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Those of you yearning for the experience of running a 1990s-vintage graphics workstation are about to have a good day: a developer named Eric Masson has resurrected the IRIX Interactive Desktop that shipped on Silicon Graphics Workstations and now offers it as a Linux desktop alternative.
Silicon Graphics (SGI) had a crack at the workstation business in the early 1990s, when it dominated the then-rather-limited world of computer graphics and decided it would try to parlay that experience into the CAD and desktop publishing markets. Apple's early Macintoshes led those market, but their 68xxx CPUs had obvious limits. SGI threw MIPS silicon at the problem, brought IRIX out of servers onto the desktop and cooked up a nice windowing system to match the Mac and hit the market.
SGI did okay for a while but proprietary workstations became an oddity once Windows came along and Microsoft encouraged makers of graphics-centric apps to bring their wares to Win32. SGI added a Wintel workstation line, but then had to compete with PCs-at-scale outfits like Compaq and Dell. The company kept making MIPS-powered workstation well into the 2000s, but eventually succumbed.
Masson has tried to bring back some of that heritage in the form of the Maxx Interactive Desktop, which aims to offer "an evolution of SGI's IRIX Interactive Desktop."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @02:07PM (15 children)
... I don't understand why these obviously capable people put their limited time and energy (Yes! We're all going to die very soon) into "resurrecting" these old ways of doing things.
Why not instead put those resources into creating a new system that maybe borrows some of the few good ideas from that old system?
Nostalgia really is a drain on humanity's talents.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday June 06 2017, @02:42PM (1 child)
So? Who cares what someone does with their time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @02:59PM
I mean, OP literally said "good for Masson, but...".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday June 06 2017, @02:55PM
The benefit with old window managers is that they use resources efficiently because when they were created you made the best use of them or have the machine stalling on swap. And they keep things simple, down to the business.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @02:57PM (9 children)
Because a lot of the new hipster-designed interfaces frankly suck, which only drives the nostalgia even more for the UIs of old.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by zafiro17 on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:23PM (8 children)
The old stuff worked pretty well at the time, and let's face it - there hasn't been a huge amount of innovation since then that has improved the desktop in very meaningful ways.
OSX was on a roll for a few years with a desktop that worked great for users, and from about Snow Leopard onward, have been making it worse. Windows remained unchanged through Win7 before going completely apeshit insane, and now partially recovering (trying to save face, at least). KDE has been spinning its wheels, innovating over color schemes and icon packs while obvious stuff goes unfixed, version after version. And Gnome3 is a festering pile of monkey shit, truly.
I'd say there's no harm in going back to 1990s interfaces because there's nothing gained by choosing newer stuff. I'm using Cinnamon these days (which is lovely). But I could go back to Gnome1 or KDE3 without even thinking about it. IRIX's desktop is just as usable, probably.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 5, Funny) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:43PM (7 children)
I find your post highly offensive, especially the part about Gnome3 being a "festering pile of monkey shit, truly". This is very offensive to both monkeys and their droppings. Monkey turds probably aren't even that smelly; it's the pure carnivores that have the worst-smelling shit, because of the high protein content (herbivore shit really doesn't smell that bad). Cat shit is some of the worst, so if you're going to compare a desktop UI to shit, cat turds are more apt. Or better yet, ferrets. But even this is insulting if you're talking about Gnome3, because I don't think any animal's shit is horrible enough to be fairly compared to it. It really isn't fair to compare it to anything other than extremely deadly toxic waste IMO.
Your description of Windows 10 is insulting too, to apes, even to insane apes or their droppings. Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse, Gnome3 or Windows 8/10. The former at least looks OK, unlike the new Windows versions which make me want to pull my eyeballs out.
(Score: 5, Funny) by zafiro17 on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:15PM
To all the monkeys and apes out there, I apologize. These software products are far worse than your shit.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:25PM (4 children)
(crying with laughter) Why am I out of mod points....
My favorite is this: "If X and a pile of dog feces were about to be ran over by a bus I'd sooner risk my life to save the dog feces"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by aiwarrior on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:45PM (2 children)
How about me saying that I make my leaving while using GNOME 3 and I like it. Sorry for not entering your group masturbation with old UI, I am actually caring about things that matter.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by aiwarrior on Tuesday June 06 2017, @06:24PM (1 child)
I get modded troll because I call out on joking about people who like GNOME 3 with a joke. Nice mod, yay for freedom of expression.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 06 2017, @07:59PM
Your post hasn't been censored, so yay, freedom of expression!
It sounds like flamebait rather than a "joke" but maybe your jokes are like overcooked steak: Dry and hard to chew.
Disclaimer: I didn't mod you down.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @07:15PM
The past participle of "to run" is "run":
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @11:20PM
They're honestly only comparable to Microsoft Bob, clearly the source of inspiration behind both Gnome 3 and Windows 8/10.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:47PM
Why not instead put those resources into creating a new system that maybe borrows some of the few good ideas from that old system?
Because no one will use it or join your project, that's why. Instead, they'll use garbage like Gnome3 and devote their resources to that, instead of helping with your project. So if you're a single person wanting to do some interesting UI work, you'll make a lot more progress taking some old but highly usable system like this and getting it to work on a modern OS and hardware than trying to build something from scratch.
Really, we already have a bunch of "new systems", and generally they all suck. Gnome3, Windows 8/10, MacOSX, they really all suck. If this weren't the case, then maybe people wouldn't be "wasting time" on "resurrecting" these old systems.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:18PM
Hey! Get back to curing cancer, slacker!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk