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Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

#1

Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

I had to open this thing up anyway (power supply broke, NVRAM battery dead), so I took some pics of the internals.

This system started out with a CAD/CAM company where it ran an early version of Pro/Engineer. It was their first system, they basically bootstrapped their company with it, so it took some effort to convince them to donate it to me.

Over they years I upgraded the RAM from 32 to 128MB (the maximum it can take, and that's more than the Indigo R3000 which succeeded it!), and added the rare "Turbo" option to the GR1.5 graphics. I also added a VideoFramer (I have the breakout box and cables as well).

Unfortunately there isn't much software that will utilize the unique hardware inside this system. Early Alias / Wavefront software, maybe.

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jan-jaap

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09-04-2019, 08:21 PM

#2

RE: Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

(09-04-2019, 08:21 PM)jan-jaap Wrote:  Over they years I upgraded the RAM from 32 to 128MB (the maximum it can take, and that's more than the Indigo R3000 which succeeded it!), and added the rare "Turbo" option to the GR1.5 graphics.

Oh, great system! Can you compare performance-wise it with the Indigo?

I am no longer posting from the moose, SGI O2 with R10k/250, 1GB RAM,  IRIX 6.5.27, unfortunately.

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09-04-2019, 08:29 PM

#3

RE: Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

WoW, Very nice!

That must have been a formidable system in 1991!

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09-04-2019, 08:32 PM

#4

RE: Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

(09-04-2019, 08:29 PM)jirka Wrote:  Oh, great system! Can you compare performance-wise it with the Indigo?
I think they're roughly equal. The GR1.5 graphics are slower than the Elan graphics from an Indigo, and the 4D/35 is internally based on the VME bus which is slower than the GIO32 bus used in the Indigo. On the other hand, the CPU of the 4D/35 runs at 36MHz (33Mhz in the Indigo R3000), and it takes the same memory, but more of it (128MB vs 96MB in the Indigo). Mind you, most of these systems shipped with 16 or 32MB RAM so I don't think this was a big problem for many people.

The 4D/35 shipped with 5.25" full height hard disks, the size of two DVD writers stacked. The Indigo used the much faster 3.5" disks, but there's nothing to stop you from using those in the 4D/35 (with an adapter).

The Indigo shrinks a lot of the functionality of the 4D/35 from TTL chips into a couple of custom ASICs. This made it a lot smaller, cheaper, and (because it uses less power) less noisy.

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09-09-2019, 01:34 PM

#5

RE: Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

Does it have full skins too?

I can't imagine I'll ever see one in the same room as me. Pretty neat that you still have one in running condition.

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09-10-2019, 09:49 PM

#6

RE: Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

(09-10-2019, 09:49 PM)Intuition Wrote:  Does it have full skins too?

I can't imagine I'll ever see one in the same room as me. Pretty neat that you still have one in running condition.

This photo is from 2002 (ouch), but it's all there. The joys of getting a system from the original owner. The keyboard and mouse are what belongs with this system, and slightly different from what you got with the PowerSeries. It has the same optical mouse with the terrible metal mouse pad. Maybe that works in California, but where I live the cold of the metal against your wrist is really uncomfortable. I normally use an Indigo keyboard and mouse with all the older systems.

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09-11-2019, 08:54 AM

#7

RE: Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

The twin tower machines have a special place in my heart! Beautiful to see one still running!

What went wrong with the power supply and what did it take to fix that?

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09-23-2019, 05:15 AM

#8

RE: Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

(09-23-2019, 05:15 AM)Dylanear Wrote:  The twin tower machines have a special place in my heart! Beautiful to see one still running!

What went wrong with the power supply and what did it take to fix that?

Sorry, but a Personal IRIS is not a Twin Tower. The good news is I have one of those too, a Professional Series 4D/70 GT. Took me forever to get that thing working again.

The PSU of the IRIS simply didn't fire up one day. You could hear a faint humming from it so I assume the high voltage section works, but none of the outputs come up. It is a total pain in the *** to diagnose anything because it is mounted on a bracket which serves as cooling for various components so you can't get to the soldering side of the PCB while it's 'hot'.

I had an original spare, but these things are some thirty years old now and not getting better with age. I didn't want to risk loosing that one too, so I got a replacement, a new-old-stock Power-One PFC375-4000. The original PSU puts out 45A @ 5V, this one 40A @ 5V. So first of all, I measured power consumption of the system with the original spare. My 4D/35 is as loaded as it gets: all GR1.5 options, max memory, video framer, and a 5.25" FH hard disk. Without the disk, the power consumption is 172W from the wall. The disk is spec'ed as 1.1A @ 5V max, and a lot more @ 12V but that's not my problem. Assuming a high efficiency of 90% and assuming all 172W go into 5V, the system consumes 32A @ 5V. More likely, the efficiency of the PSU is ~ 70%, and some goes to +/-12V, so it consumes less than 25A @ 5V. In either case, the 40A of the Power-One unit should do.

I wired up the Power-One using the cable harness of the original PSU and attached a spare IP10 mainboard from a 4D/25 because I didn't want to risk this system, and the IP10 schematics are available. Powered it up, and something exploded :( It was a tantalum on the IP10, 12V rail. So, I removed the remains, wired up the original spare, and the IP10 still worked. Put the Power-One back in, and it *still* worked. I guess it was simply it's time to go.

I needed this system last week to test some spare parts for Ian Mapleson, so I didn't waste any more time, and with improvised cooling did that. Now I will look for a suitable fan for the Power-One PSU to provide some airflow because it does get warm, and mount it to the bracket of the original PSU, which installs nicely in the case of the Personal IRIS. I will report back with some photos when I'm done with that.

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(This post was last modified: 09-23-2019, 02:00 PM by jan-jaap.)

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09-23-2019, 09:04 AM

#9

RE: Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

My mistake! And I'm not sure how I made it, I am well aware of the difference between the Personal Iris and the twin tower Irises 4D. And looking at the thread now it's really clear there's no twin tower machine pictured and the thread clearly says Personal Iris?? But somehow, at a glance last night I got confused.

I was just having a discussion earlier in the day about whether the Iris 4D machines before the Personal Iris were called Professional Iris 4D, or just Iris 4D. I seem to recall "Professional" was only used for those machines after the Personal Iris was released.

Well done with the power supply, sounds like some creative wrangling to do it safely.

Anyways, cool to see a PI still running too, but that's not as unusual as seeing the older larger Iris 4D machines. I'll look around for any posts on your 4D/70GT. I spent a lot of hours in school on similar machines. Part of the reason I kept my Indigo R3000 was to remind myself of that era machine, but in a more compact, easier to maintain machine. But after years in a storage unit, lord knows what it'll take to.get that box up and running.

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09-23-2019, 07:14 PM

#10

RE: Introducing: my Personal IRIS 4D/35

Operation Power Supply.

After removing the electronics of the dead original PSU, I mounted the Power One PSU to the bracket. I had a spare so here's an original PSU and the replacement side by side. This is a temporary setup, with wires directly attached to the terminals, 220VAC applied and a fan directed at it to provide some airflow I could test functionality of the Personal IRIS:

The finished PSU assembly:

Closeup of the terminals. Left to right, in pairs: -5V (unused), -12V, 12V and (the bus bars): 5V. Color codes: White: +5V / Green: GND / Red: +12V / Brown: -12V

NB: The schematics of the Personal IRIS CPU board are on bitsavers.org! Page 30/47, J6 shows the power connector pinout. I encourage you to double check because there's no guarantee the color code was used consistently. Other than power there are remote sense wires (red/black, 4-way Molex 5000 series connector) and an AC-Fail signal (blue).

PSU assembly installed in the bottom of the 4D/35. About the only thing that didn't work out is the black/white cable for the power switch. There's a hole in the sheet metal for it just in front of where I put the PSU fan, and the stud I used to mount the fan blocks the hole. So I rerouted this cable towards the rear and it comes out near the AC inlet.

Most of the sheet metal back in place. All my hard work is hidden, but at least the system runs again!

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(This post was last modified: 10-15-2019, 02:41 PM by jan-jaap.)

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10-15-2019, 08:22 AM

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