AT&T PC 6300 Plus Unix box

On Sun, 3 Oct 1999 19:25:40 -0400 (EDT), Bill Yakowenko said: I have been reading this 6300 discussion for a while, but I still don't know which computer exactly this is. I know the Italian firm Olivetti built the 6300 series for AT&T, just like they built a number of DECpc's for Digital. I only know the original Olivetti's, and can't determine which Olivetti hides behind the 6300 label. The standard 286 Olivetti clone systems I have used, always complained about a parity error if there was RAM memory removed from the system and this was not updated in the cmos setup. The machine would count through the memory that was there and generate the error when it fell off the end. Updating the cmos or adding memory might work. If your 6300 is a 8086 or 8088 then it will not be a standard clone, Olivetti did things their own way in those days and you will really need a manual (which I don't have, the first Olivetti's I met were the 286's). If it is a 286 Olivetti, then there is no key sequence to get into the bios setup screen. You need a setup floppy. Some 286 Olivetti's do have an rudimentary internal setup program, but that only comes up when there is a problem. To get into that setup I used to unplug the floppy drive power cable. Even for the 486 Olivetti's a setup floppy was always needed to get at all the bios setup options. This has always been quite a pain, since there is no universal Olivetti setup program, each machine has its own. The exchange program between AT&T and Olivetti also worked the other way around. I have a 3B2/400 Unix system in my collection (in a part of the Computer Home I haven't photographed yet, so no picture, sorry) that has the Olivetti label on it. I don't dare to use it because I don't know the password, and I do not have any floppies or tapes with the Unix OS for it, so messing it up would be unrepairable. Besides, AT&T wants a great deal of money for the maintenance floppies. This machine will alwas have a special place in my collection though, since it is so heavy I sprained a muscle in my back while lifting it so bad that I needed several weeks of therapy to cure. One of the hazards of the old computer collector... Kees. -- Kees Stravers - Geldrop, The Netherlands - kees.stravers(a)iae.nl http://www.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/cm/ my Computer Home page http://www.vaxarchive.org/ documentation on old VAX systems http://vaxarchive.sevensages.org/ VAXarchive mirror Net-Tamer V1.08.1 - Registered