Released in 2006 after the 285, this system used the PowerPC 970 processors (sometimes erroneously categorized under POWER5 by 3rd parties and at IBM--it would technically be closer to a POWER4). Despite POWER5+ and DDR2 already being used on the 285, the 185 took a few steps back and used DDR1 and didn't bother with the POWER chips. While this may seem rather strange, it can be explained with System p5 185 (7037-A50). Perhaps IBM wanted to create a machine of their own with the PPC 970 or it was stuck in developmental hell for a bit, whatever the case IBM used the 7037 guts to be modified into the IntelliStation 185. This move could have been done to offer a workstation that used less power and was quieter / while still maintaining AIX compatibility. Hundreds went to use in government offices and engineering firms; as a result they mainly show up in the U.S. and Japan.
Most of the POWER and AIX people don't even know that IBM badged the 970 under POWER and popped it into a workstation; therefore making the IntelliStation "POWER" 185 a source of confusion, horror and intrigue--and the fact it's relatively unknown means you'll get different responses as to what it can and cannot do. It is still a POWER system in firmware, and supports hardware virtualization like any other POWER system, which makes it completely different from a Power Mac G5 which uses the same CPU. If it didn't support hardware virtualization IBM wouldn't have been able to call the original System p5 185 a System p5... it would just be a plain PowerPC box. But this wasn't too unfamiliar as other AIX systems in the past also leveraged PowerPC chips like RS/6000s and PowerPC ThinkPads. I suspect the whole reason why the PowerPC 970MP had virtualization in the first place was because of IBM's exact requirement for this on their System p5 that they were intending to use it in (which Apple never did on the G5 as far as I know), and then of course Apple wanted AltiVec (which IBM didn't use in AIX as far as I know, but that doesn't mean you couldn't write AIX software to leverage it).
Downloads
--> Latest System Firmware (AT071-156, RPM package) - 05/11/2007
Due to IBM's licensing agreements I am not entitled to distribute the firmware update as it's licensed code. Therefore the above link redirects to IBM's legacy firmware page where it can be downloaded. If the firmware ever gets pulled from the website I will consider mirroring it.
--> IBM IntelliStation POWER 185 Hardware Announcement - February 14, 2006
--> IBM IntelliStation POWER 185 RedBook Overview
--> Quick Start Guide for IntelliStation POWER 185
--> Installing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP3 on POWER 185
--> Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 4 Update 3 on POWER 185
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