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SGI used to have super cool systems like this. You knew you were getting $40K worth of value because your workstation looked like it was worth $40K. Look up SGI O2, Octane, Indy, etc.

Similar in the servers with the Onyx and Origin servers. They looked like you had gotten your moneys worth. And at the time, you did.

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The SGI kit definitely had looks that were a notch above the competing workstations of the time: http://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2015/2/...

Yeah, the O2 and Octane looked great, but their cases felt like cheap plastic up close. I remember being very unimpressed with my first exposure to an SGI workstation because of this. Actually working on it was great... it was just that the cheap plastic of the case ruined the entire effect.

The previous generation (Indy/Indigo2) felt rock solid. The cheap feel of the O2 was a real let down. But they probably couldn't justify the cost of making really nice keyboards and cases once Linux became serious competition in every other way.

Sun's later workstations looked super cool, too. I've got a red Sun Blade 1500; won't boot (blown caps on motherboard), but I keep it around because it looks badass.

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