The IRIS spectrometer employs scintillation and proportional counters with large-sized windows. It offers possibility for measuring X-ray flux of flare precursors and micro- and nanoflares as well as studying fine time structures in hard X-rays during the impulsive phase of strong solar flares. Characteristics of the spectrometer (time resolution, number of energy channels, sensitivity to soft X-rays) are automatically changeable depending on measured X-ray flux. The essential properties of the IRIS spectrometer are listed in Table 1 (for detailed description see Kocharov et al, 1989, and Charikov et al, 1997). (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.