The Iyonix PC was an Acorn-clone

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

sold by Castle Technology and Iyonix Ltd between 2002 and 2008. According to news site ''

Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and eval ...

'', it was the first personal computer to use Intel's

XScale XScale is a microarchitecture for central processing units initially designed by Intel implementing the ARM architecture (version 5) instruction set. XScale comprises several distinct families: IXP, IXC, IOP, PXA and CE (see more below), with some ...

processor. It ran .

History

The Iyonix originated as a secret project by Pace engineers in connection with development of

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

es (STBs), and has been noted as a successor to the . Pace had a licence to develop

RISCOS Ltd RISCOS Ltd. (also referred to as ROL) was a Private company limited by guarantee, limited company engaged in computer software and IT consulting. It licensed the rights to continue the development of and to distribute it for desktop machines (as ...

's OS sources for use in the STB market. The Iyonix was developed under the code name ''Tungsten'' and uses , which is a version of RISC OS that supports ARM CPUs with 32-bit addressing modes. The sources and hardware design were subsequently acquired by Castle, who developed them into the final product. Castle continued to keep the project a secret, requiring developers to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Information was distributed to such developers via a confidential section of the website. Customers were occasionally able to buy the computer as a

bare bones system A barebone computer is a partially assembled platform or an unassembled kit of computer parts allowing more customization and lower costs than a retail computer system. They are available for desktop computer, notebook (see barebook) and server ...

for self-assembly. After speculation on the

usenet newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distin ...

s, a website for the hardware was spotted in mid October 2002. Units first went on sale in December 2002. Prices started from £1249. Castle ceased production of the Iyonix after the July 2006 introduction in the UK of the

RoHS The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive 2002/95/EC (RoHS 1), short for Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment, was adopted in February 2003 by the European Unio ...

Regulations. The design was not compliant and Castle did not redesign the Iyonix. Sales continued for another two years via a newly established company, Iyonix Ltd, which enabled Castle itself to circumvent the regulations. On 25 September 2008, Castle announced that production of the Iyonix had ceased and that new units would no longer be available to order.

Features

Features include: Iyonix motherboard

* Standard

ATX ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended) is a motherboard and power supply configuration specification developed by Intel in 1995 to improve on previous de facto standards like the AT design. It was the first major change in desktop computer enclo ...

motherboard and

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

video card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer mo ...

Intel XScale XScale is a microarchitecture for central processing units initially designed by Intel implementing the ARM architecture (version 5) instruction set. XScale comprises several distinct families: IXP, IXC, IOP, PXA and CE (see more below), with some ...

80321 600

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

32-bit

processor Processor may refer to: Computing Hardware * Processor (computing) **Central processing unit (CPU), the hardware within a computer that executes a program *** Microprocessor, a central processing unit contained on a single integrated circuit (I ...

* Two

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit CPUs and ALUs are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A compu ...

and two 32-bit PCI slots (two occupied by graphics and USB cards, two free) *

RISC OS RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archi ...

version 5 in hardware

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

module, using 32-bit addressing mode. * Support for the

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

operating systemIyonix Linux port established , Drobe.co.uk archives
/ref> * Support for "legacy" Acorn DEBI expansion cards *

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

interfacing It was the first time substantial changes had been made to the platform since the release of the

Risc PC The Risc PC is Acorn Computers's RISC OS/ Acorn RISC Machine computer, launched on 15 April 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes. The Acorn PC card and software allows PC compatible software to be run. Like the Archimedes, the Risc PC co ...

in 1994. All interim machines had been built on the ARM7500 system on a chip, which was widely regarded as a single-chip Risc PC. (It incorporated the memory controller, video, sound, IO and CPU logic of a Risc PC, leaving only memory and disc interfacing to be added.) The presence of PCI and USB capabilities, as well as the retained "podule" bus, attracted comparisons to Acorn's aborted Phoebe PC; however, such comparisons should be tempered with Phoebe's proposed feature set, which retained VIDC and 26-bit mode, and although Phoebe was intended to be capable of SMP configurations, its proposed shipping configuration had been for one SA110 CPU.

References

External links

Iyonix website

Iyonix review
by

The Icon Bar ''The Icon Bar'' (also referred to as ''TIB'') is a computing and technology website with a focus on the RISC OS computer operating system. History ''The Icon Bar'' was founded in 2000 by Tim Fountain, Alasdair Bailey and Richard Goodwin. I ...

Iyonix review

Announcement of end of production
{{RISC OS RISC OS ARM-based home computers