N64

Shark demo (1994) running on a SGI O2 workstation

  • by

This is one of the demos that were used by Silicon Graphics and Nintendo to show the graphics features of their upcoming game console (Project Reality / Ultra 64 / Nintendo 64) during CES in 1994.

SGI used an Onyx supercomputer to run the demo. I recorded it in 1024×768 (true-color) on a much less powerful SGI O2 workstation (released in 1996). O2 is based on a graphics architecture similar to what was actually used in Nintendo 64. It was a perfect fit for an inexpensive highly-integrated computer as well as a game console.

I would rather use a different SGI computer (Octane2 was my first choice), but O2 was the only machine that was compatible with my cheap VGA-to-HDMI converter.

Preparing my SGI Indy for a vintage computer event

  • by

Bytefest 2019 is coming and I have only two weeks to prepare all the machines I want to take with me. I want to the show this Indy with a Nintendo 64 game console because Indys were often used for N64 game development (after all, N64 hardware was designed by SGI). It is nice to see that Indy’s VINO interface supports progressive scanning (used by game consoles and old 8bit computers) on its composite/S-Video inputs – unlike newer SGI O2 and SGI Visual Workstation 320. Anyway, the main planned part is to connect a vintage Czechoslovakia plotter (Aritma Minigraf) using our custom interface (modified to use a serial port) and plot processed images of visitors taken using the Indy’s bundled webcam.

I’m surprised that serial ports on Indy support speeds only up to 38.4 kb/s. Pretty slow for a computer introduced in 1993. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why the serial port speed was not even mentioned in the user guide. They just didn’t care.