website/content/museum/ibm-rt-6150.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
IBM RT (6150)	Computers	Professional Computer	U.S.A.	1986	ROMP RISC processor	name image company company_name specs tabs forum_thread photos oc_id source RT (6150) /media/museum/photos/ibm_6150_system_1.jpg /companies/ibm IBM label value NAME RT (6150) label value MANUFACTURER IBM label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR late 1986 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE None label value KEYBOARD Special RT 102-key keyboard, PC-AT layout. label value CPU ROMP RISC processor label value SPEED 5.88, 10 or 12.5 MHz (170, 100 or 80ns cycle time) label value CO-PROCESSOR Memory Management Unit (MMU), optional 20 MHz Motorola 68881 Math coprocessor label value RAM From 1 MB to 16 MB label value ROM Unknown label value TEXT MODES 80 chars. x 25 lines label value GRAPHIC MODES 720 x 512 (mono or colour), 1024 x 768 (mono) label value COLORS 16 label value SOUND Beeper label value SIZE / WEIGHT Unknown label value I/O PORTS 2 x serial ports label value BUILT IN MEDIA 1 or 2 5.25'' 1.2 MB floppy disc drives\ Up to three 40 MB or 70 MB hard disks label value OS AIX, based on Unix System V, MS-DOS 3.2 label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in power supply unit label value PRICE From £9800 photos 848 title subtitle text image BACK SIDE No doubt, the 6150 hardware is very reliable and designed for a long use. /media/museum/photos/ibm_6150_back_1.jpg 867 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230609145511/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=867 2023-06-09

The IBM RT (or PC/RT or 6150 in Europe) was a 32-bit RISC machine. In fact 'RT' meant 'RISC Technology' where RISC itself was initials of Reduced Instruction Set Computers. This machine was IBM's first try into the single-user workstation world and was the ancestor of the RS/6000 range.

The advantages of RISC technology were smaller processor chips, since they needed less on-chip storage for the instruction set, faster signal transfer between devices, and faster instruction execution since the reduced set was designed so that most instructions was executed in a single clock cycle.

The RISC processor of the 6150 was called ROMP for Reshearch Office Products Division. Its study started in IBM Texas labs in 1977 and a prototype form ran in 1978

There were two RT models, the floor-standing 6150 and the desktop 6151. The differences between them lie in the positioning of some I/O ports and in the storage options available. Despite processor incompatibility with MS-DOS software, the 6150 could run PC software thanks to a PC expansion card holding a Intel 80286 and designed to fit in one of the AT compatible slots of the 6150. the motherboard featured four 32-bit expansion slots to hold the ROMP board, an optional floating-point accelerator board, and two 2 MB RAM boards; two 8-bit and six 16-bit PC slots.

The 6150 operating system was called AIX for Advanced Interactive eXecutive. It succeded to IBM OSes. In fact, it was just an Unix System V with Berkeley 4.2 enhancements and IBM adds for the 6150 environment. Among these adds, the VRM (Virtual Ressource Manager) handled the interface between the Unix kernel and the specific 6150 harware it ran on. A DOS shell was also provided for MS-DOS applications.

Nowadays, one finds RISC processors mainly in numerous small devices like PalmTops or mobile phones. Apple and IBM also use them today, the biggest examples being the PowerPC 7455 (G4) and PowerPC G5 Processor, mostly used in the Power Macintosh and Powerbook series of computers. Many Proprietary Unix systems used them up until only a few years ago (Sun, Silicon Graphics).