• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Craigslist haul: 7x IBM PS/2 model 25 type 4 systems

L

luckybob

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
1,346
Location
denver
A while back someone posed 3 AT style cases on craigslist for free. I was too slow and didn't get them, I did however leave my name and number with the guy in case he ever got more. This was a good month ago. Well lo and behold I get a call in the morning and he has 3 more and 3 newer ones for free! YAY! I quite literally fly across Denver, and turn a 40 minute trip into a 20. The machines I got are basic beige Pentium class machines. 2 of the three had Cyrix chips (pr166 & 120). Nothing of any REAL value, except for the cases. For some reason AT style cases have really gotten scarce recently. But here is the best part! It turns out he had a SEVEN IBM model 25 Type 004 PS/2 machines in his shed. I got to take them for free also!!! The first picture is what I looked like when he said i could "just take them and get them out of my way"


yAcJb.jpg





They are all COLOR 8086 machines! All seven have token-ring cards installed as well. I took a random machine, plugged it in and it came to life like the years it spent in a shed were nothing to it. I love the look of the IBM PS/2 series! This has COMPLETELY screwed up my weekend plans for "cleaning the garage." Because the space I cleaned up now has a pile of computers in it. :lol:


I know for sure i'm going to completely "pimp out" one of these boxes. The rest... I don't know yet. The floppy drive doesn't seem to want to work on the random machine I picked up, i'm hoping its just dirty. The basic screen says 62940 bytes free. this seems VERY low, I'm under the impression they came stock with 640kb. Anyway, i'm off to scour the tubes of the Internets for a manual, and upgrade options.
 
Last edited:
IBM's ROM BASIC is limited to 64K of usable space, even if you have more RAM than that installed. You should see the actual memory count on the screen when the system is starting up.
 
you are so lucky, I had to pay $67 dollars for two Type 65 PS/2's and one doesn't even have the case. Could you please take a group photo as it would look really cool. Model 25 were ther low end of the PS/2 series so they have ISA which is much more useful than MCA. The model 25 is so designed very much like a PS/1 2011 with the monitor built into the unit. Did you get any Model M keyboard or mice with the machines? They are worth quite a good amount these days.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Those PS/2 floppy drives can be a real pain. Start out by cleaning the drive carriage rails. Sometimes that's enough to get the drive going.
Click to expand...

It's also pretty common for them to need to be recapped, those PS/2 720k drives have a penchant for dead/leaking caps.
 
played with the #3 unit a bit more. Tore it down and rebuilt it. take about the GRIME. The insides of the floppy drive were not bad. I've seen better, but its something I'm going to have to scrub with soap and water later. UGG. The yellow floppy disk that was in it, was a dos 5.0 boot disk. It was nothing more than dos 5 & the token ring driver. There were errors on the disk. Which is natural of a 1.4mb disk formatted 720k. But I was able to boot with the image in my virtual pc.
 
Nice haul! Do be aware that there are the nasty soldered batteries located on some revisions of the PS/2 Model 25 - on the ISA riser card, no less! Snip it and put a button cell there.

You can find alot of information about these systems at William Walsh's website.

They're fun machines, and if you can locate a Sota 286i or 386i, you can use a plug-in ISA accelerator for them! Although the point would be moot if you could locate one of the hard-to-find Reply 486 upgrade boards for them. Talk about pimped out... :)

Also, if you like the PS/2 AIO design, you might want to look into the IBM Eduquest series. It's not quite the same shape as the Model 25 systems, but it's certainly the older, more mature "brother"

Have fun!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top