MiSTer Developer Begins Recreating Silicon Graphics Indy Workstation on FPGA

Developer danifunker launches an ambitious MiSTer FPGA core recreating the 1993 Silicon Graphics Indy workstation, reaching initial video output and boot stages.

MiSTer FPGA development is moving into a particularly unusual area of retro computing with an experimental core for Silicon Graphics' Indy workstation. Developer danifunker has begun recreating the 1993 SGI machine, and the current implementation has reached the point where it can draw output and begin the boot process. The developer is careful to emphasise how early the project remains: IRIX is not yet running, there is no usable mouse pointer, sound and networking are absent and changes do not yet survive a reset. In other words, this is not currently a replacement for a real Indy or a mature emulator. What makes the project important is the target itself. MiSTer began life largely around recreating consoles, arcade boards and home computers from the 1970s through early 1990s. An SGI workstation represents a very different class of machine. Silicon Graphics built computers for professional 3D graphics, animation, engineering, scientific visualisation and multimedia, and the company became deeply connected with the development of computer-generated imagery during the 1990s. The Indy was introduced as a comparatively affordable entry point into the SGI ecosystem, although affordable was very much relative to professional workstation prices rather than home computers. Systems used MIPS processors and ran SGI's IRIX Unix operating system. The wider Silicon Graphics family played an important indirect role in videogame history as well: Nintendo's work on the Nintendo 64 was famously connected with SGI technology and expertise, while professional SGI machines were used throughout the 3D content-creation industries that supplied game and film studios. Recreating such a workstation on FPGA presents challenges that differ significantly from implementing a fixed cartridge console. The core eventually needs to coordinate processor behaviour, memory, graphics, storage, input, networking and operating-system expectations from a much more flexible computer environment. The fact that the project can already produce video and begin booting is therefore a meaningful foundation even though practical use lies much further away. FPGA preservation is steadily advancing through the history of computing complexity. A few years ago, accurate cores for early consoles were the headline. Developers are now targeting Nintendo 64, complex arcade boards, Macintosh systems and professional Unix workstations. The Indy project may be primitive today, but its existence shows how ambitious the MiSTer community has become.