My family's first computer.

Around 1988, or late 1987, my parents bought their first computer. We used it for everything from work related tasks (homework) to games. We used it to learn how to use a computer, and we had so many great hours on it. We played Monkey Island and we played Yatze on this machine. And much, much more. This computer, combined with my friends having Amiga's and Commodore64's. Really layed the foundation for my interest in computers and the understanding of what a computer is. How different they can be, and so on. Then fast forward to 2015, and my parents gave me this old machine for my collection. I became the care taker of this beauty of an dinosaur. And what they brought me, was a near complete and perfect machine. Taking the age in perspective that is.

Now. It was in no way, the same condition that it was, when I used it last time in 1993. That was the time I bought my first computer for my own hard earned cash. Yet this machine that they brought me in 2015, was in complete state. The battery had long since depleted, and the plastic had become yellow. There were dust inside, and the printer was missing. However everything was there. The machine was complete down to the manual.

The machine is a Unisys 286 computer, produced in 1987. At least that is what the label on the harddrive say. And it was working, so the heads had been parked back then. Yup... You had to manually park the heads with a piece of software. You simply ran PARK.EXE and the heads were parked, and the computer gave a loud sirene, so loud that you just turned the machine off, because of how loud the sound is.

The computer....
As I wrote. This is a 286 Unisys. Or more correctly, it is a Unisys PW/2 Series 300, and the complete spec's in it's original state is:

 - 80286 CPU running at eighter 8 or 10 Mhz (user selectable)
 - 640kb of Ram. Yes, 640 KiloByte.
 - EGA video/gfx card and EGA monitor.
 - 20mb Harddrive/HDD. Yes. Megabyte.
 - Cherry Keyboard
 - And an early optical mouse that need a special mouse pad.

I serviced the machine, wich was easy, because it only needed a new battery and I cleaned out all the dust. All those years in the dry basement, had proven a wise choice. Then I upgraded it to VGA, threw in a soundcard and installed a 640 megabyte harddrive. I later replaced it with an Adaptec SCSI controller and a 40mb Connor SCSI harddrive, because I have no need for more space. I have more powerfull machines, and like to keep spec's close to what was used back then. And I replaced the floppy disk drive, as the original was all dead and unsalvageable.

I have not been able to find many pictures of this machine on the internet. So in the process, I took a lot of pictures between 2015 and 2016. So I will post them now. Beware... This is a large flood of pictures. And the reason are that there are not really images of this machine to be found on the internet. Better too many pictures, than too little regarding this machine. They are just not the best quality, as I used a different telephone back then. As an exaple, the blue colour on have turned purple and red have become orange. If I find the complete manual that I scanned, then I will upload the file to this blog. I think that I even have image files of the install floppy. If I have it, then I will post it here as well.

Unisys PW/2 Series 300 System Manual 

And now for the images....

These last pictures, are from after I upgraded the machine with new hardware. Well. After I upgraded to IDE harddrive and before I changed it to SCSI. I kept the old parts, so I can always go back to original configuration.... Yay.

Thanks for reading....