IBM's 386 Tower of Power: The PS/2 Model 80

Compaq beat IBM to the 386 PC punch, but the Big Blue Empire struck back with the Personal System/2 Model 80 386. With a 32-bit Micro Channel bus and room for six drives IBM was making a big case for the future of computing. But what’s inside this monstrous machine and what upgrades are available? Join me as I pull this PC apart to see what you got when you bought a $6850 workstation in 1990.

-=- Chapters -=-

00:00 - Intro
00:35 - Adopting a Micro Channel PC
04:38 - The Case
07:35 - Drive Bays and Power Supply
09:30 - Disassembling the Model 80
13:35 - Micro Channel Slots and Cards
15:53 - Auxiliary Video Extension
18:38 - Token Ring Network Card
19:05 - IBM PS/2 SCSI Adapter
19:51 - IBM Enhanced 80386 Memory Adapter w/ ROM
23:12 - Programmable Option Select
25:31 - Auto Configuration In Action
27:51 - Period Appropriate Productivity
29:15 - XGA-2 Graphics Adapter
34:21 - Conclusion & Outro

-=- Links -=-

-=- Contact -=-

[IBM_Museum]

Thanks for the shout-out - I'll try to answer a number of the questions, and also provide more information.

[wacoflyer]

That's my son Aaron you bought this from. He's very conscientious about his work...And it shows!

[joeventura]

I used these early in my career, I once took one and plugged 4 SCSI cards into it, turned it on, it recognized all the cards and we hooked CDROM towers to it and it worked flawlessly

[PhaaxGames]

My mom salvaged a couple of IBM PS/2 computers from her job back in the 90's. <3 My first computer was the Model 30 (desktop) and a little while later she brought home the beast, the Model 80.
The Model 80 had a bunch of extra stuff in it such as the XGA-2 adapter, 2(!) HDD (100 MB each afaik), and a 2.88 MB FDD. Once you've operated the power switch on one of these things you'll never forget it. And the sound... oh my.. the beautiful sound. :D

[cannabiscomet]

For such a small channel the production is LGR levels of good. Amazing Job on these videos. Just found your channel and am loving it.

[SteveMaves]

Enjoyed the video. Here's another vote for an OS/2 video!

[oscarcharliezulu]

Wow. The first computer I used at work. Had that tiny 12” screen. I had to carry it in and airline hand luggage in trips to demo our LU6.2 based graphical client software. I had the 16mhz model if I recall. Fancy grapihcs are and the SNA microchannel card. This machine is the Cindy Crawford of late 80’s PCs. Just classically beautiful.

[LargeFatherKain]

7:23 is all I needed to here, this man has earned a sub

[simisteve]

We were an IBM shop (Large Local Gov't) and while everyone else chose the Model 30s I took the Model 60. God, these things were beasts and built like a battleship. I put my own copy of Windows 3.1 on it and Microsoft sent me a free eval copy of Word 2.0. Between those and the HP DeskJet printer that nobody wanted, I had a WYSIWYG setup that made fantastic hardcopy output. It's great to see one of these monstrosities still alive.

[hanovergreen]

Used one of these at work as a server for 6 people in 1990. Worked great. Built like a tank.

[loz]

so glad I found this channel! I was running out of vintage computing content fast heh

[thomasfuchs]

This was excellent, amazing production value, clear script writing and showing all the good and bad things. I hope you’ll get thousands and thousands of subscribers! Please keep at it!

[andrewcoble]

I grew up in Townsend, MA where you found this beast! PC Lan rules!

[floydiandroid]

Found this via Action Retro. Very well done and informative! I’ll be checking more out.

[s_s-gd]

I appreciate the presentation style resembling that of the good old tech videos of the 40's and later used in the "disassembly" section.

[johnanon]

The only good thing about microchannel was how simple they were to diagnose most startup issues. And that seems to be a completely forgotten thing at least over the last few years in YT videos by others, just plug in a dot matrix printer with paper ready to print and boot the computer to have the issue print out. I vaguely recall only 2 issues when it wouldn't print and both meant replacing the mainboard, the 3rd no print was a dead battery.

[aaron]

I've been waiting for this one!! What a beast of a system. Excellent review!

[alexandermirdzveli]

Thank you for thirty five minutes of pure ecstasy!

[idahofur]

I had one years ago. Loaded it up using 1 good and one dead one. 2 floppy drives, 2 esdi drives, tons of ram. Os/2. Matching keyboard, mouse, monitor. Gave it away over 25 years ago. One of them was being used at a school as a Novell netware 3.11 server.

[techrepair]

Such a well crafted video, love the LGR esque feeling :3