[weblacky]

I understand back in the day, but new demand is now up, and all the graveyard Fuels are gone.  We've no stock to fix and have now created a monster of a situation. 

To be overly blunt and kind of mean but realistic : who gives a crap ? SGI boxes now are useless. Not because they can't do good work, not because they aren't the most pleasant personal computer to own and use - no. Because no one now does a damn thing of value with them. They sit on shelves looking pretty, while prices go through the roof for stuff that will never see another electron pass through its veins.

I used mine. Every single day it got turned on and work passed over its hard disk. I managed (with a lot of help from good guys) to get some open sores programs running, I used old photoshop and framemaker and pro/e and mail clients and a ton of utilities and we ran the office with a silvery apple thing and the Octane (and before that a fool and an o350).

Now that a stupid v12 costs a thousand dollars and no one does a damn thing with it, after getting their sweaty little pawprints all over it, mine, my precioussssss, wtf ? Who gives a crap ? They are pointless.

It's all become quite stupid.

Well to be even more blunt, collecting is often a passion...so arguing utility to a collector is useless. Without collectors to draw on the past and keep it alive, we'd just turn over all old things to be trashed when the new hot equipment comes out. Never remembering the way things used to be, never bringing back old ideas that were forgotten or abandoned, and never learning from those that came before through their works.  Collectors have reverence and respect for the past and the accomplishments of the past, through the items they collect.

It's nice to hear from people that were there and used them and all that.  But if you're so willing dismiss the very thing this community comes together for (Original/vintage SGI computers) then perhaps you're here for the wrong reasons.  Finding solutions and supporting collectors is our goal here.

Please consider that and perhaps take this more to heart.  SGIs are history for many computing areas...more than most other existing tech companies can even claim.  The areas they touched and the progress they made in their short window of dominance was nothing short of amazing.


It's so amazing that we even have younger people entering the collector market everyday!  What old computer platform has that kind of pull!  How many platforms can you name where people born AFTER the collapse of a tech company want to own a computer from that same defunct company? 

I'm not even sure how many "new" collectors for old companies like Commodore there are. I've only meet Commodore collectors that lived through those times.  Exclusivity and design are a factor.  But to get new members and not just be an aged community where we all just keep getting older until we slide off a cliff and all our collections are thrown away by a younger generation that doesn't get it.  No...demand is UP...UP!  

No, I think we'll stay right here and encourage people to please find/hold their dead hardware, please save what you can, call for help when you need it, and don't let a salvageable SGI station be sent to oblivion.

I hope those older forum members that were wasteful in their custodial duties of SGIs have seen the light.  Those decisions to trash failed SGI PCBs were wrong, you should have offered them for free to people online who could have researched them, or held onto them, and saw that as parts of parts, they had value.

No more throwing things out without checking, if you think "well, I own it so I can do what I want with it", while that's technically and legally true (SGI committed these sins as well...we all know it) you're socially in the wrong.  These are collectors pieces and have historic value.  If you feel you're done...then don't be an ass and try letting someone else have them for awhile so they can experience them. For collectors we all understand, we don't own these, we're just holding them for the next collector to come along to get them from us with a smile and a thank you because they will enjoy them as much as we did.  And trying to keep them running is part of that.

Being selfish is how some suppliers and some collectors got us into this mess.  Stop pretending you're producing a product, you're not...it's just trading hands and there's a limited supply...now MORE limited than we have ever seen!  If a business produces a product it makes sense to just throw away the failed units because they can always make more. Well the moment SGI cease production on their systems no more parts would've been made. Which means every part in the outside world is valuable. Because of equipment destruction, when really it should have just been passed on to someone else who was willing to hold on to it, we now have so much less inventory to try to bring back to life.  Only after advertising it freely and failing to find someone should you then recycle or donate it. 

After all if someone was just going put it in the trash then why wasn't it offered for free to just pay shipping or come pick it up? So many times someone advertises something for a price, doesn't get a sale for their price, then throws it away anyway a short time later. I've seen people destroy items rather than give them away. Selfish!

Other collectors would love a chance, give them one!

I hope this has reached everyone who had a chance to read it and reflect on not only what you currently have but what does the future look like for you and your collection. Are you just passing through or are you trying to collect them all? Are you just curious or do you have a room full of them? Whichever category you fall into remember what it took to find what you have and magnify that as time goes on. The days of finding these on pallets is pretty much over. Cherry picking is also nearly over. At this point repair is the only thing that's going to bring supply into the market.