Talk:Silicon Graphics

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[edit] Quote from Jurassic Park

The quote from Jurassic Park makes it sound like all Unixen have three-dimensional file navigators. This is of course not true, and I don't think it's even used on SGI computers for any serious work. Therefore the line might cause confusion with people unfamiliar with Unix (i.e. about 99.999% of movie viewers). (The first time I saw the movie, I was familiar with Unix, but not with FSN. I thought it wasn't a real program but only a mock-up by the movie crew.)

However, the quote is real and I don't think it should be removed from the article. — JIP | Talk 11:44, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Jurassic Park's dinosaurs were created with SGI machines; they (SGI) even came up with T-shirts and gave employees advance screenings of the film, before it came out. (Wish I still had my SGI T-rex shirt.) --Cuervo 10:42, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

The "SGI laptop" seen in the movie "Twister" was not a working laptop, however. It was a movie prop with an LCD screen and an empty box. The prop is, or was, at SGI's corporate headquarters in Mt. View, Calif, as of January 2002.

(Please sign your talk entries with four tilde characters: ~~~~ - thanks!)
So this quote from the article is incorrect? It seems suspiciously detailed for something that allegedly wrong.

"In the movie Twister, the heroes can be seen using an SGI laptop. It is in fact a working SGI, with a motherboard similar to that of the Indy. SGI made thirty or so in the early 90s, making the laptop quite a rarity. Given the power-hungry nature of the MIPS chip, not to mention what such a device would have cost in a time when an Apple PowerBook was considered expensive, the laptop was not a venture SGI seemed to be interested in taking."

Can anyone else back up either one of these positions? SteveBaker 15:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Having grown up as a kid scurrying around SGI on the weekends, I can in fact remember SGI working on a laptop, but I don't think it ever made it beyond the prototype phase, and was definitely nothing like the one used in Twister. Newtman 04:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

In the article listed under the link there appears to be some confirmation that the laptops were not real. The common knowledge within SGI was that the movie used "Indy Presenters" which were connected to remote machines. Having not been on the set of the movie however I cannot positively confirm that they were not real machines. A quick analysis of the power requirements would show that the batteries required to even turn on such a laptop would make such a machine not feasible. Zunigne 18:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, they could easily have concealed an external power cord - but the question remains: Should this be in the article or not? SteveBaker 19:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure. Perhaps we can say something about this being apocryphal unless we can confirm this? I can only say that I never saw one, and that nobody I knew at SGI did either. Zunigne 22:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

As a follow up to this. The article quoted on the page states:

    "Banned from the Ranch, of Santa Monica, California, borrowed $3 million worth of computer equipment from Silicon Graphics and custom built them to create SGI laptop computers, which don't exist in real life. They were powered via a cable to an offscreen SGI Indy, and the graphics for them were produced by a Banned from the Ranch employee sitting at the Indy watching the scene. "

We need to change the article to either reflect the quoted source, or remove the laptop statement. Does anyone have any strong feelings, or any evidence that these "laptops" existed other than as mockups? Zunigne 18:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I also mentioned this on the Talk:Jurassic Park (film) page. It could be that this whole sequence in the movie is a reference to a marketing gimmick that I heard SGI used in the 80s or 90s. Appearently, they had a young girl sitting at an SGI workstation demonstrating it while talking about it via a headset with conference attendees. It was meant to make all the business folk at the show think "Aww, I want my daughter to be that smart". I can't find any confirmation of this actually being used by SGI at a conference though so for now its just hearsay. Perhaps it is the other way around, SGI this gimmick after the film. I wonder if any SGI buffs reading this attended this conference and can confirm when it happened. -- Suso 14:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

With all this talk about 'power hungry MIPS' and 'never in a laptop', I think that MIPS did design a R4200 chip back in 1994 or 1995 (around the same time as Twister) that was intended for use in low powered devices like laptops (it drew 2 watts of power or something). I recall that Byte magazine had an article about it. Maybe it can still be found in the online archives. Rilak 07:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup needed

This page is in need of thorough revision. I added a token start by subdividing the enormous History section, but further editing remains to be done. —Ryanaxp 20:33, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)


I owned a company in the late 80's to mid 90's, Digital Connectivity, Inc. based in Atlanta, GA. We were SGI Value Added Resellers to the film/video and publishing markets. At the NAB conference in 1992, my son, who was 8 at the time, was demonstrating a pre-release of Adobe Photoshop for SGI -- specifically to illustrate the ease-of-use and the clean port of PShop to IRIX.

SGI loved the idea, and brought many people by our booth to show them. Perhaps this is the scenario/conference that is being referenced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.4.4.167 (talk) 16:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs a section on SGI's corporate culture

I'm not qualified to write this - but someone needs to.

SGI had (has - it's hard to speak of them in the present tense) many unique cultural features. One such is that engineers (no matter how lowly) are entitled to a proper office with a door. Managers (no matter how senior) are relegated to cubicles. In the beginning, this was literally the case - but over the years, offices have shrunk in size to about what you have in a typical cube-farm and management cubicles have gotten taller and taller sides and larger and larger dimensions.

SGI also has/had unique policies over sending staff on long sabbaticals - I believe there are/were rules about engineers being considered one grade more senior than their immediate managers...lots of quirky stuff like that.

This needs to be written about by someone who knows for sure.

SteveBaker 06:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

After working there for five years back in the heyday, I can say that most of this is not correct. There were certainly cube farms, and there were offices where senior engineers sat, but managers were not relegated to cubicles. There were actually very few offices on campus, the vast majority of people were in cubes. There was also no policy that engineers were senior to their direct managers. THere was a good policy on sabbaticals, 6 weeks every four years. There was also great coffee and beer bashes, but I do not believe these were unique to the SGI culture. Zunigne 18:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I spent a considerable time with the OpenGL and Performer teams about 10 years ago - and it was very noticable how the engineers had these teeny-tiny offices (with doors) and the managers had big cubes. When I enquired about that, this was the story I was told. But maybe not all of the company was organised that way - or perhaps the practice was abandoned more recently. SteveBaker 19:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I was there from 94-99 in the hardware end, and there was no such policy. It could have been that those groups were done that way, but as a whole this was not the case. Which building was this in? Ed's palace or the new ones down the street? 65.7.191.28 22:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC) Previous comment made by me. I foprgot to log in. Sorry Zunigne 22:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pov

this article has a lot of editorial comments that i'd expect in a magazine or on slashdot, but not in an encyclopedia. the interpretations are pretty liberal, not straight facts at all

I agree that the section labelled 'The ever shrinking SGI' is pretty bad - I've reworked it a bit and provided a better title - but it really needs to be rewritten completely with actual facts. SteveBaker 19:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link points to wrong Dennis McKenna.

SGI's CEO is not an ethnopharmacologist, and his middle name isn't Jon, although he looks to be near the same age as the guy the 'key people' link points to. The company bio at http://www.sgi.com/company_info/execbios/mckenna.html would be better than pointing to the wrong person's bio. If I knew how, or had time to learn, I'd fix it.

The rest of the 'key people' have all been replaced, according to the list on CEO's bio page. That much, I _can_ fix.


fixed. updated with links to SGI's exec bio page and corrected list for executives. Rockin 02:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


THIS STILL POINT TO THE WRONG DENNIS MCKENNA - LIKE SERIOUSLY WTF????? ALSO http://www.gridtoday.com/grid/552525.html

IN ADDITION - WHY NOT MAKE SOME DISAMBIGUATION THING AND FIX THIS GODAMM LINK TOO BAD IM AN IDIOT AND DONT KNOW HOW EITHER 194.90.200.2 07:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other Markets

I'm new to the SGI history, but reading the article it seems they should have been all over the PC 3D-graphics accelerator market. Wouldn't they have had every advantage over ATI, or nVidia? If there are known FACTS on this, could someone add a section on why the company didn't diversify into other markets so obviously similar to, and a potential threat to their own?

Yeah - SGI should have been nVidia. The reasons why they aren't is that they continued to believe that there would be a market for their high end gear even against the competition of the PC. Many mainframe and minicomputer manufacturers have come unglued by making this exact mistake. However SGI dabbled in the idea of selling their own line of desktop machines - initially with the Indy and the O2 - and later with actual PC's - but the problem is always of a high-end US manufacturer competing against the beige-box guys with an almost identical product at maybe a tenth the price. SGI were simply not culturally able to switch their company from making honking great million dollar super-computers into making a single $100 chip or a $200 board. They had the expertise - remember that SGI designed the Nintendo 64 - so they knew how to engineer a single chip solution at a $150 price point. Eventually, all of their talented people could see the writing on the wall and they left to work for ATI and nVidia (mostly nVidia). This meant that SGI essentially became nVidia. SGI's management must therefore have been at fault here. It's very sad - but in the end, the world is no worse off. nVidia's culture is much like SGI's and their engineering is every bit as good. SteveBaker 12:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah - Concur with Steve Baker. Folklore suggests that Engr had proposed a PC based design, and had it rejected at board level for fear of undercutting their own busiess model. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.15.243.242 (talk) 22:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What happened?

According to the article:

A preliminary proxy filed with the SEC indicates that SGI Stockholders will consider giving the SGI Board of Directors authority to implement a reverse split of the common shares of stock at the shareholders meeting anticipated in March 2006.

OK - so either this meeting happened or it didn't - the article needs to be updated with the results - or changed so as not to talk about this anymore. SteveBaker 12:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No mention of megahertz?

It would be tremendously more informative and interesting if the speed of the machines was mentioned, especially compared to consumer PCs and Macs of the day. I can't believe this is missing from the article. I would do it, but I don't have that info and I am brain damaged. Are you brain damaged? Add that stuff!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.190.61.6 (talk • contribs) 06:51, 31 July 2006

[edit] Stock Information Change

Hi All, I believe that as of Monday SGI's new symbol is SGIC . It is being traded on the NASDAQ. I am fairly new to Wikipedia, is it alright if I merely change the section pointing to Pink Sheets? If so I will do so. Zunigne 17:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes! Absolutely. If you know something in the article is wrong or outdated or could be improved, just dive in and fix it. There is nobody here who 'grants permission'...one of our 'golden rules' is "Be Bold!". If you mess up, the odds are good that someone else with this article on their watch list will fix it. SteveBaker 18:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section on SGI laptop in TWISTER inaccurate

I worked on the movie, and in fact the laptops were non-functional. They were made of machined gray Corian (countertop material) with a 9V battery to run the LEDs in the corner -- I spend a fair amount of time fixing cold solder joints to keep those LEDs running. The keyboard was real, but connected to nothing. The display was real, with beefed up backlighting for the film cameras.

What was on the display was indeed IRIX, but it came via a umbilical cord from a SGI Indy hidden under the table or otherwise off-screen. That same umbilical provided power to the backlighting lamps behind the screen.

I recommend the section on the page be cleaned up.

Cyberdyne 23:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Name

Shouldn't this article be titled "SGI"? That's the official name now, no Silicon Graphics. It's like calling the IBM article "International Business Machines". Rojomoke 15:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-emergence POV

SGID common stockholders did not receive any of the new stock and are left with worthless shares. (Reference: SGI Press release). The company will not speak to SGID shareholders and refers them to a recorded message.

This is obviously a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:OR. The reference listed should be placed on the sentence before; the SGI press release makes no mention of leaving anyone with "worthless shares." I don't know if there is any validity to this claim, but it needs to be sourced and neutrally presented if it's going to remain. /Blaxthos 17:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

http://www.sgi.com/company_info/newsroom/press_releases/2006/july/file_reorg_and_disclosure.html is a better cite for this particular claim: "SGI's current shareholders will receive no recovery under the plan."
"...left with worthless shares" is accurate albeit emotionally charged. "will not speak to shareholders" is somewhat irrelevant, especially over the passage of time. (I'm afraid I'm going to BE LAZY and not do the updates myself...:-)--NapoliRoma 18:37, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I have done. – Smyth\talk 17:21, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No mention of the deal with Nintendo?

Wasn't Nintendo engaged with SGI to develop the video subsystem architecture for their then-named Ultra64? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pulsar t (talk • contribs) 18:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. I think that during the early 1990s SGI was really trying hard to entrench their aquired MIPS architecture in consumer products. They were doing the same with their graphics architecture, although to a lesser extent. SGI made a cheap combo consisting of a cut down MIPS processor and a single chip graphics pipeline, tried to sell it to another company (can't remember which one) and ended up making a deal with Nintendo. But I could be wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rilak (talk • contribs) 11:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Correct, SGI used a stripped down 64 R4000 for Project Reality, which included the Nintendo 64 (using the R4300i) and the Ultra Arcade (using the R4600). Im sure they had much larger plans as well with Nintendo that didnt pan out. It's probably worth mentioning in this article some where. - UnlimitedAccess 07:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sgi buys out Linux Networx

http://www.itjungle.com/tlb/tlb021908-story01.html http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/2135016.html

76.23.62.107 (talk) 19:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)S. Jackson, wife of a former employee