I Have A Dream
I ran across a bit of ancient history this morning that I'd almost forgotten; this promotional CD for the Silicon Graphics Octane workstation that contained 5 hilariously bad songs written and performed by actual SGI employees, singing the praises of the aforementioned chunk of mid-range graphics iron. The standout track here is "I Have A Dream" a soaring ballad that employs unforgettable lyrics like:
I have one dream
And it's called 2 CPUs
What this will mean
Is no more desktop blues
I have a dream
And it's called a crossbar switch
What this will mean
Is no big data glitch
I actually received this CD back in 1997, and promptly threw it in the trash (just like I did with everything I got from SGI marketing that I couldn't wear). I wish I'd kept it now. Sort of. As dumb as it is, it reminds me of a time when they were still the gold standard of computer graphics.
[Link: SGI Octane Songs]
Comments
I dunno. Two CPUs aren't enough to make Windows sit up and take notice. Was it really that different for IRIX?
Posted by: jkcohen | June 19, 2007 8:13 PM
In its day, the Octane was a screamer. IRIX had tools that allowed you to lock processes to specific CPUs, which greatly improved performance for certain applications, and the graphics subsystem did things like video texturing that were simply undoable on other platforms.
Most Windows applications today are still single-threaded, and just don't utilize multi-CPU architectures well.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | June 19, 2007 8:20 PM
I wrote a filk about the hurd kernel, but when I wrote and asked him to sing it for me, Stallman refused. :(
Posted by: Lonita | June 19, 2007 9:30 PM
Stallman, that commie, pinko, free-software lovin' bum!
At work, we invariably referred to GNU/Linux as the "turd kernel"...:-D
Posted by: MrBaliHai | June 19, 2007 9:38 PM
Don't despair! Maybe you can find the lyric somewhere - and sing them yourself!
I would suggest the following mp3 tag if you gonna share it with us: yodelling balinese opera.
Posted by: orangeguru | June 20, 2007 4:15 AM
yodelling balinese opera
I'd listen to that!
Posted by: MrBaliHai | June 21, 2007 7:05 PM