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posted by martyb on Tuesday June 06 2017, @01:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the time-before-there-was-AGP dept.

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."


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:43PM (7 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:43PM (#521414)

    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.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +4  
       Informative=2, Funny=2, Total=4
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by zafiro17 on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:15PM

    by zafiro17 (234) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:15PM (#521440) Homepage

    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)

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:25PM (#521448) Journal

    (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)

      by aiwarrior (1812) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:45PM (#521460) Journal

      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)

        by aiwarrior (1812) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @06:24PM (#521479) Journal

        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

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday June 06 2017, @07:59PM (#521534) Journal

          yay for freedom of expression

          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

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @07:15PM (#521502)

      The past participle of "to run" is "run":

      If X and a pile of dog feces were about to be ran run over by a bus, I'd sooner risk my life to save the dog feces.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @11:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @11:20PM (#521647)

    They're honestly only comparable to Microsoft Bob, clearly the source of inspiration behind both Gnome 3 and Windows 8/10.