IBM Computer History: PS/2 - Personal System/2 Original Commercial Promo 1988 (microcomputer) AS 400

[@chasbodaniels1744]

Those were exciting times for technology! Each leap forward from the 286 seemed huge.

[@thesteelrodent1796]

TBF, the 286 was a kludge Intel threw together as a stop-gap until they could get the 386 on the market, so anything post-286 was a massive improvement and leap in technology. The 386 was designed before the 286 was launched, but the complex design made it impossible for Intel to produce it at a sensible price, so they came up with the 286 as an alternative when IBM demanded a faster processor. It's actually a miracle that the 286 didn't kill off the PC with its terrible design, and it was only because software designers never coded anything that demanded protected mode to work that the 286 survived as long as it did

[@dalecomer5951]

​@@thesteelrodent1796--​So if someone had coded a protected mode app and run it on a 286 then the 286 would have disappeared from the market? There were many protected mode app's which ran on a 286. It was harder than it needed to be because of a miserable pile called MS/PC-DOS.

[@icedanilzation]

That floppy disk flip, the 80's wins with that.

[@PlasmaCoolantLeak]

My first PC was a Model 25 PS/2, with a whopping 512K of RAM, and which I increased to a staggering 640K.

[@dmoore7519]

In 1987, I started with a Tandy 1200, an IBM PC clone using DOS 1.1, 256k ram and 2 5-1/4” floppy drives. I added a 120mb Seagate hard drive that I mail ordered for $320! Prior to adding the HD, I was able to run many programs by loading them with files loaded on both floppy drives. One such program was Autocad Ver 1.x. I could load it up and run the “Office” file that was included to show what could produced with Autocad. You could zoom onto the phone pushbuttons to see the number and letters on each one. I was able to use this for many years before “upgrading” to a windows machine.

[@WizardOfAtlantis]

"Just ask the machine!" My how relevant today.

[@pokysharpy]

Is that Nana Visitor in the AS/400 ad? Her speech cadence and voice sound a lot like Major Kira, and she would have been a commercial-level actor in 1987.

[@bblod4896]

I don't think so. The face looks different.

[@lilblackduc7312]

I learned COBOL on an AS400.💖

[@chetannagdeve7522]

Oh this vintage world, I wanna go back in time.

[@NipkowDisk]

And the P/S 2 is even more dated than the mercury thermometer that the gal at 2:49 is shaking down (I still use mine as a cross-check on the newfangled digital one :) )

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Good spotting!

[@itzhexen0]

How am I gonna do it? I'm gonna PS/2 it.

[@davidjames666]

too bad no one else wanted to microchannel and the standard along with the ps/2 quickly died

[@thesteelrodent1796]

NEC did some microchannel stuff on license (but then NEC and Hitachi built IBM hardware on license since the 70s because no one would buy IBM in Japan), but IBM designed MCA specifically to regain control of the PC market, so no one could make anything for or with MCA without paying IBM a license fee. And since they were up against the open EISA, VLB, and PCI standards it didn't make sense for anyone to bother with a closed, complex, and expensive standard.

[@richh9241]

@@thesteelrodent1796 You also had to get the MCA software driver, which in the days of BBS rather than the internet was a pain in the backside.

[@thesteelrodent1796]

Just a by-the-by regarding the notes at the end of the video: Lenovo already built laptops and PCs for IBM before 2005. Many of the early 2000s Thinkpad and Aptiva machines were made entirely or partially by Lenovo (at least for Asia and Europe), and they supplied a lot of the spare parts. The takeover was more a sale of the IP than the actual division as Lenovo already owned the physical assets required to continue production

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi TheSteelRodent, thanks very much for the additional info and clarification. It helps put Lenovo in perspective. Lenovo is also a Fortune 500 company with an 11 Billion (USD) market cap. Despite recent slow down in PC sales, they seem to be doing very well.

[@calbob750]

Throw away those 3x5 index cards. The technology has advanced so that every moment of your existence has been stored in metadata for future retrieval and monetization.

[@gabegall]

You can see the old twin towers in the 1st commercial.

[@ВасяБарбин]

В 2006 г. чинайцы купили IBM и она стала называться LENOVO...😥