The SGI Buyer's Guide (2003)

I used to dream of owning an O2, in no small part due to it being the host of Erwin from UserFriendly. And then I managed to score multiple out of the trash years later in college, funny how the world works. :)

Re: The SGI Buyer's Guide (2003)

#5

Post by mrcwinn » Mon, May 18, 2026, 4:26 AM UTC

When I was a teenager my dad brought me to the 7th floor of the Daily News building in Philly. This floor was a kind of skunk labs - tasked with digitizing the paper for their new “website.”

This experience brought a couple of firsts:

My first time using the internet on a screaming fast, dedicated T1 line. Unbelievable to see Netscape load a site so quickly.

And: my first time seeing an SGI Indy. A row of them, in fact. This set off a fascination with operating systems outside System 7. I was so excited to get my hands on MkLinux, BeOS and later Rhapsody/OS X developer preview.

Re: The SGI Buyer's Guide (2003)

#6

Post by ofrzeta » Mon, May 18, 2026, 4:38 AM UTC

Although it is stupid I can't stop searching Ebay for SGI machines. I have fond memories of running an Indy on my desktop and operating some Onyx machines. Now they are overpriced and it really doesn't make much sense to own one, apart from maybe the latest Origin 2 with R12000 but even this in the end would only catch dust. Even the best Buttonfly demos on the latest and greatest machines get a bit tired after a while.

Re: The SGI Buyer's Guide (2003)

#7

Post by MomsAVoxell » Mon, May 18, 2026, 4:55 AM UTC

I wish SGI would return and make a laptop.

Re: The SGI Buyer's Guide (2003)

#8

Post by kev009 » Mon, May 18, 2026, 5:16 AM UTC

ofrzeta wrote: post #6

Although it is stupid I can't stop searching Ebay for SGI machines. I have fond memories of running an Indy on my desktop and operating some Onyx machines. Now they are overpriced and it really doesn't make much sense to own one, apart from maybe the latest Origin 2 with R12000 but even this in the end would only catch dust. Even the best Buttonfly demos on the latest and greatest machines get a bit tired after a whi…

Once upon a time this stuff was so cheap, a little later than the (2003), because IRIX was discontinued and nobody knew what to do with all of the surplus. Something like a Tezro was always a little pricey and filled a permanent niche, but I got tons of Origin 300s and stuff like that without thinking much about it at the time. I've got the Router rack and several IR3/IR4 bricks.

LLMs actually makes retrocomputing a lot more "fun" because you can slop out things that would take way too long to do by hand for pure art and exploration.

Re: The SGI Buyer's Guide (2003)

#9

Post by infl8ed » Mon, May 18, 2026, 6:01 AM UTC

Hadn't really heard of SGI too much, going down the rabbit hole I thought this snippet from the Wikipedia page was especially interesting

"For eight consecutive years (1995–2002), all films nominated for an Academy Award for Distinguished Achievement in Visual Effects were created on Silicon Graphics computer systems"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Graphics#Entertainment...

Re: The SGI Buyer's Guide (2003)

#10

Post by st_goliath » Mon, May 18, 2026, 6:12 AM UTC

kev009 wrote: post #8

ofrzeta wrote: post #6

Although it is stupid I can't stop searching Ebay for SGI machines. I have fond memories of running an Indy on my desktop and operating some Onyx machines. Now they are overpriced and it really doesn't make much sense to own one, apart from maybe the latest Origin 2 with R12000 but even this in the end would only catch dust. Even the best Buttonfly demos on the latest and greatest machines get a bit tired after a whi…

Once upon a time this stuff was so cheap, a little later than the (2003), because IRIX was discontinued and nobody knew what to do with all of the surplus. Something like a Tezro was always a little pricey and filled a permanent niche, but I got tons of Origin 300s and stuff like that without thinking much about it at the time. I've got the Router rack and several IR3/IR4 bricks. LLMs actually makes retrocomputing a…

> LLMs actually makes retrocomputing a lot more "fun" because you can slop out things that would take way too long to do by hand for pure art and exploration.

Doesn't that kind of completely miss the entire point of the hobby? Like attending an online language class in your spare time and then just using deepl in a separate tab?