I'd consider it OT ... I miss my IBM 9595 ...
with the P60 processor
complex ... I thought it was doubly cool since the CPU was one of the
examples of the Pentium that got shipped with the FDIV bug ... great
machine to play with WNT 3.51/4, or OS/2 3.x or 4.x.
I wouldn't say the P5 killed workstations or midrange ... they had maybe
10-15 years yet to move and shake when the P5 first hit the market ... but
I suppose you are right in that it was probably the first "shot across the
bow".
But time marched on, and now all you see in a full-size computer is
x86_64. Ho hum ... :|
Best,
Sean
On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 2:35 AM, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se>
wrote:
Run of the mill PC clones are rather booring. But
brand names, oddballs
and first are always fun. I wouldn't mind to have the first DELL machine
in my collection.
I have a DECpc 433 with matching SCSI expansion box. A desktop machine
with some interesting solutions.
/P
On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 12:43:17AM -0400, william degnan wrote:
I know I keep pushing the boundary of vintage
lately but I wanted to
report
to those who care that I finally got my hands on
a 1993 Compaq 5/60M -
this
is "a if not the" first desktop
computer with a Pentium processor
installed
stock. it was the 1993 "dream machine -
$9000+ It had an EISA bus
and
was otherwise a 486 system with a Pentium
controller card, not on the
motherboard. Pentium computers' contribution to the WWW era vintage is
extremely significant.
Pentium killed the minicomputer, or at a minimum merged into it, if
you ask
me. The interplay between DEC/Compaq/HP/Intel
1992-1995 culminating
into
the launch of Pentium processor systems is vital
to understanding the
WWW
era of computing. How these companies worked or
did not work together
and
how the Pentium vs. the Alpha processor came to
be...a good tale of
woe and
$$.
For those interested: Compaq 5/60:
http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=612
I have a bunch of articles to post on my site related to the first
Pentium
desktops which I will do asap.
Bill
P.S. while we're on this off-sh topic I also posted some photos of a
Digital 486 laptop, DEC had a 486 laptop before it was absorbed by
Compaq.
1994. Not really noteworthy other than the
Digital name
http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=613
P.S.S. and related to Pentium and DEC ... here is one of DEC's early
(but