the first SGI you ever used?

[corn]

In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have some activity
on this group again, I ask the following question:

What was the first SGI you ever used?

For me it was a Challenge XL with four R4400 250 MHz CPUs, running IRIX 5.3.
This was back in 1994, when this was a pretty decent setup. I ran the quantum
chemistry program GAMESS and an old FORTRAN IV program written for the IBM
360. The latter program also had a section converted over from ALGOL to
FORTRAN, which I think first ran on a Burroughs 5500.

The scary thing is I still run both programs...

The Challenge never had the CPUs upgraded, though it did live to see an
upgrade to IRIX 6.5 and the latest compilers. It eventually was replaced
by a system that grew to became a 16 CPU Origin 2000 (R10000). That system
was overloaded from day one with all the users, and ended up with a RAID
array and plenty of RAM to spare.

--
sgi - Silicon Graphics Inc., as opposed to Swine Genetics International of
Cambridge, Iowa
-- http://web.mit.edu/course/10/10.610/gamess/readme.unix

[Rick Jones]

Post by corn
In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have
What was the first SGI you ever used?

I have a recollection that somewhere between the summer of 1984 and
fall of 1987 I used an SGI system with Moto 68Ks (?) and an E&S
display - ran an F15 flight simulator and managed to somehow get it to
zoom magically to 115K feet altitude :)

rick jones

[Chance Hooper]

Post by Rick Jones

Post by corn
In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have
What was the first SGI you ever used?

I have a recollection that somewhere between the summer of 1984 and
fall of 1987 I used an SGI system with Moto 68Ks (?) and an E&S
display - ran an F15 flight simulator and managed to somehow get it to
zoom magically to 115K feet altitude :)
rick jones
--
I don't interest myself in "why." I think more often in terms of
"when," sometimes "where;" always "how much."  - Joubert
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

For me it was an SGI Indy R5k - I loved that little blue box - coding
in C for an engineering company. I also spent twenty minutes playing
with an Indigo at Uni, but most of my chemistry software ran on Suns.
That Indy prompted me to buy an Indigo R4400 Elan which I still have,
along with an O2, a Visual Worksation 320 and, hopefully one day an
Onyx 2 or a Crimson Reality Engine.... I still love Irix and SGI
hardware, but nowadays, I am running a set of PowerMac G5s running
headless as a single workflow - faster, but somehow not as exciting,
although I do love my Apple boxes!

[DoN. Nichols]

Post by Chance Hooper

Post by corn
In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have
What was the first SGI you ever used?

[ ... ]

Post by Chance Hooper
For me it was an SGI Indy R5k - I loved that little blue box - coding
in C for an engineering company. I also spent twenty minutes playing

In my case, while I had to re-install the OS on some Indigo 2
and similar vintage machines at work, I was only able to *use* on my
desktop Sun machines, and the Solbourne 4000 DX (also SPARC based).

But, I now have a free Indigo 2 (R8000 IIRC) which I use from
time to time, depending on my needs. To be honest, most of my work (at
home now, as I am retired) is done on Suns -- currently SS-5 up through
Sun Blade 2000, plus an Intel-based Mac Mini for some things (including
income tax software. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

[Toni Grass]

Post by corn
In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have some
What was the first SGI you ever used?

[....]

Octane 195 MHz. Somebody wanted to get rid of this heavy stuff and I was
curious how SGI/ IRIX feels, so I bought it for little money. Several
months later I had 2 or 3 Octanes, an Indy, Indigo2...
It's not for business just for fun (and much cooler than SUN) ;-)

btw: this post comes from a Tezro :-)

Toni

[legalize+ (Richard)]

[Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]

Post by Toni Grass
btw: this post comes from a Tezro :-)

I'd like to get a Tezro and a Fuel to round out my collection.
Unfortunately they're still too pricey for anyone less than the
fanatical hobbyist :-). Sometimes you get machines for free and
that's always the best price, but until then I generally use ebay and
these machines (Fuel/Tezro) still seem to be in daily use by the
marketplace as they are still pricey compared to earlier SGI machines.

[Toni Grass]

Post by legalize+ (Richard)
[Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]

Post by Toni Grass
btw: this post comes from a Tezro :-)

I'd like to get a Tezro and a Fuel to round out my collection.
Unfortunately they're still too pricey for anyone less than the
fanatical hobbyist :-).

[...]

I badly wanted a Tezro, so I bought one. Yes it was not really cheap -
and somehow stupid, considering the 3 Octanes (one with 2x600MHz/ 8GB
and V10)...

Toni

[Paul@Tcl3D]

Post by corn
What was the first SGI you ever used?

I started using SGI's in 1986 with an IRIS 3130 doing computer
animation. It had no windowing system, but a nice Dials & Buttons box.

Since then I have been working with nearly all kinds of SGI's:
Personal IRIS, Indigo's, Indy, O2, Onyx and Octane.

I have two Indigo2 at home, which I switch on from time to time -
enjoying the good, old times.

Paul

[legalize+ (Richard)]

[Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]

Post by corn
What was the first SGI you ever used?

Some flavor of Personal Iris in 1988.

[Benjamin Gawert]

Post by corn
In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have some activity
What was the first SGI you ever used?

Indigo R3000 Entry, 8MB, IRIX 4.0.5F. Bought cheaply (well, at least for
that time around 1995/1996) because the RTC battery was empty and the
system only showed a "Can't set TOD clock" after switching on. The
Indigo came with mouse, keyboard, a SGI 16" dual frequency CRT monitor,
and a truckload of CDs with various IRIX 4.0.1 and 4.0.5F releases,
demos and other software.

I asked SGI about a replacement battery and they wanted to sell me a new
mobo for around 3x the price complete Indigo R4ks were going for, so I
bought a standard lithium battery and revived the machine, and had lots
of fun discovering what was on the CDs (and that half of them didn't run
on my lowly entry level gfx).

Sometimes I feel sorry that later I gave this machine away.

Benjamin

[Erik Baigar]

Post by corn
In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have some activity
What was the first SGI you ever used?

Iris Indigo 4D/35 - I got this for free from the theoretical physics
dept.
in 1998. There it has been mail-server with the funny name "nirvana" - I
continued
to use this machine running 5.3 until late 2001 and still have it.

Currently using I2-Impact-R10000 and Ocane.

Erik.

[josehill]

Post by corn
In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have some activity
What was the first SGI you ever used?

Three systems at once:

Power Challenge L, 4 x 195 MHz R10000, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB Challenge RAID.
A huge system for the time! Used as a bioinformatics compute server.

Challenge S, 180 MHz R5000, 256 MB RAM, WebForce bundle. Used as a
corporate intranet server.

Indy, 180 MHz R5000, 256 MB RAM, WebForce bundle, Adobe apps. My
workstation. :-)

[David]

We had the Motorola 68k based 3000 series; big as a washing machine.
Almost a month later our order for 34 4000's came in. (It was a gubmnt
contract thing.) This was in the latter 80's.

Post by corn
In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have some activity
What was the first SGI you ever used?
For me it was a Challenge XL with four R4400 250 MHz CPUs, running IRIX 5.3.
This was back in 1994, when this was a pretty decent setup. I ran the quantum
chemistry program GAMESS and an old FORTRAN IV program written for the IBM
360. The latter program also had a section converted over from ALGOL to
FORTRAN, which I think first ran on a Burroughs 5500.
The scary thing is I still run both programs...
The Challenge never had the CPUs upgraded, though it did live to see an
upgrade to IRIX 6.5 and the latest compilers. It eventually was replaced
by a system that grew to became a 16 CPU Origin 2000 (R10000). That system
was overloaded from day one with all the users, and ended up with a RAID
array and plenty of RAM to spare.
--
sgi - Silicon Graphics Inc., as opposed to Swine Genetics International of
Cambridge, Iowa
-- http://web.mit.edu/course/10/10.610/gamess/readme.unix

[Alex Bron]

Post by corn
In a bold--and no doubt eventually doom to fail--attempt to have some activity
What was the first SGI you ever used?
--
sgi - Silicon Graphics Inc., as opposed to Swine Genetics International of
Cambridge, Iowa
-- http://web.mit.edu/course/10/10.610/gamess/readme.unix

For me it was the Personal IRIS - I started programming on the beauty in
1990 when I was a freelance programmer for ElectroGIG (also forgotten
glory). We also managed to get one temporary at the University for our
CAD / CAE research. Later in 1990 it was replaced by an Indigo R3000.
Next step was to replace our Ultrix boxes with 5 Indy's (and a power
challenge at the central computing room). Last SGI I met at University
was a Power Indigo2, which I was the power user in 1995-1996.

Nowadays I own 2 Octanes, 1 R10k Indigo2 (purple) and 2 R4400 Indigo2's
(teal) and a dead Indigo. Maybe one day I'll add an O2, and surely I'd
like a Tezro or Fuel. There's an Origin 3200 for sale on local
Marktplaats (say "dutch eBay") and it's reasonably priced, but I
wouldn't dare to power that up at home (way too heavy, way too much power).

Alex