ARCS is a

firmware In computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, h ...

bootloader (also known as a PROM

console Console may refer to: Computing and video games * System console, a physical device to operate a computer ** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device ** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...

) used in most computers produced by SGI since the beginning of the 1990s. The ARCS system is loosely compliant with the Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) standard, promulgated by the Advanced Computing Environment consortium in the early 1990s. In another sense, the ARC standard is based on SGI's ARCS, which was used as a basis for generating the ARC standard itself, although ARC calls for a little-endian system while ARCS system is

big-endian '' Jonathan_Swift.html" ;"title="Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift">Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift, the novel from which the term was coined In computing, endianness is the order in which bytes within a word (data type), word of d ...

on all MIPS-based systems. Despite various inconsistencies between the two, both SGI's ARCS implementations and the ARC standard share many commonalities (such as device naming, calling conventions, ''etc.''). Most of the computers which use the ARCS firmware are based on the MIPS line of

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

s. The SGI Visual Workstation series, which is based on the

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Pentium III, also uses ARCS. The Visual Workstation series is the only commercially produced

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

-compatible system which used an ARCS firmware, rather than the traditional PC

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...

used in most Intel 386-lineage machines. A list of product lines which use the ARCS console includes: * SGI Indigo ( R4000/ R4400) (IP20) *

SGI Indigo2 SGI may refer to: Companies * Saskatchewan Government Insurance * Scientific Games International, a gambling company *Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known a ...

(and Challenge M) (IP22) * SGI Indy (and Challenge S) (IP24) * SGI Onyx (IP19/IP21/IP25) *

R8000 The R8000 is a microprocessor chipset developed by MIPS Technologies, MIPS Technologies, Inc. (MTI), Toshiba, and Weitek.Hsu 1994 It was the first implementation of the MIPS IV instruction set architecture. The R8000 is also known as the ''TFP'', f ...

(IP26) *

R10000 The R10000, code-named "T5", is a RISC microprocessor implementation of the MIPS IV instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by MIPS Technologies, Inc. (MTI), then a division of Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The chief designers are Chris Ro ...

(IP28) * SGI O2 (IP32) *

SGI Octane The Octane series of IRIX workstations was developed and sold by SGI in the 1990s and 2000s. Octane and Octane2 are two-way multiprocessing-capable workstations, originally based on the MIPS Technologies R10000 microprocessor. Newer Octanes ar ...

(IP30) * SGI Origin 200 (IP27) * SGI Origin 2000 (IP27/IP31) * SGI Onyx2 (IP27/IP31) * SGI Fuel (IP35) * SGI Tezro (IP35) * SGI Origin 300 (IP35) * SGI Origin 350 (IP35) * SGI Origin 3000 (IP27/IP35) * SGI Onyx 300 (IP35) * SGI Onyx 350 (IP35) * SGI Onyx 3000 (IP27/IP35) * SGI Onyx4 (IP35) * SGI Visual Workstation models 320 and 540 (later models were BIOS-based PCs)

References

Boot loaders Advanced RISC Computing {{Operating-system-stub