SGI Workstation Prices From 20 Years Ago

CNet, back in July 1998:

The Octane line’s entry-level product, which comes with a 225-MHz R10000 MIPS processor, 128MB of memory, a 4GB hard drive, and a 20-inch monitor, will fall to $17,995 from $19,995. The pricing action comes two months after the company introduced it.

An Octane system featuring 250-MHz R10000 processor, meanwhile, will drop from $38,995 to $24,995. […]

SGI will further cut the price of its Onyx2 Reality supercomputer with two 250-MHz R10000 processors by 45 percent, to $75,000.

Historically speaking, the pricing for the new Mac Pro is not outlandish. The problem isn’t with the $30,000–50,000 models. The people who can make good use of those machines will do so. I think what’s bothersome to many traditional Mac Pro users is the lack of a Mac Pro in the, say, $2,500–5,000 range. There are a lot of pro users who want a desktop system that’s less expensive than these new Mac Pros but more performant and expandable than a Mac Mini. Something, I think, roughly like an iMac Pro without the built-in display.

I get why Apple kept the “Mac Pro” name. But in theory it would have been nice to have a new Mac Pro similar in scope — and pricing! — to the old pre-2013 Mac Pros, and to have these new Mac Pros occupy a new “hypercar” slot above the Mac Pro in the lineup. “Mac Workstation” is not a catchy name, I know, but something to that effect.

★ Tuesday, 17 December 2019