IBM Corp yesterday replaced its PS/2 Model 90 XP 486 machines with new models that use the 80486DX2-50 and offer enhanced graphics support and ISO-compliant fonts – but as they cost $4,135 with 8Mb and 212Mb disk, $4,665 with 400Mb, they are not likely to find too many takers. The company also enhanced its RAID-3 disk array for HIPPI channels with RAID-1 and RAID-5 capability and announced the 2.0Gb SCSI 3.5 disk for internal use in Micro Channel PS/2s or the PS/2 external enclosure, and is $5,835. There is a new Model 008 for the PS/2 3514 High Availability External Disk Array with base storage capacity of 3.9Gb and a maximum capacity of 13.8Gb; it implements redundant power and concurrent maintenance as well as RAID-5 architecture. It costs a daunting $48,100 with 3.9Gb and the additional 2Gb drives are $5,835 apiece. The Micro Channel Array Adaptor board costs $1,600. IBM also cut prices on some PS/2 displays by up to 16%, with the 8514 colour display now $867. PS/2 Models 56, 57, 76 and 77 prices were also cut by up to 15%. General availability of the System/88 FTX 2.2 Unix and FTX X25 Release 5.0 has been put back to September 24 from March 26.
