Re:Before 1948, LA's Power Grid Ran at 50hz
by kuschku on Saturday July 08, 2017 @09:45PM
(#14727994)
> Then again, had SGI not imploded, we wouldn't have NVidia today...
nvidia is basically one of the worst actors in the market, though. Artificially increasing prices and artificially segmenting the market, using anticompetitive methods to gain an advantage (oh how everyone loves gameworks), etc.
Re:Before 1948, LA's Power Grid Ran at 50hz
by justin66 on Saturday July 08, 2017 @11:46PM
(#14728248)
> That isn't to say that SGI didn't have some bumbling management of the time
Understatement of the century.
> Then again, had SGI not imploded, we wouldn't have NVidia today...
That gets the timeline all wrong. Nvidia is a much older company than you are probably aware of, and might have been quite successful (and quite capable of attracting top talent) had SGI managed to stagger along for quite a bit longer. SGI never, ever had a shot at making the mass-market stuff that let Nvidia grow as quickly as they did. It wasn't in their DNA.
Re:Before 1948, LA's Power Grid Ran at 50hz
by Theodores on Saturday July 08, 2017 @11:25PM
(#14728202)
Microsoft also bought SoftImage and didn't do much with it except make sure it worked on NT. This breaking of the SGI toolchain was not a friendly move.
You are right about fahrenheit, it doomed everything.
Personally, I believe Microsoft helped to engineer the downfall of SGI, via the whole Fahrenheit graphics "co-operation" - which also led to SGI making Windows NT workstations (in place of Irix).
That isn't to say that SGI didn't have some bumbling management of the time, but I do think that Microsoft took advantage of the situation to get them to chase a red herring to accelerate their demise, while also gaining a lot of new knowledge and IP via the sharing agreements they had for Fahrenheit.
Then again, had SGI not imploded, we wouldn't have NVidia today...