8 May
2006
8 May
'06
8:55 p.m.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
I don't know - I could forgive them the Linux side of it I think, because they
still had the chance to produce some pretty cool software running on a
reasonably efficient OS (provided the bloated Linux desktop environments were
avoided, of course!)
But the NT move - to a completely different OS that isn't even remotely
UNIX-like, and known to not be the most efficient of systems (particularly
under load) never made any business sense at all to me. Plus of course the
fact that a company like SGI were supporting Microsoft lost them all respect I
think!
Those of us
here in Silicon Valley all knew it was coming - and only a matter
of time before SGI went bankrupt. But it is so maddening that a company who
made the such incredible contributions to graphics, and had such an
impressive intellectual property portfolio blew it all away... (Mostly on
developing hardware and software to support NT).
I think anyone remotely interested in SGI has been able to see this. It
started when they decided to try to be a Windows NT reseller, and was
completed when they decided to go into the Linux business. I only use them as a Hobbyist, and the high-end
Octanes are going for a very
reasonable amount right now, but I've avoided them as it's obvious the days
of IRIX getting updates are numbered (not to mention how hard it is to get
an update).
You're complaining about lack of OS updates on a classic computing list!? ;-)
It is a shame, I have two SGI O2's, one is the
slowest R5000 based model,
the other is a very nice R12000/270Mhz. I bought both over 3 years ago
before things got so bad. Even the incredibly slow O2 is one of the most
impressive computers I've ever seen.
Yeah, they did some pretty cool stuff back in the day. I still want to find an
O200 sometime as that was my first "serious" exposure to SGI (prior to that
I'd just been playing around with Indys) - but it seems that the O200 machines
were the black sheep of the family for some reason (at least, there don't seem
to ever be any available unlike the rest of SGI's range)
I'd much rather have a dual R12000 Octane than the
dual 750Mhz Sun Blade 1000
I got recently. However, the Sun has software availability and a company
that isn't on life support going for it.
Depends what you use it for, I suppose. If your users are known then there's
perhaps less of a case to require OS security patches - same if the machine's
not hooked directly up to the 'net. If you're a programmer and the OS does
what you need of it, there's not always a need to patch, either.
I should really approach SGI in the UK from a museum standing and see if
they've got anything they can throw our way before it's too late!
cheers
Jules