The O2 is an entry-level Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 workstation

Workstation

A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...

 introduced in 1996 by Silicon Graphics, Inc.

Silicon Graphics

Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...

 (SGI) to replace their earlier Indy

SGI Indy

The Indy, code-named "Guinness", is a low-end workstation introduced on 12 July 1993. Developed and manufactured by Silicon Graphics Incorporated , it was the result of their attempt to obtain a share of the low-end computer-aided design market, which was dominated at the time by other workstation...

 series. Like the Indy, the O2 used a single MIPS

MIPS architecture

MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...

 microprocessor

Microprocessor

A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...

 and was intended to be used mainly for multimedia

Multimedia

Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...

. Its larger counterpart was the SGI Octane

SGI Octane

The Octane and the similar Octane2 are UNIX workstations marketed by SGI. Both are 2-way SMP-capable workstations, originally based on the MIPS R10000 microprocessor. Newer Octanes are based on MIPS R12000 and R14000. The Octane2 has four improvements compared to Octane, a revised power supply,...

. The O2 was SGI's last attempt at a low-end workstation.
Originally known as the "Moosehead" project, the O2 architecture

Computer architecture

In computer science and engineering, computer architecture is the practical art of selecting and interconnecting hardware components to create computers that meet functional, performance and cost goals and the formal modelling of those systems....

 features a proprietary high-bandwidth Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) that connects the various system components.