![[My 9577]](OConnor_9577.jpg)
Content by Tim O'Connor (original archived HERE). Edited by Major Tom.
9577-DNA 23NPTFZ
This is a wonderful machine. And I've recently had the chance
to make it an even better critter than it was. It's a 33 MHz Bermuda-board
9577, and it's always had the planar limit of 32MB RAM, but the processor's
been upgraded to a 33/133 Kingston Turbochip (AMD K5), and I've replaced the
original XGA card with an XGA-2. Storage capabilities have grown with the
addition of a 200MB IBM disk in addition to the original 540MB Seagate. Also
added a CDROM II and a M-ACPA card, to round out the hardware improvements.
This has been for the longest time my machine of all-work and it does
the job remarkably well. Has been run consistently under OS/2 Warp 4 and
(despite my occasional attempts to do something incredibly stupid) has never
TRAPed once. Under the ol' Intel 486/66 performance was pretty good - but
did noticeably improve with the new AMD chip. Biggest improvements (of course)
seemed to come by way of floating-point math: my SETI@home work unit processing
time dropped & FP-intensive apps like TSPG became much more responsive.
The XGA-2 card had much to do with that performance increase as well...
and of itself was as impressive as the processor upgrade alone.
I realize that the later 77's - the Lacunas - are generally considered
better bets with their L2 Caches, S3 video, IDE support and greater RAM expansion
possibilities. But this 77 is an eminently capable of doing everything I've
needed done... and then some. Now, there's a lot of folks out there that
would be... not impressed by this machine. Frankly... I don't care, it
answers my needs for a rugged dependable box. I don't see blue-screens-of-death,
Unrecoverable-whatsit-exceptions, or have problems with the Registry (what
registry?). Its a nice way to live:)
The kicker is I got this prize for US$25... Thank you IBM!
For Grins & Giggles, here's Sysbench results on the '77. The results
posted for the 9577-DNG were acquired from a hardware twin of my own machine
that I set up for my grandfather, but with Warp 3 as the resident OS instead.
Thought the benchmark differences between Warp 3 & 4 on identical hardware
were... interesting :)
Sysbench 0.9.4e Condensed test results
Warp 4 'stock' Warp 4 'improved' Warp 3, for comparison
Aug 6 2000 Dec 27 2001 Nov 9 2001
Machine name IBM 9577-DNA PS/2 IBM 9577-DNA PS/2 IBM 9577-DNG PS/2
Motherboard Bermuda Bermuda Bermuda
Processor 80486DX 66Mhz AMD 5x86 133MHz step 4.14.4 Intel486DX2(TM) stepping 4.3.5
External cache 0kb 0kb 0kb
Graphics card IBM XGA-1 1MB IBM XGA-2 1MB IBM XGA-2 1MB
Coprocessor Yes Yes Yes
Processors 1 1 1
RAM 32.00 MB 32.00 MB 32.00 MB
Operating System data
OS/2 version 20.40 20.40 20.30
CSDLevel XR04000_ XR0M012_ XR0W040_
FIXLevel Unknown XR0M012_ XR0W040_
Revision number 9.023 9.036 8.264
Priority Dynamic Dynamic Dynamic
Maxwait 3 3 3
Timeslice (32,32) (32,32) (32,32)
Protectonly YES YES NO
Swap file size 20.00MB 30.00MB 2.00MB
...initially 20.00MB 30.00MB 2.00MB
Video data
Resolution 640x480x8 bits/pixel 640x480x8 bits/pixel 640x480x16 bits/pixel
Screen Access Direct Direct Direct
Bank Switched No No No
Bytes/scanline 640 640 1280
Aperture size 307200 307200 614400
PM-Graphics-marks 7.780 13.269 8.631
CPU integer-marks 27.841 33.862 28.152
CPU FP-marks 3.160 5.756 3.222
DIVE-marks 7.899 8.072 8.052
File I/O marks 1142.143 1132.358 1486.130
Memory-marks 30.518 41.695 31.014
Simultaneous I/O 2.438 2.720 2.535
Disk I/O marks C: 14.689 15.316 15.840
Disk I/O marks D: 8.941
You can't consider this good literature but I can't forget my first 9577:
Requiem for 9577-DNG 23THNLT
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