I don't remember if it was IRIX but from the SGI I worked on the one thing that left a lasting impression was the GUI. From what I remember it was a truly vecto

I don't remember if it was IRIX but from the SGI I worked on the one thing that left a lasting impression was the GUI. From what I remember it was a truly vector based UI where you could scale everything arbitrarily without ugly pixel artifacts. This, for me, was living in the future. I thought every system will be like that in a year or two. Also, while I did't witness it in person at that time my machine had this flashy mousepad that showed a impression of a video running in a window. That was outrageous. Admittedly the UI was a bit minimalist compared to flashy OS/2 but at least it had smooth lines compared to the 32x32 pixel icon charm.