Thread by @RetroTechChris

No need to adjust your television set, I promise you are not seeing double! But the error message on the screen is a "clue" as to why I now have two IBM PS/2 Model 30 286 systems. Let's talk about what I did this time... I guess we need to do a 🧵

Well, first, let's clean up the new one. Oh boy, it is ever dirty!! Here's a before an after... I failed at getting a clear after picture. Sorry, no refunds 🤣

Let's test out the HDD. Woah!! It WORKS!! It does have a bad sector or two, but that's pretty incredible.

How about the FDD? It didn't work right off the bat. But after a cleaning, it is good to go!!

Alright, sorry, I got sidetracked again. So, let's talk about why I bought this. I powered up my one and only PS/2 Model 30 286 a week or so ago to test out PicoMEM 2. But, prior to my testing, the memory test was failing. What I didn't know at the time is I had a bad SIMM.

Usually when this happens, due to the nature of these SIMMs, I have to take a volt meter probe and adjust the pins a bit like I am doing here. But stupid me used a screwdriver and broke one of the pins (not shown). Ugh

So, my solution was to get a new planar, but getting a complete system was cheaper. Now I regret not getting one at the System Source Swap Meet a few weeks back. They were like $20 bucks. My best offer of $75 was accepted though from eBay!

Alright, so, let's keep going. I swapped over my GlitchWorks Dallas replacement chip and popped in the two working SIMMs I have. We at least have 2MB which is a lot for a 286 really!

Next up, since I do have an XTIDE-CF in here, and I like the capacity, I wanted to configure it to boot from the CF card, which is drive D. We can do that by hand, but it is a pain.

I grabbed the AT "Long" version of the latest XTIDE BIOS, and once I recalled the type of EEPROM in this, I configured it and flashed it, with a default boot device of 0x81

Fortunately all of that was a success. I didn't grab a picture of the boot screen, so here's a nice picture of the cover off the system instead 😂. Oh, another thing I did: I swapped the power supply from the "old" system since the one in this one was filthy!!

With all of this out of the way, I finally did test the PicoMEM 2. After configuring it to only use one IRQ, it worked pretty good! Unfortunately my networking didn't work, but I am sure Freddy will get that fixed soon 🤣

Anyway, this is fun. So, what will be the fate of the other PS/2 Model 30 286? Either parts.. or I'll give it to someone who is more skilled than me and can solder in new 30 pin SIMM sockets. But that is it for now, thx for following along!

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