IBM RT 6150?

[Philip Belben]

Jason T wrote:

> Well I finally got the IBM - mine is a 6151/115.  Not sure what the
> last digits signify. Original hard drive?  I didn't think it's like
> IBM to put the hard drive size on the faceplate like that.

Well done!  I have the floor standing one, the 6150.

As someone said, 115 is a model number.  It tells you a lot, if you can 
look it up, but I don't have much 6150 documentation, so I don't think I 
can.

> Keyboard connector - definitely odd.  Fortunately the 'board itself is
> a regular Model M, which made replacing the keys damaged in shipping
> easy.  Unfortunately the cable is not modular on the keyboard end, so
> I'll have to make sure to keep it out of range of the cats :)
> 
> The mouse looks like a strange connector, too.  Unfortunately I got no
> mouse with the system :(

I seem to recall that the 6150 had ribon-header style connectors for 
practically everything, in a little metal shell, and the whole thing in 
a rubber moulding that keyed with the appropriate hole in the back panel.

The mouse port seems to be serial at RS232 levels.  I have the IBM part 
number for the mouse (somewhere).  I phoned IBM to see if I could order 
one, and they said it was discontinued, and the replacement (I suspect a 
PS/2 mouse with an adaptor) would be 150 pounds.  They woudln't tell me 
the part number of the replacement, or of the adaptor, so I gave up at 
that point.

Interesting that you got a standard keyboard.  Mine has the standard 
layout, but slightly different key profile and different colours.

> Don't know how much RAM I've got.  How can I tell?  The system doesn't
> turn the display on until AIX is booting, so if there's a POST screen
> I can't see it.

Isn't there a 7 segment LED on the front for POST display?  Don't think 
it tells you the RAM, though.  Best way to assess RAM is count the 
chips, I'd think :-)

> As everyone noted, it is *heavy*!  I'm used to heavy workstations from
> the mid-80s (Sun 3, SGI and the like) but this one tops the list, at
> least in my collection.
> 
> There is what looks like the standard IBM 37-pin external floppy
> connector on one of the cards.  Is that what it is?  Or maybe for a
> tape drive?  If it's the latter I may even have a drive for it...

I would think floppy.  Floppy drives and stuff were very PC-ish on the 6150.

> All in all an interesting historical footnote machine.  I booted it
> and played Hunt the Wumpus on it last night, so I'm happy with it. :)

I think all I ever managed to do with mine, apart from replace blown 
diodes in the power supply, was run XINIT and do a screen dump to my 
Proprinter XL.  Amazingly, the Proprinter is one of the printers 
supported with PIOBE.  (PIOBE = Printer I/O Backend.  IBM's solution to 
having a common printer interface.)

Philip.