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Advanced RISC Computing
Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) is a specification promulgated by a defunct consortium of computer manufacturers (the Advanced Computing Environment project), setting forth a standard MIPS RISC-based computer hardware and firmware environment. The firmware on Alpha machines that are compatible with ARC is known as AlphaBIOS, non-ARC firmware on Alpha is known as SRM. History Although ACE went defunct, and no computer was ever manufactured which fully complied with the ARC standard, the ARC system has a widespread legacy in that all operating systems in the Windows NT family use ARC conventions for naming boot devices. SGI's modified version of the ARC firmware is named ARCS. All SGI computers which run IRIX 6.1 or later, such as the Indy and Octane, boot from an ARCS console, which uses the same drive naming conventions as Windows. Most of the various RISC-based computers designed to run Windows NT have versions of the ARC boot console to boot NT. These include the followin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Specification (technical Standard)
A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specifications (specs), and the term is used differently in different technical contexts. They often refer to particular documents, and/or particular information within them. The word ''specification'' is broadly defined as "to state explicitly or in detail" or "to be specific". A requirement specification is a documented requirement, or set of documented requirements, to be satisfied by a given material, design, product, service, etc. It is a common early part of engineering design and product development processes in many fields. A functional specification is a kind of requirement specification, and may show functional block diagrams. A design or product specification describes the features of the ''solutions'' for the Requirement Specification, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peripheral Component Interconnect
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a processor bus but in a standardized format that is independent of any given processor's native bus. Devices connected to the PCI bus appear to a bus master to be connected directly to its own bus and are assigned addresses in the processor's address space. It is a parallel bus, synchronous to a single bus clock. Attached devices can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard (called a ''planar device'' in the PCI specification) or an expansion card that fits into a slot. The PCI Local Bus was first implemented in IBM PC compatibles, where it displaced the combination of several slow Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) slots and one fast VESA Local Bus (VLB) slot as the bus configuration. It has subsequently been adopted for other computer types. Typic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acer PICA
The M6100 PICA is a system logic chipset designed by Acer Laboratories introduced in 1993. ''PICA'' stands for ''Performance-enhanced Input-output and CPU Architecture''. It was based on the Jazz architecture developed by Microsoft and supported the MIPS Technologies R4000 or R4400 microprocessors. The chipset was designed for computers that run Windows NT, and therefore used ARC firmware to boot Windows NT. The chipset consisted of six chips: a CPU and secondary cache controller, a buffer, a I/O cache and bus controller, a memory controller The memory controller is a digital circuit that manages the flow of data going to and from the computer's main memory. A memory controller can be a separate chip or integrated into another chip, such as being placed on the same die or as an int ..., and two data buffers. PICA was used by Acer in its Formula 4000 personal workstation, which NEC sold under the OEM name RISCstation Image. References * "Acer Launches Set For Building R4400 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DeskStation Raptor
DeskStation Technology was a manufacturer of RISC-based computer workstations intended to run Windows NT. DeskStation was based in Lenexa, Kansas. MIPS-based systems In late 1991, DeskStation announced a workstation based on the MIPS R3000A CPU, the IceStation 3000, that was to be the basis of a product compliant with the Advanced Computing Environment (ACE) specification, with this workstation already existing in prototype form and with early production models to be made available for beta-testing within a matter of weeks. However, at that time, none of the operating systems featured in the ACE specification were available: Windows NT being expected in early 1992 and the ACE-targeted SCO Unix product expected in late 1992. Consequently, DeskStation hoped to license Ultrix from Digital as an interim measure, aiming to provide binary compatibility with the eventual SCO product. The workstation featured a system architecture incorporating ISA and TURBOchannel buses, along with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AlphaServer
AlphaServer is a series of server computers, produced from 1994 onwards by Digital Equipment Corporation, and later by Compaq and HP. AlphaServers were based on the DEC Alpha 64-bit microprocessor. Supported operating systems for AlphaServers are Tru64 UNIX (formerly Digital UNIX), OpenVMS, MEDITECH MAGIC and Windows NT (on earlier systems, with AlphaBIOS ARC firmware), while enthusiasts have provided alternative operating systems such as Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD. The Alpha processor was also used in a line of workstations, AlphaStation. Some AlphaServer models were rebadged in white enclosures as Digital Servers for the Windows NT server market. These so-called "white box" models comprised the following: * Digital Server 3300/3305: rebadged AlphaServer 800 * Digital Server 5300/5305: rebadged AlphaServer 1200 * Digital Server 7300/7305/7310: rebadged AlphaServer 4100 As part of the roadmap to phase out Alpha-, MIPS- and PA-RISC-based systems in favor of Itan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AlphaStation
AlphaStation is the name given to a series of computer workstations, produced from 1994 onwards by Digital Equipment Corporation, and later by Compaq and HP. As the name suggests, the AlphaStations were based on the DEC Alpha 64-bit microprocessor. Supported operating systems for AlphaStations comprise Tru64 UNIX (formerly Digital UNIX), OpenVMS and Windows NT (with AlphaBIOS ARC firmware). Most of these workstations can also run various versions of Linux and BSD operating systems. Other Alpha workstations produced by DEC include the DEC 2000 AXP (DECpc AXP 150), the DEC 3000 AXP, the Digital Personal Workstation ''a''-Series and ''au''-Series (codename Miata), the Multia VX40/41/42 and the Alpha XL/Alpha XLT line (a member of the Alcor Family, which had swappable daughterboard with Pentium processor, to transform to a DEC Celebris XL line). Models From the XP900 onwards, all AlphaStation models were simply workstation configurations of the corresponding AlphaServer model. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DEC Multia
The Multia, later re-branded the Universal Desktop Box, was a line of desktop computers introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation on 7 November 1994. The line is notable in that units were offered with either an Alpha AXP or Intel Pentium processor as the CPU, and most hardware other than the backplane and CPU were interchangeable. Both the Alpha and Intel versions were intended to run Windows NT. The Multia had a compact case that left little room for expansion cards and restricted air flow, which can cause premature hardware failure due to overheating if not properly cared for. Enthusiasts remedy this by placing the Multia vertically instead of horizontally, allowing the heated air to escape via vents at the top, although this still requires preventing the Multia from overheating due to other factors, e.g. environmental. Hardware specifications The Alpha Multias included either an Alpha 21066 or Alpha 21066A microprocessor running at 166 MHz or 233 MHz respecti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UEFI Forum
UEFI Forum, Inc. is an alliance between technology companies to coordinate the development of the UEFI specifications. The board of directors includes representatives from twelve ''promoter'' companies: AMD, American Megatrends, ARM, Apple, Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP Inc., Insyde Software, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Phoenix Technologies. Overview The non-profit corporation has assumed responsibility for the management and promotion of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification, a bootloader and runtime interface between platform firmware and an operating system. The original EFI specification was developed by Intel and was used as the starting point from which the UEFI version(s) were developed. The goal of the organization is to replace the aging PC BIOS. In addition to the UEFI specification, the forum is responsible for a UEFI Platform Initialization (PI) specification, which addresses the firmware internal architecture as well as firmware-t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SGI Visual Workstation
SGI Visual Workstation is a series of workstation computers that are designed and manufactured by SGI. Unlike its other product lines, which used the 64-bit MIPS RISC architecture, the line used Intel Pentium II and III processors and shipped with Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 as its operating system in lieu of IRIX. However, the Visual Workstation 320 and 540 models deviated from the architecture of IBM-compatible PCs by using SGI's ARCS firmware instead of a traditional BIOS, internal components adapted from its MIPS-based products, and other proprietary components that made them incompatible with internal hardware designed for standard PCs and hence unable to run other versions of Microsoft Windows, especially Windows 9x. By contrast, the remaining models in the line are standard PCs, using VIA Technologies chipsets, Nvidia video cards, and standard components. Computer architecture There are two series of the Visual Workstations. All are based on Intel processors; the fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IA-32
IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation of x86 that supports 32-bit computing; as a result, the "IA-32" term may be used as a metonym to refer to all x86 versions that support 32-bit computing. Within various programming language directives, IA-32 is still sometimes referred to as the "i386" architecture. In some other contexts, certain iterations of the IA-32 ISA are sometimes labelled i486, i586 and i686, referring to the instruction supersets offered by the 80486, the P5 and the P6 microarchitectures respectively. These updates offered numerous additions alongside the base IA-32 set including floating-point capabilities and the MMX extensions. Intel was historically the largest manufacturer of IA-32 processors, with the second biggest supplier having been AMD. During the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 series of instruction sets, the instruction sets found in most personal computers (PCs). Incorporated in Delaware, Intel ranked No. 45 in the 2020 ''Fortune'' 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for nearly a decade, from 2007 to 2016 fiscal years. Intel supplies microprocessors for computer system manufacturers such as Acer, Lenovo, HP, and Dell. Intel also manufactures motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphics chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Intel (''int''egrated and ''el''ectronics) was founded on July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Gordon Moore (of Moore's law) and Robert Noyce ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RS/6000
The RISC System/6000 (RS/6000) is a family of Reduced instruction set computer, RISC-based Unix Server (computing), servers, workstations and supercomputers made by IBM in the 1990s. The RS/6000 family replaced the IBM RT PC computer platform in February 1990 and was the first computer line to see the use of IBM's IBM Power microprocessors, POWER and PowerPC based microprocessors. In October 2000, the RS/6000 brand was retired for POWER-based servers and replaced by the pSeries, eServer pSeries. Workstations continued under the RS/6000 brand until 2002, when new POWER-based workstations were released under the IntelliStation POWER brand. History The first RS/6000 models used the Micro Channel architecture, Micro Channel bus, later models used Peripheral Component Interconnect, PCI. Some later models conformed to the PReP and Common Hardware Reference Platform, CHRP standard platforms, which were co-developed with Apple Inc., Apple and Motorola, with Open Firmware. The plan was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
