Greg Harrison (harrisog++at++geocities.com)
Fri, 8 Jan 1999 11:10:13 -0500
Greg
Hmmm, sounds like if we had vis-sim development tools like Performer or
FSG on Linux it would fill a definate hole. And if Linux was ported to
the SGI PC (if people can port Linux to run on a Palm-Pilot and iMacs
and so forth, SGI's PC would probably only be a matter of time), then
SGI could sell PCs with killer graphics that run a stable Unix OS with
real-time capability without having to port IRIX to a 32-bit Intel
chip. Perhaps even take some features of IRIX and incorporate them into
Linux (as open-source) to enhance IRIX-like graphics performace in
Linux. And if such workstations existed, that would fill a definate need
in the vis-sim industry.
Imagine....the hardware cost would decrease by an order of magnitude
(the SGI PC costs a lot less than an ONYX); the SOFTWARE port would
decrease by at least an order of magnitude (IRIX to Linux is Unix -to-
Unix, so the basic IPC and runtime philosophies stay the same)...as new
hardware becomes available in the PC market, it can be incorporated
into the systems. From the perspective of a vis-sim developer being
pushed to port our software to cheaper hardware, this lets us move our
vis-sim into the PC arena gracefully. And best of all, it's still SGI
hardware. With NT, the SGI box is just a real fast word processor.
Perhaps this is all just a pfPipeDream(), but it's worth a thought.
tom
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