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SGI to sell 85% stake in MIPS 45

Posted by sengan from the need-more-icons,-darn-it! dept.
Zebulun writes "the New York Times reported today that Silicon Graphics Corp will sell its majority stake in MIPS Technologies Inc. which produces the RS5k and RS10k processors powering SGIs high-end workstations. This comes not long after SGI announced and began selling intel PII based "VisualStations". " Andrey gave us the link to this Associated Press report about it, commenting "What a sad day it is..."
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SGI to sell 85% stake in MIPS More

SGI to sell 85% stake in MIPS

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  • Even if you insist no Mac is ever a workstation (debatable), there are things like RS/6000s etc etc, and of course the newly viable dualboot Mac running linuxppc. I just set my dualboot box up last weekend, and by God it's totally viable- you just have to find tar.gzip versions of things, which is good for you anyway, knowing how to compile things :)
    To _my_ viewpoint things are massively looking up for PPC Linux, because I am _running_ it, and I'm quite savvy about Mac issues and would _know_ if MacOS was going to be jerking around linux, and it ain't- MacOS thinks linux is A/UX partitions and leaves them alone, COEXISTS happily with them. Can you say the same for Windows? Does Windows consider linux partitions valid data, or mysterious garbage? Also, we have 'BootX' which replaces the need to mess about with Open Firmware- that's an ease-of-adoption issue and the effects _will_ be known. And I personally am already helping Mac newbies do things like kill kdm and install Window Maker.
    PPC Linux lives! Things are looking up for x86 alternatives. _try_ one! Pick up an old PCI Mac and make it a RISC Linux workstation. It's fun to have sweet hardware and a built-in respectable basic SCSI bus! It's never been easier to try Linux. Even if you download linuxPPC (no CD or floppies or anything) you only have to drag 2 files into your system folder, drag the BootX control panel/extension onto the system folder (they will be put in the right places) and reboot- undoing it all is as easy as dragging the files back out again, it's _never_ been so easy to try Linux, or so safe and convenient.
    Expect more PPC linux. I'm telling you, the nature of linux is to route around suckiness in the world and find the good answers. Well... looks like linux can get the most out of Apple hardware- and the Mac side _helps_ by being cooperative and adaptable, and the whole process is a _dream_ of simplicity and convenience.
    :) :) :) :)
    There. heh. er, can you tell I'm enjoying linux and having a good experience with it? I'm just as much of a newbie as some of the PC guys who had hellish troubles and failed and gave bad press reports. Ponder that for a while ;) isn't it good to encourage types of linux use that tend to create rabid frothing delighted fans? :)
  • Take a closer look. The dead products are the Ultra30 (replaced by the Ultra60), the Ultra-1 (Which is OLD, the UltraSPARC 1 is three generations back!) and the SparcStation 5 (REALLY Old...FOUR generations back.)

    Sun is selling its new Darwin systems, and they are selling better than any workstation line in Sun's history. The Sun Ultra5 is the low end system, you can pick one up for less than $3000 if you shop carefully, the Ultra10 is the next level up, and cloned by Tatung and a few others, and the Ultra60 is the latest and greatest and outruns Xeon like a bullet train outruns a steam locomotive.

    Even -BETTER- news for Linux fans are the UltraSPARC-II AX motherboards...roll your own UltraPenguin system for less than 2 grand! Put it in that Black Archy case from colorcases.com...

    SoupIsGood Food

  • SGI's Ric Bleuzzo has made it abundantly clear that he is moving everything from MiPS to IA-64 at the high end. IRIX is going to be ported to IA-64, and workstations will all be IA-32 running NT. This was supposed to happen with the advent of merced, and it was supposed to have already happened, but it looks like he'll have to wait until late next year when (if) McKinley comes out.

    I wonder where SGI will get fab space to build those R14000s if MiPS tells them to go screw? MiPS is a very succesful company, and supplies their low end chips everywhere...it's not as if they are hurting for buisines...

    SoupIsGood Food

  • Geeze. First you can't get a Sun Workstation (supported but no longer sold) [sun.com] at all anymore. Now MIPS is on it's way out. Who's next? If Compaq follows Sun's and SGI's lead, they will can the Alpha workstations too...

    Things are NOT looking up for x86 alternitives. Well, I guess the good news is that at least AMD is making things look good _in_ the x86 world. :-(

  • www.sun.com then hit "products and solutions" then hit Workstations, and it droped me right to that # tag about no longer making X, Y, and Z....

    So, I spook too soon, I happened to come across this SGI thread on /. about the same time I was looking at that, and who'da thought you were suppose to scroll _UP_ to get to where they were suppose to send me ;-)

    Spoke too soon... It felt like a dark day, but I guess it's not _that_ bad.

  • We can hope. What right do I have to say it? I work on it every single DAY.
  • There are only a few companies where I truely respect their hardware. SGI is one, Digital is the other. This is such a sad day for SGI, cause in my opinion Mips made them who they are today.

    Oh well.. the only thing that can make me regain favor is for them to port linux to their new workstations.
  • x86 is a standard that _needs_ to be killed. Look at the snivling piece of garbage, its been around since 1977 or something and has its roots in the 8088. The only thing keeping us from moving on to faster processors with better instruction sets and a smoother design is Microsoft! I know the linux development wizzes will port the kernel to these new processors in a week!

    The standards that we should be supporting right now are not made by intel! SGI letting go is a step in the _wrong_ direction!
  • I guess this means that Irix dies as well.....

  • ..about how bad it is to be dependant on a single proprietry vendor? Did the SGI execs come out of the Andy Grove business school?

    Who made the decision, BTW. Does anyone know whether it was a marketing/manager type bod, or an engineering based decision (I wager the former.)

    Christian
  • Considering that:
    a) Merced is not out
    b) nobody really knows when it will be out
    c) nobody knows how well it really will perform, not even intel
    d) the price difference in R10K and PII
    comes mostly from volume

    I would say that the aricle this is in reply to is pretty much rubbish.
  • Let's parrot the previous statement with a little bit of twist to show how ridiculous this is.

    "UNIX is an O/S that _NEEDS_ to be killed. Look at the sniveling piece of garbage, it's been around since 1970 and has its roots in MULTICS. The only thing keeping us from moving to faster O/Ses with better fileystems and a more streamlined kernel is Linux! I know the [BeOS, Apple, Microsoft, etc] development whizzes will port UNIX functionality to their own O/Ses in a week!"

    See how ridiculous it sounds? Things EVOLVE, people. And evolution does not neccesarily entail replacing things. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! UNIX/Unix clones have been in development since 1970. NT is supposedly (ripped-off VMS code aside) a "ground-up" system and I bet that XENIX is more scalable. (Tongue in cheek statement)

    x86 in and of itself isnt bad. However ISA architecture *is* a problem, because the same evolution that took place in the processor did not take place in the bus, processor cache, et al.

    I gave you a dollar. Where's my $0.98?
  • The SGI universe is ending. Time to move on.
  • I'm not anonymous, and this isn't a flame, but I agree, that "First Post" stuff is childish.

  • Gee.. maybe SGI's port of 64bit Irix to the Merced might be a 64 bit solution. Aren't Sun and HP also creating a 64 bit os for merced?

    I believe Linux might be a non-denominational version that would be a base for attack from the unix vendors, but don't think these well established companies will just throw their own os/2 at linux.
  • as complicated as the x86 chip is getting, think about it this way... the human brain as we know it has been evolving for many millions of years. It seems to be more of a CISC type thing than a RISC thing, in that it has many built-in instructions. So maybe it is not bad that the x86 has been growing for twenty years.
  • this is truely a sad day. MIPS was vastly superior to anything intel ever had or will have for years to come.
  • First, SGI *IS* committed to open source development. I can cite two specific examples:
    - Samba 2.0 getting development help
    - Linux on SGI/Indy's (http://www.linux.sgi.com), which a lot of us worked very hard to distribute.

    SGI has, personally, helped me with documentation on the Indy, loaned me a machine, and hosted SGI/Linux. Don't be so quick to talk!

    Also, there *IS* an HPPA port of Linux starting. http://www.puffingroup.com/parisc, for starters.

    - Alex

  • First (Score:1)

    by PDG ( 100516 )
    I'm first, get on line

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