My first real IBM PC-compatible computer was an IBM PS/2 Model 50. It was purchased sometime around the summer of 1987. I was about 12 years old and about to enter middle school. I'd previously had a Coleco Adam (which was sort of an Apple IIe mixed with a gaming console.)
It had a 10Mhz Intel 80286 processor, 1 MB of RAM, a 20MB hard drive, a 1.44MB floppy drive, 4 MCA slots (they all went unused), a IBM 8514 VGA Monitor, an IBM 5842 2400bps modem and a IBM 5201 dot matrix printer.
The fact that it had 1 MB of RAM was a bit of an early confusion to me as DOS could only use 640Kb until memory manager and extended memory utilities became available.
I remember distinctly saying that I'd never be able to fill up the 20MB hard drive. A little research lists a replacement 20MB drive for the system at $795 (~$40/MB) at today's market rates (cost/MB) that drive would cost approximately three tenths of one cent (.003 dollars) These days my digital camera takes 10MP RAW photos that are almost 20MB each. A 1TB drive (which are available for approximately $200) holds 50,000 times as much data as that 20MB drive. I've long since stopped saying that I'd never fill up a give hard drive...
I remember running IBM DisplayWrite 4, Harvard Graphics, Deluxe Paint (DPaint), F-19 Stealth Fighter. I briefly ran a couple of starup BBSs using Renegade and Wildcat! that never amounted to much. It was mostly an outgoing BBS terminal with occasional application distractions here and there.
I had a 2400bps modem, but all the BBS were 1200bps in town. I used to call long-distance (remember that?) to take full advantage of my modem's speed for the first couple months. The phone bills hurt.
I made the mistake of using DoubleSpace disk compression for the first and only time on this system.
This computer ran MS-DOS (3.0 - 6.22), PC-DOS, DR-DOS, GEOS, Windows 3.0, OS/2 (1.something.) I cut my teeth on BASIC, Turbo Pascal, REXX
Now my computers(!) run at multiple gigahertz with multiple processor cores, have gigabytes of system RAM, and terabytes of storage. I can't wait to see what happens in the next 20 years...
Tags: computing ps2 progress ibm technology experience computer memories
