chad.channing
Registered
Talk about Think Different...lol
We are all kind of agreed that the current G4s, while great, are lacking in certain areas if they are to really take advantage of OSX for a start.... I was reading the posts here when I got an email from SGI ( I am on the developer list and they are really great with info and mailshots..). I am also on a few Unix/SGI boards and there is a lot of concern that SGI is going to try to move to Wintel to make a quick profit. The 540 and such are good, but they are really just highly specialised PCs..the O2, Octance, Onyx, etc are the real pieces of quality kit.
As SGI has had a bit of a beating in the low end 3d arena, with companies like Dell, Armari, Intergraph, etc taking a bit of a share, I had a thought. (no, it didn't hurt. lol )
The SGI boards all worry that the company has lost sight of the vision that inspired the "Attitude Inside" campaign and brought thigns like the Crimson and Indigo to the market. They are worried, in short that they are going to go the way of Apple after Steve Jobs left - run by accountants who see that the market share is for office PCs, when the actual market for the machines is specialised, but secure...DTP=Mac...high-end visualization=SGI, etc.
Apple is at a point where, A) motorola is not really too interested in computers, rather in embedded technologies. B) Wintel is stealing a major jump on them and, C) the motherboard, etc simply doesn't do the OS (meaning OSX any justice ).
Hmmm...hang on, Unix based machines that run a proprietary GUI for ease-of-use and are use by creative people who are fanatical about their hardware and brand loyal...sounds familiar? Yep, it's the SGI guys again.
Rather than gamble on Motorola picking up the pace when it really isn't interested, or being stuck with ATI (or, yes Nvidia if you replace your 6 month old G4 for a new one that can run a geforce3...), why don't they siply use some of the massive profit they are making to buy over SGI (or merge, whatever...)?
Hell, even a joint machine would be awesome..think of it - a trluy OpenGL compliant machine with a system board part way between an O2 and a MP G4 - 2GB ram max, 128mb video ram merged across the system bus as full bandwith speed (no separate bus, all on the same plane, effectively) with say a combo drive, zip and 2 *733MHz G4.... I reckon that it could be sold with a 21" monitor for maybe £3500-£4000 inc VAT. bearing in mind the current O2 clocks £5000 due to SGIs financial woes, bad marketing and the fact it is selling machines that are used for ten years and come with upgrade packages.....
It would also mean that Apple developers would know that the code would work for games as long as it was written to be OpenGL compliant. Throw in a Soundblaster Live1 and you have a world-beating Mac that could stand toe-to-toe with anything up to an Octane2 (which incidentally costs at least £25000).
If steve Jobs is listening - think of this, NeXT was good, but flawaed, SGI has a customer base that would buy the machines, and high-end mac users (and anyone in the 3D/SFX world) would flock to them as they would be able to run Maya as it should be run and render a lot faster than a pc with a Nvidia Quadro, etc.
I know I would buy at least one.
Just a thought....I can dream can't I?
We are all kind of agreed that the current G4s, while great, are lacking in certain areas if they are to really take advantage of OSX for a start.... I was reading the posts here when I got an email from SGI ( I am on the developer list and they are really great with info and mailshots..). I am also on a few Unix/SGI boards and there is a lot of concern that SGI is going to try to move to Wintel to make a quick profit. The 540 and such are good, but they are really just highly specialised PCs..the O2, Octance, Onyx, etc are the real pieces of quality kit.
As SGI has had a bit of a beating in the low end 3d arena, with companies like Dell, Armari, Intergraph, etc taking a bit of a share, I had a thought. (no, it didn't hurt. lol )
The SGI boards all worry that the company has lost sight of the vision that inspired the "Attitude Inside" campaign and brought thigns like the Crimson and Indigo to the market. They are worried, in short that they are going to go the way of Apple after Steve Jobs left - run by accountants who see that the market share is for office PCs, when the actual market for the machines is specialised, but secure...DTP=Mac...high-end visualization=SGI, etc.
Apple is at a point where, A) motorola is not really too interested in computers, rather in embedded technologies. B) Wintel is stealing a major jump on them and, C) the motherboard, etc simply doesn't do the OS (meaning OSX any justice ).
Hmmm...hang on, Unix based machines that run a proprietary GUI for ease-of-use and are use by creative people who are fanatical about their hardware and brand loyal...sounds familiar? Yep, it's the SGI guys again.
Rather than gamble on Motorola picking up the pace when it really isn't interested, or being stuck with ATI (or, yes Nvidia if you replace your 6 month old G4 for a new one that can run a geforce3...), why don't they siply use some of the massive profit they are making to buy over SGI (or merge, whatever...)?
Hell, even a joint machine would be awesome..think of it - a trluy OpenGL compliant machine with a system board part way between an O2 and a MP G4 - 2GB ram max, 128mb video ram merged across the system bus as full bandwith speed (no separate bus, all on the same plane, effectively) with say a combo drive, zip and 2 *733MHz G4.... I reckon that it could be sold with a 21" monitor for maybe £3500-£4000 inc VAT. bearing in mind the current O2 clocks £5000 due to SGIs financial woes, bad marketing and the fact it is selling machines that are used for ten years and come with upgrade packages.....
It would also mean that Apple developers would know that the code would work for games as long as it was written to be OpenGL compliant. Throw in a Soundblaster Live1 and you have a world-beating Mac that could stand toe-to-toe with anything up to an Octane2 (which incidentally costs at least £25000).
If steve Jobs is listening - think of this, NeXT was good, but flawaed, SGI has a customer base that would buy the machines, and high-end mac users (and anyone in the 3D/SFX world) would flock to them as they would be able to run Maya as it should be run and render a lot faster than a pc with a Nvidia Quadro, etc.
I know I would buy at least one.
Just a thought....I can dream can't I?
