IRIX 6.2 Overview

IRIX 6.2 Overview

The IRIX 6.2 release is the successor to both IRIX 5.3 and IRIX 6.1 and provides a common operating system across all SGI platforms running on R4000 (rev level 2.2) processors and above. It introduces the high performance 32-bit (N32) programming environment and continues support for both 64-bit virtual addressing and the MIPS R8000 processor. N32 is described in the N32 ABI Guide. A brief overview of the R8000 is provided below.

The R8000 processor has the following capabilities:

Executes MIPS1 user code, compatible with the R3000.
Executes MIPS2 instruction set extensions introduced in the R4000.
Executes MIPS3 64-bit addressing and instructions introduced in the R4400.
Integrates features for floating point performance improvements and integer improvements, which are called MIPS4 instructions.

The MIPS3 and MIPS4 64-bit capabilities provide both 64-bit virtual addressing and instructions which manipulate 64-bit integer data. Processor registers are 64 bits in size.

For more information about the R8000, please consult the MIPS R8000 Microprocessor User's Manual.

IRIX 6.2 Objectives
What is Not in the IRIX 6.2 Release
Compatibility and Supported ABIs