Looking for IBM PS2 Model 76

[irishmike]

Greetings All:

I am looking for an IBM PS/2 Model 76 in good or excellent condition. If you have one you would part with please PM me and post that you have PM'd me in this thread.

If you are in Kansas City, Missouri (Metro Area) or within 50 miles of the city, I would be more than happy to pick it up.

Hope someone has one!

Thanks,

Mike

[IBMMuseum]

I am looking for an IBM PS/2 Model 76 in good or excellent condition...


Which submodel, a ¨Bermuda¨ or ¨Lacuna¨ based planar?:

http://www.gilanet.com/ohlandl/76-77/7677_Bermuda.html

http://www.gilanet.com/ohlandl/76-77/7677_Lacuna.html

The main differences are going to be that the Bermuda has SCSI on the planar, and the Lacuna has SVGA and IDE on the planar...

[irishmike]

I think I am looking for the Lacuna model. Thanks.

[IBMMuseum]

I think I am looking for the Lacuna model.

A little more rare. I have only one Lacuna-based Model 76 (more accurately a ¨76i¨ for the onboard IDE) out of several Bermuda-based. Are you open to a Lacuna 77i, which is the ¨5x5¨big brother of the ¨3x3¨ 76i? There is also comparative tower versions of the Bermuda and Lacuna 76/77 in the Model 85 ´X´and ´K/N´units (the letter denotes the CPU, with the ¨Lacuna¨ style systems able to take up to a 83MHz Pentium Overdrive processor).

The Lacuna-based units are sometimes thought of as unstable, since the onboard SVGA controller (not on the Model 85 version) was individual to those systems and had ¨PROTO¨stamped on the chips. I´ve not had too much trouble with it myself. Also the POD83 CPU could have issues with the L2 cache board if present (sometimes fixable by the ¨bent pin¨ trick).

You can put other graphics cards in to work around Lacuna troubles. The XGA-2 cards were very common on the Bermuda-based systems. Here both the XGA-2 and IBM SCSI drivers have been rewritten recently by a programmer involved in PS/2s to make the Bermuda-based units a little more harder-hitting too.

Filling a void in a collection? Another reason for needing the system? Ever been over to the CSIPH (comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware) newsgroup?

[irishmike]

@IBMMUSEUM

Thanks for all your information. To answer your questions, it is to fill a void in a collection (in a manner of speaking). I am looking for a solid 486DX2 66 system to run my aged BBS software and DOS on ;-) I have a Pentium 90 but it causes timer issues in the aged software (which is MajorBBS 6.25) and it is going online for posterity.

The IBM would be a solid machine is my reason for seeking it out.

That in mind, the 85 would probably fit the bill -- it kind of depends on what you are looking for in compensation and so forth.

Sent you a PM :-)

[IBMMuseum]

...I am looking for a solid 486DX2 66 system to run my aged BBS software and DOS on...

The 9585s are a little uncommon too, and despite me having a couple ´K/N´ models I am holding on to them. I think for the abilities of a Bermuda 77 it would be a better unit than a 76i for you. IDE in it´s IBM implementation is a bit unusual, and you will have the 512Mb limitation.

SCSI drives (4Gb is about the upper limit for a drive with the IML partition) are pretty common and better performance for that vintage. You can even have multiple drives and a CD-ROM. I even have an excess of ´77s´s (the ´s´, just like the ´i´ did, denotes the model has SCSI on the planar) and they are common on eBay.

How would you do the communication for the BBS. One of microchannel´s big misses is there isn´t many internal modems that are very fast. There are ¨multiport¨ boards with RS-232 breakout boxes if you have some external modems. I wish I had been able to retain an old Access Server box that had PCMCIA slots for all of the 36Kb modems I have.

[irishmike]

The communication will be through a NIC or through one modem on the serial port or direct connect :-)

The 77 would be fine as well.

Thanks,

Mike

[Druid6900]

If IBMMuseum doesn't want to part with something in the class you want, have you considered the Model 90? It has dual serial ports, solid internal and external SCSI capabilities and the one I have has a 3Com NIC. I even have a spare "good" extra memory riser for it.

Not to dissuade you from dealing with IBM, just a fall-back idea.

[IBMMuseum]

The communication will be through a NIC or through one modem on the serial port or direct connect...

There are two serial ports on both the Bermuda and Lacuna planars, and a common microchannel board can easily add two more very easily (microchannel PS/2s are not limited to four COM ports). With the 76s/76i you would have at most three expansion slots (video on a Bermuda would take a slot), the 77s/77i have five slots (losing one for video on Bermuda-based again). NICs are most commonly going to be 10Mbps, more than enough to carry the traffic of many dial-up modems.

[EddieDX4]

There are two serial ports on both the Bermuda and Lacuna planars, and a common microchannel board can easily add two more very easily (microchannel PS/2s are not limited to four COM ports). With the 76s/76i you would have at most three expansion slots (video on a Bermuda would take a slot), the 77s/77i have five slots (losing one for video on Bermuda-based again). NICs are most commonly going to be 10Mbps, more than enough to carry the traffic of many dial-up modems.

You both seem to share the same passion for good ol' big blue and beige than I do... :)

Not to hijack this thread, but... @IBMMuseum: Do you happen to have a bezel to go around the OEM SCSI CD-ROMs on the 9585 / 9595 towers? I have one that's missing the bezel so the CD-ROM drive is basically "borderless" on the case. Doesn't look awful, but it's got that few milimeters gap around it... Looks like it's floating on there.

I, too, want to host a BBS off of this machine... Only difference being that I'm running OS/2 Warp 4 on it, so it would be an OS/2 variant BBS. Any suggestions?