[TriLUG] What did the PS in PS/2 stand for?

[Tom Eisenmenger]

Ding ding ding!!!  I think the prize should go to Nick - he's right  
on all counts.  Glad to see there are a few oldtimers like myself  
still around.  The first network I ever set up used a 386 PS/2 MCA  
machine with a 60MB hard drive and 8MB RAM as a server running Novell  
3.11 to support 40 more PS/2s (these with 30MB HDs).

Those were the days, indeed!...  ;-)

Tom Eisenmenger


On Dec 7, 2005, at 3:29 PM, Rick DeNatale wrote:

> On 12/7/05, Carl Crider <c.crider at gmail.com> wrote:
>> pre-SCSI, micro-channel days. "Personal System/2"
>
> Not sure how to parse this statement, but...
>
> The PS/2 (which did indeed stand for Personal System/2) introduced the
> microchannel architecture. Some of the low end models (25 and 30) were
> pretty much a rev on the AT and had ISA busses and ESDI harddrive
> interfaces (but not necessessarily the harddrives themselves). The Mod
> 25 had an integrated monitor a la the original Macintosh.
>
> The higher end PS/2s used MCA busses and SCSI drives, although later
> models like the PS/2E bowed to the inevitable and uses ISA busses.
>
> Someone said that the PS/2 came from the PS/1, in fact it was the
> reverse, the PS/1 was a "home computer" which came out in 1990 to
> re-enter the market surrendered by the PCjr.  The PS/1 name evolved
> into Aptiva. The PS/2 nomenclature was more in line with OS/2. The
> PS/2 line and OS/2 were both announced in 1987, and IIRC concurrently.
>
> Nowadays, besides the mouse/keyboard interface, I beleive that more
> folks associate PS/2 and PS/1 with Sony playstations than with IBM
> computers.
> --
> Rick DeNatale
>
> Visit the Project Mercury Wiki Site
> http://www.mercuryspacecraft.com/
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