Gregory Schultz (gschultz++at++mitre.org)
Fri, 08 Jan 1999 11:20:09 -0500
Just my two cents worth!!
I pfAgree()!!!!
At 09:02 AM 1/8/99 -0500, Tom Flynn wrote:
>Dwight Meglan wrote:
>>
>> At 4:44 PM -0500 1/7/99, Wilson, Mark A wrote:
>> > You can always go to Linux RT. It's no R10K but performance
looks pretty
>> > reasonable for a PC.
>>
>> I doubt that it runs on the SGI PC -- no device drivers for all
the
>> excellent, unique (unanounced till Monday ;-) subsystems inside
it. I
>> would love to hear SGI say that they will have another OS other
than
>> NT on the box, but I won't hold my breath on that one. Seems that
the
>> box is targeted at only non-realtime cad/cam and graphics
>> design/modeling/animation applications.
>>
>> You want realtime use IRIX (i.e. expensive hardware) or use a
generic
>> PC and linux RT/your favorite RTOS (i,e, cheap hardware but no SGI
>> development libraries/tools/etc. that we know and know how to work
>> with/around ;-) Note that my criteria here is skewed toward high-
end
>> graphics cards and at least 4 cpus.
>
>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.
>
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|.............................................................^ .......|
|...Gregory L. Schultz ....................................../ \ ......|
|...Center for Advanced Aviation System Development........./ \ .....|
|...The MITRE Corporation, McLean VA 22102................/ | \ ....|
|...(703) 883-6476 FAX: (703) 883-5583................../-+-o-+-\ ...|
|...E-Mail: gschultz++at++mitre.org.........................../ CAASD \ ..|
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Fri Jan 08 1999 - 08:22:41 PST