[55cancri]

Usually this channel addresses the newest tech ... the video already has 129.000 views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_RVnQeWLZI&t=512s

"We rebuilt an SGI (Silicon Graphics) computer from 1994, sent to us by SGI Depot, to look at high-end graphics from an old flagship workstation."

[jan-jaap]

"We rebuilt an SGI (Silicon Graphics) computer from 1994, sent to us by SGI Depot, to look at high-end graphics from an old flagship workstation."

ESD safe procedures are completely lost on these guys :@

[Jacques]

I cried a little when they took it apart, not the most caring disassembly :(

Then you read some of the typical 'can it run Minecraft' comments, how very Youtube!

[55cancri]

Now it's O2's turn :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-asW3b2CJ0

[Raion]

I think they're fine with how they handled the parts. Static is an issue when you're on carpet, low humidity and not working with conductive surfaces.

They had a conductive mat, were not on carpet, and presumably were in a climate controlled room. TL;DR probably no real risk. I don't grab my grounding strap every time I touch a piece of equipment.

[mapesdhs]

Re ESD, thankfully SGI stuff is decently resilient anyway, especially the older kit. Can't recall ever having an ESD failure with SGI parts.

Given GN's channel focus, I thought the Indigo2 video was pretty good, though it would have been better if Patrick had hosted it since it was kinda obvious Steve had not had time to talk to him about it or read up (I wrote extensive documentation on what I sent them). There were a few things I should perhaps have made clearer though, and I completely forgot to mention the audio hw. Note that I sent them parts kits because that way I was able to send two systems instead of one, and I included a whole bunch of misc parts in the same box (mbd/xbow for Octane, mbd/XL8 for Indy, MC3/GE for Onyx, all sorts), about which I think they're going to do a 3rd video later.

The O2 video wasn't quite so good, they spent way too long talking about Quake, and running that on a system from 1996 at 1280x1024 which only has a 33M/sec fill rate was unsurprisingly awful, like trying to run a modern AAA game at 8K on a GTX 950. However, I wrote a bunch of notes in the comments section explaining in more detail about the various included O2 demos which better convey what the system was all about, so hopefully they'll do a revisit to such demos in the 3rd video.

I'll send them the chassi/plastics for the two systems later. For the curious, I would have sent a higher spec I2, but I didn't have a spare Max set and even if I did, they're really worth way too much at the moment to just give away, I got bills to pay. :} In the end though, I thought it would be more interesting to send them something that showed what SGIs could do at a time when 3D gfx on PCs simply didn't exist, which is also why I installed 6.2 instead of 6.5.x as that was more sensible for the era (plus, 6.5.x runs too sluggishly on an I2 of that spec). In the event, the I2 video received a lot more views than I thought it would.

I wasn't surprised at the lower view count for the O2 vid though, its focus was kinda off compared to the first vid. Bit of a bummer as the docs I wrote did explain what the market focus of O2 was, but then maybe they thought viewers would want to know about the gaming angle, which is understandable in a way but a bit weird nonetheless, and probably not true given the popularity of the I2 video. I included an AV board precisely so they could meddle with the media demos, though maybe I forgot to include an O2Cam, can't remember now.

I might send them an Octane later, will see how it goes, though that'd be a complete system of course, not a parts kit.

Anyway, at least some new people have now found out about SGIs; GN as a rising star in the tech channel YT space is a good place for that.

Btw, I've been talking to Steve at GN about trying to run their GN logo render on an SGI that could handle it. Anyone know what the most recent build of Blender is for SGIs? My Blender benchmark page uses 2.44, but that's definitely too old. I see Terrence was looking into doing a newer build, not sure how far he got with that.

Ian.

[eudatux23]

They should have been given something with better graphics option for their gaming stuff, maybe an Octane or so. But it was really nice to see how they fiddle around on an O2

[cybercow]

Ok, but Blender ??? Blender was never designed to run on those puppies, drop in a copy of Alias or Maya or Softimage then the logo will do! And the sgi mipses will happily sing and dance you what you want ....  Even the gfx Extreme could do some nice solids then render without problems ... If they were smart(ier) they could make a render cluster with those 2 machines and make some nice retro rendering challenge ... what's the point on trying to put Blender on those machines, that is pure dumbassiness, sorry. Alli in all a totally missed point what possibly could be an interesting historical retro content to watch.

[BackPlaner]

I pretty much agree with all the above, but big props to Ian for helping bring our little corner of the universe to a wider audience!