Farewell System x

[EverythingIBM]

As many probably already know, IBM sold their last x86 division (System x) to lenovo. I just hope IBM doesn't sell System p.

RIP System x.

 

[SomeGuy]

From everything I've read, IBM is hardly the company it used to be. It might as well stand for "Indian Business Machines" these days.

 

[EverythingIBM]

From everything I've read, IBM is hardly the company it used to be. It might as well stand for "Indian Business Machines" these days.

IBM's hardware has always been the same though. From PS/2s, to PC300, to IntelliStations; they all share similar designs (extreme emphasis on modularity and toolless features). They are getting away from hardware, but that doesn't mean the new hardware is radically different.

Of course not many people know anything about new IBM hardware, for some reason. A 9595A PS/2 isn't too different from a 9229 M50 for instance. They both share the same splash screen, same RAM count, same BIOS tests. Although a 9595A is a bit more brutal with the SCSI RAM tests if you have a spock in it.

In fact, you probably won't find many (any?) quad core computers that do a POST beep, a floppy seek (with support for 360K), intelligence for chassis intrusion & systemboard LED indicators, ethernet indicators, etc. They also host two serial ports, a parallel port, 8 USB, 2 firewire, SATA, IDE, SCSI, etc etc etc.
Of course intellistations were not sold under System x, they later transitioned to System p:

(I only have a 3.5 FDD installed, but I could pop in a 360K 5.25 if I wanted to some day: the only problem is that Windows 7 does not like them, AT ALL the last time I had one-- but I did enjoy the FDD seek from it: a computer isn't really a computer without the FDD seek after the POST beep, in my opinion).
And yes, I later added the win7 and core2 quad extreme stickers (originally it was a core2 duo with an XP-vista compliant sticker). I have also modded the systemboards with industrial electrolytic capacitors for even more robustness.

Where's the 3dfx card you ask? Well, a 5500 can only be ran under windows 7 x86 due to unsigned drivers not being supported in x64. I tried. I believe there may be a way to get it to work, but honestly, I can't be bothered at the moment. I might just pop on win 7 x86 on another machine to test out the 5500s and 4500s AGP 4x cards.

But I digress, I have always enjoyed the System x machines, hearing the hotswap drives initiated one-by-one via serveRAID etc. I rescued two of them being recycled at work. Not sure what I am going to do with them yet, I may just give them away to someone who needs a good rack server.

While most in I.T. are completely oblivious to IBM hardware and enjoy their crappy Dells and HPs (or worse, their cheap homebrew systems with poorly chosen low quality components-- particularly PSUs), I will definitely miss the solid IBMs. There's no appreciation for good hardware anymore.

 

[barythrin]

I didn't know they even had any x86 stuff at IBM anymore, thought that sale to Lenovo years back was everything?

 

[EverythingIBM]

I didn't know they even had any x86 stuff at IBM anymore, thought that sale to Lenovo years back was everything?

Well there's two misconceptions behind that.
#1 Lenovo started making stuff for IBM as early as 2003
#2 IBM produced x86 systems under the IntelliStation and xSeries labels for a long time after 2005

Lenovo was never given rights to the IntelliStations (to get support for them you have to go to the IBM portal). In fact, Lenovo recycled some of the intellistation chassis briefly for earlier thinkcentres.

IntelliStations are so unknown to a lot of people that many beefed up ones have sold for super cheap.
In 2011 I bought an IntelliStation Z Pro 9228 for $500. It had 16GB of ECC FB-DIMMs, two xeons, four HDDs, and loads of other stuff. It is capable of running a dual SLI as well. One fellow modded his with water cooling and SLI.

The one I use most is pictured above, that's the IntelliStation M Pro 9229. I like it because it's waaaay smaller, quieter, and I get to run a QX6800 (core2 quad extreme). Which are rather uncommon CPUs.

And as you can see, I'm even running the IBM wireless keyboard/mouse combo with it (that's what the IBM dongle is for). I got that brand new for like $15, no one else was watching it... because no one else is aware of modern IBM tech.

IBM did have code names for these intellistations. The engineers put a lot of work into these systems as a going-away present before the IntelliStations got pulled in 2009. *sigh*

The core2 quad extreme @ 2.98 Ghz will be the fastest I'll ever get that poor intellistation M Pro to run. It'll have to last me for awhile... I dread the day I have to switch to a non-IBM computer again.