From now on we will require that a prefix is set for any items in the sales area. We have created regions and locations for this. We also require that you select a delivery option before posting your listing.
This will hopefully help us streamline the things that get listed for sales here and help local people better advertise their items, especially for local only sales.
New sales rules are also coming, so stay tuned.
gauging interested in a possible P70 trade? It came to me from a local auction that included other vintage computers (the apple IIgs is what I was mainly after from the lot).
I've only ran it a few times and took the back off.
I've come to the realization that I might never get around to using/restoring it as even though its a neat machine and has its place, it has no nostalgia factor with me and I have WAY too many other projects including a honey do list that takes precedence.
That said, I'd really like this machine to go to someone who will restore it and appreciate it.
Plus as you can see I had hopes of imaging the hard drive. I'd like that done and uploaded.
For trades, I'm searching for an IBM Thinkpad 700 (or variant 720 700c) ps/2 laptop. I had a 700 running windows 3.1 when I was younger and that one had more nostalgia to me.
LMK what you think. I can add more pictures as well if interested.
If they weren't so impossible to find hard disks for I'd offer you a Thinkpad T43 for it, but I guess that'd be a pretty weird machine to try to run Windows 3.1 on. (It's, uhm, the same color, at least?)
I've always wanted one of those plasma screens, but I've resigned myself to the fact that if that's a dream I wanted to live I should have lived it 20 years ago.
I'm working on a P70 right now -- primary challenge so far has been all the leaky caps in the floppy - a bunch to replace. I would imagine this P70 has the same problem. And you need the floppy to run the reference disk, to set the CMOS so the thing can actually boot. gotek would be a possibility, but I would need to make an adapter from the powered connector to the gotek. Looks like a helpful adapter here for that:
I didn't get into mine far enough to even try the floppy. Its sort of a machine I am unfamiliar with and am sort of afraid to start trying to take things apart.
My understanding is it is ESDI. The P75 has SCSI, but the P70 caught this one small window of time when ESDI was a thing. I doubt a CF option for ESDI is going to happen, ESDI seems too obscure for someone to bother making such an adapter. There might have been MCA SCSI boards, that could possibly be an option if you had hard drive issues. But not sure. Or how about a parallel port Zip disk, wonder if that could be an option hah. I'm optimistic my ESDI drive works as it spins up and sounds decent, but I have no idea until I can get this floppy/CMOS situation sorted out.
FWIW, this hard disk type thing was beaten to death in the linked thread. These first gen PS/2s used something that's often called "ESDI", but is actually a completely proprietary-to-these-machines connector that was called "DBA" for "Direct Bus Attachment" in the IBM tech documentation. It doesn't really matter that much because it seems like the majority of "ESDI" hard disks you see on eBay are actually these DBA drives simply because ESDI was a pretty rare and short-lived standard and IBM made a ton of these PS/2s, but strictly speaking, it's a "DBA to (IDE/CF/SD/whatever)" adapter the world needs to save these machines, not true according to hoyle ESDI.
(DBA is more like "IDE, but Microchannel", the card edge in these machines is literally a subset of a Microschannel slot, the actual disk controller is on the drive.)
I am in the PNW, but I am looking for a parts machine to help get my P70 up and running. Specifically, what I need now is the highly model-specific and hard-to-come-by plasma display card for one of these. You wouldn't be willing to part it out, would you?
Thank you! I have an existing non-functional card. I have read a little about re-capping them, but this is one of my first projects so I am a little wary.
I doubt you will find the card. If you are unwilling to repair it see if another member here is willing to work on the video board for you.
I have a "working" P70.. Even has a 486 Overdrive CPU... But since it has a proprietary IBM hard drive and noone as of yet makes a modern replacement.. It doesnt do anything but sit on my shelf.. So even if you get your video working.. You may very well be in the same boat.. Unless you are perfectly fine using it with just a single floppy drive. One of the many reasons I dont collect IBM PS/2 computers (anymore).
Hah, we should all be so lucky to have a working P70 floppy drive I have yet to attempt my recap on the floppy but hopefully soon- old caps have been removed but there is corrosion on the pads.
There are MCA SCSI cards that have BIOSes but they're rare as hen's teeth. There are also IDE adapters which are even rarer, nearly to the point of just being cryptic legends. I wish someone would trace out the schematics of one of the latter, although reverse engineering it will still be a pain because I believe all the ones that don't use a completely indecipherable ASIC still use GALs/PALs.
gotek would be a possibility, but I would need to make an adapter from the powered connector to the gotek. Looks like a helpful adapter here for that:
