computers (owned an Atari Falcon, didn't really like it or any of the Macintosh/68000 type computers), hated whatever Windows version existed back then. In college I dealt with monochrome terminals so no love there, either. I do remember hearing nothing but grief from friends dealing with BBSs, trying to slap together PCs and keep them alive dealing with incompatibilities with sound cards and software versions, the expense, it all sounded like something I didn't need to waste my time with. Then, after college, I got a job at Digital Domain...

Oh man, seeing the server room full of SGIs, every workstation was an Impact2, the first time I saw the desktop on one of those machines I knew I finally found a computer I liked. So, of course, they cost more than a sports car to own. But I got to work on them for years (on movies like "Apollo 13", "Titanic", "The 5th Element", etc.) and really got into that version of Unix (Irix) and that desktop (4dwm). Which of course I couldn't get near at home. And I heard more horror stories about getting early versions of Linux to run on PCs so I avoided that wave as well.

Until the last couple of years. I own an O2 and an Octane (though they are back-burnered at the moment) just because I want an SGI even though when I was using the O2 it was a bit too slow for me to tolerate as my main machine. But Linux (Ubuntu) finally came into its own and I've been using that but on weak-ass donor computers. Now, I have finally built a machine that I like, it's dual-boot, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04, 4-core, 16 gigs of memory, 4 hard drives, NVidia graphics card, and I will very soon put the Maxx Desktop on it so that I can convince myself that I'm sitting at an SGI workstation.

Finally!!!!! Jeez, what a long road that was to get to a computer I liked as much as my old Atari 800. I think the Atari also influenced my view of the SGI physically, I don't like simple boxy looking computers. The Impact2 was the squarest of the SGIs but the original Indigo, the O2, the Octane, they all had really cool case shapes and colors, very much (to my eye) in the same vibe as the Atari 800's casing. To that end my current PC is in a Thermaltake Level 10 GT case.

This may sound stupid but I get a good feeling just checking in on this site from time to time (and AtariAge, for that matter). That's how much I miss using SGI computers.