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 Amiga really was better than anything Apple or Microsoft/IBM was doing at the time

At the time. A brief moment in time, and then they had no path forward and were rapidly steamrolled. Nothing was "chosen wrong" in this aspect.

Commodore's story is more about achieving the impossible with 1-2 engineers building each computer. Commodore was a company built around Jack Tramiel who wanted his widgets to ship in volumes to "the masses, not classes". When he left then it was a lifestyle sucking cash machine for Irving Gould who appointed incompetent CEO after incompetent CEO after Tramiel. The miracle is it staggered on ten years post-Jack.

But the reality is the Commodore 64 kept Commodore going during most of that period rather than Amiga sales. It's similar to Apple where the Apple 2 kept Apple afloat during the 80s and 90s until Steve returned.