History of IRIX
History of IRIX
by Ryan Thoryk
email: ryan at thoryk.com
Updated October 7, 2020
A good portion of version numbers came from this<br>Usenet thread
An emulation of an Indy running IRIX can be found here
Contents:
IRIX 6.x
IRIX 5.x
IRIX 4.x
IRIX 3.x
IRIS 4D1 Unix 2.x and 1.x (IRIX 2.x and 1.x)
IRIS GL2 Unix (IRIX 0.x)
Information on the move from 68k to MIPS
IRIX name
Misc stuff (IRIS name, IP name and numbering, etc)
Version tables
6.x
6.5.30 - 08/16/06
6.5.29 - 02/08/06
6.5.28 - 08/03/05
6.5.27 - 02/02/05
6.5.26 - 11/03/04
6.5.25 - 08/04/04
6.5.24 - 05/05/04
6.5.23 - 02/04/04
6.5.22 - 11/05/03
6.5.21 - 08/06/03
6.5.20 - 05/07/03
6.5.19 - 02/05/03
6.5.18 - 11/08/02
6.5.17 - 08/07/02
6.5.16 - 05/08/02
6.5.15 - 02/06/02
6.5.14 - 11/07/01
6.5.13 - 08/08/01
6.5.12 - 05/09/01
6.5.11 - 02/07/01
6.5.10 - 11/08/00
6.5.9 - 08/09/00
6.5.8 - 05/09/00
6.5.7 - 02/10/00
6.5.6 - 11/03/99
6.5.5 - 08/06/99
6.5.4 - 05/11/99
6.5.3 - 02/09/99
6.5.2 - 11/17/98
6.5.1 - 08/24/98
6.5 - 06/98
6.4 - 11/96
6.3 - 09/96
6.2 - 03/96
6.1 - 07/95
6.0.1 XFS - 03/95
6.0.1 - 12/94
6.0 - 8/94
GUIs:
6.2 to current: X11R6, 4DWM window manager, Indigo Magic desktop (renamed to IRIS Interactive Desktop possibly in version 6.5)
6.0-6.1: X11R5 (source)
6.5 Screenshot
5.x
5.3 TIRIX - 06/95 (Trusted IRIX 5.3)
5.3 XFS - 12/94
5.3 - 11/94
5.2 - 03/94
5.1.1 - 09/93
5.1 - 9/93
5.0.1 - 06/93
5.0 - 3/93
GUI: X11R5, 4DWM window manager, Indigo Magic desktop environment
5.3<br>Screenshot
4.x
Versions are abbreviated with "4D1-" representing the 4D line of machines
4.0.5MM (Multimedia release)
4.0.5J
4.0.5IPR
4.0.5IOP - 04/93
4.0.5H A360 MCO
4.0.5H A360
4.0.5H - 03/93
4.0.5G
4.0.5F
4.0.5 EPL
4.0.5E
4.0.5D
4.0.5C
4.0.5A (really revision B)
4.0.5
4.0.4T (second Trusted IRIX)
4.0.4B
4.0.4 - 03/92
4.0.3 - 03/92
4.0.2 - 03/92
4.0.1T (first Trusted IRIX)
4.0.1 - 11/91
4.0 - 09/91 (first version that used X11)
GUI: X11R4, 4DWM window manager, and IRIS Workspace desktop environment
4.0.1<br>Screenshot
Announcement of IRIX<br>4:
"IRIS Indigo runs IRIX(tm) 4.0, Silicon Graphics' enhanced version of
the UNIX(R) operating system. IRIX is POSIX, X/Open(tm) XPG3 and FIPS
151-1 compliant. In IRIX 4.0, the X Window System(tm) (X11/R4) is
merged with the IRIS GL interface and Adobe's Display PostScript(r)
for flexible rendering."
Info on 4.0 shipping with the IRIS Indigo
"Irix 4.0 is based on Unix System V Release 3 with Berkeley enhancements" (the BSD enhancements were from BSD 4.3, like 3.x)
3.x
Versions are abbreviated with "4D1-" representing the 4D line of machines
3.3.2 - 12/13/90
3.3.1 - 09/04/90?
3.3 - 06/29/90?
3.2.3
3.2.2
3.2.1
3.2A
3.2 - mid 1989
3.1.2
3.1G - 08/04/89
3.1F - 06/05/89
3.1E
3.1D - 02/27/1989
3.1C
3.1B
3.1A
3.1 - 04/07/89
3.0.1
3.0B
3.0A
3.0 (first regularly noted MIPS version) 10/6/88
GUI: Sun NeWS with SGI 4Sight
3.3<br>Screenshot
The Personal IRIS: A Technical Report (info on the first 4D workstations, 4Sight and IRIX 3.0<br>Excerpt from above link on IRIX 3:
"IRIS-4D Series Superworkstations include an enhanced version of the UNIX V.3 operating system called IRIX. IRIX incorporates many features of the Berkeley 4.3 BSD UNIX release, plus many local system enhancements to support real-time graphics. This extended software environment permits easier connectivity and improved system throughput. Other operating system enhancements include the Extent File System (EFS), a unique UNIX file structure handler that improves file handling performance two-fold over the standard System V file architecture. EFS is modified so it writes files in large extents to the disk. By writing disk files in this way, EFS improves disk seek times, which results in improved overall system performance."
2.x and 1.x
This was an early and short-lived line for MIPS (possibly of beta quality), and was not referred to as<br>"IRIX" until later, with the 3.0 release.
1.x might have been an internal-only testing release.
Originally SVR3 with BSD 4.2 and SGI Extensions
Versions are also abbreviated with "4D1-" representing the 4D line<br>of machines, like 3.x
The Typewritten site has a copy<br>of 2.0, and the master tape is labeled "4D1-2.0 Standard System Tape<br>1 11/18/87".
In some of the software, there are references to 1.x releases.
4D1-2.3
4D1-2.2b
4D1-2.2 - mentioned here
4D1-2.0 - August 1987
4D1-1.1
4D1-1.0 - late 1986 or early 1987
GUI: MEX (the MEX article on Wikipedia says that MEX was dropped after the 4D1-2.3 release, for 3.0)
0.x / IRIS GL2 Unix
The series for the Motorola 68000 line of processors was an earlier version (the later MIPS line appears to be simply a port of this code, maintained separately) and was provided by UniSoft. Basically this was UniSoft UniPlus System V with<br>SGI customizations. References to it refer to it as either IRIS UNIX or SGI UNIX. I've referred to it as IRIS GL2 Unix, but it can also be referred<br>to as the...