IBM PC Company Enhances Its Popular PS/2 56 and 57 With Industry's First Clock Tripler Microprocessor

SOMERS, N.Y., Feb. 1, 1994 . . . The IBM PC Company today introduced an enhanced version of its popular PS/2* 56 and 57 Micro Channel* systems, which can achieve performance improvements of up to 40 percent1, depending on the application.

The new systems will utilize the industry's first available clock tripler microprocessor, an IBM 486SLC3 75/25 MHz microprocessor with 16 KB cache. The systems come standard with 8 megabytes expandable to 16 megabytes on the system board. The PS/2 56 and 57 have high resolutions XGA-2* graphics to support a variety of Graphics User Interfaces (GUI) and 16- and 32-bit applications.

"The PS/2 56 and 57 client systems are ideal solutions to meet our corporate customers' requirements for business critical applications, such as LAN clients, high-performance multimedia systems, or as a low-cost print server for LANs," said David Andonian, general manager, Premium Systems Brand. "In addition, the enhanced PS/2 56 and 57s will provide continued compatibility and consistency with customer's PS/2 project rollouts, and reinforces our support for Micro Channel architecture in Premium client systems."

The PS/2 56 and 57 486SLC3 are available with a choice of 170 MB**, 245 MB or 340 MB hard drives, as well as a 540 MB hard drives on the PS/2 57. The PS/2 56 medialess models also are available for Token-Ring and Ethernet LANs.

In addition, the enhanced PS/2 57 486SLC3 is available in multimedia configurations -- the PS/2 M57. This system comes equipped with an integrated audio subsystem, including the sophisticated Audiovation* sound card. Using Mwave* programmable digital signal processing, the card allows for high-quality digital sound for business audio, speech recognition and text-to-speech applications, among others.

The M57 also includes a double speed CD-ROM XA drive, supporting multisession Kodak Photo CD*** and CD-XA capability. These multimedia systems are available with a choice of 245 MB or 540 MB hard drives.

The PS/2 56 and 57s work with a variety of monitors, including IBM's new high performance P series and V series color monitors. In addition, software is available to control these or other power-managed monitors, reducing monitor power consumption to a level that complies with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Program.

List prices for fully-configured PS/2 56 and 57s start at $2.300. Dealers price may vary.

IBM also has made available a Processor Upgrade Card to allow customers using the PS/2 56/57SX, 56/57SLC and 56/57SLC2 to take advantage of the 486SLC3 microprocessor; for processor intensive, non-floating point applications, performance increases of up 424 percent, 187 percent and 40 percent respectively2 are possible depending on the application. The card lists for $535. Dealers price may vary.

The PS/2 56 and 57s come with HelpWare*, which includes a three-year, on-site service warranty and four-hour average response time, set-up, usage and service assistance around-the-clock, seven-days-a-week, via telephone, bulletin board or automated fax, and a 30-day money back guarantee. The HelpCenter telephone number is 1-800-772-2227.

Micro Channel systems occupy a very important segment of the PC industry. Since 1987, more than 8 million Micro Channel PS/2s have been installed worldwide. Customers select PS/2s for their most important networked business applications because of the many benefits of PS/2s and the Micro Channel architecture, such as reliability, manageability, plug and play capability for easy installation and and configurability, and performance in multitasking environments. These new systems provide IBM's continuing support to our customer's investment in the Micro Channel technology, and address a broad range of business requirements.

Headquartered in Somers, N.Y., IBM PC Company is the industry's leading vendor of personal computers. IBM introduced the first PC to use the Intel microprocessor in August, 1981, and helped spawn the multibillion-dollar personal computer industry. Today, the company develops, manufactures, markets and distributes a variety of PCs -- from subnotebooks to high-end servers -- as well as a complete line of monitors, peripherals and accessories, in more than 140 countries.

1 Relative performance measured using application execution times under BAPCo Sys Mark92***

2 Relative performance measured using application execution times under DOS NSTL benchmarks

* Trademark or registered trademark of the International Business Machines Corporation.

** MB = 1,000,000 bytes

*** Trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Please Note: Questions about the content or currency of this press release should be directed to your local IBM representative.