From about 1995-98 I worked for an effects company, Tippett Studio, in Berkeley
CA. We did giant bugs for the film Starship Troopers using a range
of SGI boxes from a few years old to brand spanking new. At the time those machines,
running IRIX, where a totally different experience from running a typical PC:
They were fast and WAY STABLE, but all $10,000+. Working there felt like having
a ticket to the future, and you felt like a race car driver sitting behind one.
And then I departed Tippett Studio and bought a PC for a couple thousand bucks,
running Softimage on NT, and guess what? - The sucker was faster than
any SGI I had ever used, and almost as stable! Now I use Maya running on Linux
- and it is also faster than any SGI I have ever used, and just as
stable! Most animators I've talked to have had similar experiences - it's not
that they want it to be that way, it just is that way.
Now I'm sure SGI can cook-up a box that's more impressive than a typical PC
of today, but I'd have to sell my house in order to buy it, and I'd be stuck
with it for a decade, struggling to save up to buy a new one. I'll stick with
cheap PC's and Linux, thank you.
To say that SGI will always be a niche player is just
ridiculous in my book. People use what's fast and cheap - PERIOD. Fancy logos
and claims of superiority don't help people who just want to get the job done
which minimum damage to the pocket book.
I don't think owning an SGI can even get you laid any more, so why bother?
Best be the idiot that has learnt, than the genius who can't.
"So I'm not sure that Microsoft will ever lose the desktop OS monopoly."
Yeah, And GUI's will never gain acceptance, and SGI will allways dominate workstations, and we will never need more than 640k of ram, and Linux is only a hobbyist OS...
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From about 1995-98 I worked for an effects company, Tippett Studio, in Berkeley CA. We did giant bugs for the film Starship Troopers using a range of SGI boxes from a few years old to brand spanking new. At the time those machines, running IRIX, where a totally different experience from running a typical PC: They were fast and WAY STABLE, but all $10,000+. Working there felt like having a ticket to the future, and you felt like a race car driver sitting behind one.
And then I departed Tippett Studio and bought a PC for a couple thousand bucks, running Softimage on NT, and guess what? - The sucker was faster than any SGI I had ever used, and almost as stable! Now I use Maya running on Linux - and it is also faster than any SGI I have ever used, and just as stable! Most animators I've talked to have had similar experiences - it's not that they want it to be that way, it just is that way.
Now I'm sure SGI can cook-up a box that's more impressive than a typical PC of today, but I'd have to sell my house in order to buy it, and I'd be stuck with it for a decade, struggling to save up to buy a new one. I'll stick with cheap PC's and Linux, thank you.
To say that SGI will always be a niche player is just ridiculous in my book. People use what's fast and cheap - PERIOD. Fancy logos and claims of superiority don't help people who just want to get the job done which minimum damage to the pocket book.
I don't think owning an SGI can even get you laid any more, so why bother?
Best be the idiot that has learnt, than the genius who can't.
"So I'm not sure that Microsoft will ever lose the desktop OS monopoly." Yeah, And GUI's will never gain acceptance, and SGI will allways dominate workstations, and we will never need more than 640k of ram, and Linux is only a hobbyist OS...