From 1992 to 1998, every paid job I did came with a Unix workstation on my desk. Admittedly that only covers three employers, but it covers a lot of different kinds of workstation.

In those days, selling Unix software (unless you could dictate the hardware as well) involved a lot of porting, and companies would build up a library of different workstations to port and test on. A bit like Android development nowadays, but much more expensive.

At some point I used, or had in the rooms around me, machines running

• Silicon Graphics IRIX on MIPS processors (the SGI Indigo and Indy—the natty coloured boxes)
• Sun Solaris on SPARC (with my favourite keyboards, the Sun Type 5)
• SunOS 4 on Motorola 68K (immense single-bit-depth mono screens)
• DEC Ultrix on MIPS, and OSF/1 on Alpha (everyone wanted the Alpha)
• SCO Unix on Intel x86 (nobody wanted that)
• Hewlett-Packard HP-UX on HP Precision Architecture (nice hardware, didn’t enjoy the OS)
• Data General DG/UX on AViiON (not a very likeable machine)
• IBM AIX on POWER architecture (fast, though I was never into the rattly keyboards)
• and a System V implementation from Godrej & Boyce of India running on Intel i860

That was up to 1998.

From 1999 to 2014, every paid job I’ve done—other than excursions into Windows for specific bits of work—has come with an Intel PC running Linux on my desk.

I suppose proprietary Unix workstations made something of a comeback in the shape of Apple’s Mac Pro line with OS/X. I think of the dustbin-shaped Mac Pro as a successor to SGI workstations like the Indy and O2: the sort of thing you would want to have on your desk, even if it wasn’t strictly what you needed to get the job done.