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IBM PS/2 Model 80

tempest

tempest

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Sep 16, 2014
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I found an old IBM PS/2 Model 80 tower here at work (says type 8580-111) which makes it a 386 DX. It has a bunch of cards in it that I haven't identified yet:

Going by the names on the cards:

VGA Card with daughter board? Says 75X4439 on it
Two SCSI adapter boards connected to each other by a ribbon cable (one is a Centronics style and one is a 50 pin SCSI 2 style). This is also hooked into the second bay below the disk drive and the the hard drive.
Enhanced 80386 Memory Expansion (has four 2MB sticks of memory in it)
80386 2-8MB Memory Expansion Option (has four 2MB sticks of memory in it)
Dual Asynchronous Adapter

Looks like it has one hard drive in it (a big full height one) and a 1.44MB 3.5" disk drive. The system turns on and says it has 4MB of memory but gives me the following codes on boot:

161
163

These are battery related if I'm not mistaken (I'm sure the battery is looooong dead).

Then the hard drive light goes on and the hard drive makes a clicking noise but that's it. I assume it's dead and the floppy drive lights but doesn't seem to read. I assume it's dead as well. I found a replacement in the junk pile, but I'm not sure if it's good either. :) How do you get the disk drive out? There's a tab on the bottom of it which makes me think it just slides out, but it's stuck and I can't get the cable off the back of it anyway. Do both sides of the case open? If so I can't see how to open the right side.

Any idea why it would only detect 4MB of RAM? I assume that's what's on the motherboard and it should have 16MB altogether.

Is this thing worth saving? Does it have any value?
 
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The video card is most likely an 8514 adapter with the extra memory add-on. The VGA itself is on the planar board.

Getting things out is sometimes easier if you remove the front plate. I think it is held in place by a little plastic tab near the grill. I remember the whole system being simple to disassemble but I can't find an online copy of the manual with pictures.

4 MB sounds right if you have an early system. PS/2s won't recognize memory on expansion cards unless you run configuration utilities to install the needed ADF. That may also apply to the SCSI controllers; been too long. Get the battery working and run configuration and then find out what else is wrong and curse IBM for doing things completely differently from everybody else including what IBM did on other models.

It has value. There is a large contingent of PS/2 fans out there.

Edited because I missed a descriptive line.
 
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This machine is my favorite case style of the PS/2.

the side panel comes off, and then the front panel snaps off. pull from the bottom if memory serves me. It will become very obvious how the floppy drive slides out.

As for the 4mb of ram, the bios needs to be told to look for the ram card so the settings are gone. This usually results in scsi not working other. Speaking of, I'm very curious about the scsi cards. Any chance for some pictures?

As for value, I'd go out of my way to save them. That said, I personally love these machines, but I believe a lot of people wouldn't even pay for shipping for this particular model. IBM PS/2 machines are not for beginners in my mind. They tend to be intentionally incompatible, finicky, and thus expensive to get parts for. I'd love to get another machine, but I don't have the money this month. ( I know it just started)
 
Not totally obvious, on the older 40-pin floppy.

Remove the front and side. Pull up the tab on the bottom of the drive with you're finger, and put your thumb into the drive there is a ridge to give you something to pull on. Then at the back of the drive, below the card edge connector there is another cream tab. Push this tab away from you (when looking from the side) as far as it will go. It should bottom out on the plastic cage. The drive will then pull out all the way.

If it's been there a long time it will be stiff. You should be able to see if the front tab clears its hole. At this point the drive should pull ever so slightly out, the back tab then releases the drive fully. Sometimes this tab binds, try pushing the drive in a bit from the front. It should come free.
 
I'd buy that for a dollar!

I'd buy that for a dollar!

tempest said:
Two SCSI adapter boards connected to each other by a ribbon cable (one is a Centronics style and one is a 50 pin SCSI 2 style). This is also hooked into the second bay below the disk drive and the the hard drive.
Click to expand...

I have pleasured myself with quite a few Personal System/2 computers, and I do not recall seeing such a setup (as in _NEVER_). :tellme:
Please take a picture and post it, or send to my email.

PM me if you want to send me a pic.
 
ardent-blue said:
I have pleasured myself with quite a few Personal System/2 computers, and I do not recall seeing such a setup (as in _NEVER_). :tellme:
Please take a picture and post it, or send to my email.

PM me if you want to send me a pic.
Click to expand...

I'll take a pic when I'm back in the office on Tuesday. I might be totally wrong on the configuration, but from a glance that's what it looked like.
 
ardent-blue said:
I have pleasured myself with quite a few Personal System/2 computers, and I do not recall seeing such a setup (as in _NEVER_). :tellme:
Please take a picture and post it, or send to my email.

PM me if you want to send me a pic.
Click to expand...

I SAW IT FIRST!!!

*kidding*

It is a safe bet, if Ardent hasn't seen it, it probably doesn't exist. I dare say, nobody would know more about these systems than he would save for maybe actual IBM engineers who made the thing. Needless to say, I can't wait to see some pictures!

Also be careful with the black foam on the inside of the side panel. It is likely turned into a mass of sticky, tar-like black foam.
 
Is that how heavy it was? Wow. Maybe I'll bring it to VCF Midwest next week and see if someone wants it. Or maybe I'll just keep it and hope I can find a MCA sound card some day.
 
One of my online friends has a box of MCA Sound Blasters in Texas....
....but knowing that there's a big flood going on, they all might be suffering immense water damage right now. :rip:
 
I took another look at it today with the cables pushed out of the way and I was wrong. One of those boards is a SCSI board that was plugged into the hard drive, but the other is a floppy controller board. I'll post pictures of everything later tonight.

I'll probably take this baby home and try and nurse it back to health. For some reason I really want to get it up and running.
 
Neat! Yes there is a connector on the back for an external drive (I thought it was SCSI at first). The internal drive doesn't appear to be working right now, but I found a spare that I'll need to try.

What kind of built in graphics does this system have? Good enough for 386 based games?
 
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