[rescue] IBM question - what is RIOS an acronym for?

[Nathan Raymond]

I did just find this on page 33 of "The PowerPC Macintosh Book" by Stephan
Somogyi (1994, Addison-Wesley Publishing):

IBM's POWER seven-chip set, known as RIOS - which is the Spanish word for
> "rivers" and doesn't have any particular code-name significance - was
> completely unsuitable for high-volume, low-cost products. These days, RIOS
> is often referred to as Power1 to distinguish it from Power2, a more recent
> multichip implementation of the POWER architecture. A project known as RSC,
> for RIOS single-chip, was already in development at IBM when the
> Apple/IBM/Motorola negotiations began. The RSC's design goal, however, was
> to create a straightforward implementation of RIOS without significant
> modifications.
>


On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 11:08 AM Nathan Raymond <nraymond at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great question. I did a lot of searches just now, and if I had to guess it
> was an internal code name that was picked up by the press (such as
> InfoWorld). The "Mainframe Dictionary" maintained by Software Diversified
> Services has this entry:
>
> https://support.sdsusa.com/support/dictionary/r/
>
> Rios:  IBM project which finally, in February 1990, produced the RS/6000,
>> now part of eserver pSeries. Also used to refer to the architecture and the
>> processor chip used in the RS/6000.
>
>
> This "History of Microcomputers 1987-1990" has this entry:
>
> https://emusee.org/comphis6.html
>
> (month unknown), 1990: IBM unveils its new RISC-based workstation line,
>> the RS/6000. Development work had been done under code name "America" for
>> the RISC chip research, and "RIOS" for systems using the America
>> technology. The architecture of the systems is given the name POWER,
>> standing for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC.
>>
>
> This "27 Years of IBM RISC" page mentions it this way:
>
> http://ps-2.kev009.com/rootvg/column_risc.htm
>
> 1985 America
>> Based on the experimental design of the 801 and ACS ideas the development
>> laboratory in Austin completed a first prototype, where it evolved into the
>> superscalar (Instructions are handled paralel) RISC System/6000 (RS/6000)
>> processor that was introduced into the market in 1990. Development work had
>> been done under code name "America" for the RISC chip research, and "RIOS"
>> for systems using the America technology.
>>
>
> Wikipedia covers it this way:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Power_microprocessors
>
> The America project
>> In 1985, research on a second-generation RISC architecture started at the
>> IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, producing the "AMERICA architecture".
>> In 1986, IBM Austin started developing the RS/6000 series computers based
>> on that architecture. This was to become the first POWER processors using
>> the first POWER ISA.
>>
>
> POWER
>> The first IBM computers to incorporate the POWER ISA are the RISC
>> System/6000 or RS/6000 series. They were released in February 1990. These
>> RS/6000 computers were divided into two classes, POWERstation workstations
>> and POWERserver servers. The first RS/6000 CPU has 2 configurations, called
>> the "RIOS-1" and "RIOS.9" (or more commonly the POWER1 CPU). A RIOS-1
>> configuration has a total of 10 discrete chips: an instruction cache chip,
>> fixed-point chip, floating-point chip, 4 data L1 cache chips, storage
>> control chip, input/output chips, and a clock chip. The lower cost RIOS.9
>> configuration has 8 discrete chips: an instruction cache chip, fixed-point
>> chip, floating-point chip, 2 data cache chips, storage control chip,
>> input/output chip, and a clock chip.
>>
>
> Wikipedia doesn't attempt to unpack RIOS beyond that.
>
> If you go to IBM's archives, there is no mention of RIOS in "A Brief
> History of RISC, the IBM RS/6000 and the IBM eServer pSeries" or in
> "Dictionary of IBM and Computing Terminology", which backs up the idea that
> it was more of an internal code name:
>
> https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/documents/index.html
>
> GCC documentation refers to it here as both the "'rios' chip set" and as a
> cpu_type to be passed to the -mcpu option:
>
>
> https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.3.6/gcc/RS_002f6000-and-PowerPC-Options.html
>
> Going back to an article before the RS/6000 came out (Jan 22, 1990), it
> was mentioned this way:
>
>
> https://techmonitor.ai/technology/ibms_rios_takes_role_of_spectre_at_uniforum_feast
>
> The biggest no-show at the UniForum show which opens in Washington today –
>> unless IBM changes it’s mind in a hurry or decides to hide the thing
>> somewhere off-stand – is IBM’s forthcoming Rios Unix family, which
>> according to InfoWorld will be called the System/6000 Power family...
>>
>
> I thought for sure the Computer History Museum would have something, but
> there wasn't much in the "IBM 801 Microprocessor Oral History Panel":
>
> https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102740048
>
> They talk about America:
>
> P. Markstein: The RS/6000, which we named America, because John said
>> nobody would dare kill a project named America. <laughter>
>> ...
>>
>
> and just mention RIOS:
>
> Oehler: I don't have any clear vision of what happened. Sometimes I just
>> don't remember some of the detail. But the thing about the 6000 going to PC
>> was that was another revolution in the architecture in things that we had
>> another opportunity to fix before we got to the full RIOS, the RS/6000
>> machine.
>>
>
>  Someone who worked at IBM must know though?
>
> - Nate
>
> On Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 9:12 AM Scott Quinn via rescue <rescue at sunhelp.org>
> wrote:
>
>> When you look at older POWER articles/documentation they sometimes use
>> the acronym RIOS instead to refer to the processor, but I haven't found
>> what it stands for yet. Anyone know?
>> _______________________________________________
>> rescue list - http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org
>>
>
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