[geeks] New SGI workstation

[Bjorn Ramqvist]

Frank Van Damme wrote:
> 
> > "The new system should serve this niche well and help pay the bills as
> > the company transitions to Intel's Itanic processor."
> 
> Exit SGI I guess...

Well, looking at a perspective; more Mips-based kickass hardware for us.

> Philosofical question: what makes a PeeCee a PeeCee? The fact it has an Intel
> cpu? I deem it possible to base a crap ide-based workstation with a shared
> bus architecture and low memory bandwidth and all sorts of flaky hardware
> around a Mips cpu, no?

I see a flamewar coming, so I put on the firesuit and take cover;
I'd say a PeeCee is a machine equipped around the x86-architecture,
capable of running Linux-x86 or M$-products. That sorts out any
possibilites misclassifying older Sequent-machines as PeeCees. (They are
true iron, although running X86-processors)

I can't label a low-end workstation (as the Sun Ultra5 or the
AlphaStation DS10 for good examples) as PeeCees. They share the
PCI-buses with PeeCees and they are IDE-capable, and that's about it.
They are both unable to run Linux-x86 (although UltraPenguin or
Linux/Alpha) or M$-products, and they are not based upon the
x86-architecture.
They do share perfect binary-compability with bigger-end hardware that
isn't even bus-based, which kind of rules out the x86-architecture?

Sure, there may be some examples of bad hardware around Mips (or other
RISC) CPUs, but they don't share the architecture dilemmas the x86-world
has. Therefore != PeeCee.

/Bjorn