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General information
5510 series were introduced to the consumer market to spread out IBM
Japan's DOS/V technology.
PS/55s ( with 386DX processor and Japanese Display Adapter ) were mainly
targeted to the business market and they were very expensive.
Especially PS/55 Japanese display adapters designed for high resolution
graphic environment were very expensive and pushed up prices of PS/55s.
In order to confront NEC PC 9801, and to extend the superiority of DOS/V
architecture against Japanese specific "closed" architecture relating handling
of Japanese characters. DOS/V architecture enabled any IBM PC/AT
and PS/2 based computers to handle Japanese characters just with
VGA video sub-system, 80286 and upper CPUs and with 2MB of system memory.
IBM needed cheap and competitive priced PC for their new DOS. Thus
PS/55Z 5510 series were put on the market shortly after IBM DOS J4.0/V
had been announced.
DOS J4.0/V was based on POC DOS 4.0 and some programs for
handling of Japanese characters were added such as $FONT.SYSm, $DISP.SYS,
$IAS.SYS and Japanese Font Files.
If these drivers are not loaded, DOS 4.0/V acted just like as pure
PC DOS 4.0 and compatible with any of software written in English but once
those drivers are loaded it provides Japanese environment.
CHEV command allows changing of Japanese and English environment (
basically within Japanese environment ) while SWITCH command
rebooting a system with real English ( PC DOS ) environment without DOS/V
related drivers.
Following version, DOS J5.0
included PS/55 high resolution mode for existing PS/55 Display adapters
and softwares written for IBM DOS J4.0 along with DOS/V drivers.
DOS J5.02 was the last release which supports PS/55 High-Resolution together
with DOS/V VGA resolution.
There are two versions of J5.0 and J5.02 with " /V " extension
which does not contain PS/55 High Resolution mode.
PC DOS 6.1/6.3/7.0 and 2000 are all based on DOS/V only and do not
support PS/55 High-Resolution.
5510-Z ( Z02/ZJ2, Z04/ZJ4
) released in May 1991
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5510-Z was an AT BUS system with 80286-12MHz
CPU and was
defined as " Entry model".
As you can see, front face of 10-Z looks like PS/2 model 8576.
CPU; 286-12
Memory; 1MB
FDD; 2Mode drive ( Z02 and ZJ2 were
equipped with 2 drives )
Video; VGA 256KB VRAM.
HD; IDE 40MB for Z04 and ZJ4.
Price 5510-Z02( basic model ) ; JY198,000
ZJ2 and ZJ4 were shipped with DOS J4.0/V |
5510-S ( S01/SV1, SV4,
SW4 ) Released Dec. 1991
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5510-S was not an MCA system. It was based on
AT architecture.
10-S was introduced to the market to take over 5510-Z ( 286 CPU )
model and as a reference machine to test compatibility of hardwares
and softwares for DOS/V specification.
CPU; 386SX-16
Memory; 2MB
FDD; 2Mode
drive
Video; VGA 512KB VRAM.
( WD90C11A-LR VGA chip on the planar )
Capable for 800 x 600 SVGA mode.
HD;
IDE 40MB for SV4 and SW4.
SV1 ( FD model ) came with set of floppies of IBM DOS J5.0/V |
| Type |
HDD |
FDD |
RAM |
OS |
Price |
marketed |
| SV1 |
----- |
1 |
2MB |
DOS J5.0/V
( Floppies ) |
JY 264,000 |
Dec. 1991 |
| SV4 |
40MB |
1 |
2MB |
DOS J5.0/V |
JY 358,000 |
Dec. 1991 |
| SW4 |
40MB |
1 |
2MB |
DOS J5.0/V
and Win3.0 |
JY 465,000 |
Dec.1991 |
5510-T First
model was released in May 1991.
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5510-T was not so cheap as PS/55Z but cheaper
than MCA models with Japanese Display adapter.
This model was equipped with a 386DX CPU though it was classified under
PS/55Z. I do not know difference between this model and 5540-T aside
from the fact that 40-T can't take XGA while 10-T can ).
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CPU; 386DX-20
Memory; 2MB
FDD; 2Mode
drive
Video; VGA 256KB
VRAM
Later model was sold along a 1MB XGA /A.
HD;
40MB ( ESDI ? not sure. ) |
| Type |
HDD |
FDD |
Video |
RAM |
OS |
Price |
Marketted |
| T04 |
40MB |
1 |
VGA |
2MB |
DOS J5.0/V
( Floppies ) |
JY 358,000 |
May 1991 |
| TJ4 |
40MB |
1 |
VGA |
2MB |
DOS J5.0/V |
JY 554,000 |
May 1991 |
| T08 |
80MB |
1 |
XGA |
2MB |
DOS J5.0/V |
JY 628,000 |
Dec. 1991 |
| TW8 |
80MB |
1 |
XGA |
6MB |
DOS J5.0/V
and Win3.0 |
JY 751,000 |
Dec. 1991 |
PS/55 Index Page
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