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 sof ...

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 ...

of processors originally, and later models feature early-generation MIPS processors. These systems run the GL2 operating system, a predecessor of the IRIX 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 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 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 which was produced from 1992 to 1997 with the same case as PowerSeries.

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

Overview

68000

MIPS

See also

External links

References