Silicon Graphics / SGI Vintage Stuff

This blog contains SGI photos recovered from old CDs that the company sent to press. If not specified otherwise, all photos have the same source: SGI Archive

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Silicon Graphics Inc. Headquarters in 1998

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Silicon Graphics computers in 1997

Low-end workstation: SGI O2 (1-CPU system with integrated 3D graphics and hardware support for texturing; UMA architecture)

Hi-end workstation: SGI Octane (1 or 2 CPUs, Impact 3D graphics cards with geometry acceleration and optional texture support)

Graphics supercomputer (deskside / rackmount): SGI Onyx2 (up to 4 CPUs per box, up to 24 CPUs per system; scalable InfiniteReality 3D graphics)

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SGI Onyx 3000 with InfiniteReality 4 (2002)

Onyx 3000 was the last visualization supercomputer with the custom SGI’s graphics sub-system: InfiniteReality 4. The whole supercomputer was built using small modules (called bricks), that were connected using very fast NUMAflex interconnects. This connection allowed all devices to work as a single ccNUMA machine, running a single instance of IRIX 6.5 (each module could touch any memory in the system).

The largest multi-rack installations could work with up to 512 MIPS R12000/R14000 CPUs and up to 1 TB of RAM. Up to 16 graphics pipelines could be connected to the system (up to two per G-Brick module). Each pipeline had 1GB of texture memory and was able to render 1300 million pixels per second (full-scene 8-subsample anti-aliased).

InfiniteReality 4 didn’t have any successor. For the newer systems, SGI used ATI FireGL cards instead.

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SGI Prism (2005)

Prism was one of the SGI’s visualization (ccNUMA) super-computers based on Itanium 2 processors. The high-end configuration (Extreme) supported up to 256 CPUs, 6.1TB of system memory and 16 graphics cards (AMD FirePro). Unlike MIPS-based systems, this was preinstalled with SGI Advanced Linux Environment.

Prism Extreme User Guide

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There is a nice collection of photos covering the history of computing in the Science and Technology Facilities Council. People often share some of them, but usually without providing the source. The link below allows you to go through all the galleries (with the oldest from 1961).

Source: Chilton Computing web site

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SGI 1400 (1999)

SGI introduced many Intel x86-based systems during 1999. SGI 1400 servers supported up to four 500-MHz Pentium III Xeon processors, 4GB of ECC RAM and six SCSI hard drive bays. All fans were redundant as well as power delivery (thanks to three 400W PSUs). Unlike early SGI Visual Workstations (320, 540), these machines were fully PC compatible with BIOS and standard VGA (just a simple 2D chip from Cirrus Logic).

SGI 1400 systems were available with Windows (NT line) and Linux preinstalled.

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A late-90s virtual studio in Czech TV (a public television broadcaster)

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Yong Duan and Guang R. Gao are explaining computer visualization of peptides using dual-processor SGI Onyx

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Knee kinematics simulated on SGI

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DI-Guy is human character simulation software. This screenshot is from 1998 when the simulation was running on SGI workstations. Looks like the software still exists and looks way better now: https://www.mak.com/products/visualize/di-guy

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Industrial rackable version of SGI O2 (1999)

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Insight II Molecular Modeling System running on SGI IRIX (Faculty of Science, Masaryk University Brno, 2000)

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Whole family of SGI computers in the late 90s:

SGI O2 (1996)

SGI Octane (1997)

SGI Onyx2 Deskside (1-4 CPUs, 1996)

SGI Onyx2 Single Rack (2-8 CPUs, 1996)

SGI Visual Workstation 540 (1999)

SGI Visual Workstation 320 (1999) with SGI 1600SW 17.3″ LCD (1998)

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Sukhoi SU-22 Flight Simulator for the Army of Czech Republic (circa 2002) - the simulation was rendered on SGI systems.

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Sybyl Molecular Modeling software running under SGI IRIX (1998)

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SGI Onyx2 visualization system (introduced in 1996)

The single-rack top configuration contained 8 MIPS R10000 CPUs, 16GB RAM and two graphics pipelines. Up to 16 racks could be connected together and act like a single computer.

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Early 3D map of Quebec City running on SGI/IRIX workstation