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The SGI IRIS series of terminals and workstations from
Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...
was produced in the 1980s and 1990s. IRIS is an acronym for Integrated Raster Imaging System.


Overview


68000

The early systems up to IRIS 3000 use the
Motorola 68000 series The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and w ...
of processors originally, and later models feature early-generation MIPS processors. These systems run the GL2 operating system, a predecessor of the
IRIX IRIX ( ) is a discontinued operating system developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. In IRIX, SGI originated the XFS file system and ...
operating system, which is based on
UniSoft UniSoft Corporation is an American software developer established in 1981, originally focused on the development of Unix ports for various computer architectures. Based in Millbrae, California, it now builds standardization and conformance test ...
UniPlus System V Unix. GL2 uses a proprietary windowing system named mex (Multiple EXposure). The first model, the IRIS 1000, was shipped around November 1983 with an 8 MHz
Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...
CPU. It is a graphics terminal intended to be attached to a
VAX-11 The VAX-11 is a discontinued family of 32-bit superminicomputers, running the Virtual Address eXtension (VAX) instruction set architecture (ISA), developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Development began in 1976. In a ...
system running either
VAX/VMS OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Ope ...
or
BSD Unix The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...
. The related IRIS 1200 terminal has a 20-slot backplane in its cabinet versus the 10-slot backplane of the IRIS 1000. The IRIS 1400 Workstation (also known as the IRIS Workstation) was shipped only in 1984. It has a 10 MHz
Motorola 68010 The Motorola MC68010 processor is a 16/32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1982 as the successor to the Motorola 68000. It fixes several small flaws in the 68000, and adds a few features. The 68010 is pin-compatible with the 68000, ...
.


MIPS

The MIPS based IRIS line includes SGI IRIS 4D, IRIS Indigo, and IRIS Crimson. The SGI IRIS 4D series was released in the late 1980s through mid 1990s, as the Personal, Professional, and Crimson subseries. They are the first SGI workstations to use the
MIPS architecture MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures (ISA)Price, Charles (September 1995). ''MIPS IV Instruction Set'' (Revision 3.2), MIPS Technologies, ...
. The line culminated with the
Crimson Crimson is a rich, deep red color, inclining to purple. It originally meant the color of the kermes dye produced from a scale insect, ''Kermes vermilio'', but the name is now sometimes also used as a generic term for slightly bluish-red colo ...
which was produced from 1992 to 1997 with the same case as PowerSeries.


See also

*
Silicon Graphics Image Silicon Graphics Image (SGI) or the RGB file format is the native raster graphics file format for Silicon Graphics workstations. The format was invented by Paul Haeberli. It can be run-length encoded (RLE). FFmpeg and ImageMagick, among others, ...
for filename extension .iris *
IRIS GL IRIS GL (Integrated Raster Imaging System Graphics Library) is a proprietary graphics API created by Silicon Graphics (SGI) in the early 1980s for producing 2D and 3D computer graphics on their IRIX-based IRIS graphical workstations. Later SGI re ...
, the predecessor of
OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...


External links


IRIS 1000


References

68k-based computers
IRIS Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term Iris or IRIS may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional ent ...
Computer-related introductions in 1983 32-bit computers {{compu-hardware-stub