41–50 of 80 posts
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Poor SGI. I used to love their website back in the 90s. It's strange to think that alternative architectures were possible though and could get such a foothold in some industries. The specificity is mind-blowng. Everything is "PC"s today.
Huh, I had no idea sgi was not pc hardware. I just assumed they made PCs with their own OS
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It’s mind-blowing to me that the actual guy who designed it chimed in. Assuming it’s not a fake comment, what are the odds!?
That's why I like HN, it seems to happen a lot here! Mention a piece of hardware or software, even something obscure from years ago, and half an hour later you've had an answer to your question from the designer or the CEO.
The circuit breaker from the restoring power scene is real too: https://www.google.com/search?q=westinghouse+spb-100&udm=2
When I was a kid I always wondered why Dr. Sattler had to manually prime/charge the breaker before enabling it. Apparently it is because that model (and others like it) use a spring to quickly close the circuit. When she is priming it puts tension into the spring, and when she presses the button it quickly releases and completes the circuit. This is done to prevent arc flashes due to the high voltage and amperage, si…
You pump up the handle to charge a pneumatic cylinder and when you cut over it throws a set of three contacts about the size of a first-gen Kindle from one side to the other, switching from incoming mains to genny power in about 1/100th of a second.
It goes with a hell of a bang.
https://i0.wp.com/scifiinterfaces.com/wp-content/uploads/202...
Very cool. I saw Jurassic Park in the cinema and remember thinking that the Unix system that they used was some Hollywood fancy, but I learned much later that it was actually a prototype of a gui [0]. It appears that Spielberg was well-connected to tech people at the time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_System_Visualizer
I mean actually the FSV that you refer to is a clone of the SGI IRIX utility, fsn , that was actually depicted on a live computer in the film. SGI was well-known to the film industry, because their IRIX systems were basically the sine qua non of graphics workstations and powerhouses. SGI invested heavily in the graphical capabilities, including 3D rendering, and therefore when the industry graduated from Amigas with…
edit: Just last night a friend was watching MiB and Tommy Lee Jones looks at a Motif UI. It was obviously SGI but it was IRIS ViewKit and not the later Interactive Development Environment. Narrowed down likely creator being Van Ling from Banned From The Ranch Entertainment. If you’re out there…
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Much greater than now, given the open discoverability of the original post here, versus the walled-off content we have today, locked away in discord servers and the like. Furthermore, the act of replying to that post will have bumped it right back to the top for everyone to see.
I agree with this. We are much missing these forums with civil replies and clouded behind "influencer" culture, which is optimized for incentives. Pure discussions as in this example are such a stalwarts of open web. On the other hand, small websites and forums can disappear but that openness allows platform like archive.org to capture and "fossilize" them.
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Wow, Motorola had an iRadio before Apple released their first iPhone? I did not know that.
"iPhone" was an Infogear, later Cisco, trademark, for the InfoGear iPhone (1997--2000 / InfoGear, Cisco/Linksys 2006--2007), which was licenced to Apple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(internet_appliance) > https://www.cultofmac.com/apple-history/cisco-infogear-iphon... >
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Much greater than now, given the open discoverability of the original post here, versus the walled-off content we have today, locked away in discord servers and the like. Furthermore, the act of replying to that post will have bumped it right back to the top for everyone to see.
I agree with this. We are much missing these forums with civil replies and clouded behind "influencer" culture, which is optimized for incentives. Pure discussions as in this example are such a stalwarts of open web. On the other hand, small websites and forums can disappear but that openness allows platform like archive.org to capture and "fossilize" them.
My Something Awful forums account is over 25 years old at this point. The software and standards and moderation style is approximately unchanged, complete with 10 dollar sign-up fee to keep out the spam.
Jurassic Park III (2001) has a 3D printer that’s central to a plot line. I know they have a long history but I remember thinking that was more sci-fi than the dinosaurs.
