Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) is a

specification A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specificat ...

promulgated by a defunct consortium of computer manufacturers (the Advanced Computing Environment project), setting forth a standard MIPS

RISC In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set compu ...

-based computer hardware and

firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide ...

environment. The firmware on Alpha machines that are compatible with ARC is known as AlphaBIOS, non-ARC firmware on Alpha is known as SRM.

History

Although ACE went defunct, and no computer was ever manufactured which fully complied with the ARC standard, the ARC system has a widespread legacy in that all operating systems in the

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Wi ...

family use ARC conventions for naming boot devices. SGI's modified version of the ARC firmware is named ARCS. All SGI computers which run

IRIX IRIX ( ) is a discontinued operating system developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. In IRIX, SGI originated the XFS file system ...

6.1 or later, such as the Indy and Octane, boot from an ARCS console, which uses the same drive naming conventions as Windows. Most of the various RISC-based computers designed to run Windows NT have versions of the ARC boot console to boot NT. These include the following: * MIPS R4000-based systems such as the

MIPS Magnum The MIPS Magnum was a line of computer workstations designed by MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. and based on the MIPS series of RISC microprocessors. The first Magnum was released in March, 1990, and production of various models continued until 1993 ...

workstation * all 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 is also known as AlphaBIOS; non-ARC Alphas use

SRM console The SRM firmware (also called the SRM console) is the boot firmware written by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for computer systems based on the DEC Alpha microprocessor. SRM are the initials of (Alpha) System Reference Manual, the publicatio ...

instead) * most Windows NT-capable

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM ...

computers (such as the IBM RS/6000 40P). It was predicted that

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation of ...

-based computers would adopt the ARC console, although only SGI ever marketed such machines with ARC firmware (namely, the SGI Visual Workstation series, which launched in 1999).

Comparison with UEFI

Compared to UEFI, the ARC firmware also included support for FAT, boot variables, C-calling interface. It did not include the same level of extensibility as UEFI and the same level of governance like with the UEFI Forum.

List of partially ARC compatible computers

Products complying (to some degree) with the ARC standard include these: *Alpha ** DEC Multia and AlphaStation/ AlphaServer **

DeskStation Raptor DeskStation Technology was a manufacturer of RISC-based computer workstations intended to run Windows NT. DeskStation was based in Lenexa, Kansas. MIPS-based systems In late 1991, DeskStation announced a workstation based on the MIPS R3000A CP ...

*i386 ** SGI Visual Workstation *MIPS **

Acer PICA The M6100 PICA is a system logic chipset designed by Acer Laboratories introduced in 1993. ''PICA'' stands for ''Performance-enhanced Input-output and CPU Architecture''. It was based on the Jazz architecture developed by Microsoft and supported ...

** Carrera Computers, Inc Cobra R4000 and VIPER ** Digital DECstation 5000 **

DeskStation Tyne DeskStation Technology was a manufacturer of RISC-based computer workstations intended to run Windows NT. DeskStation was based in Lenexa, Kansas. MIPS-based systems In late 1991, DeskStation announced a workstation based on the MIPS R3000A CPU ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

** Olivetti M700 ** NEC RISCstation ** NeTpower Fastseries MP ** SGI Indigo², Indy,

Challenge Challenge may refer to: * Voter challenging or caging, a method of challenging the registration status of voters * Euphemism for disability * Peremptory challenge, a dismissal of potential jurors from jury duty Places Geography *Challenge, C ...

Onyx Onyx primarily refers to the parallel banded variety of chalcedony, a silicate mineral. Agate and onyx are both varieties of layered chalcedony that differ only in the form of the bands: agate has curved bands and onyx has parallel bands. The c ...

Origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * ''The Origin'' (Buffy comic), a 1999 ''Buffy the Vampire Sl ...

etc. Big-Endian ARCS ** Siemens-Nixdorf RM200, RM300, RM400 *PowerPC ** IBM Personal Computer Power Series 850/830 PReP **IBM RS/6000 40P, 43P, E20, F30 **

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...

PowerStack **

Tangent In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Leibniz defined it as the line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve. Mo ...

MediaStar

References

External links

ARC
on www.linux-mips.org {{Firmware and booting Computer hardware standards