Having chosen the Personal System/2 as the platform to spearhead its move into desktop publishing, IBM has made an embarrassing discovery – if you use its own preferred laser printer, it’s unwise to add anything else to the machine. In the September 1 announcement letters to US customers, IBM has quietly admitted that its Pageprinter Adaptor, when installed in the PS/2 Model 30, uses up so much power that enhancement of the machine with additional boards may be limited. A user filling both slots that remain after the Pageprinter Adaptor is installed runs the risk of burning out the PS/2’s power supply. According to the company, the Model 30 allots 4 Amps of power to option cards. Since the Pageprinter Adaptor, for use in conjunction with the IBM SolutionPac Personal Publishing System, requires about 2.4 Amps, only 1.6 Amps remain available for extra cards. And since, as IBM says, many popular board require about 1.5 Amps, the Model 30 with an installed Pageprinter Adaptor may, in some situations, take only one more board. The 20 Watts available to option cards on the Model 30 is an unusually small amount of power; an IBM AT has over 100 Watts for its option boards.
