
Pixar Image Computer: Yours on eBay for a cool $25K - shawndumas
http://www.tuaw.com/2012/07/24/pixar-image-computer-yours-on-ebay-for-a-cool-25k/
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patdennis
Some info on the specs is available on the Wikipedia page:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar_Image_Computer>

The P-II could have two Channel Processors, or Chaps. Each Chap is a 4-way
parallel (RGBA) image computer. The chassis could hold 4 cards. Another model,
the PII-9, could hold 9 cards (4 Chaps, 2 video processors, 2 Off Screen
Memory (OSM) cards, and an Overlay Board for NeWS, the PostScript-based
windowing system. The extensions added were to control the image pipeline for
roaming, image comparison, and stereo image viewing. The PII-9 was the imaging
engine for a UNIX host. This was a SIMD architecture, which was good for
imagery and video applications. It processed four image channels in parallel,
one for red, one for green, one for blue, and one for the alpha channel (whose
inventors have connections to Pixar). It processed imagery in 12 bits per
color channel (or 48 bits per pixel) and could output with 10 bit accuracy.
The system could communicate image data externally over an 80M per second
"Yapbus" or a 2M per second multibus to other hosts, data sources or disks and
had a performance measured equivalent to 200 VUPS, or 200 times the speed of a
VAX 11/780.

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chrisbennet
"The seller says that he's unsure if it's in working condition as he doesn't
have a power cord with which to power it up..."

