The conventional wisdom within the computer industry states that the biggest barrier to putting UNIX on corporate desktops is UNIX itself. It's too cryptic, too complicated, and too confusing for the average user. So UNIX-system vendors have spent a lot of money building friendly, Windows-like graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that supposedly hide the intricacies of UNIX from users. The latest of these desktop GUIs is Indigo Magic from Silicon Graphics Inc. By combining it with SGI's first widely marketed entry-level workstation, the Indy, the company hopes to make inroads into the high end of the personal-computer market now dominated by advanced Intel processors.

It sounds like a good deal for end users: RISC performance and a desktop with enough windows, menus, and leading-edge media tools to satisfy even the most command-line-phobic PC user. But the same graphics-intensive dazzle likely to entice Macintosh and Windows users away from their present platforms works against the Indy when evaluated from a functional standpoint. All the color, video, and sound require CPU cycles; even at the Indy's 100MHz internal clock speed, you see visible delays during some tasks.

Despite these reservations, we are impressed by the Indy. SGI has come close to eliminating the need for a command-line interface. The multimedia tools within Indigo Magic--mail, presentation authoring, sound capture and editing, and video capture and editing--will appeal to SGI's target audience. Indigo Magic, which will eventually be available throughout the SGI product line, gives the company a distinct identity that capitalizes on SGI's history as a leading supplier of high-performance graphics workstations.

The base Indy system is a diskless workstation suitable for a networked environment. It has all the expected features of an entry-level workstation-- 16MB of RAM (expandable to 256MB), room for two storage devices, dithered 8-bit graphics, a 15-inch color monitor with 1,024x768 resolution, keyboard, mouse, two serial ports, one parallel port, Ethernet and SCSI interfaces, two expansion slots, SGI's IRIX 5.1 UNIX operating system, and the Indigo Magic multimedia user environment--all powered by MIPS's 64-bit R4000PC chip with 16KB cache. What you may not expect are some of the peripherals and software SGI bundles with the Indy to live up to its marketing promise of "Serious Fun." Standard equipment for an Indy includes a digital color-video camera (dubbed the IndyCam), a clip-on mono microphone, a CD of games, and back-panel ports for analog composite video, analog S-video, digital video, five audio jacks, and ISDN).

Installation

The configuration we evaluated consisted of a 100MHz R4000SC CPU with IMB of cache, 64MB of RAM, an internal 1GB hard disk, a 16-inch color monitor with 1,280x1,024 resolution, 24-bit graphics, an internal 20MB floptical drive that can read DOS and Macintosh diskettes, an external CD-ROM, and the IndyCam and microphone. The R40005C processor is the more advanced R4000 chip offered by SGI. The R4000PC and SC each have 8KB of onboard data and instruction cache; the R4000SC also accesses up to 4MB of combined off-chip cache. In March, SGI will offer a 150MHz R4400-based Indy.

In addition to the standard software, we installed Adobe Illustrator; C, C++, and FORTRAN compilers; and a beta version of SGI's CASEVision Workshop 2.0 software-development environment. (UNIX Review does not publish evaluations of beta products, so CASEVision will not be discussed in this review. For information about CASEVision 1.1, see UNiX Review, June 1993.) The price of this configuration is $21,195 for the hardware and $2,995 for the software, for a total of $24,190.

Installation is simple. The Indy documentation includes a stiff cardboard sheet containing eight illustrations--no text, just pictures--that depict how to cable the components together and power up the system. We gave the instruction sheet to a nontechnical coworker who uses a Macintosh daily; she had the Indy up and running in 15 minutes.

The Indy's boot sequence reflects SGI's philosophy that UNIX should be hidden from the user. SGI eliminated reporting messages like "Checking SCSI Target ..." and displays only error messages during boot. The first screen you see is a login screen, from which you can enter an existing account, set up a new account using the EZSetup tool, or try the Out-of-Box Experience. Out-of-Box is a multimedia showcase of animation, stop-motion movies, and audio tours designed to demonstrate the Indy's capabilities. After you've seen it once, delete it. You'll find better uses for the 120MB of disk space it occupies.

The EZSetup tool was our first experience with Indigo Magic, and it lived up to expectations as a model of simplicity, requiring only an account name and a few checkbox selections. But both EZSetup, which grants root privileges, and a customization option that lets you configure the system to login to an account automatically, demonstrate a troubling lack of security.

Documentation

In addition to the eight-picture installation guide, the Indy comes with a 200-page manual explaining basic procedures such as adding and replacing components, troubleshooting, and port pin-outs. This booklet is the extent of the hard-copy documentation. Like most major system vendors, SGI has turned to online documentation and context-sensitive help. Depending on your question, one of several options will give you the necessary information.

The Help tool chest includes the usual UNIX m a n pages, an online copy of the printed manual, and the Iris InSight Document Library. InSight is SGI's equivalent of Sun's AnswerBook or DEC's BookReader, but it is much more comprehensive than either of those tools. It includes reference material ranging from X titles published by O'Reilly & Associates (Sebastopol, CA) to SGI-published material on the Indigo Magic environment. The InSight interface is cleanly designed and simple to navigate.

Each application also has a Help button that delivers contextsensitive help. SGI was not afraid to create either long entries or extensive submenus within the application-specific Help menus, and these features made it easier to find the help screens that addressed our questions.

SGI also created a sound-andgraphics slide show, called System Tour, to teach new users about the Indigo Magic interface.

Operating System And Ease Of Use

It is immediately obvious that SGI has redefined the importance of the operating system, making it secondary to the user interface. The Indy's operating system, IRIX 5.1, is an SVR4 derivative that conforms to POSIX 1003.1. It is hard to talk about IRIX in the abstract, since SGI has coupled it so closely with the Indigo Magic interface. Unless you specifically open the console or shell windows, you might never know what is actually driving the Indy.

The user notices the Indigo Magic interface most, an XiIR5 Window System that uses OSF/Motif 1.2 and SGI's OpenGL graphics. The minimum user desktop consists of the set of tool chests previously mentioned, and a collection of icons--CD-ROM, floptical drive, camera, dumpster, and home-directory folder--representing individual and shared resources. Most Indigo Magic operations are performed by dragging and dropping icons between windows or by using the mouse to select options on radio buttons and check boxes. This type of interface is fairly common; Sun's OpenWindows environment fits the same description. Where SGI has taken the extra step is in the number and functionality of Indigo Magic's desktop tools. For instance, Indigo Magic automatically mounts system peripherals on startup, instead of requiring someone to set up a mount table. The Indy doesn't seem to have any problem if devices in the mount table are missing. We tested the Indy both with and without the CDROM attached; each time the appropriate icons appeared on the desktop.

The most significant components of the Indigo Magic user environment include the following:

* Audio cues signal the start and finish of an operation. SGI also uses the scheme of changing the cursor into a wait icon, but we found the use of this icon inconsistent. Sometimes a watch appeared, sometimes an hourglass appeared, and sometimes the arrow just sat there. Smart icons also signal that an operation is in progress. For instance, when you read a diskette, a diskette icon appears halfway inserted into the slot of the floptical-drive icon.

* Media Tools let you record, manipulate, and play back sound, pictures, and video created with the IndyCam and microphone.

* Showcase 3.0 is a multimedia package that lets you combine sound, pictures, and video, as well as text and 3-D images, into interactive presentations.

* Media Mail is a licensed version of Z-Marl from Z-Code Software (Novato, CA). Z-Mail complies with the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) standard, so any type of file that can be created with the Indy's desktop tools--sound, graphics, or video--can be sent through the mail.

* Intelligent windows keep track of recently visited directories. You can go directly to one of these directories through a pull-down menu. These windows also have what SGI calls a drop pocket. Drag an icon into the drop pocket and you immediately go to that location. In addition, you can store links to applications with a window; for instance, you could have a subdirectory containing all your development code and an icon linked to that subdirectory will launch CASEVision. Multiple desktops let you group your work by function. For example, one desktop may be devoted to your current softwaredevelopment project, while a second desktop displays the windows and icon catclogs relating to all documentation being written for your application.

* The floptical drive can read Macintosh and DOS diskettes. We tried both types of diskettes in the drive and discovered that the floptical drive did not always immediately register the presence of the diskette. After retrying several times, the floptical drive usually managed to read the diskette, but the drive needs to be more reliable. In addition, the floptical drive had problems acting like a raw device and reading UNIX tar files. We resorted to the command line to extract tar archives.

Indigo Magic is new and consequently has a few minor quirks that need fixing. For example, the software manager uses a command-line window instead of a window-menu-mouse interface like other administration tools.

Figure 2 shows the results of several industry-standard benchmarks. Dhrystone is a measure of integer CPU performance. The Indy is at the low end of the performance range of several graphics workstations, although all values are close. Whetstone and Linpack measure floating-point performance. The HP 9000/730 CRX clearly leads in floating performance. The Indy's performance

ranks in the middle.

The SPEC 92 benchmarks are those published by SGI. The SPEC integer benchmark consists of six tests that are each run, timed, and normalized. The geometric mean of all the tests is reported as the SPECint92 value. SGI reported 34 SPECint92 for the R4000PC chip and 58.5 SPECint92 for the R40005C chip. Those numbers are approximately 50% and 150% faster than SPECint92 results for SGI's R3000-based Indigo workstation and significantly better than the performance numbers for competitors' workstations priced under $10,000.

The SPEC floating-point benchmark consists of 14 separate tests, also run, timed, and normalized. The geometric mean of all the tests is reported as the SPECfp92 value. SGI reported 35 SPECfp92 for the R4000PC chip and 61 SPECfp92 for the R4000SC chip. These values also show approximately the same percentage increases over the R3000-based Indigo, and, again, are significantly better than the performance numbers for competitor's workstations at similar price levels.

However, raw CPU power isn't the best test of a workstation like the Indy. When working with the machine, we noticed significant delays when using the graphical features heavily. For example, when working in the graphics intensive Showcase application, dragging a window around the screen quickly caused severe screen-redraw stutter. When we stopped dragging the window, we had more than a dozen copies of the window displayed at previous positions.

In an attempt to measure the delay introduced by working within Indigo Magic, we timed two different file searches. Using the find command in a shell window, we measured the elapsed time for the system to search the entire file system for a test file. Next, we brought up the graphical search tool and again asked the machine to search the whole file system for the test file. The command-line test completed in 33 seconds, while the graphical test needed 176 seconds to finish.

This is not to say that the graphics on the Indy are slow. SGI places the R4000PC Indy benchmarks at 1 million XLines per second, 500,000 2-D vectors per second, and 400,000 3-D vectors per second. The R4000SC chip boosts those numbers to 1.4 million XLines per second, 600,000 2-D vectors per second, and 480,000 3-D vectors per second. But from a user's perspective, many operations execute more slowly when accessed through the graphical user interface.

Report Card

We gave the Indy a mixed report card, with an overall rating of superior, mostly due to the innovative design of the Indigo Magic interface. Installation rated superior because of the Indy's preinstalled software and simple, eight-step procedure to take it from box to power on.

Documentation rated excellent. SGI offers everything from tutorials to in-depth technical books online and has not stinted on the hardcopy manual. Support rated average. SGI's one-year warranty and phone-support personnel are comparable to others in the industry.

The Indy's expandability earned a superior rating. Many vendors are limiting their low-end systems to one expansion slot and less than 100MB of memory, but SGI has designed two expansions and space for 256MB of memory into the Indy. So much is loaded into the Indy already that it may be hard to think of additional peripherals to add, but SGI offers accessories ranging from a MIDI interface to an FDDI network interface.

Operation rated superior. IRIX 5.1 is a robust, full-featured, SVR4 implementation. The Indy's ease of use earned it a second excellent rating. SGI achieved its goal of masking UNIX's cryptic commands in a user-friendly interface that does not undermine the operating system's functionality.

Performance received a rating of average. The Indy's performance on industry-standard benchmarks was slightly less than or comparable to competitive machines. price/performance earned a superior rating because the Indy provides more power than competing workstations in the $5,000 range. However, any significant work requires more memory and disk, and possibly a better graphics card and monitor, which pushes the Indy's cost beyond the attractive $4,995 entry-level price.

Our overall impression of the Indy is favorable. It lives up to SGI's promise of "Serious Fun" and has enough power and functionality to provide "Serious Work."

Amy H. Johnson is the technical editor of UNIX Review. You can reach her at tech_ed@ureview. com. Staff member Lisa K. Ramos contributed to this review.

Silicon Graphics Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043 (415) 960-1980, (800) 800-7441 (415) 961-9025 fax

Base Configuration: diskless 100MHz

R4000PC CPU, 16KB cache, 16MB

RAM, dithered 8-bit graphics, 15-inch color monitor (1,024x768), IndyCam, keyboard, mouse, IRIX 5.1,

Indigo Magic, game CD

Base Price: $4,995

Options: R4000SC CPU $4,000; internal floptical drive $500; internal 340MB disk $1,500; internal 535MB disk $2,500; 16MB memory upgrade $1,500; external CD-ROM $1,200; external DAT drive $2,500; bundles available.

Evaluation: UNIX functionality and RISC power in a great GUI. Has some performance drawbacks. Most UNIX developers will pay more than base price to get the upgrades.