• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

IBM Aptiva 2159 Talk

L

linuxlove

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2009
Messages
1,018
Location
Auburn, AL
Have you used one of these before? Do you still own one? These are Pentium-based systems, so I'm putting the talk here. I got mine for free :D from some freinds of mine. It has:

1GB master, 3GB slave
32MB of RAM (Pesky IBMs, you can't mix and match RAM in them :mad:)
a 200MHz MMX Pentium 1
Sound Blaster 1.5
Some PCI 10/100 NIC
ATI MACH64 SVGA (2MB Integrated)
1.44MB Floppy drive
CDROM drive
DOS 5 and Windows For workgroups 3.11\

I also have the original monitor :D

Pics here: http://linuxlove.rubbermallet.org/images/aptiva/
 
I've never used an Aptiva like that before. But I do like the "Remote Media Console". It looks like a mutant Macintosh LC :D (and the black color is nice).
 
Unique IBM PC design

Unique IBM PC design

The Aptiva 2159 is the split system case style with a media console (diskette and CD drives) under the monitor separated from the tower containing the rest of the system. IBM designed this unique system to save desk space in the home. What is the type and model number of your Aptiva? You can see the specifications of specific North American models here http://ibmpcbbs.dyndns.org/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/cac2.htm or here http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/cac2.htm.

If you happen to have model S80, S90, 17R, or 18R, I have the original software package for sale at the marketplace: http://marketplace.vintage-computer.com/101197,auction_id,auction_details.
 
I have one of those Remote Media Consoles and a couple of Aptivas (one is a 2161C8X, the other one, I don't recall the model number).

The C8X came with everything the unit originally came with (I can't recall if it has the original monitor), but all the original software.
 
Allen said:
The Aptiva 2159 is the split system case style with a media console (diskette and CD drives) under the monitor separated from the tower containing the rest of the system. IBM designed this unique system to save desk space in the home. What is the type and model number of your Aptiva? You can see the specifications of specific North American models here http://ibmpcbbs.dyndns.org/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/cac2.htm or here http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/cac2.htm.

If you happen to have model S80, S90, 17R, or 18R, I have the original software package for sale at the marketplace: http://marketplace.vintage-computer.com/101197,auction_id,auction_details.
Click to expand...

Type is 2159
Model no. is 18R(SL-A)

Thanks, but i don't need it. WFW3.11 has been working good, i have some windows 95 cd's i can use and i have 98lite installed on a hard drive for this thing somewhere...
 
Last edited:
massive bump

I have one of these. Went through a power surge, blew the controller for the media console, and the power supply is shot. IBM proprietary design means that my system is now worthless. Anyone need the mobo/riser card/media console?
 
Lemme look around, I think I got rid of the controller board I had, but I should still have one or two of those IBM power supplies here somewhere, if you wanted to try and get it going again.

The case has normal drive bays inside it, they're just blanked out on the faceplate, so you could conceivably convert it to a standard tower system.
 
Old Thrashbarg said:
Lemme look around, I think I got rid of the controller board I had, but I should still have one or two of those IBM power supplies here somewhere, if you wanted to try and get it going again.

The case has normal drive bays inside it, they're just blanked out on the faceplate, so you could conceivably convert it to a standard tower system.
Click to expand...

But the case design of these tower Aptivas has a parallel bus riser board so that the ¨desktop¨ LPX motherboard can be used. I´ve got a comparable CPU/video (a VRAM expansion board for ATI cards fits in place on the planar) beige 2176-C6Y, but able to have 128Mb RAM. So it runs 98SE for me.

I´ve also got two of the black monitors with built-in speakers, but one failed, and the other has noise while on...
 
It would be great to see some photos of these! Especially as I'm a bit puzzled, I see why a desktop case needs a riser but can't see why a tower would need one?



BG
 
But the case design of these tower Aptivas has a parallel bus riser board so that the ¨desktop¨ LPX motherboard can be used.
Click to expand...

I know that, and I think I even still have some of the little bridge card pieces that connected between the riser and mainboard.

What I was talking about was that the front part of the case, if you remove the faceplate, has brackets and spaces for, I think, two 5.25" drives and one externally accessible 3.5" drive. So theoretically, even if you didn't have a working ISA controller board for the media console, you could modify the faceplate of the case, install the CD and floppy drives directly in the tower, and have a complete working system again, but just in tower form rather than having a separate drive module on the desk.

@BG101, there are some pictures linked in the OP, the second one from the bottom kinda shows the riser setup, it's a little hard to make out what's going on there, but basically it's laid out like this:
______ <-riser board
---^--- <-motherboard, with a connector between them
And the riser sits about an inch or so above the surface of the motherboard. Yeah, it's very strange and entirely unnecessary, but that's how they did it.
 
linuxlove said:
Thank you IBM for making non-standard products :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be fair to single IBM out, every company out there has committed this sin at one point in time. Some machines look like they were designed by Ernő Rubik.
 
linuxlove said:
Thank you IBM for making non-standard products :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

On the PC line they were the ¨standard¨...

What is a ¨clone¨ a clone of?...

The reason for the strange ¨tower riser¨ setup is to have the same LPX-style motherboard/planar in three different product offerings: A ¨spacesaver¨ (3 slots x 3 drive bays), ¨desktop¨ (5x5), and ¨tower¨ (8x8 ). The later PS/2s started this trend, where the installed riser would even change the reported ¨Planar ID¨ (since microchannel systems keep track of the number of expansion slots, and the different risers changed how many slots were there). PS/2 ¨towers¨ didn´t actually have risers, but were positioned with the same relative components to be the larger equivalent of the spacesaver and desktop models that did.

ValuePoints and Aptivas took the notion further to what I am describing, where the towers did start to have risers. In reality, it is kind of a nifty idea. I wouldn´t call it unnecessary, but the strangeness stems from no other design like it I have seen.
 
Old Thrashbarg said:
Lemme look around, I think I got rid of the controller board I had, but I should still have one or two of those IBM power supplies here somewhere, if you wanted to try and get it going again.

The case has normal drive bays inside it, they're just blanked out on the faceplate, so you could conceivably convert it to a standard tower system.
Click to expand...
Awww... I don't want to fix it... I want to smash it with a hammer! :evilgrin1::hammers:
 
IBMMuseum said:
In reality, it is kind of a nifty idea. I wouldn´t call it unnecessary, but the strangeness stems from no other design like it I have seen.
Click to expand...

Yes, this was my reaction when I opened up my PS/2 30-286 and saw the riser. By orientating the ISA cards to the horizontal it does allow the case to be shorter in height and hence save space.

2009-09-19-ps2-motherboard2.jpg


Tez
 
Yeah, I really do wish LPX or NLX had caught on better... it works really well for low-profile cases. But both form factors suffered from the same problem: they were just too poorly defined as a standard, and there was no agreement on how to design the riser cards, so every manufacturer ended up doing their own thing with it, causing it to turn into a proprietary mess.

But I still think the Aptiva method of having a riser card parallel to the motherboard was unnecessary. They could've used a right-angle riser in it just fine.
 
I don't know about the IBM riser designs but I did have an HP model that did it. HP didn't know which bus was going to win out so they could swap expansion boards to whichever bus was ordered. Wouldn't have been so bad except they made the main motherboard really small and fit right under the expansion board. Need to change RAM or set a jumper, remove all expansion cards and the expansion board before getting to the main board. Probably the most annoying case I ever worked with.
 
tezza said:
Yes, this was my reaction when I opened up my PS/2 30-286 and saw the riser. By orientating the ISA cards to the horizontal it does allow the case to be shorter in height and hence save space.
Click to expand...

I don´t mean that I haven´t seen LPX designs elsewhere, just the parallel riser in a tower system. Packard Bell had a LPX tower, but the riser was still perpendicular to the motherboard. To me more of the novelty was using the same planar in three different case styles.

The Model 55SX shared the Model 30 286 case (IBM used the same case for different levels of their systems too), where the design was actually a problem. A heavy monitor could put pressure on the riser (for that system, there was a DBA ESDI hard drive connector at the top of the riser). It definately could cause an unstable system.

In a few rare case I have found Compaq LPX risers to work in spacesaver Aptivas and ValuePoints. It adds a couple reverse slots for small cards (like IDE paddlecards, set to a secondary address). I even had a SIMM memory expansion card I was going to try on one of my 30 286s.
 
IBMMuseum said:
The Model 55SX shared the Model 30 286 case (IBM used the same case for different levels of their systems too), where the design was actually a problem. A heavy monitor could put pressure on the riser (for that system, there was a DBA ESDI hard drive connector at the top of the riser). It definately could cause an unstable system.
Click to expand...

Yes, I could well believe it...in fact...I'm looking at my PS/70 as I type. That has a riser card which has a ESDI connector at the top. I've got a heavy Philips monitor on it at the moment and the top of the case looks rather depressed. Hopefully it's not touching the riser card. Considering I'm giving the disk a low-level format at the moment I might just move the monitor off the case...

Tez
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top