Exhibition · IRIX and graphics workstations

Working with SGI

Workstations preserved with photographs of their operating environments, hardware, and use.

An SGI Indy displaying IRIX — An SGI Indy photographed running IRIX in the collection. The photograph records a working session on the Indy.

The desktop was part of the machine

The enclosure is only one part of an SGI workstation. IRIX, the window system, installed applications, network configuration, and storage gave the hardware its working context.

The collection includes Indigo, Indigo², Indy, O2, Octane, and Fuel systems. Their records allow comparisons across different arrangements of processors, graphics, and enclosure design.

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The O2 in the university lab

Amir Husain · collection notes

In 1998, I used SGI O2s in the computer science labs at UT Austin. Their multi-user Unix environment was a substantial change from the DOS PC I had used at home. The O2 in this collection brings that kind of working environment back into view: graphics, development tools, and network services available from one desk.

Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park Indigo

The collection includes several uninscribed Indigo workstations, documented on the object page. The inscribed Indigo Elan is a separate object with its own exhibition and provenance record.

Steven Spielberg receiving the inscribed Indigo Elan from Silicon Graphics — The inscribed Indigo Elan at its Silicon Graphics handover. See the dedicated Spielberg Edition record.

Examine the Indigo record →

The beginning of the GPU

This is an SGI Geometry Engine engineering sample: one of the specialized processors that made real-time 3D graphics a workstation capability. Geometry Engines transformed, clipped, and prepared three-dimensional scenes for display, dividing graphics work into dedicated hardware stages decades before the modern GPU became a familiar term.

SGI Geometry Engine engineering sample, an early foundation of the GPU — The SGI Geometry Engine engineering sample in the collection: an early foundation of the GPU.

What a working-system photograph shows

A working-system photograph records a moment: the interface, connected peripherals, and software on screen. Those details belong to the object record; components outside the frame are identified separately.

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From Jurassic Park to Turok

The Indigo’s history reaches from Unix development to the movies. Spielberg’s inscribed Indigo Elan connects the collection to Amblin and Jurassic Park; the Turok Indy carries the story into Austin’s game studios. Hardware 3D gave artists new ways to make a world visible, then new ways for a player to enter it.