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Ibm pc rt?

Chuck(G)

Chuck(G)

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It seems people talk about IBM 5150/60/70s and PS/2s a lot on this forum, but I haven't heard a peep about what I consider to be one of IBM's more adventurous designs--the PC RT.

Anyone got one?
 
The RT was an adventurous machine that offered an adventurous OS as an option: PICK.

My first real job in high school, I was a filing and data entry clerk for a law firm that relied heavily on Pick, and so I believe they were considering the RT back in the late 80's to move away from the aging system they were using back then...I think it was a Microdata (McDonnell-Douglas) Reality machine at the time. They eventually decided to go with the C.Itoh (CIE Systems) 680 machine (68020-based), and when they outgrew that they later moved to a Sanyo/ICON machine (88100-based).

My friend from high school is a VP there now so I keep in touch. He gave me their old Sanyo/ICON system, that I stripped down and combined with a smaller one I got in mint shape from a manufacturing company near Philadelphia several years back. Their original 18U chassis I gutted and am now using as my home server rack.

One of the machines I'm still looking for to fill my collection is a General Automation Zebra, which, in fact, ran Pick.
 
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Pick Systems was one of our customers. I think I've still got some Pick OS disks for the Intel platform in my files.

I once worked with a woman who had done a lot of application work in the insurance business. She was a big fan of Pick on the Microdata REALITY setup.

Was Pick ever ported to the RT?
 
Back in 1996, a guy at the computer club owned an IBM RT which we got to play a bit with. Even then I realized this is something different than your average PC compatible. It could be fun to play with one today, and I can probably trace down the guy if he still owns it.
 
I have fond memories of the RT. We had a lot of them in IBM Rochester when I first started working. At the time they were being phased out in favor of RS/6000s, which were infinitely more capable and faster.

The idea of the ISA bus being reused for a workstation class machine was hard to get used to. :) Ours usually had 5.25" diskettes on them too, along with a fairly large 'Moniterm' black and white monitor. The processor was an early attempt at RISC - it was RISC in spirit, but too slow compared to the competition.
 
As many other things IBM, Louis Ohland has information on the IBM RT systems, including links to pages authored by others. Rick Ekblaw, participant at comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware, may have at least one unit. He still works for IBM (unknown by me if that is Rochester, but that sounds about right).
 
mbbrutman said:
The idea of the ISA bus being reused for a workstation class machine was hard to get used to. :) Ours usually had 5.25" diskettes on them too, along with a fairly large 'Moniterm' black and white monitor. The processor was an early attempt at RISC - it was RISC in spirit, but too slow compared to the competition.
Click to expand...

Reading about it, I hadn't realized that ROMP made it into IBM laser printers. Shame that so many people just scrap printers without taking at least a peek inside.

I remember reading about the RT PC and the CPU design. Naturally, it captured my imagination, being an old CDC 6000 programmer. But the price tag was too steep for me and the software too limited for me to even consider getting one. Now they're probably scarce as hen's teeth.
 
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I have an RT, and last time I powered it up which was several years ago, I booted AIX 2.2.2 or similar. Somehow I found an extra keyboard for it as well as a hires video adaptor and some AT emulation software for it. Not sure if I plan to keep it forever though.
 
Ibm pc rt

Ibm pc rt

License costs tend to be what your IBM sales guy says they are, and can be based on what other IBM licenses you already hold.
 
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