I like to think about that possibility, sometimes .. in my alternative universe, Steve stayed at Apple, Microsoft became more like Sun (fizzled out in the late 90's), and SGI end up being the one to make the tiBook in all its lovely glory, ushering in an era where the sgiPhone is what we all have in our pockets ..
I'd have loved to have cheaper and cheaper versions of NUMAlink in my desktop with stuff like their FPGA boards and graphics pipes. NUMAlink cards instead of PCI cards. Microsecond latency with almost 80GB/s speeds. Cellular IRIX-style splitting of system along multiple boards for max reliability and efficiency. Nice, alternate reality. :)
That was a nice PDF, thank you. It hurts to see SGI go the way of the Dodo, but it enlightens me to realize that this is The Way in computers. Not all who excel, persist.
(BTW, I'd have been quite happy with an SGI Indy laptop, y'know .. like the one we saw in the movies, a year or so before Steve did the tiBook..)
