[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Simple IBM Instructions
November 4th, 2013 by Benj Edwards
Step 1: Plug the monitor into the computer.
This roughly 7″ x 10″ sheet came packed with my brother’s 486SX 25MHz IBM PS/1 computer, which my dad bought him right before he started college. (Ah, the days when 486 was king.)
We were still installing programs off 5.25″ floppies then, and boy was that an adventure when the PS/1 insisted that its 3.5″ floppy drive was drive A:. Most programs assumed that drive A: in MS-DOS was always a 5.25″ drive (with the 3.5″ drive, if present, being drive B:), which screwed up many install scripts when you had to install off a set of 5.25″ disks.
What the sheet shows is almost mind-numbingly self-explanatory — how to hook the monitor up to the computer. It reminds me of these ridiculous USB plug-in instructions.
By the way, I left the authentic mold stains on the scan because I think they add character. The back of the sheet is blank.
Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever owned an IBM brand computer when it was new?
November 5th, 2013 at 9:53 am
And people say computers are hard. 😛
I’ve never owned an IBM new or old, sadly. Plenty of clones, though.
November 5th, 2013 at 12:37 pm
I never owned a genuine IBM machine but I did buy IBM’s OS/2 Warp in 1994, which was generating a lot of buzz that summer for some reason.
Unfortunately, the hardware support wasn’t there. It would only support 640×480 on my monitor, which alone was a deal breaker. The holy grail at the time was to be able to simultaneously download software over the 2400 baud modem and do something, anything, else (play minesweeper, write a note, etc.). Windows 3.0 couldn’t do it. OS/2 should have been able to do it, but none of my comm software worked with it. So it was a total bust.
November 6th, 2013 at 9:04 pm
I’ve never owned a new IBM computer, but I was given an improved XT a little over a year ago. It belonged to my grandfather, and it needs a little repair before it will be working again. But I have a feeling that it was bought either when it was new, or when it was gently used.
November 9th, 2013 at 3:29 pm
Whenever I think of IBM pc’s I think of ugly beige boxes, orange toggle power switches, and Token Ring connectors. I guess it’s due to the era when I was exposed to them the most.
November 9th, 2013 at 11:41 pm
I used two PS/2 (Models 30 and P70).
November 13th, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Note how the instructions say nothing of plugging the computer into the wall. I wonder how many people were hopelessly confused by that?