SGI Announces MIPS and IRIX End of Production

ramakant writes "Considering the recent news regarding their dismal financial situation, it should come as no surprise that SGI announced end of production for MIPS based hardware and the IRIX operating system. From the article: "SGI launched the MIPS/IRIX family of products in 1988. Since then, this technology has powered servers, workstations, and visualization systems used extensively in Manufacturing, Media, Science, Government/Defense, and Energy. After nearly two decades of leading the world in innovation and versatility, the MIPS IRIX products will end their general availability on December 29, 2006." IRIX has always been my favored OS, and I'll be sad to see it gone. Hopefully my O2 will survive for many years to come."

Comments

No wonder

[suv4x4]

I suspect this is how Apple's computer branch will end, but of course it's just my opinion, not a prediction (or trying to flame).

In mid 199x, I remember buying a PC Magazine which had review of lots of cool things, among with was the latest SGI machine (I think it was SGI Octane 2, but not sure, maybe it was the first one). It had some cool 3D shots, granted, but Glide and OpenGL already had a firm ground and DirectX was just becoming popular as well.

I was just a kid, but back then I honestly looked at the price and though "wow, that's kinda nice but why would I buy this overpriced proprietary machinery versus a simple PC?". Most 3D pro-s still wanted their Octane though, because of its status symbol and the cool factor (yea and maybe because it was somewhat better than the PC technoogy at the time).

I think the same for Apple computers now. Especially with Vista on the horizon (yea you can tell me how stupid Aero is, and I would say: yea it is, but users won't see it this way), I truly wonder who would buy this overpriced proprietary machine versus a simple PC?