[gmcenroe]

My first encounter with SGI computers was in biotech/pharma job that I had. We looked at a number of computational chemistry software products that did molecular modeling, protein visualization software, that was being sold for exorbitant yearly contract fees. Some of the software was so bad, that the software would crash after a few minutes. Some was decent but was based upon some proprietary structure activity calculations what was based upon what I would call unproven value. Since this was popular in theory our company did eventually buy an SGI Crimson, later we merged with another company that ran on 8 processor machine that was the size of a refrigerator, with programmers writing there own software. It was pretty bogus. But in the long run I did like the hardware. Most of the modeling software was used to create narratives about drug design accelerated by computation chemistry. We all knew these stories were made up after the fact to glorify some research projects. In the end I did like the hardware and bought my own SGI Indigo 2 that I still have running.

The company that I worked at was less than a mile away from SGI headquarters in Mountain View Calif. It was a modern building with Indigo color on it's exterior. I always wanted to tour that building but I didn't know anyone who worked there. It was a sad day when they closed down and Google started devouring all of the buildings to build their campus.