Thread by @gravislizard

I've been trying to buy a PS/2 Model 25 on ebay for years because they're among the precious few all-in-one PCs ever made, plus they're first-party IBM *and* they're tiny. they rarely show up however and when they do they're usually trashed.

Two showed up on ebay a few days ago and I had to scramble to figure out what their specs were. In the process I found out that most model 25s are even worse than i thought

I hadn't been quite sure what specs they ever had, but I wasn't too concerned, it's a novelty more than anything. Still, once I got into it I discovered that they made three models - 8086s, 286s and 386s, all of which look exactly identical

The 8086 ones sometimes have monochrome displays (ouch!!) and the color models have MCGA which is like VGA but worse, with no EGA modes (ouch!!!!!)

well unsurprisingly the 8086 models seem to be the most common, and that just sucks - I don't want a machine that has basically no standard video modes

the 286s had VGA, but the 286 was a horrible CPU - it was such a failure intel cancelled the x86 line and it only got restarted because of some enterprising engineers who partially skunkworks-ed the 386 together. i don't want to spend $250 on a machine with no virtual 8086 mode.

then there's the 386 models, the 8086-SX, which have been LGRed into oblivion. so the options end up being
- 8086 with horrible incompatible graphics modes
- 286 with VGA for $200 (oof)
- 386 with VGA but it's $650 (OOF)

i'm bummed! i want a little all in one PC! there were so few ever made! I already have the Compaq CDS524 but it's pretty big and has an ugly screen.

if anyone has a model 25 they want to part with let's talk, price might be right. only thing i don't want is a monochrome one, and if it's mcga i'm gonna lowball you haha.