karsh@sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) (10/27/88)
Silicon Graphics Announces Industry's First Personal
3D Graphics Workstation
Mountain View, CA (Oct 4 1988) - Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGIC-NASDAQ) today
announced the Personal IRIS, the industry's first personal, real-time,
three dimensional (3D) workstation priced at under $16,000. The Personal
IRIS is available immediately.
The Personal IRIS represents the low-cost entry point to Silicon Graphics'
new product family, which includes the IRIS POWER Series, also announced
today. The introduction of the IRIS POWER Series and the Personal IRIS
represent true price and performance breakthroughs in 3D graphics technology
that enable Silicon Graphics to provide its customers with the broadest
binary compatible range of real-time 3D graphics workstations in the
industry.
"This system will reach a completely new class of users," explained Michael
Ramsay, vice president and general manager of Silicon Graphics' Entry
Systems Division. "We expect the Personal IRIS will have a major impact on
the computer systems industry because the price makes real-time 3D graphics
available to far more people than ever before."
The Personal IRIS is based on a 12.5 MHz, 32-bit RISC processor from MIPS
Computer Systems. It delivers 10 MIPS (million instructions per second) of
CPU performance, with 8 megabytes of main memory, 8 color bitplanes, 19
inch 1280 X 1024 color monitor, Unix and Ethernet. The system also
includes Silicon Graphics' Geometry Engines and the IRIS WorkSpace, a new
user interface. The Personal IRIS is expandable to 24 color bitplanes, 24
bit Z-buffer, 16 megabytes of main memory and over 2 gigabytes of disk.
The system supports Network File System, connectivity to IBM, DEC and Cray,
and PC-DOS emulation software.
Silicon Graphics has the largest base of 3D applications in the world.
Over 100 applications software packages will be available for the Personal
IRIS at introduction through the Geometry Partners Program. Companies such
as Alias Research, CADKEY, CAMAX Systems, Computer Design, Emerald Design,
Polygen Corporation, Sigma Design, Structural Dynamics Research
Corporation, and Wavefront Technologies, Inc. and many others will have
their software available on the Personal IRIS immediately.
For further information contact:
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Debra Harrison (415) 962-3365
Wendy Hasler (415) 962-3139
Silicon Graphics is the leading manufacturer of high performance
workstation and computing systems for three dimensional applications.
These workstations are used by engineers, scientists and creative
professionals in the design, analysis, manufacture and simulation of three
dimensional objects and products.
-end-
Personal IRIS, IRIS POWER Series, IRIS WorkSpace and POWERpath are
trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Unix is a trademark of AT&T, Ethernet is a trademark of Xerox