Pixar Image Computer

Lore & Background

The Pixar Image Computer was created when George Lucas recruited people from NYIT in 1979 to start Lucasfilm's Computer Division. The team aimed to develop digital optical printing, digital audio, digital non-linear editing and computer graphics, but found computer graphics quality insufficient due to technological limitations. They decided to solve the problem by building a hardware project: the Pixar Image Computer, a machine with more computational power for higher resolution images. About three months after their acquisition by Steve Jobs on February 3, 1986, the computer became commercially available for the first time, selling for $135,000 with a required $35,000 workstation from Sun Microsystems or Silicon Graphics (equivalent to $500,000 in 2025). The original machine generated many single sales for labs and research but did not sell in quantity.

In 1987, Pixar redesigned the machine to create the P-II second generation machine, which sold for $30,000. Pixar donated ten machines to leading hospitals and sent marketing people to doctors' conventions to gain a foothold in the medical market, but this had little effect on sales despite the machine's ability to render CAT scan data in 3D. Pixar did get a contract with the manufacturer of CAT Scanners, which sold 30 machines. By 1988, Pixar had only sold 120 Pixar Image Computers. In 1988, Pixar began development of the PII-9, a nine-slot version of the low-cost P-II, aimed at high-end government imaging applications. The PII-9 and associated software became the prototype of the next generation of commercial 'low cost' workstations.

In 1990, the Pixar Image Computer was defining the 'state of the art' in commercial image processing. Because the computers were too expensive to sell in large quantities, Pixar decided to sell the hardware to Vicom Systems, laying off its hardware engineers and selling the imaging business. Vicom Systems filed for Chapter 11 within a year. Many lessons learned from the Pixar Image Computer made it into the Low Cost Workstation (LCWS) and Commercial Analyst Workstation (CAWS) program guidelines in the early and mid-1990s. The government mass deployment that drove the PII-9 development occurred in the late 1990s, in a program called Integrated Exploitation Capability (IEC).

Reader's Guide

The Pixar Image Computer represents a pivotal but commercially unsuccessful attempt to create dedicated hardware for high-end image processing. Its significance lies not in sales numbers—fewer than 300 units were ever sold—but in its technical innovations and influence on later systems. The machine featured a SIMD architecture with four parallel channel processors (Chaps) for RGBA image processing, 12-bit color channels with 48 bits per pixel, and a performance measured at 200 VUPS (200 times the speed of a VAX-11/780). It used a custom PXR file format with tiled, encoded pixel data and a special 12-bit fixed-point pixel format. The PII-9 model introduced a very early RAID model, a high-performance bus, and hardware image decompression, serving as a prototype for later 'low cost' workstations. Walt Disney Feature Animation used dozens of Pixar Image Computers for their Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) through 1995's Pocahontas. The machine's legacy includes influencing government imaging programs like the Integrated Exploitation Capability (IEC) in the late 1990s, and its hardware business sale to Vicom Systems for $2,000,000 in 1990 marked the end of Pixar's hardware efforts.

Did You Know?

• The Pixar Image Computer used a SIMD architecture with four parallel channel processors (Chaps) for red, green, blue, and alpha channels.
• The original machine sold for $135,000 plus a required $35,000 workstation, equivalent to $500,000 in 2025.
• Fewer than 300 Pixar Image Computers were ever sold.