View allAll Photos Tagged silicongraphics
Day 53 of 365.
In their day these were the computers everyone desired. They even had this weird thing that was along the lines of Industrial Design, so even the cases were aesthetic.
BLOGGING IN PROGRESS
Silicon Graphics of yore
SGI Crittenden complex, Mountain View, California
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1
NeatImage (noise, sharpen) Photoshop (CHLomo) Aperture (straighten)
1/200 sec @ f/8, iso 80, 6mm (28mm)
____________________________________________________
SGI declares bankruptcy
I wanted to take a photo of the “classic” SGI logo (circa “Silicon Graphics, Inc.”) the way it looked on computers of the era.
The interesting thing about owning a 16:9 camera is that composition is very different. Caitlin tells me that when movies first went from standard to widescreen formats, the cinematographers had a lot of problems because they would frame their shots in the only style they knew: the old one.
I’m still trying to learn my way around that.
The interesting things about a pocket camera with a 28mm wide angle is that you can get these crazy wide shots because you can walk up close to the subject and still get awesome depth-of-field. I tried take advantage of this by managing to fit in frame one of the last SGI owned buildings in what was once a SGI town (in the same complex as where I work).
After that, I just messed with faux-lomo to add some contrast that was missing. I probably overdid the saturation, but I like it because it makes the logo look more like the original logo. Interestingly, while Adobe Camera RAW seems to have more options, I seem to prefer the output of Apple Aperture better (even though you can’t mod an Adobe DNG very much within Aperture).
An important thing to note is that I set the exposure to -1/3 EV and the highlights are still blown. The colors and sharpness of these Leica lenses are tremendous for a pocket camera, but when their evaluative metering is a far cry from Nikon’s color matrix meter. I’ve been spoiled!
Click to see the original image (If you cannot view this, add me to your contacts and I’ll add you to my friends. If you are already a contact of mine then just jet me a message and I'll fix your status.)
Heh, you said “single-ended” … I popped this startlingly heavy duty SCSI terminator off the backside of a Silicon Graphics Iris workstation that’s been gather dust (and unfortunately rust) in my garage for several years.
I moved the iMac G5 back to the living room and replaced it with a notebook stand. The SGI O2 is still my main desktop computer.
That's my article on asynchronous serial port programming on the front of SGI's newsletter in 1998.
I threw about six boxes of old stuff out of my garage this afternoon. Here's part of what you can find in my dumpster if you go diving for it before trash pickup day.
For some sick reason, the past month or so has seen a crisis of abundnace in (old) SGI stuff showing up at my home office.
Here we have an R5000 Indy, an R4000 Indigo Elan, and an R4400 Indigo2 Extreme, among other assorted garbage cluttering up the end of my desk.
Founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape.
©Robert Holmgren, all rights reserved. bobholmgren@gmail.com
The contraption I made to have a (relatively) high-quality microphone to use hands-free while using my computer(s).
Here I'm recording a tutorial video for our software on the Octane. (The software is actually running on a laptop inside a VMware virtual machine, and the display is relayed first via xdm/X11 and then via vnc.)
Two reducers were needed to get the mini camera-"tripod"'s 1/4" thread to the microphone holder's "professional" 5/8". In between was the 3/8" size, used both for microphones and cameras.
Runs SGI Irix 6.5. I think this one has 128 megs of RAM. Also has a tape drive behind the flip-open door on the front.
This is probably my favorite computer. Its design is unique, it has a nontypical CPU, the MIPS R44k, and runs an obscure operating system.
SGI used to make really powerful, expensive machines. I think they are bankrupt now.
I have two of these. I got them both at the first Saturday sale in Dallas for $20 in 2003.
IRIX System V Release 4D1-3.3.2 running on my Personal Iris 4D/20 Entry. The GUI is the 4Sight Window System: NeWS and GL (with optional-installable X server), IRIS WorkSpace desktop environment, and dirview file manager.
I won this auction a while ago and today it arrived! Two big heavy boxes...
Uhoh, it's a SGI!
It's an Octane2, 1.4Xbow, Cherokee PSU (for V-Pro graphics).
It's quite a light model, 2x250MHz R10000, 2MB cache, 1GB of system memory and V6 graphics but it also came with Maya and Pixar Renderman (official licenses)
The CPU's, memory and graphics can be updated through time. I'll wait till the better options (also) go for scrap money (on eBay), for now, I've got enough to play with and enough to learn.
Silicon Graphics still in use.
On my way to Hungary a friend invited me to see his company's offices.
This is an SGI Altix 4700 supercomputer with 128P and 320GB of RAM, running Linux (SLES9 with SGI ProPack 4).
In English: This is a big computer (my "day job").
A minor project delivered a 3D visualisation tool for the vast amount of data collected by the Laser Airborne Depth Sounder Unit. Making use of Fledermaus software and a high end workstation for the Royal Australian Navy Hydrographic Service. Photographed in Cairns in Queensland, Australia, during final acceptance phase.
...and one last time... (i thought, let me grab a WebFORCE Indy out of pile^H^H^H^Hcollection for comparison... but the colours are way off! ^_^)
In style with Silicon Graphics' earlier WebFORCE badging, I added a last.fm badge (which I got from Roel last friday, thanks!) to my audioscrobblin' Indy.
Everything you need to take full advantage of the World Wide Web - claims this vintage fold-out brochure from Silicon Graphics in 1995.
oh dear, tonight I tried something I had in my head for a long time. Using an Indy as a dedicated MP3-network-player. At the moment it boots IRIX 5.3 from its HDD but eventually it'll netboot from my fileserver which also holds my MP3s. It does play MP3s right now and outputs that digitally(! an early nineties machine with coaxial digital out, no kidding) to my DSP from where it goes into my stereo (onto my Stax) :D
...and yes, as a base, I used this, so it's also a 'webcam-server' at the same time...
UPDATE: the finished project can be found here
Two Silicon Graphics machines (and my reflection) in the old Computer-Aided-Chemistry laboratory at the University of Surrey, Guildford back in 2001.
My new toy: an original Silicon Graphics Indigo with the MIPS R3000 processor (at 33 MHz), 48 MB or RAM and 2x 512 MB disks. The graphics is the XS-24 so it's quite good (it only lacks the Z-buffer hardware).
The machine is surprisingly snappy and responslible (of course CPU-intesive computations can easy show that it's machine from 1992).
It's a gray box labelled Siemens Nixdorf RW320. Except that it's 100% Indigo.
as a finishing touch, I connected my Mac visualizers to the just finished netbooting and happily mp3 playing Indy. :-)
geek audio at its finest
IRIX System V Release 4D1-3.3.2 4Sight Window System IRIS WorkSpace default desktop: Toolchests and minimized console.
Trashed my old and trusty SGI Indy.
The label reads --
"PROHIBITED from direct or indirect connection to public telecommunication systems.Action may be taken against anyone so connecting this apparatus."
So 1997.
Imagine something similar today: "You are not allowed to connect your computer to the Internet". WTF!?
A great machine --
www.reputable.com/indytech.html
techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=hdwr...
johnbokma.com/sgi/silicon-graphics-indy-r4600-pc.html
sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/hardware/machines/indy.php
Thanks for the service.