Category Archives: IBM

Deskpro 386 at 30

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Michal Necasek

30 years ago, in September 1986, Compaq announced the Deskpro 386, a PC as revolutionary as it was conservative. Compaq decided to forge its own path and not wait for IBM to introduce a 386-based PC. At the same time, Compaq … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, Compaq, IBM, PC history, PC press | 26 Comments

More Wobbles

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Michal Necasek

This is a follow-up to a previous post. I’ve had a chance to spend more time recovering the two dead PS/2 Model 80s. The first step was replacing the CMOS batteries because without a functioning backup battery, a PS/2 is … Continue reading →

Posted in Floppies, IBM, PS/2 | 13 Comments

Wobbly Floppy Drive?

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Michal Necasek

Over the weekend I tried to revive a PS/2 Model 80 whose CMOS battery died (after 25 years!). Finding a replacement battery fortunately isn’t difficult (6V lithium “photo” battery), but recreating the configuration information of course requires a reference floppy and … Continue reading →

Posted in Floppies, IBM, Plug and Play, PS/2 | 30 Comments

IBM OS/2 1.x Programming Documentation Added

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Michal Necasek

IBM’s programming documentation (Programming Tools and Information, aka PTI) for OS/2 versions 1.2 and 1.3 has been added. Big thanks to Bob Eager who scanned the originals and converted them to PDF. The documents have been added to the OS/2 … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Documentation, IBM, OS/2 | 2 Comments

Playing Football

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Michal Necasek

The Super Bowl is long over and it’s time to look at different kind of football. In Winter 1986/1987, Microsoft initiated a small skunkworks project called “Football”. The objective was to take “Sizzle”, a development branch of proto-OS/2 that would eventually … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, IBM, Microsoft, OS/2, PC history | 21 Comments

Before OS/2 Was OS/2

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Michal Necasek

After almost 30 years, several disks with ancient builds of OS/2 surfaced. In this context, “ancient” means older than the May 1987 release of the first MS OS/2 SDK. In fact these disks are so old that the one thing … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, Microsoft, OS/2, PC history, Undocumented | 55 Comments

More ISA VGA Benchmarks

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Michal Necasek

After establishing that Trident VGA cards are indeed very slow, the natural follow-up question is: Are there cards even slower than that? But not some 8-bit VGA card from the 1980s (or a Realtek from the 1990s), and not some … Continue reading →

Posted in Cirrus Logic, IBM, S3, VGA | 9 Comments

IBM XENIX: One Step Forward, One Step Back

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Michal Necasek

A while ago I wrote about why IBM PC XENIX 1.0 can’t work on any CPU other than a 286. But not content to leave well enough alone, I attempted to patch this version of XENIX so that it would … Continue reading →

Posted in 286, 386, IBM, VirtualBox, Xenix | 5 Comments

The DOS 4.0 Shell Mouse Mystery

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Several years ago, I noticed that in some virtual and physical environments, the DOS Shell in both IBM’s and Microsoft’s DOS 4.0x has a very odd glitch: the mouse pointer moves, but does not register any clicks… except on scroll … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, IBM, PC hardware, PC history | 28 Comments

ThinkPad 701 Restore Using CF Media

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Thanks to a kind reader, the OS/2 Museum obtained a file archive of the ThinkPad 701 recovery CD. The 701C/701CS was also known as Butterfly thanks to its unique folding keyboard. The recovery tool appears to have been designed for … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, ThinkPad | 23 Comments