20 Jan
2008
20 Jan
'08
10:08 a.m.
Jason T wrote:
Hi all - I've got a line on this old AIX box, with
the monitor, books,
etc (not sure about O/S media but I think that can be "found.") Any
opinions on it? Any historical significance ("first machine run
____," etc?)
It's cheap, but it will have to be shipped, which may not be cheap.
Cheap will not be the word. My RT weighs nearly 75 pounds, and
that's *without* the full-height ESDI drives.
If you can find an ISA IDE/FDC card without serial and parallel and
without PC "BIOS entensions", a Seagate IDE Medalist under 2GB will work
fine. I've got one running in mine.
My RT has got the advanced processor board, and it's about as fast as
you'd expect from a 16MHz/16MB computer running a fairly heavyweight OS,
AIX v2.2.1.
Make sure you get the keyboard, at least. It's a proprietary
interface, and I've never heard of anyone adapting a different keyboard
for it. Same for the mouse, and if you happen to get 2, I get dibs on
the spare! :)
The story I got from an IBM developer is that the PC/RT was ready for
market in 1981, but for some reason IBM did not release it till '86. By
then it was mostly outclassed by the competition and its own price, so
IBM didn't sell many of them.