Racer was an experimental emulator project intended to emulate the SGI Octane (IP30 / Octane1) workstation, including:
- MIPS64 CPU (R10000-class)
- CP0 / MMU / TLB
- PROM (ip30prom.rev4.9.bin)
- IRIX boot support
- Text-based user interface (TUI)
- Framebuffer and basic device emulation
Despite significant design effort, the project has been cancelled.
The project has been discontinued due to:
- A very large number of compile-time errors across core components
- Increasing architectural complexity (CPU, MMU, CP0, IRIX expectations)
- High maintenance cost for correctness (TLB, exceptions, endianness, timing)
- Limited development resources and time
At the current state, the emulator cannot be built reliably, and continuing development is no longer practical.
- 🗃️ This repository is now a public archive
- ❌ No further development is planned
- ❌ No active bug fixing
- ❌ No guarantees of correctness or buildability
- ✔️ Code remains available for educational and research purposes
Although cancelled, this repository may still be useful for:
- Studying early-stage emulator architecture
- Learning about MIPS CPU emulation concepts
- Understanding SGI Octane / IRIX boot requirements
- Reference material for future emulator projects
- Historical or archival interest
- This project is not affiliated with Silicon Graphics (SGI).
- IRIX, PROMs, and SGI trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.
- Users are responsible for ensuring they comply with applicable licenses when using SGI ROMs or IRIX media.
Emulating real SGI hardware accurately—especially systems as complex as the Octane—is an extremely difficult task.
This project represents an honest attempt, and its archival is a natural part of experimental systems development.
Thank you to anyone who explored or learned from this repository.
Racer Emulator — Archived