IBM duly announced its long-forecast personal computer for the education market – as the Personal System/2 Model 25 – yesterday, but the rest of the announcement was a bit of a let-down with no diskless workstation or downsized version of the Model 50, only a 314Mb disk for the Model 80. The 512Kb 8MHz 8086-based Model 25 is 40% smaller than the original Personal and twice as fast, but at $1,350 with a single 720Kb 3.5 floppy and built-in mono monitor is not particularly keenly priced. It also comes in a Collegiate variant for higher education. It is derived from the Model 30, using the same motherboard with floppy controller, MultiColor Graphics Array, and serial, parallel, mouse and keyboard ports, but IBM says only that most applications that run on the 30 with two floppies will run on a similarly configured 25, which does have slots, two of them. It comes with choice of a new compact IBM Space-Saving Keyboard without numeric keypad, or an IBM Enhanced PC Keyboard. Options include a second floppy and 128Kb memory module. The Collegiate version includes the second floppy and 128Kb memory, Microsoft Windows 1.04, the PS/2 Mouse, IBM PC-DOS 3.3 and all the tools that enable stu-dents and teachers to edit text and create and print composite documents containing multi-font text and graphics. The Collegiate Kit is $314, the second floppy is $170, 128Kb memory is $49, and the colour version of the Model 25 is $1,695. The box is available now in the US, with the Space-Saving Keyboard; those who want the Enhanced Keyboard will have to wait till October and pay an additional $45. The new 80386-based Model 80 provides 314Mb fixed disk storage, expandable up to a maximum of 628Mb using a new 314Mb Fixed Disk Drive Option, and a Model 80 with 2Mb CPU, 1.44Mb floppy, 314Mb 5.25 Winchester and seven slots is $13,995. The new disk costs $6,495, both from first quarter 1988 in the US.
