IBM PS/2 E
| Industry | Computer hardware |
|---|---|
| Products | Personal computers |
The PS/2 E, also known as the Energy model (IBM 9533), belongs to IBM's Personal System/2 series of personal computers. Distinguished as the first PC to meet Energy Star standards, it gained recognition for its minimal power usage and significant incorporation of recycled materials in its casing.
Specifications
Equipped with an IBM 486SLC2 processor, the PS/2 E operated at 50MHz with a 16KB L1 cache on a 25MHz system bus, effectively doubling the bus frequency. Since it did not include an external L2 cache typical of other 486 models, overall performance largely relied on the internal L1 cache.
The system featured an ISA expansion slot accessible via a riser card, supporting one ISA adapter. Certain variants were outfitted with either a specialized adapter providing four PCMCIA slots or a network interface card compatible with Ethernet or Token Ring networks, facilitating use as a diskless workstation. Optional peripherals comprised various PCMCIA cards, a color LCD display, and a touch-screen edition running a modified OS/2 operating system.
Its design borrowed components from IBM's ThinkPad laptop line, including both the 1.44MB floppy drive and hard disk drives. The chassis utilized recycled plastic materials and was engineered for straightforward recycling processes. The power supply unit was fanless, passively cooled, and consumed no more than 24 watts at peak load.
Design
Inside, the PS/2 E housed a standard-sized internal PC speaker alongside two SIMM memory slots supplemented by additional onboard soldered RAM. The integrated XGA-2 graphics adapter included 1MB of video memory and interfaced through the ISA bus rather than the conventional MCA bus found in other PS/2 systems. As with all models in the Personal System/2 lineup, any hardware modifications necessitated reconfiguring the system settings via the provided reference diskette.