The Community Science and Data Center (CSDC) and US National Gemini
Office (US NGO) at NSF's NOIRLab is nearing completion of a project intended
to upgrade the IRAF-based Gemini reduction software to provide a fully
supported system capable of running natively on modern hardware. This work
includes 64-bit ports of the GEMINI package and dependency tasks (e.g. from
STSDAS), upgrades to the core IRAF system and all other external packages to
fix any platform and licensing problems, and the establishment of fully
supported Help Desk and distribution systems for the user community. The
project provides a bridge solution until the new DRAGONS software is
available for all facility instruments and modes as well as additional
benefits to the wider IRAF community.

Early results show a 10-20X speedup of reductions using the native 64-bit
software compared to the virtualized 32-bit solutions now in use. Results
are even better on new Apple M1/M2 platforms where the additional overhead of
Intel CPU emulation can be eliminated. Timing comparisons, science
verification testing and release plans will be discussed.