26 Jun
2006
26 Jun
'06
5:25 p.m.
Has anyone ever compiled a list of IBM PC and PC/XT
compatibles for
historical purposes (outisde of the no-name Taiwanese
clones, that is)?
There are sites that attempt to enumerate all of the
things that used 8088s or 8086s. I purpose to start a
website one of these days. Perhaps some space could be
reserved to host submissions which would attempt to do
that very thing.
Ick who cares about compatibles though? ;)
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26 Jun
26 Jun
7:38 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/26/2006 at 5:25 PM Chris M wrote:
There are sites that attempt to enumerate all of the
things that used 8088s or 8086s. I purpose to start a
website one of these days. Perhaps some space could be
reserved to host submissions which would attempt to do
that very thing.
Ick who cares about compatibles though? ;)
Say ick all you want, but from a historical point of view, it's
significant.
Consider that both IBM and Apple were in the personal computer business and
that both at one time, had a majority share of their market segments.
IBM, not really understanding either the impact that the PC made nor the
competitive threat from Asia, went along for a time as if it was the only
game in town. I think when the PS/2 came out and very few in the market
saluted, that it finally sank in.
From the standpoint purely of corporate strategy, the
phenomenon of
clones--that IBM didn't fight them and Apple did--and the eventual
outcome
is pretty interesting.
Cheers,
Chuck
27 Jun
27 Jun
5:11 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I think when the PS/2 came out and very few in the
market
saluted, that it finally sank in.
I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put my existing boards in it?
Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?"
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
5:27 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/27/2006 at 7:11 PM Jim Leonard wrote:
I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put
my existing boards in it?
Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?"
Not only that, but MIcrochannel boards were considerably more expensive,
and the bus was not very amenable to "prototyping" like ISA.
I guess that after the RT flopped, IBM had to do something with their
investment in the bus.
Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one time? IIRC, it also was a
great stinking failure.
Cheers,
Chuck
28 Jun
28 Jun
5:45 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
William Donzelli wrote:
Plus, the RS/6000 came out *after* the PS/2.
Peace... Sridhar
I guess that
after the RT flopped, IBM had to do something with their
investment in the bus.
COUGH COUGH...RS/6000...COUGH COUGH COUGH... 
27 Jun
27 Jun
7:38 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/27/2006 at 7:11 PM Jim Leonard wrote:
>I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put my existing boards in it?
> Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?"
On Tue, 27 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Not only that, but MIcrochannel boards were
considerably more expensive,
and the bus was not very amenable to "prototyping" like ISA.
I guess that after the RT flopped, IBM had to do something with their
investment in the bus.
Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one time? IIRC, it also was a
great stinking failure.
Not only that, but IBM LICENSED the use of MCA. One of the terms for the
license was to make good on any and all past "infringements", (to be
decided by IBM), regardless of whether IBM had ever taken any legal
action.
Other than Tandy, there were almost no clone makers for whom IBM
didn't think that they "owed" something from the past.
7:58 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Not only that, but IBM LICENSED the use of MCA. One
of the terms for the
license was to make good on any and all past "infringements", (to be
decided by IBM), regardless of whether IBM had ever taken any legal
action.
For all the complaining about how much of a failure the PS/2 line is,
they sure made a lot of them, and IBM made a nice pile of money...
It is kind of like including AOL as one of the top 25 worst tech products.
--
Will
8:36 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/27/2006 at 7:11 PM Jim Leonard wrote:
>> I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I
can't put my existing boards in it?
>> Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?
What makes you
think this was a "stupid decision"? The MCA bus was
capable of *40MB/S*, which at the time was rather remarkable. ISA is
amazingly slow. And the business desktop market wanted smaller
machines. Part of the intent of MCA, however misguided, was to
eliminate DIP switches and jumpers, which were causing a lot of support
calls. With the config files for MCA, that was to suppose to reduce
support calls.
The only real malfunction of the MCA bus was that unless the cards
were made to very precise standards (and I think the tolerance was 1 or
2 mils, according to the design guides), improperly positioned cards
could smoke a machine.
MCA prototyping cards were available for about $40/ea. And unless
you wanted to do the really high speed stuff, a couple PALs would
suffice. Unlike PCI which requires a FPGA for any kind of bus
compatibility (although I have seen some PAL-only designs for really
crude prototypes).
Everyone seems to think every damn card, bus, and system made should
be backwards to the AND gate. Get over it, move in to the 90's. At the
very least.
--jc
9:58 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/27/2006 at 11:36 PM J.C. Wren wrote:
Everyone seems to think every damn card, bus, and
system made should
be backwards to the AND gate. Get over it, move in to the 90's. At the
very least.
If the PS/2 was AOL, then MCA had to be OS/2. Good technically, but not
widely adopted. Sort of like EISA.
I suspect there's not much life left in the "open up the box and swap a
card" idea, at least as far as personal computers go. Increasingly, I'm
seeing people who have NEVER been inside their systems to add or upgrade a
card. Numbers of expansion slots are decreasing (the system I'm writing
this on has a grand total of 3 PCI slots).
So, I guess if you want to be "up to date" on buses, you'd be looking at
USB or Firewire.
Although not PeeCee, there''s also PC/104, although very 90's, isn't much
different electrically from the good old ISA bus.
Cheers,
Chuck
10:26 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/28/2006 at 1:12 AM William Donzelli wrote:
Doesn't count when we're talking about "widely adopted". The
RS/6000's use
of MCA was nothing more than corporate incest. We're talking fertile
offspring here...not kissin' cousins.
Cheers,
Chuck
If the PS/2
was AOL, then MCA had to be OS/2. Good technically, but
not
widely adopted. Sort of like EISA.
(louder now)
COUGH, COUGH...RS/6000...COUGH, COUGH, COUGH...
28 Jun
28 Jun
7:43 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Doesn't count when we're talking about
"widely adopted". The RS/6000's use
of MCA was nothing more than corporate incest. We're talking fertile
offspring here...not kissin' cousins.
Very successful corporate incest. So IBM's salesmen and lawyers could
not get MCA into the clone market. It does not mean it was a failed
bus that died in obscurity.
--
Will
8:21 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
It was a failure because it was intended to become the proprietary bus of
all x86 PC's and give IBM control over x86 clones. What it did do is show
the world that the clone makers were in charge of their own destiny and
standards (like EISA) and that the x86 platform would remain non proprietary
and not under the control of one manufacturer.
> Doesn't count when we're talking about
"widely adopted". The RS/6000's
use
of MCA was
nothing more than corporate incest. We're talking fertile
offspring here...not kissin' cousins.
Very successful corporate incest. So IBM's salesmen and lawyers could
not get MCA into the clone market. It does not mean it was a failed
bus that died in obscurity.
--
Will
8:26 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
It was a failure because it was intended to become the
proprietary bus of
all x86 PC's and give IBM control over x86 clones. What it did do is show
the world that the clone makers were in charge of their own destiny and
standards (like EISA) and that the x86 platform would remain non proprietary
and not under the control of one manufacturer.
In the business world, it all comes down to the bottom line. I think
that of MCA was clearly in the black.
Failure?
If MCA was such a failure, IBM would have killed it off quite quickly.
--
Will
8:32 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
William Donzelli wrote:
Nobody's really pointed out that MCA is a *fast* bus. 66MHz PCI was
the first "generic" alternative to get even close to MCA's throughput,
let alone bandwidth.
The RS/6000 SP nodes used MCA till the way late '90s. They sure as
heck didn't do that because they had leftover parts.
Doc
It was a
failure because it was intended to become the proprietary
bus of
all x86 PC's and give IBM control over x86
clones. What it did do is show
the world that the clone makers were in charge of their own destiny and
standards (like EISA) and that the x86 platform would remain non
proprietary
and not under the control of one manufacturer.
In the business world, it all comes down to the bottom line. I think
that of MCA was clearly in the black.
Failure?
If MCA was such a failure, IBM would have killed it off quite quickly.
9:39 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doc Shipley" <doc at mdrconsult.com>
To: <General at mdrconsult.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 11:32 AM
Subject: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Nobody's really pointed out that MCA is a
*fast* bus. 66MHz PCI was
the first "generic" alternative to get even close to MCA's throughput,
let alone bandwidth.
The RS/6000 SP nodes used MCA till the way late '90s. They sure as
heck didn't do that because they had leftover parts.
Doc
VLB was 32 bit and ran 33 to 50Mhz, so it was faster then the 10Mhz 32 bit
MCA ( was there a 20Mhz version also?). Yes, I know VLB was limited to video
cards, IDE, SCSI, and I/O cards but those were the only ones that needed the
extra speed back then.
24 Oct
24 Oct
5:56 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On Tue, 2006-06-27 at 21:58 -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 6/27/2006 at 11:36 PM J.C. Wren wrote:
Actually, this hasn't changed much at all, really. I think the fact that
we're getting fewer bus slots on computers is caused by things that were
usually done on the PCI bus now being on the motherboard (NICs,
countless USB ports, sound cards, in some cases VGA..), thus freeing up
slots that were usually used for the same things, and also partially
that we're moving to smaller form factor motherboards.
Newbies will always be scared of opening up the machines, especially as
long as we have stupid and clumsy chassis designs like the current
generic ATX convention.
Tore
Everyone seems to think every damn card, bus, and
system made should
be backwards to the AND gate. Get over it, move in to the 90's. At the
very least.
I suspect there's not much life left in the "open up the box
and swap a
card" idea, at least as far as personal computers go. Increasingly, I'm
seeing people who have NEVER been inside their systems to add or upgrade a
card. Numbers of expansion slots are decreasing (the system I'm writing
this on has a grand total of 3 PCI slots).
9:09 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 24 Oct 2006 at 14:56, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote:
Actually, this hasn't changed much at all, really.
I think the fact that
we're getting fewer bus slots on computers is caused by things that were
usually done on the PCI bus now being on the motherboard (NICs,
countless USB ports, sound cards, in some cases VGA..), thus freeing up
slots that were usually used for the same things, and also partially
that we're moving to smaller form factor motherboards.
Yes--I think that's the big thing--a large range of items now can be
plugged into USB ports. It's not as neat, of course, having little
USB doodads and boxes scattered over your desktop as having
everything in the box, but it's infinitely less threatening to the
average PeeCee user than opening up a box and seeing all that naked
electronics stuff. :)
I was reminded of the "open up your box" question the other day when
I was installing Vista RC1 on an older (but not vintage) box and the
Upgrade Advisor gave the warning "Yes, you can install Vista, but you
won't get the complete experience because your graphics card isn't
one that has a great GPU on it." message. Folks may not take to
opeining the box as well as they have in years past simply to
upgrade(?) the OS.
Cheers,
Chuck
28 Jun
28 Jun
7:39 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
J.C. Wren wrote:
On 6/27/2006 at 7:11 PM Jim Leonard wrote:
Yes, that is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't have
*any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick
adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again.
At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer
market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway.
>> I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I
can't put my existing boards in
>> it?
>> Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?
What makes you
think this was a "stupid decision"? The MCA bus was
capable of *40MB/S*, which at the time was rather remarkable. ISA is Everyone seems to think every damn card, bus, and
system made should
be backwards to the AND gate. Get over it, move in to the 90's. At the
very least.
Hold on a second: PS/2 came out in 1987. For someone who bought their
XT for $3000+ just four years earlier, it did not sit well that all the
internal hardware (HD, HD adapter, etc.) had to be purchased all over again.
The reason EISA, VESA local bus, PCI, etc. were adopted is because the
new technology and old technology were on the same board. So users
could grow gradually, adapt as necessary.
I'm in the same proverbial boat today, actually: I want to upgrade my
ailing video card with one with a faster GPU (read carefully: faster
processor, not bus architecture) but all the cards that fit the bill are
PCI Express and I don't have a PCI Express slot on my motherboard. So
I'd have to upgrade the motherboard... and memory and CPU because the
new motherboard doesn't support what I have either. Just because I want
to get a better video card. So I'm understandably irritated.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
8:36 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Yes, that is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2
line doesn't have
*any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick
adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again.
At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer
market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway.
Was it? Realistically, did a big percentage of new computer sales
during the PS/2 era really involve upgrades? Maybe in the consumer
geek market, but that is not IBM's domain. For new PeeCee sales I
remember at the time (recall that back then most consumer sales were
to folks that never had a PC based computer), most people just wanted
a whole new machine, with perhaps the exceptions being the printer and
tube.
Yes, they tried to get the PS/2 into the consumer market, and they did
fail. But...
IBM's big, and I mean BIG, market is the business market. Other than
the Ma and Pa penny pinching firms, NOBODY did card by card upgrades.
Just get a whole new machine. Or a truckload of them. Just like today.
--
Will
10:25 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
William Donzelli wrote:
Plus it's worth remembering that the software vendors kept a close eye on
hardware developments and wrote their code accordingly. So if a person
interested in upgrading their machine to current spec was also interested in
running the latest apps, they'd be upgrading their video card, disk controller
etc. anyway.
That certainly happened to me on a few occasions back when I used to play the
PC upgrade game. These days I seem to have hit a point where the machine runs
the apps I need nicely, so I don't need to do hardware or software upgrades. I
suspect that's a rarity :)
It's interesting though how MCA and EISA died out, but VLB (briefly) and PCI
did so well. The latter two both required new boards, but there didn't seem to
be a lot of complaints amongst users.
cheers
Jules
Yes, that is
remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't have
*any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick
adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again.
At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer
market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway.
Was it? Realistically, did a big percentage of new computer sales
during the PS/2 era really involve upgrades? Maybe in the consumer
geek market, but that is not IBM's domain. For new PeeCee sales I
remember at the time (recall that back then most consumer sales were
to folks that never had a PC based computer), most people just wanted
a whole new machine, with perhaps the exceptions being the printer and
tube.
10:05 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/29/2006 at 5:25 AM Jules Richardson wrote:
It's interesting though how MCA and EISA died out,
but VLB (briefly) and
PCI did so well. The latter two both required new boards, but there didn't
seem to be a lot of complaints amongst users.
I think it wasn't that PCI "did so well", but rather that the need for plug
in cards decreased dramatically.
Consider that right about when PCI began appearing on Pentium-class
machines (I know it made an appearance late in the 486 game, but it wasn't
as common as all-ISA or ISA/VLB 486 systems), motherboard integration of
peripherals had gotten underway, so the need for lots of cards wasn't
there.
Contrast the typical 386 with its display, hard/floppy cards (with serial
and parallel ports) where basically everything except CPU and memory was on
cards.
Pentiums pretty much started out with IDE, floppy, serial and parallel
already on the motherboard. Some had display, sound and network adapters
there too, and a few even had SCSI. The need for add-in cards dropped
dramatically. I suspect that most PCI cards sold are display or sound or
network adapters. At some point, I predict that many desktop systems will
take the form of something that looks like the Mac Mini--everything that
you need in a small box with no expandability except for USB and maybe
Firewire. Should cut costs significantly.
Cheers,
Chuck
11:53 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 6/29/2006 at 5:25 AM Jules Richardson wrote:
Possibly - but as you say, the main integration was floppy/IDE/serial/parallel
- in other words, equivalent to the good old multi-I/O board of old. There
were some exceptions, but the norm was for video, sound and network to still
require boards (and, IIRC, motherboards of the time typically only had three
or four PCI slots anyway)
It's interesting though how MCA and EISA died
out, but VLB (briefly) and
PCI did so well. The latter two both required new boards, but there didn't
seem to be a lot of complaints amongst users.
I think it wasn't that PCI "did so well", but rather that the need for
plug
in cards decreased dramatically. At some point, I predict that many desktop systems
will
take the form of something that looks like the Mac Mini--everything that
you need in a small box with no expandability except for USB and maybe
Firewire. Should cut costs significantly.
Much as I dislike it, I suspect that you're right. Although there is a vast
amount of legacy hardware out there, which hasn't quite been the case for
Apple systems. I can't see the expandable PC board going away any time soon -
but it might be relegated to the realms of server-class hardware only.
Never underestimate the desire of PC gamers to keep upgrading their video
boards though, I suppose.
cheers
Jules
8:52 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/28/2006 at 9:39 PM Jim Leonard wrote:
Yes, that is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2
line doesn't have
*any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick
adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again.
At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer
market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway.
You've obviously never run into a PS/2 Model 25 or 30 or even the
"portable" L40. ISA machines, not MCA.
I suspect the biggest problem with MCA licensing was IBM's rather Draconian
approach. If you signed up as a MCA licensee, you paid royalties not only
on the MCA machines you made, but also on any other IBM "compatibles" (MCA
or not) that you manufactured. That second part must have cost Tandy a
bundle.
Cheers,
Chuck
29 Jun
29 Jun
1:59 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Chuck Guzis wrote:
You're right, I never did. I already had a 286 and was looking for a
386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop,
you couldn't add cards to it :-)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
Yes, that is
remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't have
*any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick
adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again.
At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer
market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway.
You've obviously never run into a PS/2 Model 25 or 30 or even the
"portable" L40. ISA machines, not MCA.
5:45 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Jim Leonard wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
You're right, I never did. I already had a 286 and was looking for a
386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop,
you couldn't add cards to it :-)
That's sort of odd. I have a Model 25/386 with a 3Com 3c509 in it.
Wait; I *had* it. I think I gave it to Gil Carrick.
Doc
Yes, that
is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't
have *any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards,
joystick adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all
over again. At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the
consumer market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway.
You've obviously never run into a PS/2 Model 25 or 30 or even the
"portable" L40. ISA machines, not MCA.
8:44 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/29/2006 at 3:59 AM Jim Leonard wrote:
You're right, I never did. I already had a 286 and
was looking for a
386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop,
you couldn't add cards to it :-)
Maybe it's splitting hairs, but the following PS/2 models had ISA busses
and 80386SX CPUs:
Model 40 SX
Model 35 SX
Model 25 SX
The following had a 486SLC CPU and ISA bus:
Model "9533E" (really odd one--one lone ISA slot)
The L40SX was a 386SX box also with an expansion connector that connected
to an ISA expansion unit (3541). Laptop maybe, but you could add a short
ISA card to it.
There may have been others--after awhile, it got hard to keep track of PS/2
models.
Cheers,
Chuck
10:33 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 6/29/2006 at 3:59 AM Jim Leonard wrote:
Not just those. Plus, I don't believe there was a 25SX. I believe the
ISA models were:
Model 25 8-bit ISA
Model 25-286 16-bit ISA
Model 30 8-bit ISA
Model 30-286 16-bit ISA
Model 35SX 16-bit ISA
Model 40SX 16-bit ISA
Model L40SX 16-bit ISA
I'm reasonably certain that the above is an exhaustive list.
Peace... Sridhar
You're right, I never did. I already had a
286 and was looking for a
386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop,
you couldn't add cards to it :-)
Maybe it's splitting hairs, but the following PS/2 models had ISA busses
and 80386SX CPUs:
Model 40 SX
Model 35 SX
Model 25 SX
11:38 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/29/2006 at 1:33 PM Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Not just those. Plus, I don't believe there was a
25SX.
Then you'd better tell this guy: :)
http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/25sx.htm
Like I said, for a time, the new models and variations on the old ones kept
coming pretty fast.
Cheers,
Chuck
9:05 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 6/29/2006 at 1:33 PM Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
I have one of those machines. They say "25-386" on them. Also, the
machine he refers to as "25-XT" actually just reads "25".
Peace... Sridhar
Not just those. Plus, I don't believe there
was a 25SX.
Then you'd better tell this guy: :)
http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/25sx.htm
Like I said, for a time, the new models and variations on the old ones kept
coming pretty fast.
12:34 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure my Model 25 had 16-bit ISA.
I'm certain it was a 386sx.
Doc
On 6/29/2006 at 3:59 AM Jim Leonard wrote:
Not just those. Plus, I don't believe there was a 25SX. I believe the
ISA models were:
Model 25 8-bit ISA
Model 25-286 16-bit ISA
Model 30 8-bit ISA
Model 30-286 16-bit ISA
Model 35SX 16-bit ISA
Model 40SX 16-bit ISA
Model L40SX 16-bit ISA
I'm reasonably certain that the above is an exhaustive list. You're right, I never did. I already had a
286 and was looking for a
386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop,
you couldn't add cards to it :-)
Maybe it's splitting hairs, but the following PS/2 models had ISA busses
and 80386SX CPUs:
Model 40 SX
Model 35 SX
Model 25 SX 
5:23 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
And thusly were the wise words spake by Jim Leonard
I'm in the same proverbial boat today, actually: I want to upgrade my
ailing video card with one with a faster GPU (read carefully: faster
processor, not bus architecture) but all the cards that fit the bill are
PCI Express and I don't have a PCI Express slot on my motherboard. So
I'd have to upgrade the motherboard... and memory and CPU because the
new motherboard doesn't support what I have either. Just because I want
to get a better video card. So I'm understandably irritated.
And even if you get a card that fits in your bus, you have to make sure
your power supply can handle it! :( I bought a PCI video card online
only to find out when I got it that the power supply had to be at least
250W! This was on the outside of the box but was not mentioned on
the online site.
Cheers,
Bryan
5:37 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Bryan Pope wrote:
And even if you get a card that fits in your bus, you
have to make sure
your power supply can handle it! :( I bought a PCI video card online
only to find out when I got it that the power supply had to be at least
250W! This was on the outside of the box but was not mentioned on
the online site.
You know your video card is too powerful when it needs its own power
connector. Seriously, a lot of the newer cards actually have a HDD-type power
connector on them, and they take their 5V straight from the power supply
instead of through the PCI connector.
I seem to recall there are a couple of high end cards that need *two* such
connectors due to their insane power consumption. Something like 225W just for
the graphics card...
--
Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder
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28 Jun
28 Jun
5:53 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
I seem to recall there are a couple of high end cards
that need *two* such
connectors due to their insane power consumption. Something like 225W just for
the graphics card...
Hmm... I have a graphics display system that has 3 5V 150A PSUs. That's
around 10 times that amount of power.
Of course thing thing lives in a 6' rack cabinet, has around 5000 ICs in
it (including over 3000 DRAMs), and for the time (27 years ago) was very
high end. It's an I2S Model 70/E display for a PDP11 with 2 memory boxes
(it could take up to 4, but even the 2 I have give me 6 byteplanes...)
-tony
5:31 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Other than Tandy, there were almost no clone makers
for whom IBM
didn't think that they "owed" something from the
past.
Strange criterium, no? Of course the T2K posed no
significant threat, but the 1000 was not only a vamped
up Peanut, but in fact offered it at a much better
value. Hence a Peanut-killer? Shouldn't that have
ticked off Ol' Blue?
It was a failure because it was intended to become
the proprietary bus of
all x86 PC's and give IBM control over x86 clones.
What it did do is show
the world that the clone makers were in charge of
their own destiny and
standards (like EISA) and that the x86 platform would
remain non proprietary
and not under the control of one manufacturer.
Right. And also could it be that no one saw the need
for it? Besides compatibility was everything. Why
invest money in something incompatible, and not even
have the ability to use the old cards?
I suspect there's not much life left in the
"open up
the box and swap a
card" idea, at least as far as personal computers
go. Increasingly, I'm
seeing people who have NEVER been inside their
systems to add or upgrade a
card. Numbers of expansion slots are decreasing
(the system I'm writing
this on has a grand total of 3 PCI slots).
Often video and sound, not to mention USB and other
things, are included on the mobo. As long as people
want the ability to customize their peecess, the slots
will be there. Albeit not as many as in the past.
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27 Jun
27 Jun
10:23 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one
time? IIRC, it also was a
great stinking failure.
NCR did a few too (before AT&T bought them). I remember one that was
a multiprocessor 80486 with multiple Micro Channel buses, running
NCR's System V Release 4. Imagine a PC about the size of two
household kitchen refrigerators stuck together, you'll have about the
right idea.
-Frank McConnell
28 Jun
28 Jun
2:03 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On 6/28/06, Frank McConnell <fmc at reanimators.org> wrote:
NCR did a few too (before AT&T bought them). I
remember one that was
a multiprocessor 80486 with multiple Micro Channel buses, running
NCR's System V Release 4. Imagine a PC about the size of two
household kitchen refrigerators stuck together, you'll have about the
right idea.
We had a few of those at Lucent, since, before I arrived, they bought
them from the NCR-part of AT&T with internal "funny money" rather than
spending hard coin on stuff from external vendors.
My job existed because my department was finally allowed to buy
whatever they wanted (this was after "trivestiture"), and they needed
someone with some experience with Sun hardware to get the group spun
up. I spec'ed and ordered hundreds of K$ of Sun gear, 5000s, 3000s,
etc... got to go from catalog to installation several times. Lots of
fun.
The NCR servers were, essentially, giant quad Pentium (90?) boxes with
several microchannels and loads and loads of SCSI cards. I was told
they were so DOS compatible that you could plug in a keyboard and
monitor on the back, and boot up to DOS and play DOOM.
-ethan
11:23 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
On Wednesday 28 June 2006 01:23 am, Frank McConnell wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
They did one that was a bit smaller than that, too, about the size of your
typical "big tower case". I had one sitting here for a while, dual P90 as I
recall, until a list member came by and relieved me of it some time back.
I'd thought about using it from time to time, but never actually got around
to powering it up, and that microchannel stuff really put me off.
There was a 5.25" floppy drive, and one of those larger tape drives (think
DC-600), which along with all of the drive bays, hooked into a 50-wire SCSI
cable. Not a bad setup, overall.
And I'm told it had some version of unix on it, came up asking for a
password...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at
one time? IIRC, it also was
a great stinking failure.
NCR did a few too (before AT&T bought them). I remember one that was
a multiprocessor 80486 with multiple Micro Channel buses, running
NCR's System V Release 4. Imagine a PC about the size of two
household kitchen refrigerators stuck together, you'll have about the
right idea.
7:41 p.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Frank McConnell wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Yes. Sadly, I still administrate these monsters in use at my company.
The best one is a Pentium 60, whose uname -a mentions "MCA" in the
output. Joy.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at
one time? IIRC, it also was a
great stinking failure.
NCR did a few too (before AT&T bought them). I remember one that was
a multiprocessor 80486 with multiple Micro Channel buses, running
NCR's System V Release 4. Imagine a PC about the size of two
household kitchen refrigerators stuck together, you'll have about the
right idea.
5:43 a.m.
New subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products
Chuck Guzis wrote:
The RT was ISA, not MCA.
I was *all
over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put my existing boards in it?
Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?"
Not only that, but MIcrochannel boards were considerably more expensive,
and the bus was not very amenable to "prototyping" like ISA.
I guess that after the RT flopped, IBM had to do something with their
investment in the bus. Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one
time? IIRC, it also was a
great stinking failure.
Tandy Model 5000.
Peace... Sridhar
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