Silicon Graphic’s UK arm, based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, is starting to catch up with its US parent’s revamp of the Unix based Personal Iris Series last month (CI No 1,225), adding the three-dimensional graphics 4D/25 Turbo workstation, and Data Station 4D/25S server to the range. Using a 20MHz version of MIPS Computer Systems R3000 and R3010 RISC chip sets, the 4D/25 – with two 8Mb models – is claimed to offer four times the graphics performance of entry level systems and a 60% increase in CPU performance – 16 MIPS and 1.6 MFLOPS – for a 25% increase in price. With eight colour planes and a 14 monitor, prices start at UKP22,650. The 4D/25G comes with 24 colour planes, four overlay planes, 24-bit Z buffer, 380Mb disk and a 19 monitor for UKP36,350. Both feature new Silicon Graphics-designed graphics processors, which boost the polygon rate fourfold to 20,000, and three-dimensional vector calculations by three times to 200,000. The Data Station 4D/25S, which uses a single 20MHz R3000 chip can be configured with up to 32Mb of memory, 170Mb SCSI disk and an Ethernet Interface with a starting price of UKP11,450. In addition, Turbo graphics upgrades from the standard Personal Iris workstations to the performance of the 4D25 are available, at a cost of UKP4,450 – significantly more than the $5,000 US users have been asked to pay. Other options include a 14 colour monitor, nine track half-inch back-up tape drives and a 5.25 floppy drive for MS-DOS emulation. Silicon Graphics’ most powerful system, the 160 MIPS Iris Power 4D/280, as well as the new mid-range 4D/210 also launched last month, will be introduced into the UK according to the company, though no timescale was offered. Around 5,000 Personal Iris systems have been sold in the UK since their introduction last October, and the UK division accounted for 10% of Silicon Graphics’ $263.7m revenues in its last financial year to June 30. In the US, Silicon Graphics has signed a $1.1m deal with Xyvision, Wakefield, Massachusetts Xyvision is to bundle Personal Iris workstations with its own proprietary software.
