[vishnu]

If it's C++ and from that era does that presumably mean that it would be a cfront type library? 

It makes me wonder why SGI was such a huge advocate of C++ when it was still very new and experimental at the time

You could argue that C++ is still a cfront type library! 

Thing about it is, and this was a design intent from the start, programmers can use (or ignore) whatever feature(s) of C++ (the whole "it's a better C" thing), they feel would benefit them (or not benefit them). It's just as useful as a procedural language as it is an object-oriented language. In fact Bjarne himself has always said C++ is not an object oriented language, it's a language with features that support object oriented programming. And really, an object is nothing more (or less) than a user-defined type...