The Rise and Fall of Silicon Graphics

There's a few cases in the history of computers where it feels like the world just "chose wrong". One example is the Amiga; the Amiga really was better than anything Apple or Microsoft/IBM was doing at the time, but for market-force reasons that depress me, Commodore isn't the "Apple" of today.

Similarly, it feels like Silicon Graphics is a case where they really should have become more standard. Now, unlike Amiga, they were too expensive to catch on with regular consumers, but I feel like they should have become and stayed the "standard" for workstation computers.

Irix was a really cool OS, and 4Dwm was pretty nice to use and play with. It makes me sad that they beaten by Apple.

The people that created the Amiga weren't the same people as the ones leading Commodore. Apple's success seems to have been heavily based on the company's leader being very involved in product development and passionate about it.

Along the same lines, there is an alternate timeline where the Sharp X68000 took over the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OepeiBF5Jnk