It’s unfortunate that Mr. Bios never fixed ps2 bios to actually be open, available and fully upgradable

VivienM wrote on 2023-09-09, 17:08:

And the trauma from IBM's early-90s near-death-experience also caused them to stop to want to invent new things. e.g. why didn't IBM invent, say, a PalmPilot or a BlackBerry? Certainly fits in with their traditional business focus, but they haven't really created any new platforms since, oh, the AS/400?

They did, IBM made a 90’s era XT class smartphone.

Ironically it failed due to a lack of data connections.

It had to use 1st Gen cell data and the wireless providers of that era while initially excited
Quickly had no desire to provide enough data for it to work.

IBM of that era already had wireless forklift mounted terminals with a barcode scanner and JDE, if they would have done more market research they would have understood that their nifty widget could have been used freely in open campus environments with the proto wireless standards used in large facilities providing messaging and MES access nearly a decade before anything similar was in common use.

mattw wrote on 2023-09-30, 17:51:

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-09-07, 18:49:

there are IBM XGA graphics cards for MCA, which support higher resolutions.

actually, now is the time to buy XGA-2 card, if you're in Europe, because there are like dozen offers available and on very reasonable prices - several times cheaper than the one I bought several months ago, because I needed to import it from the US. so, I wish those offers were available back then. I start to think the economic situation is getting really bad and some people start to sell what they have collected over the years, because 6-7 months ago there was not a single XGA-2 card I was able to find for sale in the EU.

I do not really need higher resolution. I use my PS2 only with dos 6.22 and only for the really old dos stuff. So im happy with the setup.
The XTide CF board and the Resound works also really great.
My OS is running on the internal HDD and with a external CF its super comfortable to swap files.
I now ordered 2x 4MB sticks, hope they work on the IBM..

The RAM i ordered of corse dont work on my PS/2.

So let me sum this i need, i want 2x 4MB Sticks.

- single sided
- 70 or 80ns
- Parity 1M36
- FPM 72pin, not EDO

is this correct?

Jackhead wrote on 2023-10-04, 14:13:

The RAM i ordered of corse dont work on my PS/2.

I told you about the RAM, end of the post here:

Re: Help IBM PS/2 model 8556 wiring 1.44MB floppy

now if you're lucky what you ordered will be modifiable, i.e. it will have unpopulated pads for the necessary resistors.

I seen your link thats where i collect the infos.
I realized my ram is non parity. So i was not sure if this even worth to try modding the ns?

I would try to get the correct ram first, before you modify the ones you have. there could be other differences that make it non-compatable.

Jackhead wrote on 2023-10-04, 14:28:

I realized my ram is non parity. So i was not sure if this even worth to try modding the ns?

yes, i believe it will not work even if you mod the resistor positions - I mean I did not tried using "non-parity", but with Parity and wrong resistor config that I fixed according to IBM taste.

installed 2x 4mb working now. I had to ground pin 70 after that the ps/2 lucky to boot 😀
For the record, i used random 4MB 70ns FPM with parity RAMs

VivienM wrote on 2023-09-09, 17:08:

And the trauma from IBM's early-90s near-death-experience also caused them to stop to want to invent new things. e.g. why didn't IBM invent, say, a PalmPilot or a BlackBerry? Certainly fits in with their traditional business focus, but they haven't really created any new platforms since, oh, the AS/400?

They were a bit too early with the smart phone...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon

Found that while I was trying to dig up something about the tablet/pda/slab thing they were showing around at the time the Apple Newton came out. I don't know if they intended it as an actual product or rather to assure shareholders that "We could do this kind of thing if there's a market for it."

I guess there's a definite, "Idea whose time has come" dynamic, and being too far ahead of the game, if it hasn't yet come, is like trying to kick a dead whale uphill.