Reply 2140 of 2262, by acl
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Irinikus wrote on 2023-07-07, 15:40:To be honest, myself as well as most of my colleagues are not into home flight simulation! […]
acl wrote on 2023-07-07, 07:16:Looking at your profile, i'm surprised to not see a flight sim setup !
Very impressive SGI collection. Do you have a personal history using these professionally? Or is it just an interest that came from nowhere? Because it's very "niche" and a quite an unusual collection for sure !
To be honest, myself as well as most of my colleagues are not into home flight simulation!
When I did pilots course back in 2003, all of the flight simulators (cockpit procedural trainers) at our central flying school were powered by SGI computers and that's pretty much where my interest in them started.
Here are some pics of our old dual cockpit sim for the Pilatus PC-7 MKII (Our basic trainer), which was powered by an SGI Onyx back in 2003: (The aircraft have since been upgraded to full glass cockpit rendering this simulator obsolete)
PPL student, i'm literally dreaming of flying one of these turboprop beauties one day. But I know it's out of reach for most private pilots.
I did not knew that SGI was in the professional flight sim market back then but that totally make sense. They were basically leading the 3d computer graphics market.
Former SGI employees formed 3dfx and other formed ArtX that is credited for the Radeon r300 design after ATI bought the company. So SGI is really something in computer graphics history.
The second well known story for retro enthusiasts is Real3D that came from Lockheed Martin / Martin Marietta and laid the foundation for Intel 740 and later intel IGP.
I really love your story and how aviation lead you to computer graphics. Thank you very much for sharing.
"Hello, my friend. Stay awhile and listen..."
My collection (not up to date)