PC question

From: Marvin <marvin_at_rain.org>
Date: Mon Apr 26 00:36:13 1999

Megan wrote:
>
> Yesterday, at the KS10 move, I came away with two IBM PCs, but I
> don't know enough about them to know if they are the AT or XT
> models... they both have a 5.25" floppy and a hard drive, and
> both have color monitors.

IBM PC - 5 slots, 8 bit card connectors, 63.5 watt P/S, 0 - 2 360K floppy
disk drives, 4116 or 4164 memory chips depending on motherboard, and a
maximum of 256K RAM on the motherboard. The keyboard does not include
separate cursor keys. The front nameplace will have IBM Personal Computer on
it.

IBM XT - 8 slots, 8 bit card connectors (one connector per slot), 150 watt
P/S, 1 or 2 360K floppy disk drives, Hard disk, can't recall memory chips
but I believe 4164 up to 256K RAM on motherboard, same keyboard as the PC.
The front nameplate will have IBM Personal Computer XT on it.

IBM AT - 8 slots, 16 bit card connectors (two connectors per slot), IIRC 200
watt P/S, 1 or 2 floppy drives: if one, then 1.2 MB Floppy disk, if two,
could be one 1.2 MB floppy and one 360K, or two 1.2 MB drives, up to 512K
RAM of 41256 chips on motherboard (early ones used piggy back chips), AT
keyboard with separate cursor keys. Can't recall what the front nameplate
has on it, but the case (besides being bigger than the XT case) has an
additional reset switch, keylock switch, and "power on" LED on the front
panel.

Modifications can change the above configurations, and one of the common
mods was to put a hard drive in a PC by replacing the P/S with a 150 watt
P/S and adding the HD controller. Clone PC/XT cases could also have the same
front panel switches as the IBM AT. Lots more possibilities but I think this
takes care of the most common cases (pun intended :) .)
Received on Mon Apr 26 1999 - 00:36:13 BST

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