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The Silicon Graphics (SGI) O2 is a MIPS-based single CPU entry-level Unix workstation. Introduced in 1996 as a multimedia workstation, the O2 was a worthy successor to the successful Indy workstation.
Hardware
System architecture
The O2 features a proprietary high-bandwidth Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) that connects the various system components. A PCI bus is bridged unto the UMA. Designer case and totally modular construction.
CPU
The O2 comes in two distinct CPU flavours; the low-end MIPS 180-300Mhz R5000/R7000 based units and the higher-end 175-400Mhz R10000/R12000 based units. The 200Mhz R5000 CPU's with 1Mb L2-cache are generally noticeably faster than than the 180Mhz R5000's with only 512Kb cache. There is a hobbist project that has successfully retrofitted a 600Mhz R7xxx MIPS processor into the O2.
There are 8 DIMM slots on the motherboard and memory on all O2's is expandable to 1Gb. The O2 carries an UltraWide SCSI drive subsystem. Older O2 generally have 4x speed Toshiba CD-ROMs, but any Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM will fit. The R5000/R7000 units have two available drive sleds for SCA UltraWide SCSI hard-disks. Due to the fact that the R10000/R12000 CPU module has a much higher cooling-fan assembly, the R10000/R12000 units have room for only one drive-sled. Networking is provided through a
Graphics
The CRIME chipset that SGI developed for the O2, shares OpenGL calculations between CPU and chip. Framebuffer memory comes from main memory - 'Unlimited' Texture memory.
ICE accellerator
OpenGL 1.1 + ARB image extensions.
OS
IRIX 6.3 and 6.5.x
Performance
hardware MJPEG compression, massive textures. Slow CPU, most software not optimised for O2 platform.
Use
(Medical) Imaging, on-air TV graphics, Desktop workstation, 3D modelling, Analogue video post-production, Defense industries
Folklore
User-friendly
The see-through skins
PeeCee mods
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