Resellers are pawing the ground waiting for the delayed bottom-end models of the RS/6000, IBM Corp this week came out with new mid-range models and withdrew the 530, 540 and 730 from marketing effective January 2, devaluing any machines its resellers may have in inventory. There is only one replacement model, the 530H, which comes with 33MHz processor and 32Mb memory, and a 400Mb disk standard. There is also a conversion option for 520 users to the 530E – functionally equivalent but not identical to the 530H, and from the 530H to the 550E. The 530H is available immediately, the upgrade from the 520 to 530E follows in November, and from the 530H to 550E, June 1992 – E models The 530H offers up to 512Mb, up to 2.5Gb of internal disk, and 23.9Gb of external disk. The 530H is claimed to offer a substantial gain in fixed and floating point performance over the existing 520 and 530 systems. It has seven Micro Channel slots. The 400Mb disk is already on other RS/6000s and needs 3.5 mounting hardware. The 530H with 32Mb and the 400Mb disk costs $31,500, an additional 400Mb disk is $5,600. Converting to a 530E model from a 520 costs $16,500 and going from a 530H to a 550E is $17,500.
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