IBM RT PC

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IBM RT PC
(RISC Technology Personal Computer)
AIX
Academic Operating System
Pick
CPUIBM ROMP
Memory1 MB RAM, expandable to 16 MB
SuccessorIBM RS/6000
RelatedIBM PC AT

The IBM RT PC (RISC Technology Personal Computer) is a family of

AIX, the Academic Operating System (AOS), and Pick
.

The RT PC's specifications were regarded as "less than impressive" compared to contemporary workstations by its competitors in that particular market, although the product was deemed deserving of "a healthy amount of respect", particularly with the prospect of IBM as "a serious competitor" who, despite having a product whose performance was an estimated 18 months behind other vendors, would potentially be able to catch up quickly by applying the company's renowned technological capabilities.

RS/6000 workstations in 1990, which used a new IBM-proprietary RISC processor, the POWER1
. All RT PC models were discontinued by May 1991.

Hardware

Two basic types were produced: a floor-standing desk-side tower (IBM 6150), and a desktop (IBM 6151).[2] Both types featured a special board slot for the processor card, as well as machine-specific RAM cards. Each machine had one processor slot, one co-processor slot, and two RAM slots.

There were three versions of the processor card:

  • The Standard Processor Card or 032 card had a 5.88 
    floating point coprocessor. This processor card was used in the original RT PC models (010, 020, 025, and A25) announced on January 21, 1986.[3][4]

All RT PCs supported up to 16 MB of memory. Early models were limited to 4 MB of memory because of the capacity of the DRAM ICs used, later models could have up to 16 MB. I/O was provided by eight

ISA bus slots. Storage was provided by a 40 or 70 MB hard drive, upgradeable to 300 MB. External SCSI cabinets could be used to provide more storage. Also standard were a mouse and either a 720×512 or 1024×768 pixel-addressable display, and a 4 Mbit/s Token Ring network adapter or 10BASE2 Ethernet
adapter.

For running CADAM, a computer-aided design (CAD) program, an IBM 5080 or 5085 graphics processor could be attached. The 5080 and 5085 were contained in a large cabinet that would have been positioned alongside the RT PC. The 5080 was used with a 1,024- by 1,024-pixel IBM 5081 display.[7][8]

6152 Academic System

Main article:
IBM Personal System/2 § 6152 Academic System

The 6152 Academic System was a PS/2 Model 60 with a RISC Adapter Card, a

TCP/IP
interface.

Software

One of the novel aspects of the RT design was the use of a microkernel. The keyboard, mouse, display, disk drives and network were all controlled by a microkernel, called Virtual Resource Manager (VRM), which allowed multiple operating systems to be booted and run at the same time. One could "hotkey" from one operating system to the next using the Alt-Tab key combination. Each OS in turn would get possession of the keyboard, mouse and display. Both AIX version 2 and the Pick operating system were ported to this microkernel. Pick was unique in being a unified operating system and database, and ran various accounting applications. It was popular with retail merchants, and accounted for about 4,000 units of sales.

The primary operating system for the RT was AIX version 2. Much of the AIX v2 kernel was written in a variant of the

C and Fortran programming languages
were available.

Some RT PCs were also shipped with the Academic Operating System (AOS), an IBM port of

NFS, and an almost ANSI C-compliant C compiler
. A later version of AOS existed that was derived from 4.3BSD-Reno, but it was not widely distributed.

The RT forced an important stepping-stone in the development of the X Window System, when a group at Brown University ported X version 9 to the system. Problems with reading unaligned data on the RT forced an incompatible protocol change, leading to version 10 in late 1985.

Sales and market reception

The IBM RT had a varied life even from its initial announcement. Most industry watchers considered the RT as "not enough power, too high a price, and too late."[

IBM's Personal Computer line of computers. This confusion started with its initial name, "IBM RT PC". Initially, it seemed that even IBM thought that it was a high-end Personal Computer given the initially stunning lack of support that it received from IBM. This could be explained by the sales commission structure the IBM gave the system: salesmen received commissions similar to those for the sale of a PC. With typically configured models priced at $20,000, it was a hard sell, and the lack of any reasonable commission lost the interest of IBM's sales force.[citation needed
]

Both

floating point performance was poor,[citation needed] and was scandalized mid-life with the discovery of a bug in the floating point square root routine.[citation needed
]

With the RT system's modest processing power (when first announced), and with announcements later that year by some other workstation vendors, industry analysts questioned IBM's directions. AIX for the RT was IBM's second foray into UNIX (its first was PC/IX for the IBM PC in September 1984.) The lack of software packages and IBM's sometimes lackluster support of AIX, in addition to sometimes unusual changes from traditional, de facto UNIX operating system standards, caused most software suppliers to be slow in embracing the RT and AIX. The RT found its home mostly in the CAD/CAM and CATIA markets, with some inroads into the scientific and educational areas, especially after the announcement of AOS and substantial discounts for the educational community. The RT running the Pick OS also found use as shopping store control systems, given the strong database, accounting system and general business support in the Pick OS. The RT also did well as an interface system between IBM's larger mainframes, due to its SNA and DS support, and some of its point-of-sale terminals, store control systems, and machine shop control systems.

Approximately 23,000 RTs were sold over its lifetime, with some 4,000 going into IBM's development and sales organizations. Pick OS sales accounted for about 4,000 units.

When the RT PC was introduced in January 1986, it competed with several workstations from established providers: the Apollo Computer Domain Series 3000, the DEC MicroVAX II, and Sun Microsystems Sun-3.[10]

As part of the NSFNET backbone

In 1987, "The NSF starts to implement its T1 backbone between the supercomputing centers with 24 RT-PCs in parallel implemented by IBM as ‘parallel routers’. The T1 idea is so successful that proposals for T3 speeds in the backbone begin. Internet History of 1980s

The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was the forerunner of the Internet. From July 1988 to November 1992, the NSFNET's T1 backbone network used routers built from multiple RT PCs (typically nine) interconnect by a Token Ring LAN.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b Chandler, David (March 1986). "The Monthly Report". UNIX Review. pp. 8, 10, 12, 14–16, 18, 20. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
  2. ^ Jackson, Peter (January 1987). "IBM 6150" (PDF). Personal Computer World. pp. 138–139, 142–144. Retrieved 3 January 2024.
  3. ^ "IBM 6150 Rt Personal Computer Models 020, 025, and A25 IBM 6151 Rt Personal Computer Model 010". 21 January 1986.
  4. ^ Sager, Ira (27 January 1986). "IBM Retargets Tech Market with RISC-based UNIX System". Electronic News.
  5. ^ "IBM Rt Personal Computer (Rt Pc) (Tm) New Models and Additional Features". 17 February 1987.
  6. ^ "IBM Rt (Tm) System New Models". 19 July 1988.
  7. ^ Derfler, Jr., Frank J. (10 June 1986). "Is There a Workstation in Your Future?". PC Magazine. pp. 110–113, 115.
  8. ^ Peddie, Jon (2013). The History of Visual Magic in Computers. Springer. pp. 172–173.
  9. ^ Garfinkel, Simson L. (May–June 1989). "Ripples Across the Academic Market" (PDF). Technology Review. pp. 9–13. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  10. ^ Seymour, Jim (10 June 1986). "Marketing the IBM RT PC". PC Magazine. p. 114.
  11. S2CID 3013869
    .

Further reading
  • Waters, Frank; Henry, G Glen (1986). IBM RT Personal Computer Technology. IBM Engineering System Products. — IBM Pub SA23-1057-00
  • Duntemann, Jeff; Pronk, Ron (1994). Inside the PowerPC Revolution. Coriolis Group Books. — Chapter 5 describes the origins of the PowerPC architecture in the IBM 801 and RT PC. [1]

External links

This entry incorporates text from the RT/PC FAQ .

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