$17, 000 PC from 1990: IBM PS/2 Model 90 XP 486
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Chris
Back in 1989 through 1991, my community college had many Hundreds or more of these very same IBM computers; even a few were the tower variety! I used them pretty frequently in many different classrooms, such as Typing, Computer Science 101, News Writing, News Gathering, Music Selection for the campus radio station, etc. Almost every classroom or office had these IBM Model 90 Computers, and I always brought along my floppy disks that contained software and data I needed for these classes. I was rather impressed with what the IBM PS/2 Model 90 could do back then, although I had no idea how much they cost. But knowing now, it's quite incredible the massive profits IBM made from my community college alone!
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Back in 1989 through 1991, my community college had many Hundreds or more of these very same IBM computers; even a few were the tower variety! I used them pretty frequently in many different classrooms, such as Typing, Computer Science 101, News Writing, News Gathering, Music Selection for the campus radio station, etc. Almost every classroom or office had these IBM Model 90 Computers, and I always brought along my floppy disks that contained software and data I needed for these classes. I was rather impressed with what the IBM PS/2 Model 90 could do back then, although I had no idea how much they cost. But knowing now, it's quite incredible the massive profits IBM made from my community college alone!
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fanjoy
Look at some of the prices of now -vintage- computers like this one, and the original Mac, among others, makes me wish I had kept all those old computers I had sitting around until about 2005. Who knows how much money I could have made off some of them today. I mean I've seen a few older 486 desktops sell for over $200 (many of the ones I had I paid like $50 or $100 for them mainly because I bought them as non-working and fixed them. I remember my middle school had a lot of these IBM PS/2 computers (Ithink IBM Must have had some large contract with public schools or something, because most schools either had Macs or IBM computers or both. Today, most schools use Dell or HP.
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Look at some of the prices of now -vintage- computers like this one, and the original Mac, among others, makes me wish I had kept all those old computers I had sitting around until about 2005. Who knows how much money I could have made off some of them today. I mean I've seen a few older 486 desktops sell for over $200 (many of the ones I had I paid like $50 or $100 for them mainly because I bought them as non-working and fixed them. I remember my middle school had a lot of these IBM PS/2 computers (Ithink IBM Must have had some large contract with public schools or something, because most schools either had Macs or IBM computers or both. Today, most schools use Dell or HP.
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nerfspartanEBF25
So I decided to look into what a machine comparable to my NuXT would have cost in 1983, assuming the parts existed (some of which didn't. Accounting for inflation and the fact that my NuXT has a drive that didn't exist yet in 1983, and deliberately ignoring the IDE CF adapter with a 2GB CF card stuck in it (which would have been worth $514, 847. 39 on its own accounting for inflation. - Not including the 2GB CF card, my machine would have been worth $105, 543. 71 US in today's money. Including the CF card, the NuXT would be worth -$620, 391 accounting for inflation in 1983. Thank the Omnissiah for Moore's Law!
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So I decided to look into what a machine comparable to my NuXT would have cost in 1983, assuming the parts existed (some of which didn't. Accounting for inflation and the fact that my NuXT has a drive that didn't exist yet in 1983, and deliberately ignoring the IDE CF adapter with a 2GB CF card stuck in it (which would have been worth $514, 847. 39 on its own accounting for inflation. - Not including the 2GB CF card, my machine would have been worth $105, 543. 71 US in today's money. Including the CF card, the NuXT would be worth -$620, 391 accounting for inflation in 1983. Thank the Omnissiah for Moore's Law!
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Kevin
Back in the early 90's I worked for a depot repair company in Longmont, Colorado that fixed a lot of these IBM units. Their color monitors were from some Asian job shop and were crap, I can't count how many I fixed. The Computers were built like a tank, but the power supplies were also Asian and would crap out all too often. I must say the servicing documentation, procedures, and test ROM's were the best around. Parts were readily available, not like today where if you need a part you trash the whole unit and buy a new one. I still have a few boxes of those tank model M keyboards left, the best around. 02-03-2020.
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Back in the early 90's I worked for a depot repair company in Longmont, Colorado that fixed a lot of these IBM units. Their color monitors were from some Asian job shop and were crap, I can't count how many I fixed. The Computers were built like a tank, but the power supplies were also Asian and would crap out all too often. I must say the servicing documentation, procedures, and test ROM's were the best around. Parts were readily available, not like today where if you need a part you trash the whole unit and buy a new one. I still have a few boxes of those tank model M keyboards left, the best around. 02-03-2020.
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Sgt
Great video, thanks for the upload. perhaps someone can help, I-m trying to revive our family-s first pc that we bought from bestbuy back in 1995 for $3, 200, an IBM Aptiva 2176. I-m trying to use the recovery disc that came with the PC but the CD only boots with the original HDD because the original pre installed Win95 came with the configure files that boots the CD. I created a boot floppy disk but do not know how to access the cd drive once I boot the system with the disk. Any info will be much appreciated. Sheesh, win95 sure is tough to work with.
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Great video, thanks for the upload. perhaps someone can help, I-m trying to revive our family-s first pc that we bought from bestbuy back in 1995 for $3, 200, an IBM Aptiva 2176. I-m trying to use the recovery disc that came with the PC but the CD only boots with the original HDD because the original pre installed Win95 came with the configure files that boots the CD. I created a boot floppy disk but do not know how to access the cd drive once I boot the system with the disk. Any info will be much appreciated. Sheesh, win95 sure is tough to work with.
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Kevin
I am old enough to remember this and earlier. IBM miss read the market completely. They thought they were in control, but it wasn't 1981 anymore. These machines were largely ignored except for some corporate customers who only bought IBM. But they learned. separately, future proofing never works. I've seen it many times, almost never does anybody ever significantly upgrade one of these machines. They might add memory or storage but that's about it. It turns out to be too expensive and not worth the trouble. Better to buy a new machine.
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I am old enough to remember this and earlier. IBM miss read the market completely. They thought they were in control, but it wasn't 1981 anymore. These machines were largely ignored except for some corporate customers who only bought IBM. But they learned. separately, future proofing never works. I've seen it many times, almost never does anybody ever significantly upgrade one of these machines. They might add memory or storage but that's about it. It turns out to be too expensive and not worth the trouble. Better to buy a new machine.
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techmouse1101
I can't wait to see LGR in 40 years.
-This is an Acer Aspire desktop computer. It was sold in Walmarts across the country for about $500 at the time. When adjusting for inflation, that comes out to about $48, 000 today. Which is just insane to think now-a-days considering it only had an intel i7 4 core processor and a mere 32gbs of ram. It also came with a keyboard, which is nice but that does mean you have to type with your fingers. But you can use an adapter to avoid this. -
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I can't wait to see LGR in 40 years.
-This is an Acer Aspire desktop computer. It was sold in Walmarts across the country for about $500 at the time. When adjusting for inflation, that comes out to about $48, 000 today. Which is just insane to think now-a-days considering it only had an intel i7 4 core processor and a mere 32gbs of ram. It also came with a keyboard, which is nice but that does mean you have to type with your fingers. But you can use an adapter to avoid this. -
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Matt
You talked about the MCA and IBMs plan to take back control of the PC architecture.
But many people don't talk (or maybe know) about the ABIOS in the PS/2. ABIOS is for ADVANCED bios and was IBM's attempt to do a complete rewrite of the BIOS and keep the copyright on it.
They did not give out the specs for ABIOS, but it had a lot of specialized interfaces. Their intent was to make OS/2 use those interfaces and run way better on a PS/2 machine with ABIOS than on a -regular- PC.
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You talked about the MCA and IBMs plan to take back control of the PC architecture.
But many people don't talk (or maybe know) about the ABIOS in the PS/2. ABIOS is for ADVANCED bios and was IBM's attempt to do a complete rewrite of the BIOS and keep the copyright on it.
They did not give out the specs for ABIOS, but it had a lot of specialized interfaces. Their intent was to make OS/2 use those interfaces and run way better on a PS/2 machine with ABIOS than on a -regular- PC.
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bickira
We use to have one of these back when i was little in my dad's office. i use to play games on it all the time, and of course at the time i did not think much of cost or value of it. I wish i still had it, but not sure what happened to it. Just remember one day there was another one in there, and it was stuck in a corner. We had it for many years though since he was the old fashion type, and would milk stuff for all it's worth. This video brought back memories so thank you!
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We use to have one of these back when i was little in my dad's office. i use to play games on it all the time, and of course at the time i did not think much of cost or value of it. I wish i still had it, but not sure what happened to it. Just remember one day there was another one in there, and it was stuck in a corner. We had it for many years though since he was the old fashion type, and would milk stuff for all it's worth. This video brought back memories so thank you!
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Wiser2k1
Great that you include old ads - I always pause and read them in full. At 01: 25 or so the IBM marketing team went with -up to. 96 gigabytes- instead of -960 megabytes-, an unusually short format to use in a long-format ad on a point that you want to emphasize! Not to mention the -. 96- is at the start of a line, making it even more obscured. Also, why not just say 1 gigabyte, definitely within fair margin (not even getting into KB/kB/KiB etc.
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Great that you include old ads - I always pause and read them in full. At 01: 25 or so the IBM marketing team went with -up to. 96 gigabytes- instead of -960 megabytes-, an unusually short format to use in a long-format ad on a point that you want to emphasize! Not to mention the -. 96- is at the start of a line, making it even more obscured. Also, why not just say 1 gigabyte, definitely within fair margin (not even getting into KB/kB/KiB etc.
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