Wintel makes inroads in visual workstation market

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): You may have noticed how the American and European auto industry is going through an interesting period. No, not the big mergers between Daimler Benz and Chrysler or between Ford and Jaguar. I am talking about the design of the cars.

While until recently most of the cars on the streets looked almost like each other, several American and European automakers have recreated their past glories by launching cars with retro looks. Most notable are the immensely popular VW Beetle (they like the yellow one the most), the Thunderbird from Ford, the PT Cruiser from Chrysler and the Audi TT. These models have that distinct 40s and 50s look, although they are packed with the latest in automotive and, of course, electronic technology.

One thing is clear, though. Designing the cars back in the 1950s must have been very different than it is today. It must have taken the drafters much longer to complete a new design on the drawing board back then. Yet, curiously, most American carmakers in 1950s and 1960s managed to introduce a decidedly different look every year. For instance, you can easily distinguish a '61 Impala from its '62 model, or a `53 Ford Customline from its '54 model just by the look. Incidentally, I still remember the handsome V8 Ford Customline clearly because my late father used to have one.

It is rather curious that most cars nowadays share so many design elements in common, because designing cars should be much easier. Well, at least that is the impression I got as I sat in the auditorium of Jakarta's Le Meridien watching a presentation by the king of graphics workstation, Silicon Graphics Computer Systems (SGI).

First Wintel

What was special about the workstations that SGI introduced that day? Well, in the past, SGI only built Unix-based stations that allowed engineers in the manufacturing industry, artists in the entertainment and media industry, scientists in laboratories as well as highly technical professionals in the energy industry and government to manipulate graphics in ways that we simply could not accomplish on our PC.

However, SGI's exclusive focus on Unix was changed with this introduction. SGI launched its first workstations that were built on the Wintel platform, which means they are powered by one or more Intel Pentium II -- or Pentium II Xeon -- processors and run Windows NT.

Well, you may think that your PC also has a Pentium II processor and you can install Windows NT, too. But it would not be the same because the new Visual Workstations have, for example, a graphics subsystem that, as claimed by SGI, is six times faster than the AGP architecture from Intel. Other components are also optimized for handling 3-D graphics and faster data access.

Two models were brought into the world, the Visual Workstation Silicon Graphics 320 and Silicon Graphics 540. I did not bother to request a loaned review unit because of two reasons. First, the price of the 320, which was already available at the demo, starts at US$4,420, far more than I could afford to pay in case something happened to it while it was sitting in my living room. Secondly, the software it runs is not my everyday CorelDRAW! or PhotoShop types. However, it is interesting to see how we can manipulate graphic objects and render them to get a 3-D image complete with lighting and shadowing effects. We can rotate the real-life looking 3-D objects on the screen as if we could touch it with our fingers.

Technologies

Both the systems come with a proprietary Cobalt graphics chips, a 32X Max CD-ROM drive, analog video I/O, 10/100 Ethernet and support for up to 1920x1200 (HDTV and better) graphics resolution. The similarities stop there, however. The 320 can be equipped with two Pentium II 450 MHz processors and up to 1 GB of ECC SDRAM. The $8,300 and up Silicon Graphics 540 can use four Intel Pentium II Xeon 450 MHz, up to 2 GB of ECC SDRAM, and a 9 GB 7,200 RPM Ultra-2 SCSI hard disk. Now, are you still shocked by the sticker price?

I think the most exciting part of the presentation were the demos because they really showed us what these monsters are capable of doing. Simon See, the wizard, showed how we could create a cube on the screen, and on each side of the cube we can display different things: Two live videos on two different sides, a QuickTime Movie on one side, and so on.

"This machine has two video inputs, so it will be like watching two TV channels in one screen," explained See, the wizard who was also a technical manager for the Technical Industry Consultant Group for Silicon Graphics ASEAN operation.

Can the Wintel platform really replace the more expensive Unix-based workstation?

"Not for now," See said. "If what you need is a data handling capability of up to 2 GB, the 540 can still do the job. Beyond that, you will have to go to Unix because Unix can address a far larger memory space. We still have to wait until Intel comes out with its 64-bit Merced processor."

What do we need these powerful graphics and visualization workstations for? Multimedia content creation professionals can leverage their boundless imagination with capabilities to have two or more video sources streaming data into the screen. Professionals in the manufacturing industries can quickly build 3-D solid modeling, finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics and what have you.

Two software providers, Alias and Parametric, also showed off their products towards the end of the seminar. The capable presenters really convinced me that designing industrial products, such as the top cover of a boombox CD player, would be a matter of hours instead of months with currently available technology. Now, remember the design of the cars on the streets? Don't you see that we should now be able to design our true "national car"?