Silicon Graphics, the most influential computer company of the 90's that you've never heard of

An interactive retrospective by Marcelo Mendez

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Toolchest

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Silicon Graphics origins

SGI demo reel

Welcome to Silicon Graphics!

This is the desktop environment found on Silicon Graphics computers , the ultra powerful supercomputer product line that was behind many of the technical achievements in Hollywood throughout the 90's.

CGI Segments in movies such as Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, and the entirety of Toy Story were created, edited, and rendered entirely on SGI systems, back when most computers were still terminals.

These machines were very expensive. You could expect to pay upwards of $200,000 for just one of these workstations!

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silicon graphics

not just for hollywood

silicon graphics workstations were marketed mostly towards the visual graphics audience, but their powerful hardware was attractive to big-data use cases and for recreational use as well.

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Games on SGI hardware

Playing three games at once would've been unprecedented at the time that SGI computers launched

Webcam Viewer

WeatherProducer 3.0

WeatherProducer 3.0 was the premier television graphics software used for weather stations. It could render real time weather maps radar images that would then get broadcast live on air.

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Silicon Graphics is dead

Long live Silicon Graphics

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The Party's Over

SGI Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

By Kristen Kenedy May 08, 2006, 01:55 PM EDT

Mountain View, Calif.-based SGI said it reached an agreement with all of its major debt holders that would reduce its debt by $250 million as part of the move.

Once a high-flying maker of servers, workstations and visualization systems, SGI has seen its business wane for several years. Most recently, the company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange for trading below the minimum $1 per share. It now trades on the small-cap OTC Bulletin Board.

SGI said it expects to file its reorganization plan shortly and to emerge from Chapter 11 within six months.

"We want to assure our customers, our employees and our communities that SGI is operating business as usual," recently appointed SGI Chairman and CEO Dennis McKenna said in a statement.

He added: "This is a necessary and responsible step that will strengthen the company and foster a sustained turnaround at SGI. This milestone marks a fundamental and comprehensive change."

What happens next?

Silicon Graphics would get bought out by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in 2016 for around $275 million.

While HPE did get a boost in their position regarding high computing, the SGI brand would never go through a "rebrand", and all intellectual property would remain that of Hewlett Packard