IBM Information Panel

Plasma · 14 Oct 2018, 15:18

It's old.

hansichen · 14 Oct 2018, 15:27

A Model F Unsaver with its system. Nice find!

Bass · 14 Oct 2018, 18:17

A great find indeed. What's more, this one has data entry style keycaps, which are also less common. I have seen some F122's with them, but never on an Unsaver so far! Would you mind sharing the part number underneath the keyboard?

mcmaxmcmc · 15 Oct 2018, 01:06

Looks old. Neat.

Plasma · 19 Oct 2018, 10:52

Here's the label on the back with the part number you requested.

Niko1U · 19 Oct 2018, 23:34

is that a plasma display?

Plasma · 19 Oct 2018, 23:37

Yup. It's a plasma.

cloudhax · 31 Oct 2018, 06:13

I used these terminals many years ago as a mainframe console operator. We had lots of old school IBM terminals with the awesome beam spring keys and solenoids but this IBM plasma was my favorite terminal. We operated it in a 4-screen split style, with each console assigned to a different VM (the mainframe ran VM/ESA operating system). I would fly around between the screens kicking off various batch jobs and watching output. The amber plasma glow was a delight to look at in our dark operations command center on those lonely 3rd shift nights. And the keyboard was absolutely fantastic to type on. To this day I want to find one and figure out a way to use it as a Linux tty terminal somehow at home, but I think last time I looked into it years ago it was unfeasible. I would love to be proven wrong...

Backpropagated · 04 Feb 2020, 21:43

I was hoping I'd be able to put together this entire system, and I have a CRT terminal with AT&T magsep keyboard which was originally hooked up through the parallel port, but unfortunately I was only able to find the case for the accessory pad while the innards have been lost to time.

-Space-NATO- · 04 Feb 2020, 21:52

is that the numpad next to the unsaaver in this photo?

Backpropagated · 04 Feb 2020, 21:55

I believe it is. Same Plasma(keys and all). Same Unsaver, but only part of the accessory. Keys were blank, so it's more of a macro than numberpad if I remember right.

Backpropagated · 04 Feb 2020, 22:02

Interesting thing is the unsaver pn is associated with a displaywriter(number in wiki), but on this(I assume older) version of the plasma, it uses the Unsaver with speaker and two dsub connectors rather than the din used with the other(more modern looking to my eye) plasma.

Backpropagated · 04 Feb 2020, 22:19

Unfortunately I've had these just sitting for a while, and the spare plasma wasn't working, but the other seemed to function just fine, displaying different error codes with and without a keyboard attached. Only one Unsaver for the two plasmas though. Some more pics for fun. Sorry I'm not much of a photographer.