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AT&T PC to Olivetti PC equivalent ?

1ST1

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Hello,

Olivetti made some PC for AT&T. So for example the AT&T 6300 is nothing else as the Olivetti M24 in a different color. Until now I know the following AT&T PC models, but not for all of them I am sure which Olivetti model it is originally:

6300 -> M24
6300 Plus -> M24 with 286-6 mainboard
6300 WGS -> M240
6312 -> M28
6312 WGS -> M280
6386sx/el20 -> M300-xx ?
6386sx/el -> M300-xx ?
6386/25 -> M380-25 ?
6386/33 -> M380-33 ?
6386E WGS -> M380XP9 ?

Can you help me to understand better?
 
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I am finding it strange that the trades didn't have short blurbs mentioning each AT&T announcement alongside its Olivetti counterpart. Paraphrased press releases used to make up half of Infoworld's content.
 
You have to recall that this was a time just after the 1982 Consent Decree and what used to be Ma Bell was wading in unfamiliar territory. Around 1983, I recall trying to buy a 3B5 from AT&T. It was hopeless--get shuttled around among people who insisted that the only computer that AT&T sold was the 6300. Numerous requests for callbacks went unanswered. We leased a VAX system instead.
 
I stepped also a little bit ahead, I found this: http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stut...S_Brochure.pdf

Accordung to the pictures and processor speed, the 6386-WGS should be a M380 (16 MHz desktop first version) and the 6386E WGS is the same as M380/T (20 MHz tower).

First version of M380 and M380 XP3/XP4 are wide body desktop cases which have space for additional vertical mounted harddisks right of the floppy drive as can bee seen on the photo in the above PDF.

But on the bitsavers server there is another photo showing an opened 8386 WGS without wide body, so the slim desktop chassis with just having harddisk bay under the floppy drive, similar to the older M28 / 280, so that one must be M380XP1 or M380/C, depending on cpu clock speed. I was trying to figure out that according to the BIOS bitsavers offers to download, PBVQ_1.13.BIN and PBVR_1.13.BIN, the version numer 1.13 is only mentioned with M380/C, but no mention of PBVQ and PBVR in the Olivetti pocket service guide. So I can not clearly identify this way.

It would be interesting to know if AT&T also sold the other M380 series machines, and also about CP486*, LSX5010*, LSX5020*.

* These three early 486 EISA machines could have been interesting for the history of Windows as they could be setup using an Intel i860 CPU as the 2nd CPU. With Windows NT 3.x Microsoft made a beta version to test that CPU, and I think the Olivetti/AT&T machines were the test target for that. But I have read about the results of testing Windows NT on the i860 that it was not a success, the machine was not running as fast as expected, and this was due to the bad / slow behavior of the i860 in conetxt change / task switch because of tooo long pipelines**, not good for a multitasking OS.

** Looks like Intel forgot these test results already when designing the Pentium 4.
 
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Hello,

Olivetti made some PC for AT&T. So for example the AT&T 6300 is nothing else as the Olivetti M24 in a different color. Until now I know the following AT&T PC models, but not for all of them I am sure which Olivetti model it is originally:

6300 -> M24
6300 Plus -> M24 with 286-6 mainboard
6300 WGS -> M240
6312 -> M28
6312 WGS -> M280
6386sx/el20 -> M300-xx ?
6386sx/el -> M300-xx ?
6386/25 -> M380-25 ?
6386/33 -> M380-33 ?
6386E WGS -> M380XP9 ?

Can you help me to understand better?
Hello 1ST1. Sorry, I'm pretty rusty on the Olivetti stuff. Back in 2014 it was really difficult to find pictures or even mentions of certain Olivetti models, as it was difficult to find people that knew about them. But now, as I see more interest in their old products, I kinda took a back seat as it became clear that their memory lives on in the knowledge and collection of others.
Are you sure that these 6386sx or slash models are rebadged Olivetti systems? Over the years I've seen four different 386 Olivetti systems rebadged by AT&T. One of them a desktop, the 6386, which I believe is an M380 (the old one in the large chassis from '87). The other three were towers, likely rebadged M380/T systems. That one was called the 6386E.
So, the list would go as follow
Older "PC" series
  • 6300 = M24
  • 6300 Plus = Very strange. 286 system. Is it an M28 or something unique?
  • 6310 = M28
Newer "WGS" series
  • 6300 WGS = M240
  • 6312 = M280
  • 6386 = M380
  • 6386E = M380/T
  • 6286 = M290
 
I suspect the 6386/25 WGS at least might not be Olivetti. It's such a "conventional" design-- a normal full-AT case and Intel branded mainboard, which seems so unlike Olivetti's tendency to make really custom stuff.
 
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