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960000 - MAD Began
As I wrote in the Still Crazy top page, I got infected with MCA virus around
in June 1996. I happened to get my 1st MCA system, 5551-NAB, together with a
5551-Txx and a 5530-Txx. 5551-NAB was a 486DX2/66 system and the latter two
were 386DX-20 systems. I knew that all of these systems were very expensive
when they were introduced to the market. I didn't have enough knowledge to
upgrade 386 machines. It seemed to be difficult to get overdrive CPUs or to get
hard drives with larger capacity to meet with it's "strange" interface...
Pentium 75/90 were already up on the market and Compaq Prolinea series were
sold relatively cheap (though my financial situation didn't allow me to pay for
one of those Pentium clones). I decided to scrap those 386 systems and use
5551-NAB as my main system. For long time, I had dreamed to own a PC system
with a 486DX2/66 in it. OK, my way of PS/55 started.
I was very lucky that my 5551-N came with associated User's Manual which
explained about system configuration. I had no experience with AT clones except
"ISA" based PS/55 55note N23SX. 5551-N and N23SX were very different with each
other but the way for system set-up using reference diskette was similar and I
myself had been familiar with it.
Installed Win 3.1J on the box, transferred some files stored in my PS/55
note N23SX. 51-N run so nicely. 486DX2/66 handled most of Win 3.1J based
applications flawlessly. Yeah, that was the way, aha-ha-ha, I liked. And I got
INFECTED with MCA virus. No vaccine has been ever made...
In the end of the year, I planned to upgrade Win 3.1J to Windows 95. 51-N
had a built-in SCSI. what I needed were SCSI CD-ROM and an "external SCSI
cable". There I noticed 51-N (and PS/55s) was very different from other
computers.
"Don't you have a SCSI cable for PS/55 for sale?"
"What? SCSI cable for *PS/55*? Man, PS/55 is a relic of the past! Get a new
one from Compaq"...
Back in Tokyo, at a PC store in Akihabara, I could get a cable exactly noted
to be used with IBM PS/55 which was the last stock of the shop. It was really
expensive. I paid JY9,800 for a SCSI cable! 50 pin SCSI cable for AT clone or
for Japanese defacto standard "PC98" by NEC cost about JY2,000. It is said "In
for a penny, in for a pound". I got a Reply SVGA /A, Reply Vibra 16 and an
overdrive CPU kit consisting AMD 5x86-133 and an interposer. Also got a
28.8Kbps external modem and Windows 95A.
I tried to install Win95 on 5551-NAB. It was not so easy. I got a bunch of
error messages during installation. It was the first time for me to install
Win95 and I didn't know much about it. It took few days to let Win95 recognize
Reply SVGA properly and then another one week for Reply Vibra 16. I couldn't
understand error message such as "Video initialize failure", "MCA bus time out
error" and so on.
I don't remember how I got rid out these errors to use these adapters on my
5551-N. But anyway I could install Windows 95 on 51-N successfully after
running setup.exe more than 50 times. Back in those days I was alone in my MCA
hobby, I mean I had no friends around me who knew about MCA, computers and
software. I just could get information from some PC magazines which provided
tips and FAQs about clone PCs and DOS/Windows 95 but nothing about MCA. Setting
up external modem and BBS communication software, I accessed to Nifty Serv and
reached to FIBMJ Bulletin Board #4 titled PS/55 & PS/2. A bunch of
information about MCA and PS/55 were there but I could not understand what the
people in the Forum talked about. Following 6 months I sometimes visited the
forum and read postings. Day by day, the virus became active. It had been
multiplying and developing deep inside me. I downloaded whole of the log files
stored in the forum and read very comments in every threads. I learned a lot
about my 5551-N and other PS/55s.
I named my 5551-NAB "Nancy".
MAD begun in a little apartment room in Osaka where I lived alone away from
my family.
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