Category Archives: IBM

ThinkPad 701 Restore Using CF Media

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Thanks to a kind reader, the OS/2 Museum obtained a file archive of the ThinkPad 701 recovery CD. The 701C/701CS was also known as Butterfly thanks to its unique folding keyboard. The recovery tool appears to have been designed for … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, ThinkPad | 23 Comments

IBM Blue Lightning: World’s Fastest 386?

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Michal Necasek

One of the OS/2 Museum’s vintage boards is a genuine Made in U.S.A. Alaris Cougar. These boards were produced by IBM for Alaris and are a bit unusual: There’s a small IBM DLC3 processor in plastic package soldered on board, … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, IBM, Intel, PC hardware, PC history | 62 Comments

The IBM PC BIOS and Intel ISIS-II

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Michal Necasek

An interesting question recently popped up: How exactly did IBM build the ROM BIOS for the IBM PC? Knowing what tools were used should make it possible to use the ROM listing published in the IBM PC Technical Reference and … Continue reading →

Posted in BIOS, IBM, Intel, PC history | 44 Comments

IBM Power Series Exotica

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Michal Necasek

One might think that for example a ThinkPad Power Series 850 is an uncommon system, but such things are relative. The OS/2 Museum recently learned of not just one but two very rare Power Series systems, one of which is virtually a … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, PowerPC | 7 Comments

IBM OS/2 1.0 in a VM

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Michal Necasek

As previously mentioned, IBM’s OS/2 1.0 and 1.1 is extra unfriendly to modern hypervisors. To recap, there is a curious difference between IBM’s and Microsoft’s kernels in OS/2 1.0/1.1 with regard to mode switching. For reasons that aren’t very clear, … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, Microsoft, OS/2, VirtualBox, Virtualization | 36 Comments

Fantasy History at Ars Technica

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Michal Necasek

Ars Technica today published an article titled “Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2“. Although very interesting, unfortunately the article to a significant extent engages in what can best be called fantasy history, which causes the text … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, Microsoft, OS/2 | 51 Comments

IBM ThinkPad 755CD

Posted on November 16, 2013 by Michal Necasek

An earlier article about PowerPC-based ThinkPad 850 mentioned that the 850 was a close cousin of x86-based ThinkPads of the era. The OS/2 Museum now takes a look at one of those laptops, and interesting laptop in its own right: … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, ThinkPad | 12 Comments

Cracking a ThinkPad 755C

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Michal Necasek

Note: Most of the following information does not apply to any Lenovo-made ThinkPads or even IBM-made ThinkPads manufactured after circa 1999. If you have one of those laptops protected with an unknown password, please look elsewhere. Imagine you bought, found, … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, PC hardware, ThinkPad | 16 Comments

More on LOADALL and OS/2

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Michal Necasek

As previously mentioned, IBM’s OS/2 1.0 and 1.1 used the 286 LOADALL instruction, even on 386 and later processors which do not support it. This was typically solved by BIOS emulation. Now there’s more information about how OS/2 uses LOADALL. … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, Intel, Microsoft | 31 Comments

The Carolina Mystery

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Michal Necasek

On the weekend I decided to examine my old PowerPC 604 system. The case is from a RS/6000 type 7248, but the actual system board is from a Power Series 830. This is the famous Carolina board (or “planar” in … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, PowerPC | 6 Comments