Your first (few) non-PC and PC computers

[lordkenmore]

IBM Thinkpad

A story I heard was that Lenovo made the IBM Thinkpads in later years. Not sure if this is true, but it might help at least partly explain IBM selling to them.

One thing I can say for certain: I have played with a Lenovo Thinkpad at a local Office Depot. It is a nice laptop. I don't know how it compares to the IBM branded Thinkpads (which I've never used, but have heard lots of good commentary about). But I can say that I find the Lenovo Thinkpad miles better than any other Office Depot laptop.

 

[qualin]

I should put this to rest.

Back in the 1970's, IBM made the 5100, but it cost as much as a few new cars so nobody (As in your typical consumer, only companies and rich engineers could afford them) bought any.

Then they made the 5150, which is now known as the IBM PC. Believe it or not, the same person who did all the quality control on the chassis for the IBM PC/XT/AT machines now works at Alliance doing quality control for Speed Queen machines.

Anyway, the IBM PC/XT/AT machines in my mind were some of the best built machines on the planet. A lot of people don't know that the US Government mandated IBM to make these machines Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) proof, hence the reason why the cases were so well built and designed.

Another problem was that these machines did cost an arm and a leg back in their day, so it made sense they were built with very high quality.

Then the PS/2 series came out in 1986. The PS/2 machines were still fairly high quality machines, but proprietary as all heck and you could certainly see where IBM started cutting costs to stay competitive. Still, I can see the occasional PS/2 machine in the back closet of a bank running OS/2.. which really say something for the longevity of these machines.

Then sometime in the mid 1990's when IBM discontinued the PS/2 series and created the Aptiva series of machines, quality took a nosedive. They cost cut everywhere.

Eventually, IBM gave up and sold their entire PC business to Lenovo in the mid 2000's, Lenovo being a Chinese manufacturer.

Kind of a shame, but the PS/2 was IBM's downfall.. but only because they didn't open source their MCA (Microchannel Architecture), rather they kept it proprietary. That's where Compaq and Dell ended up eating their lunch..

Kind of sad to watch it happen... The worst part is that MCA was just as good if not better than the PCI standard which Intel introduced in 1993. IBM was at least 7 years ahead of everyone else in that regard.

 

[whirlcool]

I think from 1981 to 1985 or so was the IBM heyday of PC's. During this time frame this was the computer to beat. As you stated they were of a high quality build. It was the machine everyone wanted, but not everyone could afford hence the emergence of the "clone" machines.

I totally agree about the PS/2 machines. We had some PS/2-70 models at NW for a few years. They were incredibly slow for what they were. They were used as Worldspan terminals. I think IBM thought at the time of the microchannel architecture that they were so big that they could have a proprietary architecture
and the other companies would have to figure out how to duplicate it. But the other companies just stayed with the old IBM PC standard and IBM lost out because of this.

I had two IBM Thinkpad laptops. Both lasted me years and years on the road. From what I understand the IBM Thinkpad came into being as a spec product for IRS field agents. The IRS wanted a very durable, fast laptop and selected IBM as the vendor.
IBM liked the machine so much that they sold it to the general public. I especially liked the rubberized case it was in. It was virtually impossible for the Thinkpad to slip out from your hand or from under your arm.

 

[davetranter]

PCs and XTs......

Just to stretch this thread a little further....

I have managed to 'dig out' my early PCs from the far corner of the spare room...

I have a 5150 PC (manufactured in Greenock, Scotland, UK) fitted with 36x 64kb RAMs, 'Bank 0' soldered to the board, the rest in sockets. There is a further 256kb on a ramcard, the IBM MDA/Printer card, a serial port card, and the floppy controller.

There is also a 5160 XT machine (also manufactured at Greenock), 1Mb on board (all in sockets, if I remember right). I also have a spare motherboard for this. All the expansion cards have been removed from this for safe storage.

I also have a PCII machine (also XT format) with vertical facia panel in grey (rather than buff) plastic, not mentioned in the Wiki article (thanks Whirlcool). I also have a spare motherboard for this, too.

I also have a large box each of 5.25" FDDs, 5.25" HDDs, and assorted contoller cards/expansion cards....

Never realised that I'd accreted so much, considering I don't 'collect' PCs...

Thanks, Qualin, for such an interesting thread....

Dave T

P.S. I have several boxes of (UK) washer spares, all, I think, 20+ years old, which could possibly be of interest to some of our UK members.. Which would be the appropriate forum to list these (if any)??

Thanks again
D.T.

 

[nurdlinger]

PS/2 & OS/2

By the time IBM rolled out this architecture, it was clear they no longer had the lead in the PC industry. I had this great mock advertisement imitating the style used in real ones. It announced in bold letters:

PS/2: Yesterday's Hardware, TODAY!

OS/2: Yesterday's Software, TOMORROW! (OS/2 was late to market)

 

[whirlcool]

If I remember right didn't IBM release OS/2 twice? The first time it was a flop then they added some new features and released it again, where it flopped again?

I think the first iteration of it was just called OS/2 and the second iteration was called OS/2 Warp.

 

[qualin]

OS/2 Warp was IBM's last ditch effort to bring it into the mainstream. It had a half decent marketing campaign, but FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) pretty much killed it.

OS/2 Warp is still being sold today under the name of "EComStation" and is primarily used by banks for ATM systems and other obscure banking systems. It's immune to viruses because no hacker would write one for it. (Or if there were viruses, they're all but pretty much dead.)

I will admit, by the late 1980's, it really didn't make any fiscal sense from a home users point of view to spend more money on a PS/2, when they could get a clone for much cheaper and it would have superior specifications.

In 1990, when we did finally purchase our first PC, it had a 386DX/25 CPU. One thing we didn't know is that it had a budget "IPC" mainboard in it which, due to a flaw in its design, couldn't address anything more than 1 MB of RAM. Some hackery later and we managed to shoehorn 2 MB of RAM into it so Windows 3.1 could run.

It's kind of laughable now when I think about it... The amazing part is.. In 1990, For the amount of money I would have had to have spent to upgrade it from 1 MB to 4 MB of RAM would have cost the same as 16 GB of RAM today.

 

[passatdoc]

@Allen: I never bought a Packard Bell and remember stories about their low quality. A patient of mine owns one of the largest RAM supply companies in the country and Packard Bell was one of their accounts. He himself told me that their (Packard Bell's) quality was abysmal, and that many consumers confused them with Bell & Howell cameras, Hewlett-Packard, Bell Labs, or Packard Bell radios. And then they just disappeared. Not surprised they are now a division of Acer, another brand known for a lack of quality.

I know people will flame me for saying this, but I have NEVER had a bad Dell desktop computer, having bought four of them. Customer support is excellent. I've heard not-so-good things about their laptop quality, and would shy away from them if in the market for a laptop, but their desktops have always worked well for me, both at home and at the office.

My previous home Dell desktop, purchased 2005, worked great but had a small hard drive of only 80 GB. I restored that machine to factory condition using the recovery CD, and gave it to a poor family in the area who had two kids in community college and no money for a computer. They didn't need a large hard drive and owned an external HD in the event they used up too much of the storage. As far as I know, that computer is still going strong seven years later, running on XP Home.

 

[whirlcool]

I knew lots of guys with Dell laptops and have seen what happens to them. IMHO, the Dell laptop is a good laptop but Dell went way to cheap on the external components.
The hinges that hold the screen on usually break after a couple of years. After about a year the keys start popping out of the keyboard. And since they usually use Maxxtor hard drives, the hard disks fail after about two years.

Again IMHO I think the Lenovo Thinkpad and the Toshiba laptops have probably the best quality on the market.

Quite a few Compaq computers from the 1998-2001 era are limited to 1GB RAM too.
Even Windows XP will run on 1GB, but the performance will be slow.

 

[lordkenmore]

I have heard some good things about Toshiba's better laptops. Although their cheap models haven't impressed me greatly. I haven't had one of my own, but I've seen enough of them to know that they seem to suffer at least some of the same problems as every other cheap laptop out there. A lousy keyboard being the most notable problem.

Apple also appears to have had good quality. Although they have admittedly shipped some, ah, problematic models (Titanium PowerBook, and white iBook G3). But there are a lot of PowerBook G3 models still running after heavy use. And I've heard mostly good things about the MacBook line.

 

[lordkenmore]

A lousy keyboard being the most notable problem.

Incidentally, by "lousy keyboard", I'm not talking about reliability--keys failing or popping off. I'm talking about the experience of typing on it. Keyboards are a huge irritation on almost every laptop I've seen. I don't expect IBM M series quality, but if I had a laptop, I'd want the keyboard at least good enough that I could use it without wanting to shoot myself.

 

[qualin]

The big problem is that the laptops that everyone usually purchases are usually consumer grade machines, like the Dell Vostro. These machines are seemingly designed for very short longevity. (Less than 5 years under moderate use.)

Businesses who purchase Dell, usually purchase Dell Latitude or Dell Precision machines, which are of a much higher grade than the Vostros.

HP rebrands consumer grade laptops. They're branded as "HP Compaq". Any business will either purchase Probook or Elitebook machines.

I personally find that consumer-grade Dell laptop quality is horrid. I once had to replace a bad DVD-ROM drive and had to unscrew about 22 screws to get at it. In comparison, a Dell Latitude requires one screw to remove the DVD-ROM drive.

I personally hate laptop keyboards, but the HP Elitebook I use at work has a very tolerable keyboard.. and I'm a Model M man.

BTW, you can still buy "Model M" keyboards.. They're made by a company called "Unicomp" and you can find them at http://pckeyboard.com .. They are a bit expensive, but you do get what you pay for.

Now, we're really off topic!

 

[lordkenmore]

The modern M series keyboards aren't that expensive. Admittedly, they aren't as cheap as what Target might have. But a starting price of about eighty dollars isn't that expensive when one considers a few points. Assuming they are the quality of the actual IBM keyboards:
-they will be much more pleasant to type on than the bulk of keyboards currently sold
-they will last 20 years or more
-they are apparently made in the US, not China. How many other computer related products can say that?

 

[passatdoc]

@gualin: my only portable computer is a Toshiba NB310-205 purchased two years ago using Best Buy gift cards that had accumulated. I paid only the sales tax, the cards paid for the whole thing. So far, so good.

 

For both the office and home computing, I have purchased only Dell Optiplex desktops (not the consumer grade Vostro line) through their Small Business unit, and have never had a bad desktop machine from Dell. Solid and dependable. The DVD burner drive did go out on my home machine and required replacement, which I accomplished for about $50. The 2005 Dell Optiplex, the one I gave away to a needy family, is still going strong running XP Home. My current home desktop runs XP Pro and is now three years old. No problems other than the DVD burner dying.

 

[nurdlinger]

The modern M series keyboards aren't that expensive.

They list for around $80.00. I paid $149.00 for the Avant Prime keyboard which is the same as the onetime Northgate device (of which I own four, all shot, but I did like them very much.) It was very good, but after five or so years keys began failing (no report) and I decided not to bite again. I think I will get one from Unicomp to try out.

 

[qualin]

In the world of business, $80 for a keyboard is expensive... Especially when they're used to paying $20 for those cheap rubber domed keyboards.

I agree with you guys 100 percent that the Model M is one of the best keyboards ever made and the durability of them is downright astounding.

Comare that to a friend of mine who is RST so bad, he has to use a $1200 datahand keyboard...

 

[lordkenmore]

"In the world of business, $80 for a keyboard is expensive... Especially when they're used to paying $20 for those cheap rubber domed keyboards."

I suppose keyboards are part of the regular computer equipment replacement cycle, too. Thus the long life argument of a better keyboard doesn't carry as much weight.

And the better productivity may not even cross the minds of corporate bean counters who may type little, and farm out the big projects to secretaries.

 

[lordkenmore]

I find this article on the IBM M keyboard interesting. It's not entirely about the IBM M--there is some talk about keyboards in general, and why quality matters.

Note: while this article appeared on an Apple site, most if not all applies to any system.

http://lowendmac.com/fishkin/07/0115.html

 

[rolls_rapide]

My first home computer was a Sinclair Spectrum Plus, 48k.

It lasted about 1 month, before a key jammed, printing the same number over and over on the tv screen. Its in-guarantee replacement froze straight out of the box.

So it was exchanged for the all singing, all dancing, much more expensive Acorn Computers BBC Microcomputer Model B.

A very good, reliable machine with lots of expansion ports. It could be plugged into a telly, monochrome monitor or RGB monitor; had an interface for a second processor, disk drives, cassette tape, analogue joystick port, 1 Mhz Bus, RS423 serial port, and user port. A very capable piece of kit.

 

[passatdoc]

well, technically speaking, here was my first keyboard.....

A manual Royal typewriter with electric tape over the keys. Typing class in fifth and sixth grade. Instruction was offered to the kids in the fifth and sixth grade MGM classes (Mentally Gifted Minors act in California, which established extra funding to schools that offered enrichment courses for kids testing in the gifted range). Wasn't much, two weeks twice a year for two years, but I believe the sessions were 1 1/2 hours, so it probably ended up being the equivalent of twelve weeks' instruction (if one hour/day), but spread out over two years. The idea was not to turn us into secretaries, but to prepare us for university, where all written work would be expected to be typewritten.

I never hit over 20-24 wpm on this contraption, but at home we had the luxury of a Smith-Corona electric typewriter, on which I was hitting 32-35 wpm by the end of sixth grade. So while I never foresaw that I might one day operate a computer, I could envision a day when I would own my own electric typewriter (this did occur, in eleventh grade, when the sole home typewriter proved insufficient for the two honors students in our family, plus my parents figured I'd need to take it to college in two years anyway).

Today, I could not do my office or hospital work without a computer (electronic records are required, paper no longer allowed) and I thank my lucky stars that I learned to type back in elementary school. Some of my medical colleagues are of the hunt and peck variety and it really slows them down in their work.

I still remember the typing teacher's admonition: "whatever you do, don't touch the Magic Margins (TM)" Actually they were easy to reset, as we learned in sixth grade, but in fifth grade we were not allowed to touch them. We used to speculate tongue-in-cheek about what would happen if we DID touch the Magic Margin keys, and the most popular speculation is that it would launch war with Red China. the typing teacher was itinerant (she would teach at our school for two weeks, then move on to another school for two weeks, and the typewriters moved with her) and was a real witch. My sixth grade teacher years later admitted she felt sorry for us because the typing lady was so hard to handle (and my regular teacher could not really intercede to protect us).

PS I served on my secondary school's newspaper staff for three years and we had a typing room filled with manual Royals. So while at home I could type school work or articles on my speedy Smith-Corona, I still had to rattle off rewrites or sometimes compose new material on a Royal manual. I remember competing in the state news writing contest finals. You saw a news conference (staged) and you had to come up with a news article or editorial in an hour. I brought my electric typewriter with me and I think it gave me a distinct advantage over competitors who relied on the manual machines supplied by the school hosting the contest.