- Advanced RISC Computing
: "not to be confused with
Advanced RISC Machines "Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) is a specification promulgated by a defunct consortium of
computer manufacturers (theAdvanced Computing Environment project), setting forth a standard MIPSRISC -based computer hardware andfirmware environment.Although ACE went defunct, and no computer was ever manufactured which fully complied with the ARC standard, nonetheless the ARC system still exerts a widespread legacy in that all
Microsoft Windows NT -basedoperating systems (such asWindows XP ) used ARC conventions for naming boot devices beforeWindows Vista .Further, SGI uses a modified version of the ARC firmware (which it calls ARCS) in its systems. All SGI computers which run
IRIX 6.1 or later (such as the Indy, Octane, "etc.") boot from an ARCS console (which uses the same drive naming conventions as Windows, accordingly).In addition, most of the various RISC-based computers designed to run Windows NT used versions of the ARC boot console to boot NT. Among these computers were:
* MIPS R4000-based systems such as the
MIPS Magnum workstation
* allDEC Alpha -based machines with a PCI bus designed prior to the end of support for Windows NT Alpha in September 1999 (the Alpha ARC firmware was also known as AlphaBIOS)
* most Windows NT-capablePowerPC computers (such as the IBMRS/6000 40P).It was also predicted that
Intel IA-32 -based computers would adopt the ARC console, although only SGI ever marketed such IA-32-based machines with ARC firmware (namely, theSGI Visual Workstation series, which went on sale in 1999).Products complying (to some degree) with the ARC standard include:
*Alpha
**DEC Multia andAlphaStation /AlphaServer
**DeskStation Raptor
*i386
**SGI Visual Workstation
*MIPS
**Acer PICA
**Carrera Computers, Inc Cobra R4000 and VIPER
**Digital DECstation 5000
**DeskStation Tyne
**Microsoft Jazz
**MIPS Magnum
**Olivetti M700
**NEC RISCstation
**NeTpower Fastseries MP
**SGI Indigo², Indy, Challenge, Onyx, Origin etc. Big-Endian ARCS
**Siemens-Nixdorf RM200, RM300, RM400
*PowerPC
**IBM Personal Computer Power Series 850/830PReP
**IBM RS/6000 40P, 43P, E20, F30
**Motorola PowerStack
** Tangent MediaStarExternal links
* Linux-MIPS ( [http://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/index.php/ARC ARC] ) article
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