26 Apr
2008
26 Apr
'08
12:17 p.m.
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Yes, they did, but the fans were rated for 50-60 Hz
operation and
impedance-protected. With the factory, what 62-watt?, PSU, I don't
think it was possible to stuff the thing full enough of drives and
cards to make it overheat (remember too, that there were only 5
slots) to make it overheat. Wasn't the (black) PSU on the original
PC fitted with red tamper-telltales stuck on along the edge of the
PSU clamshell? I can't remember exactly, but I think it was.
63.5? W
Mine didn't. Just tamper-proof torx with a black PS case and white
switch.
As this was an IBM product, I fully expected that
there would have been
some provision for changing the AC input voltage. Certainly other
personal computers of the time had the feature, and this wasn't supposed
to be a product from "Fred's Personal Computer and Aluminum Storm Door
Company". One expected a high level of engineering from IBM.
Harrumph. We don't even have storm doors around here. It's a matter of
making screen doors, or expanding into other markets.
I never understood the design that featured a complete
lack of a
clear airpath between the plug-in-cards. They must not have been
expecting very much expansion.
They thought that cassette BASIC would remain a popular configuration.
All in all, for as long as the 5150 was in the rumor
mill, one would
have expected a better thought-through design from IBM.
An awful lot of the rumors were based on, "well, of course it will
be . . .", "only a moron would make a machine that isn't CP/M"
"Only a moron would make it not be Apple compatible", . . .
"How can it NOT have a 68000?"
Only somebody who doesn't know IBM could make predictions like those.