eBay flooded with IBM PS/2s

This is what drives me insane about eBay, the prices range from $LOL to $ROFLMAO.

I mean, come on people. These prices are just stupid and unrealistic.

njroadfan said:

...and that edge connector got a lot of use in the end. I guess the economy of scale was high enough with IBM's production that it was a cheap option for re-use as VL-Bus and 33Mhz 32-bit PCI slots.

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I wonder how expensive EISA slots were, those seemed expensive to make.

I've seen stupid high prices asked when the piece of gear was tied to some very-high-priced piece of industrial equipment--even at stupid high prices, it's probably still cheaper to pay the price for a replacement component than it is to replace the whole shebang.

How much industrial gear was powered by low-end PS/2 systems?

tezza said:

The funny thing is that if I'm ever going to any vintage BASIC or MS-DOS/PC-DOS programming I always drag out the old PS/2 30-286. I think it's because it's got a smaller footprint that other PC-type machines of the same era. Out of all my vintage machines it probably gets used the most.

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My model 30 286 is the only system I have setup for games at the moment. It really gives me the nostalgic 1980s computing feeling.

mikerm said:

I mean, come on people. These prices are just stupid and unrealistic.

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The hobby collector market versus industrial replacement market versus professional collector market are just too separate but on eBay they are combined into one. Usually industrial replacements are sourced through tertiary market parts brokers. But eBay has been making some inroads there.

Chuck(G) said:

How much industrial gear was powered by low-end PS/2 systems?

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Hard to assess but a lot of businesses still operate machinery and tools through 1980s and 1990s computers. With the current economy few businesses will go for capital investments (e.g. replacing their setup).

I think both MCA and EISA had made a mistake by requiring the configuration be stored on disk.

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This is why I don't love PS/2 machines. I'm a huge fan of PS/1 and early Aptivas, which shared some of the design traits with the PS/2 lineup, though. I love almost every PS/2 case design I've seen (except opening the 25/30.. that's a pain in the ass), especially the towers. However, MCA and EISA are a pain in the ass - especially in this era where the configuration disks are lost with time - granted, with PS/2s that isn't as much of an issue, because they were available on the FTP for so long. However, it just seems silly and clunky to have any dependence on a particular disk for a machine to boot properly..

As well, the licensing costs on MCA meant choices were very limited. If every PS/2 came with MCA *and* ISA/EISA, it would have been a lot better, because you could drag a few cards over to the MCA platform. They could do it like they did with PCI, making a bridge chip that did MCA to ISA.. Businesses which invested in expensive and/or proprietary cards weren't going to switch to them, the prices were higher (alienating home users for the most part), and you lost compatibility with the rest of the market..

The only PS/2 class machines I like are the 25, 30, and Eduquest models - particularly the Eduquest.. mostly for the reason of non-MCA architecture.

I had a 55SX and a 70 at one point, and after realizing I didn't have a non-token-ring network card for them, no choice of video card, no sound cards at all, and so on, as well as not being able to make them boot (with the reference disks), I gave up on the whole lineup.

Raven said:

I gave up on the whole lineup.

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The one thing I do like is that they seem to have survived in greater numbers than clones, come with excellent documentation and their batteries are generally more replaceable. Another huge problem is the FDDs and HDDs: those are never standard and replacing those is near impossible and usually very cost prohibitive.

Raven said:

However, MCA and EISA are a pain in the ass - especially in this era where the configuration disks are lost with time - granted, with PS/2s that isn't as much of an issue, because they were available on the FTP for so long. However, it just seems silly and clunky to have any dependence on a particular disk for a machine to boot properly..

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There are problems with vintage computers that are a much bigger pain in the a$$ than config disks. Granted, some of those are getting hard to find these days. Some computers will even accept a generic config disk also.

Raven said:

The only PS/2 class machines I like are the 25, 30, and Eduquest models - particularly the Eduquest.. mostly for the reason of non-MCA architecture.

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Sounds like you are too much in a "comfort zone" working with the IBM PC standard. There are many non-IBM compatible computers that are a lot of fun to play with.

Raven said:

I had a 55SX and a 70 at one point, and after realizing I didn't have a non-token-ring network card for them, no choice of video card, no sound cards at all, and so on, as well as not being able to make them boot (with the reference disks), I gave up on the whole lineup.

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Would that be a reason to shun the purchase of something like a Northstar Horizon, Heathkit (pre-IBM standard) or an S-100 bus computer?

PeterNY said:

Hard to assess but a lot of businesses still operate machinery and tools through 1980s and 1990s computers. With the current economy few businesses will go for capital investments (e.g. replacing their setup).

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That's pretty much what I said. But how much industrial gear is powered by a PS/2? If it's a commodity system, almost all of what I've seen, if not proprietary, has been ISA-based. NEC 9801 also has a strong presence in machine tools.

But PS/2? I can't think of a single instance, though there must be some application using them.

Chuck(G) said:

That's pretty much what I said. But how much industrial gear is powered by a PS/2? If it's a commodity system, almost all of what I've seen, if not proprietary, has been ISA-based. NEC 9801 also has a strong presence in machine tools.

But PS/2? I can't think of a single instance, though there must be some application using them.

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Sometimes specific software requires a dongle, a certain CPU speed and so on. I have sold clones for that reason.

PeterNY said:

Sometimes specific software requires a dongle, a certain CPU speed and so on. I have sold clones for that reason.

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...or even a real parallel port. But what milling machine, EDM rig, embroidery machine, SEM, spectrometer etc. has used a PS/2 as its controller? If the PS/2s were such "non-consumer" devices, where is their manifestation in the world of industry? There were plenty of industrialized 5160 and 5170 systems controlling all sorts of things.

Chuck(G) said:

...or even a real parallel port. But what milling machine, EDM rig, embroidery machine, SEM, spectrometer etc. has used a PS/2 as its controller? If the PS/2s were such "non-consumer" devices, where is their manifestation in the world of industry? There were plenty of industrialized 5160 and 5170 systems controlling all sorts of things.

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IBM did make the industrialized PS/2s; I have no idea how many were sold or made. See http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/ohlandl/7561-62/ibm7561.html for one example. I don't know of any setups that used a normal PS/2 but I expect that the industrial resellers treat every piece of hardware to same inflated price regimen.

That's the first I've seen of a PS/2 in an industrial enclosure, thanks.

What's the widget sitting on top of the speaker in these photos?

Chuck(G) said:

...or even a real parallel port. But what milling machine, EDM rig, embroidery machine, SEM, spectrometer etc. has used a PS/2 as its controller? If the PS/2s were such "non-consumer" devices, where is their manifestation in the world of industry? There were plenty of industrialized 5160 and 5170 systems controlling all sorts of things.

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The world of industry is one thing. The world of the office: e.g. banks, insurers, government and so is quite another. IBM PS2s were sold in great numbers for office environments.

DOS lives on!! said:

My Model 50's HDD died. BIG ISSUE!!! None of my twenty some hard drives will fit it, and none of my 5.25 drives either. No turbo button. But, for slowing DOS down, I use MO'SLO. And we must thank Compaq and IBM for definetely pushing the Dallas RTCs.

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I got 2 Model 50 HDs right here.

PeterNY said:

The one thing I do like is that they seem to have survived in greater numbers than clones, come with excellent documentation and their batteries are generally more replaceable. Another huge problem is the FDDs and HDDs: those are never standard and replacing those is near impossible and usually very cost prohibitive.

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Me thinks I should have saved all the 1.44MB PS/2 floppy drives I collected over the years. I did save the HDs though. Storage was a PITA, late in the game I scored that Adaptec MCA SCSI card (drive powered by hacking in a molex power jack) and a WD8003 Ethernet card which made life easier, I still had to rely on the PC speaker for sound though.

PeterNY said:

The world of industry is one thing. The world of the office: e.g. banks, insurers, government and so is quite another. IBM PS2s were sold in great numbers for office environments.

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Yes indeed - the white collar world, IBM's natural environment.

I don't think PS/2s ever caught on much here in New Zealand, even with corporate purchasing departments. By the time they came out we had some good quality Asian clones and the price difference was vast.

Tez

In regards to where ps/2's were to be found, in central Florida, they could be found throughout every school in Volusia County, and probably many other counties in the state.

Model 25's were used almost exclusively in that school system for typing labs. Type 001's with the mono screen and dual-floppy option. Students had a personal boot disk that would automatically load the write-protected IBM Writing Assistant floppy in the B drive. Rather than space-savers, we had Model M's on each unit. No mouse was attached to any of these.

Model 30-286, Model 50z, and Model 55s were used throughout the school's various offices, usually with IBM Proprinter II's, 8514 monitors, Model M's, and the standard IBM PS/2 Mouse. They had a PS/2 server in the Library office (where all library systems were networked), but I never did get a good look at that system at the time (being a student and all, that was off-limits).

In regards to industrial uses, I *WISH* I had more details on this, but I know that our wood shop had a small IBM CNC router that had a proprietary MCA interface for a PS/2 (unsure of the model). I only saw the router enclosure once - they never did get a computer to run it, and it remained unused and forgotten during my tenure there.

I really should research that now that this discussion has reminded me of it... I'd completely forgotten about that unit. I remember that it had a clear enclosure with the grey IBM ps/2 bad on it and everything, but I can't recall if there was any type code on it...

Chuck(G) said:

That's the first I've seen of a PS/2 in an industrial enclosure, thanks.

What's the widget sitting on top of the speaker in these photos?

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Important to note that the particular planar wasn't used in a PS/2 model (it just is similar to a Model 70). I've got the next step down, a 7541/7542, based on the 50Z planar. It's the battery and holder on top of the speaker assembly.

A few years back I dealt with a power utility back East that had a regular Model 70 monitoring some equipment. Their floppy drive had gone out, and they needed a replacement. I tried to talk them into a Model 77 (able to run whatever microchannel card, with a coin cell battery, and IML partition, in short, a well designed later model), but replacing the drive was all they wanted.

I pulled my IBM PS/2s from eBay today: the fish are not biting. I guess there is buyer fatigue at this point in time. I may have to just turn them in for recycling.