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Comment by dreamcompiler

4 years ago

I wrote interactive 3D graphics programs in SGI IrisGL, the proprietary predecessor of OpenGL. At that time I considered it super easy because it was so high-level. Even so, as an experiment, I networked an Iris to a Lisp machine so I could write graphics code in Lisp and let the SGI machine render the output. Good times.

History tidbit: Jim Clark, the founder of SGI, invented the GPU which was what made SGI machines so fast at 3D.. Later he went on to found Netscape.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Clark

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dreamcompiler

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no-s  4 years ago

> History tidbit: Jim Clark, the founder of SGI, invented the GPU which was what made SGI machines so fast at 3D.

Even more trivial: When I moved to Silicon Valley I bought a used Porsche on a whim (my recruiter implied it was a proper consultant accessory in SV) and fixed it up a bit until it became my daily driver. When I researched the title I discovered Jim Clark was the original owner. So I’d like to credit Jim Clark for starting me on the road to speed up my commute.