Announced May 89. 386 SX, up to 4 MB RAM on the mainboard, more with
an adapter card (The one I own has the strange amount of 1920kB). It
cost $5545.00.
Announced May 89. 386 SX, up to 4 MB RAM on the mainboard, more with
an adapter card (The one I own has the strange amount of 1920kB). It
cost $5545.00.
Its case is slimmer and more elegant, but also less expandable than that of the 50. If you want a second drive of any kind, it has to be external.
The Model 55 SX enhances the Personal System/2 family of systems by offering 32-bit microprocessor compatibility at a price range previously occupied by 16-bit 80286 systems. The desktop system is highlighted by the Micro Channel Architecture with a 16 MHz 80386SX 32-bit microprocessor, high density memory technology and a wide range of integrated features. With the capability of supporting up to 16MB of high speed real memory, 30MB or 60MB of disk storage, advanced graphics and an optional 80387SX Math Co-Processor, this system provides significant performance improvements for 80286 users.
This computer still had IBM PC-DOS 3.3 installed when I bought it, which must have been some time before July 2002. I left it this way, just additionally installed Windows 1.04. That was the first version that supported PS/2 machines, but, unfortunately, not the PS/2 mouse. For now, I put an original Microsoft mouse on the (only) serial port.
I like this Windows version a lot. Besides, having it over 3.3 you really know what you have it for: finally, an easy way to edit autoexec.bat! I never figured out how to use Edlin. This first Windows version comes with only one game, Reversi (included up to 3.0), which is pretty hard, even on the easiest level. I also installed Balance of Power, the only other game I know for Windows 1.x.
In December 2010 I got interested in old Windows versions again and set up a Windows section. I found that Windows 2 runs fine on DOSBox if you set the DOS version to 3, but Windows 1 will always crash. So I dug out this machine again, but it gave me 161/163 errors, which means that the battery is low or dead. The battery is in this case a Dallas clock chip. I don't think I have any spares, or that I'm ready to apply this solution. I put it away again and installed Windows 1 on my 57 SLC3 instead.
Actually I found that my main motivation for installing Windows 1 on this machine was wrong: Windows 1 does not check for the DOS version, you can install it on pretty much everything. (I found it even starts on Windows XP, though none of the programs run.) And since it does not support PS/2 mice, it's a better idea to have it on a machine with with 9-pin serial connectors. Mice with 25-pin connectors are quite rare (I only have a single Logitech mouse with such a connector) and adapters quite bulky and annoying.
On the other hand, this would be a good system to install Windows 2 on, which does check for DOS version number and does support PS/2 mice. If I ever get it up and running again, I'll put in an 8514/A and have me some Windows 2 at 1024×768.