The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
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The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
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Re: The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
#2Also the PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors. Before that mice were speaking to serial ports or required an add in card with a nonstandard port. the people buying PS/2's were often very concerned with mice, they'd seen them on TV and they wanted one.
Re: The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
#3It didn't originate with the PS/2 line, but the Model M keyboard with Selectric roots was standard equipment, an absolute beast, and the best keyboard I've ever had.
Re: The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
#4OS/2 Warp was out as I purchased my 386, and I picked up a copy, and I really wanted that to work, but it was already clear that IBM was playing catch-up with Windows because Warp was marketed based on how well it could run Windows stuff.
Re: The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
#5I ran OS/2 1.x (in particular 1.3 was nice) on a 386 clone PC.
Later I ran OS/2 2.x on a PS/2 Model 77 and later Windows NT 3.51
> That is why MS had the money to headhunt the MICA team from DEC, headed by Dave Cutler, and give them Portable OS/2 to finish. That became OS/2 NT (because it was developed on Intel's i860 RISC chip, codenamed N-Ten.) That became Windows NT.
Good bit of trivia. I remember it starting out as OS/2 v3 and being marketed as Windows New Technology.
Re: The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
#6Mirror for those that get blocked by the dreamwidth ddos "protection" like me: https://archive.ph/mLhYa
On the subject, I am typing this response with a PS/2 keyboard from 2003. I use an old computer with old software. Which is why dreamwidth blocked me.
Re: The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
#7Also the PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors. Before that mice were speaking to serial ports or required an add in card with a nonstandard port. the people buying PS/2's were often very concerned with mice, they'd seen them on TV and they wanted one.
That's why the were called PS/2 mice and keyboards. I still have a couple of serial-to-PS/2 adapters here somewhere.
Re: The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
#8http://www.postbulletin.com/magazine/2004/08/index.shtml
"According to Bob Dubke, the second engineer on IBM's 5100 team in Rochester (who now co-owns a locally-based company called eXport Ventures Corp. and also works for Edina Realty), that secret function was his contribution to the design of the computer. The function, which IBM suppressed because of worries about how their competition might use it, was an interface between the assembly code surrounding the computer's ROM exterior, and the 360 emulator hidden beneath it. (IBM declined to comment for this story.) The 5100's emulator gave programmers access to the functions of the monstrous, and much less portable machines, that IBM had produced during the 1960s. An imprint of a hook on the outside of the 5100 symbolized the ability of Dubke's interface to drop into what Titor called "legacy code," and scoop out any necessary operating instructions."
Re: The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
#9>72pin simm in 1988
Afaik other companies picked up 32bit simms very slowly. SUN in 1991 in SPARCstation IPX. First x86 support showing up in 1992 on 486 boards just before introduction of VLB slots. Apple was year later with LC III/520 and Centris in 1993.
Re: The pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range on computers, even today
#10OS/2 Warp was out as I purchased my 386, and I picked up a copy, and I really wanted that to work, but it was already clear that IBM was playing catch-up with Windows because Warp was marketed based on how well it could run Windows stuff.
I thought OS/2 Warp was really neat. I worked IT at Bloomingdale's and at the time they were a strictly IBM house. They used IBM computers running OS/2 Warp in their Bridal Registry kiosks. Since this was a kiosk they had touchscreens and they worked very well and had a "sparkle" in the screen, as the early touchscreen CRT's did. If you lost power, or shut them down incorrectly you would get a bunch of DLL errors and have to re-image the PC.
This was the late '90s and early 2000's.