If you are deliberately buying a PS/2, I'd suggest anything but a 386SX16, anything with a large amount of ISA slots, anything with standard drive interfaces. I mean unless you like paying $200 a pop for anything you need to replace or want to add to it. ... though that probably doesn't sound quite as ridiculous now "ordinary" parts are stupid prices.

I see what you're saying but it feels like having one which is ISA and IDE is pretty much akin to buying a bog-standard PC anyway, isn't it? The point is to get something distinctive and interesting...so the challenge of dealing with MCA and ESDI is part of the appeal.

My dilemma is nice case but potentially weaker processor, or ugly case with stronger processor.

I'm biased - our first PC was a model 70, used that from 1988 untill I finally got my own in 1995. Grey switch over red switch any day 😉

Of course, that does jump you into MCA and IBM-proprietary EDSI and floppy drives, with all the headache they involve. Still, if you want PS/2, as you say, that's part of it.

dionb wrote on 2022-02-15, 23:33:

I'm biased - our first PC was a model 70, used that from 1988 untill I finally got my own in 1995. Grey switch over red switch any day 😉

Of course, that does jump you into MCA and IBM-proprietary EDSI and floppy drives, with all the headache they involve. Still, if you want PS/2, as you say, that's part of it.

Was that a 386 or 486? If 386, did it struggle with later software?

8570 is 3 MCA slots 386DX 16 or 20MHz two types of motherboards each in both speeds. The high end got one type of motherboard and a daughterboard containing 386dx 25 with 385DX 25 cache controller hooked to 64K cache, some much rarer is 486DX platform and bios chip swapped. Some 70 got upgraded using reply motherboard.

Cheers,

The SLC or faster Eduquest units do pretty well for their low specs

9595 with the P90 card is the Holy Grail, but if you really hate someone you tell them about the 486 Reply Planar Upgrades for 55SX and lowlier models.

The best PS/2 is a PS/1

gladders wrote on 2022-02-15, 23:38:

dionb wrote on 2022-02-15, 23:33:

I'm biased - our first PC was a model 70, used that from 1988 untill I finally got my own in 1995. Grey switch over red switch any day 😉

Of course, that does jump you into MCA and IBM-proprietary EDSI and floppy drives, with all the headache they involve. Still, if you want PS/2, as you say, that's part of it.

Was that a 386 or 486? If 386, did it struggle with later software?

The first revision of the 70, with 386-16 (no "DX" or "SX" yet, although it would later be called DX). 4MB RAM, 60MB HDD.

And as for struggling... early 1990s stuff like Ultima 6 and Wing Commander still went fine, Doom was playable. Ultima Underworld was where it met its match; it was within minimum spec, but the 16MHz CPU really struggled (and only having 30MB total HDD, the 11MB installed size was also problematic). Same with 4x - Civilization was very enjoyable, Colonization was playable but tedious. I'd have preferred a new PC by 1993, but beggars can't be choosers. To add insult to injury, after seeing how much faster my January 1995 Pentium 60 was went and upgraded herself a few months later, to an Aptiva P90 system (iirc 2168, but don't quote me on that). She worked for IBM at the time, so could get these things with a heavy discount, and they were tax deductable as well. Which was good given how overpriced they were otherwise.

Model 90 dektop and 95 tower are of corse the top runners in the PS/2 field.
Personal favorite is the 77 which hat onboard SCSI, XGA2 and lot of internal space.
The classic 50 and 70 are limited due to their DBA ESDI drives.
If the 16 bit limit doesnt mattter the 56/57 are quite worth a look, they might be easier available, cheaper and still use SCSI.
The ISA models 30 and 40 are no real PS/2 for me, but for classical gaming they are the only affordable way to get sound in an PS/2.
Nowadays its more a question to find one at all.

MCA+SCSI is the way

I have a DX50 95 with warp 4 on it and it is slow. I think 4 came out in '96 so it was 3 years old at the time. Never had the Pentium ones. Model 76/77 are probably a good buy with a DX2-66. The early 56/57 are slow, later SLC2 etc are better but my gripe with these is the 16-bit bus. These were expensive when new and basically you got a souped up SX, when other mfg's were doing real 486's for less. My 56SLC2 runs OS/2 3 fine, have fun with networking on that one:-)

I've got a 16MHz model 80 with OS/2 1.3 on a fast ESDI hdd and it is slow, even with HPFS. My advice is if you want to run any version of OS/2 buy a system made in the same year, or it will be slow. I've never had a 70, as mentioned the 486 version is very rare. Slow ones will not be fun with OS/2.

The MCA real-ESDI card is not very fast compared to some ISA ones. The DBA ones are no faster and you have to find a working drive. I would recommend SCSI, but if you want ESDI, well that's what you want.

You will search for Ethernet and you will be pushed towards Token ring. Don't try to fight it - you will eventually cave in anyway.

MCA is a terrible thing to get into. I don't recommend it at all. It leads to having token-ring networks and other stuff. Some of us have the EISA bug too. We are a strange lot:-) But I'm sure you will ignore the warnings and become ONE OF US! ONE OF US!