Of Indigo and Irixes
I’m not sure why, but lately, a neat memory has been coming back to mind a lot.
When Mom and Dad were in college and I was a small child, I sometimes went to class with them. Usually, when one of them had class, the other stayed home with me. Sometimes, though, they both needed to go to class at the same time. I really liked it when they took me along, especially when we stopped by the library or the computer lab.
During one of those days, Mom stopped by the campus computer lab. Some of you may well remember Mom recounting the first time she saw Myst. This happened in the same lab.
The lab in particular was a fascinating place. The people in the lab were nice folks, and their various projects were absolutely fascinating, even to a five year old. I wasn’t as into the business software, and I didn’t entirely understand the server training they had going on, but I loved it whenever they experimented with computer graphics. Sometimes, they wrote their own software for it, sometimes, they used pre-made software. It was all amazing to watch.
One day, Mom and I visited shortly after the lab had gotten a shipment of new workstations. A few blue and purple cases popped out in the sea of beige boxes. At the time, the guys were mostly getting comfortable with the CG software on them. Their big frustration, as they told it to Mom, was that they couldn’t get Myst to run on these particular computers. (They felt such powerful machines needed more games. lol)
While they were talking, a student who had just been introduced to these workstations entered the room and joined in. “I don’t even want to touch the mouse, or even walk NEAR these computers!” she shuddered. She was convinced that something would go horribly wrong if she went anywhere near them. What made this belief odd was that she was apparently really good at running other workstations, especially anything Unix-based.
Her fear came from the knowledge that these computers were the college’s very first SGI workstations. The college was considering adding them to the curriculum. A group of students was tasked with putting these amazing computers through their paces.
This girl was part of that assigned group. She hadn’t been taking part in the tests because she was afraid of possibly bricking one of the workstations.
The leader of the
group sighed, “I’ve told you once, I’ve told a thousand times,
it’s not easy to damage those computers with something like a
mis-click.” The leader looked over at Mom and me, and had an idea.
“That OS is so straight forward, a child could run it. If this
little girl can use safely one, will you at least give it a try?”
Other students had wandered up during the discussion. At the leader’s challenge, they started buzzing. She yelped, “You really want a little kid to run one of those?!”
He nodded.
Another guy emerged from the back of the lab grinning, “It’s a great idea! We can add this test to the report. Besides, I needed to take a few minutes break anyway” (He’d been sussing out one of the older workstations and the task had been had been driving him crazy)
Other people nodded.
The leader turned to Mom to ask permission. “Is your daughter familiar with computers?” Mom replied, “Well, she uses some educational software at home. How well will that translate to running a workstation?”
He nodded, “Well enough!”
“Okay, then.”
There were at least three SGI workstations in the lab, one Indigo2 and two Indys. Ultimately, it was decided that I’d run one of the Indys. (The guy who’d come from the back of the lab wanted me to run the Indigo2, but he was out-voted)
I was so nervous
because of how uncomfortable that one lady was. She was an expert and
I was a little kid! However, everybody else encouraged me to give it
a try.
The leader of the testing group pulled up the getting
started tutorial. He was right; it was pretty easy to run. The
tutorial made complete sense, and so did the layout. (I also really
liked the aesthetics used for the tutorial)
One thing that surprised me was that it ran slightly slower than the computer Mom and Dad used for school. (…or so I’d thought. I found out later that although Indys were optimized for 3d work and game dev, they ran their own OS a little slowly)
I got pouted at for mentioning this. The guy who’d voted for the Indigo2 laughed, “I told you we should have used the faster computer!”
Aside from the speed issues, I really liked Irix and enjoyed the tutorial.
After about fifteen non-disastrous minutes, the lady who had been so nervous finally calmed down and agreed to give the new computers a chance.
A few people wanted me to come back and learn more about about these machines, but that was not to be. All this happened about a week or two before the day Mom first saw Myst.
Although Myst no longer holds positive associations for either Mom or me, this particular memory is still a fun one, if a tad bittersweet by context.
That day stuck in my memory for YEARS. I would have loved to have kept training. However, that was going to come to an end sooner or later. I was a really little kid; once I started going to school, there would be no guarantee I could come back even if Dad's health had been better.
I kept looking for machines like the Indy and being kind of sad that I never came across another. Even the case and to some extent, the peripherals felt so different from most other computers.
Of course, as an adult I now know why; that was a truly rare experience. Mind you, the memory itself is a treasure.
Finding out that the Indy was also used to make some of my favorite games was also pretty nifty. It turns out the Indy was essential for creating many games made for pcs, PlayStation, and the Nintendo64.
