[Tesseract]

My first sight of an SGI was back around 1996 or 1997 at a regional computer trade show (remember those? ). From what I remember, it was an Indigo2 Impact with a huge 21 inch Granite display running a demo of CA's Unicenter TNG. The person at the controls (I also remember him using a huge spaceball) was showing me the world view of the software's network management interface where they had established mock data centers in large cities around the globe. He would hone in from one city's data center to another and I was awestruck by the graphics it produced. He also showed me a little of the Irix desktop manager as it was so foreign to me. What a beautiful machine, I thought. I later saw a few more teal and purple Indigo2s out on display in one of the adjacent halls, all propped up on their feet stands looking elegant and proud. To this day, the Indigo2 Impact is my favorite.

I never forgot those machines and unfortunately the SGIs never came back in subsequent trade shows that I was aware of as I attended them regularly at that time. That was the first and last time I seen them on display at these trade shows until I bought my first Indigo2 R4000 a few years ago.