Category Archives: PC history

OS/2 1.3 on a “Large” Disk

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Michal Necasek

In response to a reader question, I started wondering how difficult it actually is to install OS/2 1.3 on a “big” hard disk, where “big” is defined as more than about 500 MB. In an attempt to reduce the number … Continue reading →

Posted in BusLogic, OS/2, PC history, Storage | 16 Comments

Emulating EtherLink

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Michal Necasek

Spurred by the discovery of a pre-release OS/2 NetWare Requester from early 1988 with a very thin selection of drivers, several months ago I decided to write emulation of the classic 3Com 10Mbps Ethernet 3C501 card, also known as EtherLink. … Continue reading →

Posted in 3Com, Networking, PC hardware, PC history, Virtualization | 33 Comments

Another Strange 286 Board

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Michal Necasek

The OS/2 Museum sometimes seems to have a knack for acquiring hardware so obscure that it cannot be even identified. One of the more recent arrivals was a seemingly typical Baby AT 286 board with an 8 MHz CPU. The … Continue reading →

Posted in 286, PC hardware, PC history | 28 Comments

The Cape Cod Disaster

Posted on December 16, 2019 by Michal Necasek

Here’s a motherboard Intel very quickly wanted to forget about: It’s the Intel CC820—or Cape Cod—desktop board, a product that was late to market (not unusual) and within a few months, the subject of a recall (quite unusual). As the … Continue reading →

Posted in Bugs, Intel, PC hardware, PC history, Pentium III, RDRAM | 47 Comments

Power Trouble

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Michal Necasek

This will not come as a surprise to anyone who is deeply familiar with PC hardware; the other 99% please bear with me. A good quality and compatible power supply is crucial to the healthy operation of a PC. The … Continue reading →

Posted in PC hardware, PC history | 14 Comments

The i860 Conspiracy

Posted on November 10, 2019 by Michal Necasek

I’ve been thinking of acquiring a board with the Intel 860 (Colusa) chipset. This chipset is historically interesting because it was Intel’s first chipset for NetBurst Xeons, and–at least according to Intel–the only chipset that supports the original Foster Xeon … Continue reading →

Posted in Intel, PC hardware, PC history | 17 Comments

More About That Strange Pentium 4

Posted on October 26, 2019 by Michal Necasek

A few years ago I wrote about a strange NetBurst processor with SL7HY S-spec that landed at the OS/2 Museum. After renewed reader interest I pulled it out of the closet and tested the processor again. A collection of miscellaneous … Continue reading →

Posted in Intel, PC hardware, PC history, Pentium 4, Undocumented | 34 Comments

PC Keyboard: The First Five Years

Posted on September 3, 2019 by Michal Necasek

The vast majority of PC users today have no memory of what PC keyboards looked like before the standard 101/102-key layout arrived, even though various OEMs do their best to mangle the standard layout in order to minimize usability, especially … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, Keyboard, PC hardware, PC history | 19 Comments

How Not to Buy a Computer

Posted on August 24, 2019 by Michal Necasek

The following is an unauthorized translation of an article by Jiří Franěk, published in the Czechoslovak computer magazine List sometime in early 1989. Some readers probably remember those times, others have forgotten. As for the rest—consider yourselves lucky. The number … Continue reading →

Posted in PC history, PC press | 30 Comments

LAN Manager Product Specification, 1987

Posted on July 31, 2019 by Michal Necasek

Now available is the preliminary yet fairly complete product specification for the LAN Manager server and workstation from October 14, 1987. This document was available to developers months before any pre-release LAN manager code, and about a year before any … Continue reading →

Posted in Archiving, Documentation, LAN Manager, Microsoft, OS/2, PC history | 1 Comment