Dunno. I worked (fortunately only) very briefly on one (Octane I _think_). Still remember the trashcan were flames shot out, when one was dragging a file on it. Cute the first three times. Other than that, I remember the bad flicker (in Europe 50Hz only!) of the (large, then) colour monitor and the noise. Oh, the noise. Fellow users tried to mitigate it by hiding it behind the door to the server room to little effect. I'm sure it's performance as graphics workstation were outstanding (which I had no use for then), but the ergonomics were just awful.
Have you used CRT monitors? Some of those could do over 120 Hz. Anything below 85 Hz was painful to look at for a longer period of time for most people.
Most beat it, e. g. the aesthetically much superior UI of the Canon Cat, which one can admire on the same website. Aside from that, many SGI computer cases look tacky, sort of like the N64 of the computer world; they also remind me a bit of Colani's case designs. Well, at least the guts were/are impressive.
I fucking love beige! Besides, there were many non-beige PCs on the market, especially outside of the US. And no SGI workstation ever had the coolness factor of something like the all-black, pyramid-styled Meadata Systems/Technologies "Snofru" 386 workstation from 1989 (which might've been just a Tradeshow Special).
Comparing IRIX 4DWM desktop to the Canon Cat is like saying you prefer the UI on your washing machine. Among workstations SGI was light years ahead - the engineering team had designers in it, and it shows.
> Comparing IRIX 4DWM desktop to the Canon Cat is like saying you prefer the UI on your washing machine.
Equation (as opposed to comparison) and preference are two very different things, friend. And yes, I'm one of those weirdos who prefers minimal, low-color, high-res, high-contrast, and angular/facetted (almost brutalist) GUIs and TUIs to, say, SGIs offerings. Like the Canon Cat's and many others. We'll both live.
> [...] the engineering team had designers in it, and it shows.
The GUI is not as grotten ugly to me as those from most modern offerings, or certain vintage offenders, e. g. early-to-mid Workbench, Windows XP (excluding the Classic Theme), I'll give you that. But it certainly doesn't knock me out of my socks.
Dunno. I worked (fortunately only) very briefly on one (Octane I _think_). Still remember the trashcan were flames shot out, when one was dragging a file on it. Cute the first three times. Other than that, I remember the bad flicker (in Europe 50Hz only!) of the (large, then) colour monitor and the noise. Oh, the noise. Fellow users tried to mitigate it by hiding it behind the door to the server room to little effect. I'm sure it's performance as graphics workstation were outstanding (which I had no use for then), but the ergonomics were just awful.
what do you mean “60Hz only”, I don’t recall touching anything before 2012 that had higher refresh rates in an office.
Heck, even now most business equipment (even the art calibrated ones) are 60Hz…
Have you used CRT monitors? Some of those could do over 120 Hz. Anything below 85 Hz was painful to look at for a longer period of time for most people.
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Most beat it, e. g. the aesthetically much superior UI of the Canon Cat, which one can admire on the same website. Aside from that, many SGI computer cases look tacky, sort of like the N64 of the computer world; they also remind me a bit of Colani's case designs. Well, at least the guts were/are impressive.
Weird comment. They stood out positively in a world where literally everything was beige.
I fucking love beige! Besides, there were many non-beige PCs on the market, especially outside of the US. And no SGI workstation ever had the coolness factor of something like the all-black, pyramid-styled Meadata Systems/Technologies "Snofru" 386 workstation from 1989 (which might've been just a Tradeshow Special).
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Comparing IRIX 4DWM desktop to the Canon Cat is like saying you prefer the UI on your washing machine. Among workstations SGI was light years ahead - the engineering team had designers in it, and it shows.
> Comparing IRIX 4DWM desktop to the Canon Cat is like saying you prefer the UI on your washing machine.
Equation (as opposed to comparison) and preference are two very different things, friend. And yes, I'm one of those weirdos who prefers minimal, low-color, high-res, high-contrast, and angular/facetted (almost brutalist) GUIs and TUIs to, say, SGIs offerings. Like the Canon Cat's and many others. We'll both live.
> [...] the engineering team had designers in it, and it shows.
The GUI is not as grotten ugly to me as those from most modern offerings, or certain vintage offenders, e. g. early-to-mid Workbench, Windows XP (excluding the Classic Theme), I'll give you that. But it certainly doesn't knock me out of my socks.
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Their cases were designed in those days. Today all computers look the same.
I mean the desktop on the monitor screen. Not the case.
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