3 ms·

If only SGI had made that darn laptop, we'd be rocking SGI Linux these days, and the fruity company would be a minor consideration to most nerds. Alas, 'twas n

by aa-jv 2y ago

If only SGI had made that darn laptop, we'd be rocking SGI Linux these days, and the fruity company would be a minor consideration to most nerds. Alas, 'twas not to be. SGI, you glorious bastard, why did you have to make that deal with the devil .. IMHO, the tech industry completely changed when nerds could by tiBooks, have an amazing Unix experience in a portable form, and still rip and play DVD's alongside the shell ..

rbanffy 2y ago
What SGI had in its favor was the great hardware. This is, more or less, the selling point of "the fruity company" today, at least for those who don't know they can open a terminal. For those who do, it's a competent Unix OS and certainly does the job. I never found IRIX great for servers either.
- aa-jv 2y ago
  As a huge fan of SGI (and MIPS, prior to their rise) I like to project SGI's wonderful hardware into the realm of laptops. It was a huge surprise that the Fruit Company were the ones to come out with really robust, affordable (at the time) Unix-based laptops .. all the issues with Irix would have become relatively irrelevant had SGI built the laptop and had their Linux team work on the case. Ah well, an alternative timeline I will visit when the technology to do so becomes more widely available. ;)
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    Well… in the end SGI licensed their secret graphics sauce to Nvidia (IIRC) and you can get Linux running on pretty much any x86 laptop. You can even run MaXX Desktop. Or FreeBSD for extra Unixness. I imagine what they’d look like today. Now sure how to translate their 90’s graphics language to the 2020’s though. Hard edges, rich textures, and colorful machines.
    - aa-jv 2y ago
      If there were ever a productive use of AI, reviving the SGI design aesthetic for the /r/cyberdeck crowd is it .. ;)

3 ms·

If only SGI had made that darn laptop, we'd be rocking SGI Linux these days, and the fruity company would be a minor consideration to most nerds. Alas, 'twas n

by aa-jv 2y ago

rbanffy 2y ago
What SGI had in its favor was the great hardware. This is, more or less, the selling point of "the fruity company" today, at least for those who don't know they can open a terminal. For those who do, it's a competent Unix OS and certainly does the job. I never found IRIX great for servers either.
- aa-jv 2y ago
  As a huge fan of SGI (and MIPS, prior to their rise) I like to project SGI's wonderful hardware into the realm of laptops. It was a huge surprise that the Fruit Company were the ones to come out with really robust, affordable (at the time) Unix-based laptops .. all the issues with Irix would have become relatively irrelevant had SGI built the laptop and had their Linux team work on the case. Ah well, an alternative timeline I will visit when the technology to do so becomes more widely available. ;)
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    Well… in the end SGI licensed their secret graphics sauce to Nvidia (IIRC) and you can get Linux running on pretty much any x86 laptop. You can even run MaXX Desktop. Or FreeBSD for extra Unixness. I imagine what they’d look like today. Now sure how to translate their 90’s graphics language to the 2020’s though. Hard edges, rich textures, and colorful machines.
    - aa-jv 2y ago
      If there were ever a productive use of AI, reviving the SGI design aesthetic for the /r/cyberdeck crowd is it .. ;)