Understood. Some people will see that machine, know what it is, and how truly rare a treat they are to find in the wild. Then there's people like your administrators that just see it as a paperweight and want it gone. Such is the comedy of this world that the same thing can be seen in such different ways.

Once of my first gigs in technology right after college was building a Beowulf cluster to do calculations on, and I'm sorry if this is wrong because I'm not exactly the chemistry major here, modelling atomic structures and doing something with energies in bonds or something. The result of the calculations were then modeled on a set of SGI workstations.

I remember setting them up and it was a unique experience because I had not worked with IRIX before then. But I remember their workstations unique look and how they were put together. I remember watching professors do presentations with 3D models of chemicals from these things. Flying around atoms in ways I've never seen before and it literally felt like the future. So whenever I see them I think back to those times.

But for you all, you likely just see some old computer. And that's fine, I'm glad you got to see one of those machines. They were in a wholly different class back in the day and did things that few other computers could do. They were something else, I hate that you didn't get to see one in full swing and just how really cool a machine they were, but it is cool that you all got to see the physical device.

I don't know, maybe chalk it up to nostalgia, but those machines occupy a space for a lot of us that's very special. They were very unique, and so for a lot of us they're slightly magical devices in that sense. But seeing one as it is in the video is the stark reminder of what usually happens to these machines. No matter how special a place they occupy in our mind, it's not the same for everyone and eventually time wins its prize even for the things that are still dear to our hearts. Eventually the future just becomes legacy.