Getting my non-working IBM PS2 P70 back into shape.

Last week I was able to pick this gorgeous IBM PS/2 P70 386. I've always had a thing for IBM machines, and the PS/2 line of machines has always fascinated me.

Their non-standard elements and their overall look and feel in terms of line-up is something very unique.

This luggable did not want to do anything after I purchased it, so a great opportunity for a teardown and some fixes. I have a feeling I'll be featuring it more on the channel, as the work is far from over with this one

[ultrametric]

You need 3 things - 80387 coprocessor, 2.88Mb floppy, and OS/2 version 2.0! What a great find!

[Johnny.Verplancke]

The explanation of the pins on the replacement diskdrive to make it usefull was top notch. Tnx for going that extra mile...

[waldevv]

Thank you so much for this video, I bought a p70 and spent ages fighting with the floppy, some guides made it seem a lot harder to use a modern floppy but sure enough I got it working. Right now I have it running through USB with a wire that I made because I didn't want to mess with the wiring of the P70 power supply but now that it works I suppose in the future I can make it self contained

I imagine a gotek would plug in just fine in the same way if I cut the 12v pin off if I ever get tired of real floppies. Have to look for another old PC floppy drive too as I sacrificed the only one I had

[denniseldridge]

Man, I am soooo jealous lol. I really have a soft spot for these since I worked at an IBM PC dealership in the 90's. For some reason I thought they were the coolest things, especially running OS/2. The only issue I recall with these was the floppy drive being problematic, but otherwise a very solid machine.

[elamriti]

0:54 that computer you have on that time stamp we had one back in the day !! with the green strip !!

[gorber]

Got one of these wonderful "drag-top" babies from my father when moving from home for studies in the early 90's.
Win 3.11, diskdoubler, word and Eye of the beholder and then the HDD was full. But it was all i needed :D

[ultrametric]

I once owned an entire basement of PS/2 Model 80 and 90 servers that a shoe store factory was tossing. Nobody wanted any of it. There was at least a couple of hundred thousand dollars of equipment if you went by the new prices - network cards by the dozens, SCSI drives and adapters, processor upgrades - amazing. The build quality on IBM equipment was and is absolutely the best. Up until recently (and possibly now), Lenovo continued this tradition of fantastic build quality with the best components. This computer of yours is magnificent!

[VKFVAX]

Not the only drive that mapped some of the logic pins for power. Chinon as well as Alps did it. Check out some of the Amstrad 286/386's like the PC5286.

[zg]

This was a fun video, thank you. Nice job on the floppy. Kind of funny, I have a P70 and when I opened it for the first time I had the same loose heat sink sitting there. Never did figure out what it came off of.

[chriswareham]

I've never seen one of these machine before, but it reminds me of a Sun Microsystems Voyager that I used briefly in the 1990s. The built in LCD screen tilted in a similar manner to the one on your IBM, and it was also intended to be a portable computer.

[francoisfritz]

As Always, good job mister Spector. Take care.

[Vintersemestre]

Oooh, I love your videos RetroSpector! New sub!

[observantowl]

After one minute into the video, am already excited.

[WarrenPostma]

I hope you can find a replacement 1.44 meg ibm drive because the PS/2 floppy disk drives are cool.

[JMaxwell]

Incredible work. This will give me nightmares. Kafka for electrical engineers.

[okonaup]

Will you do another video with this exciting machine one day? There are not many videos online featuring plasma displays.

[NLTheGreater]

I have repaired this computer last year. Its a fun machine. I have changed the floppy drive and the retention of memory banks brake very easy do to hardening of the plastics.

[Ramdileo_sys]

@RetroSpector78 .. 3:36 .. that heat sink is for the chip to the left of 386 .. It has thermal paste on
20:17 .. Windows 3.11 ?? .. Where is the network card?? AWSOME Machine!!

[fmadlion]

Where did you find the info on the floppy pin out? About to perform similar surgery

[alexmaggs]

I have a P70 and I had the EXACT same problem. And I did the same, take it apart, lay it on the table and it just suddenly worked with an external screen. So I put it back together and...nothing. Took it back apart - nothing. Dead screen.

The long beep and 2 short is a video card issue. So I took the video card off and replaced the 4 electrolytic capacitors with new ones. I had to use special solder to remove the old stuff. But low and behold I put it back together but it now works perfectly - plasma and all. So my guess is unless you recap the video board, it won’t work consistently for long....