IBM Charts Sophisticated Course With Promising New Computers
I can’t help but admire the subtle exercise of IBM’s brute strength revealed in the design of its new Personal System/2 series of computers.
It has charted a sophisticated course that assures compatibility with existing software while enticing users to buy its more powerful new computers. IBM offers immediate performance gains and promises much greater benefits with second-generation software expected to be introduced sometime next year.
At the same time, IBM is still allowing third-party manufacturers to profit by building expansion devices for the new computers, yet it has made it much tougher for companies to produce imitations of the whole computer as is so easily done with the first-generation IBM personal computers.
It’s a welcome change for the world’s largest computer company, which in the past tried to foist off clunkers like the original PCjr with its awful rubber-button keyboard, the dullard PC Portable and the unreliable first version of the PC AT.
The effect of the new Personal System/2 machines will be immediate and sweeping:
- A new video graphics standard boasting finer resolution than Mac-intosh and more color than Amiga, Atari or the new Macintosh II is established with what IBM calls its video graphics array (VGA). Near television-quality images can be displayed using 256 simultaneous colors, or much higher resolution business charts and engineering drawings can be shown in 16 colors. IBM will offer a VGA adapter board for its previous line of PCs (and presumably compatibles as well).
- The plastic-encased 3 1/2-inch disks used in the new computers will make the current 5-inch floppies as obsolete as the ancient eight-inch disks that once were commonly used in office computers. IBM has two versions, one storing 720 kilobytes of data and the other twice as much, 1.44 megabytes. Unlike the incompatibility between today’s 360K PC floppies and 1.2-MB AT floppies, the same 3 1/2-inch disk can be used in either IBM drive, and the 1.44-MB drive can easily store data on 720K disks for subsequent use on the lower-capacity drive. A number of “after market” kits are sure to quickly appear, allowing us to replace 5-inch drives with the new, smaller drives.
- IBM and compatible computers will eventually be as easy to use as Apple’s Macintosh by employing consistent graphic images to represent computer instructions, but it will be two, perhaps three more years, before the new software required is in widespread use.
- Everybody who gambled by bringing out an 80386 microprocessor-based computer ahead of IBM lost. Sorry, Compaq, I really liked your Deskpro 386, but IBM just set a new standard with its Micro Channel internal architecture. It has growth potential that just isn’t possible with the older PC AT architecture on which existing 80386 computers were based.
For one thing, the new high-performance expansion cards that will be designed for the new IBM models by third-party developers won’t work in existing PCs, ATs and 80386 computers.
For another, the new Micro Channel can support microprocessor speeds up to 32 million cycles per second (megahertz). The fastest 80386 chips now run at 20 MHz. A major limiting factor of the current architecture is radio frequency radiation, which is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission so that computers don’t interfere with television and other communications signals. IBM’s new Micro Channel circuitry emits far less radio energy than the old design.
It is unclear how difficult it will be for Compaq and other IBM competitors to copy the Micro Channel architecture. But it is very clear that until they can, IBM has a jump on them.
IBM uses three microprocessors in its Personal System/2 line. The low-end Model 30 has an 8086 chip and uses existing expansion cards. It runs 2 1/2 times as fast as the PCs and PC XTs that it replaces.
The Model 50 and Model 60 computers use the 80286 chip along with the new Micro Channel architecture and run twice as fast as the PC AT computers that they replace. The top-of-the-line Model 80 computers feature the 80386 microprocessor and run as much as 3 1/2 times faster than a PC AT.
The new models correct design limitations in current PC and compatible computers. For instance, they allow math co-processor chips (needed for quicker numeric and graphic operations) to run as fast as the main processor.
Another advancement is two-way video memory, so that a program can easily “see” what’s already on the screen before it covers it with something else. In today’s PCs, screen memory is largely one-way; a program can “write” to video memory but can’t “read” it.
There is one other thing to keep in mind about these new machines. There is a huge price gap between the low end--a computer you might have at home--and the high-end machines corporations will buy. The list price of a Model 30 with monochrome display, 640K of RAM operating memory and a 20-MB hard disk is $2,545.
But a fully configured 80386-based Model 80 with highest-resolution color monitor, math coprocessor, 16 MB of RAM, 230 MB of hard disk storage and 200 MB of optical disk archival storage will cost about $30,000.
Despite the advantages of the new IBM designs, it doesn’t necessarily mean that existing IBM and clone computers are obsolete.
A month ago, I got tired of waiting for IBM to reveal its much rumored new equipment (and figured I couldn’t afford it when they did), so I bought a PC AT clone.
Taking a cue from a comparison test published in PC Magazine, I ordered a Standard 286 II from PC Source in Austin, Tex. It has a megabyte of RAM, both 1.2 MB and 360K floppy disks, a 71-MB hard disk, two serial ports, a parallel port, enhanced graphics video adapter, enhanced color monitor and an improved design that lets it run about 50% faster than IBM’s 8-MHz PC AT. It cost $2,758--delivered.
The new IBM models won’t let me have more than 20 MB of hard disk storage until I shell out $5,295 for the Model 60, and that’s still only 44 MB. A 70-MB hard disk-equipped model goes for $6,295. Of course, there would be an additional $595 required for the color monitor. Sure, it would be faster than my new computer, and the color graphics would be better, and it would accommodate the new expansion boards that are sure to be built by AST, Tecmar, Quadram and others.
But I’ve saved about $4,100 (less whatever discount I could get on a new IBM). I have to spend some of that on a 3 1/2-inch drive. IBM will sell me a VGA graphics card and color monitor for $1,190 beginning this summer, but I’ll wait until I can get a good clone for maybe half of that.
What’s more, when the new OS/2 operating system is available, I’m assured by Microsoft that there will be a version to run on my AT clone.
Admiration is one thing. Money is another. IBM sure gets my admiration, but PC Source got my money. I just hope it stays in business for at least the duration of my one-year warranty.
