9 Mar
2023
9 Mar
'23
3:35 p.m.
On 3/9/23 6:20 AM, Bill Degnan wrote:
First and foremost, try to boot the computer to make
note of the
configuration, if there is one still stored in the system.
Hum. That sort of surprises me. I naively assumed that there would be
some work that I should do before powering the system on to make sure
that there weren't any spicy components that would make me regret my
choices. Did IBM not use Rifas? Is there any other hardware concerns?
I am somewhat worried about stiction on the old hard drives.
But I tend to not work on systems this old that have been sitting for a
long time often enough to know what I should check.
I'm guessing this system is from about a decade (or more) before failing
capacitors were common place on ... economy systems.
I don't expect the battery to have held the config
but there is
always hope.
Agreed.
This is far from my first time working with IBM PS/2s, so the lack of a
configuration isn't a big concern to me. I'm well aware of reference
disks / option disks / convenience partitions on models that support them.
Make detailed notes if you're lucky enough to have
the configs saved.
Otherwise get a new battery before you do anything or you'll be
spinning your wheels.
It's been just long enough since the last time I worked on a PS/2 that I
can't remember if the battery was required at any power off or just
power removed from the PSU. I've had different systems behavie
differently in this regard with a dead BIOS battery.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die