MIPS Magnum

The MIPS Magnum was a line of

RISC microprocessors. The first Magnum was released in March, 1990, and production of various models continued until 1993 when SGI bought MIPS Technologies. SGI cancelled the MIPS Magnum line to promote their own workstations including the entry-level SGI Indy

.

The early, R3000-based Magnum series ran only

BSD Unix, but the subsequent Magnum workstations based on the Jazz architecture ran both RISC/os and Windows NT. In addition to these proprietary operating systems, both Linux and NetBSD

have been ported to the Jazz-based MIPS Magnum machines.

Some models of MIPS Magnum were rebadged and sold by Groupe Bull and Olivetti. In addition, headless (i.e., without a framebuffer or video card) versions were marketed as servers under the name "MIPS Millennium".

Series

Model number information.

MIPS Magnum 3000

Alternative model name: MIPS RC3230
Release: March, 1990
Initial price: $9000
USD
Bus: TURBOchannel
Maximum possible
RAM
: 128 MB

MIPS Magnum R4000

Two subtypes: The R4000 PC-50 and R4000 SC-50
Release: April, 1992
Initial price: $12,000.00 USD
Bus: EISA
Maximum possible RAM: 256 MB

Components

Processors

The MIPS Magnum 3000 has a 25 or 33 MHz

R3000A

microprocessor.

The MIPS Magnum R4000 PC-50 has a MIPS R4000PC processor with only 16 kB L1 cache (but no L2 cache), running at an external clock rate of 50 MHz (which was internally doubled in the microprocessor to 100 MHz). The MIPS Magnum R4000 SC-50 is identical to the Magnum R4000PC, but includes one megabyte of secondary cache in addition to the primary cache.

Memory

For main memory, the MIPS Magnum 3000 accepted 30-pin true-parity, 80ns SIMMs up to a maximum of 128 MB.

The MIPS Magnum R4000 accepted eight 72-pin true-parity SIMMs, up to a maximum of 256 MB.

SCSI

The MIPS Magnum R4000 (both the R4000 PC-50 and R4000 SC-50) includes a single on-board

NCR 53c94

fast-narrow SCSI chipset. An internal cable with four 50-pin connections links internal SCSI devices, and also interfaces external SCSI devices via an endlink mounted on the rear of the case.

Ethernet

The MIPS Magnum R4000 includes an on-board

SONIC Ethernet chipset and an AUI

Ethernet connector mounted on the case.

Framebuffer

The video output for the Magnum R4000 consists of a proprietary

accelerated

graphics functions.

Serial and Parallel I/O

The MIPS Magnum R4000 also includes two standard

IBM AT-compatible parallel port

.

Floppy disk

Also, the MIPS Magnum R4000 had an IBM AT-compatible floppy disk controller and a single floppy drive bay.

Historical development

The MIPS Magnum 3000 used a MIPS R3000 processor and a custom, proprietary

BSD Unix including some System V

features.

The later Magnums, the MIPS Magnum R4000PC and MIPS Magnum R4000SC, also used a MIPS microprocessor — the MIPS R4000, a full 64-bit microprocessor available either in a low-cost version (the R4000PC) having 16 kB of L1 cache but no L2 cache, or a higher-performance version (the R4000SC) with 1 MB of secondary cache in addition to the 16 kB of primary cache.

As MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. had co-founded the

Intel 386, Alpha, and PowerPC

architectures).

As such, the MIPS Magnum R4000 (and indeed all Jazz-based systems, such as the

IBM AT

standard.

Operating systems

The MIPS Magnum R4000 ran either Windows NT (beginning with version 3.1) when equipped with the

dual-boot

between Windows or Unix.

Windows NT

The MIPS Magnum R4000 was supported by Windows NT from version 3.1 (released in 1993) through version 4.0 (released in 1996). However, support by Microsoft for all MIPS systems ended after the release of Windows NT version 4.0, and useful software for Windows/MIPS — either from Microsoft or third-party vendors — was very scarce even when MIPS was supported (for example, Microsoft never ported its own Microsoft Office suite to MIPS).

The MIPS Magnum 3000, unlike the MIPS Magnum R4000, was not able to run Windows NT.

RISC/os

All Magnums could run RISC/os, MIPS Computer System, Inc.'s proprietary port of UNIX. Running RISC/os on the MIPS Magnum R4000 requires use of the big-endian MIPS Monitor firmware.

BSD

The MIPS Magnum can run NetBSD, and it also ran OpenBSD at one point, but lack of developer interest and proper resources lead to the termination of the arch's support prior to the December 1, 1998 2.4 release.

For the earlier, RISC/os-only MIPS Magnum 3000 machines, the correct port is NetBSD/mipsco. For the later, Windows NT-capable MIPS Magnum R4000, the correct port is NetBSD/arc.

Linux

The MIPS Magnum R4000 was among the earliest supported machines in the effort to port the Linux kernel to MIPS, with initial support begun April, 1995. Support for the Magnum R4000 became stable in the 2.1 development tree (around 1999); however, support for the Magnum in Linux has atrophied since then.

QEMU

The QEMU PC emulator version 0.9.1 can emulate the MIPS Magnum (and Acer Pica 61) using the "-M" parameter ("-M magnum" or "-M pica61"). QEMU can run the MIPS compiled version of Debian Linux on an x86 platform, along with Windows NT 3.5, 3.51 & 4.0 with binaries here^{[permanent dead link]}

Offline publications

Yager, Tom (December 1990). "Sony NeWS and MIPS Magnum: A Double Shot of RISC". BYTE. Vol. 15, no. 13. p. 172-175.

External links

Linux/MIPS article about Jazz architecture
Information on MIPS systems
NetBSD/mipsco port homepage
NetBSD/arc port homepage