Author Archives: Michal Necasek

PC Tech Journal

Posted on May 29, 2014 by Michal Necasek

One of the better PC magazines back in the day (that is, in the 1980s) was PC Tech Journal (or PCTJ for short), a sister periodical of PC Magazine published by Ziff-Davis. While PC Magazine was targeted at the general computer-buying … Continue reading →

Posted in PC history, PC press | 5 Comments

IBM Power Series Exotica

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Michal Necasek

One might think that for example a ThinkPad Power Series 850 is an uncommon system, but such things are relative. The OS/2 Museum recently learned of not just one but two very rare Power Series systems, one of which is virtually a … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, PowerPC | 7 Comments

Timing In Software Is Too Hard?

Posted on May 16, 2014 by Michal Necasek

I recently attempted to install RedHat Linux 3.0.3 (that’s the one from 1996, not RHEL 3.0) in VirtualBox. I thought I’d use the BusLogic SCSI emulation and the newer 1.3.57 Linux kernel. It did not work at all. The problem … Continue reading →

Posted in Bugs, BusLogic, Linux, SCSI | 32 Comments

Microsoft OS/2 1.3… But Which One?

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Michal Necasek

A recent inventory at the OS/2 Museum revealed that two seemingly identical sets of Microsoft OS/2 1.30.1 disk images were in fact not identical at all. Probably thanks to the twilight status of OS/2 at Microsoft in the days of OS/2 1.3, Microsoft … Continue reading →

Posted in LAN Manager, Microsoft, OS/2 | 26 Comments

Have You Seen This Board?

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Michal Necasek

The OS/2 Museum recently acquired this mystery 386 board (click on the image to see a high-resolution photo): This is in theory a killer 386 board: onboard Am386DX-40, a socket for a replacement 386 or 486DLC processor, a FPU socket, 256KB cache, … Continue reading →

Posted in 386 | 23 Comments

From the Annals of Branding

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Michal Necasek

The following picture shows four essentially identical Intel processors in the top row: The real difference is that some of them are fabricated on an older process and thus sport a larger die size than others. (They’re also not all … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, Intel | 14 Comments

OEM MS OS/2: 1987-1990

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Michal Necasek

When Microsoft started offering OS/2, the arrangement was roughly similar to how DOS 3.3 had been handled: Microsoft and IBM jointly developed the code, IBM maintained its own version, and Microsoft licensed an “adaptation kit” to OEMs. While the IBM … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, OS/2 | 18 Comments

Multitasking MS-DOS 4.0, Goupil OEM

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Michal Necasek

The recently unearthed copy of the near-mythical Multitasking (aka European) MS-DOS 4.0 clearly did not want to be alone. James Lariviere, a kind reader of this blog, provided a disk image of multitasking DOS 4 which was released in 1986 … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, Microsoft, OS/2 | 29 Comments

The ISA OSC Mystery

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Michal Necasek

About twenty years ago I ended up with a spare ISA graphics card from an upgraded computer. It was a SVGA card based on the Cirrus Logic CL-GD5422 chip, equipped with 1 MB video memory. This was a very cheap … Continue reading →

Posted in Cirrus Logic, Graphics, PC hardware | 15 Comments

386 ZIF Socket?

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Michal Necasek

I have a problem: Anyone familiar with 386 LIF (Low Insertion Force) sockets knows that the trouble isn’t installing the processors—that indeed doesn’t require much force and is easy to do. The real problem is getting the processor out without … Continue reading →

Posted in 386 | 18 Comments