[Shiunbird]

Not really SGIs, but my first contact with UNIX workstations was at the Military School. I was 12 and we had the chance to visit many military facilities.

We got the chance to visit the Air Control Centre (CINDACTA). In Brazil, the military runs both civil and military traffic from the same building, but separated rooms. We had access only to the civilian part.
They had more desks than people operating them. All desks had workstations and this was to ensure the chance of maintenance downtime. I bet it didn't happen often, though. Certifying air traffic control systems must be a pain.

The room was dark and full of Sun's with amazing HUGE CRTs, so crisp, running the radar screens. I'd never seen such thing before (at home, I had an IBM 2238 monitor).

One year later, they brought some of the equipment over to school for some exhibition and we got the chance to play with it - they had the radar application running with some dummy data and wow - really. I wish I could recall the name of the application.