Monday, November 11, 2013

The AT&T PC 6386 WGS

AT&T's foray into personal computing was quite brief, but left behind one of the most loved computers of all time: the AT&T PC 6300. Rebranded Olivetti M24s, these machines sported an 8086 at 8MHz and up to 640k RAM onboard. All in all, solid machines.

But that's not why we're here today.


In the early 2000s, when I was in second or third grade, my grandparents would take me out every so often to go "yard-sailing". This consisted of getting up early, driving around with grandparents, and getting toys, making it very appealing to me. Anyway, on one trip I found a large computer. It was (to an 8 year old) huge and thus immediately interesting to me. The older man running the sale came up to me and said I could take it, as it was too old to be worth anything. I did, and it proceeded to sit in my grandparents' basement for over half a decade. About a year ago, I remembered I had it, and decided to take a look to see if it was worth keeping. 

The machine is an AT&T PC 6386 WGS, with an 80386 (duh), a megabyte of RAM, VGA graphics, and the 6300's weird keyboard. It too was manufactured by Olivetti.


The first thing you'll notice about this computer is that it's built like a friggin' tank; it weighs at least 80lbs. and is made almost entirely of metal. The back features a huge fan and a few ISA card slots (There is a plastic back to the machine, apparently I didn't grab a shot of it with it in place).


The inside consists of the lower section with the mainboard and the upper section containing the backplane. First up, the cards:


There were three cards in the machine when I got it, an IDE controller, the memory board, and a VGA card. The IDE controller may not even be an IDE controller, although it looks it.


It was made by Western Digital in 1987, as seen on some of the chips. Fairly basic.



Next up is the RAM board. It has 16 SIMM slots, of which I have 4 filled for a total of 1Mb memory.


(That's the back of the machine on the photo, BTW). From the very limited information on this computer, RAM was sold in "kits" of 1Mb or 4Mb, each consisting of 4 SIMMs to install. 


This card is huge.


Lastly, we have the VGA card. It's pretty pedestrian. 



"PARADISE PVGA1A"


The connector's missing pin 9, the optional +5v output for an Plug 'n Play EEPROM. I had to "modify" a VGA cable for this one with a pair of pliers. Onto the mainboard!


Plenty to see here. Double sigma! No 80387, though. 


One last shot of the interior.


As for software, mine's running DOS 5. The guy I bought it from was apparently a lawyer, as it was printed at startup. The CMOS battery is dead, and I need to run setup to get the hard drive and floppy drives working. The video below is of it failing to boot a couple times. I'm suspecting a bad drive.


It did work in the end, though, and I got some screenshots of setup and the various applications it has.











(From top to bottom: AT&T Setup Page 1, AT&T Setup Page 2, the lawyer's startup menu thing, WordPerfect 5, Quicken, Alpha Four, the DOS Shell, and Apogee Software's Puzzle Fun-Pak). I haven't hit any issues with speed or memory yet, everything seems to run fine.

The last thing I need for this is information. Almost nothing exists on this machine, only a couple of forum posts wanting keyboards or whatnot. If you have any manuals, information, stories, etc. for this computer, want more information on this machine that I could provide, or need more photos, email me at "j c l (at) s d f . o r g" (without spaces)

20 comments:

  1. AT&T had a strange line up of computers. First, as you mentioned, was the 'AT&T 6300' Olivetti M24, but AT&T also released a separate AT&T 6286 WGS computer with a 80286, though I forget what speed, probably 10mHz.

    They then did the AT&T 6386 with a 386DX at 16mHz which is probably what you have, then a AT&T 6386/25 with a 386DX at 25mHz, then finally a 6386/SX, which ran a 386SX at 16mHz, which incidentally was my first computer as a kid back in the eighties. My search to find more information about the 386/SX is what brought me to your blog via your YouTube post of your 6386 booting.

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    Replies
    1. Just noticed that the CPU in your pictures is 20mHz, whoops.

      Delete
  2. I have the 6386e wgs server tower with 8bit Ethernet card 300mb HDD max ram is 16mb I bought the order manual guide on Google books and have downloaded board layouts from Google images. My plan is to install sysvr4 and run services on the internet. Yours looks really nice I would buy it from you if you don't mind.

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  3. Alpha Four! My mom had that back in the day, after finally upgrading from a TRS-80 to a Tandy PC. Found this article because I was looking for the ancient huge tower computer I remember from the computer lab my freshman year of college, I'm not entirely sure if it was AT&T, but it definitely had "WGS" in the name.

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  4. Hello, may I ask you what is the text printed in the two EEPROM of the VGA board? It should be 62 - XXXXXX- XX. Thanks to confirm the numbers.

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  5. Do you think it could be possible for you to make me a copy od the BIOS of the VGA? Procedure it's easy:
    1) Launch "debug.com" at the DOS prompt
    2) type "N PVGA.ROM" + CR
    3) type "R BX" + CR and then type "0000" + CR
    4) type "R CX" + CR and then type "8000" + CR
    5) type "WC000:0L8000" + CR
    6) type "Q" + CR to exit from debug

    You should find a file in the current active directory named "PVGA.ROM".

    Please send it to my email address: PEVALCAS AT TIN DOT IT.
    Thanks.

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  6. Sorry ... maybe point 5 is only "WC000:0" + CR

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  7. It's not IDE. IDE did not even exist yet. It's ESDI. That was a server class interface. Contemporary with that, and for desktops, were "MFM" and "RLL" interfaces. This was the first model of server I ever administered professionally. It ran AT&T Unix '386 System V Release 3.2. All this was back in '88.

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  8. I have the AT&T 6386/25 WGS. I also have the original user and technical manuals for the machine. Unfortunately, the CMOS battery died long ago. It came with a 3.5 1.44 disk drive, a 5.25 720 disk drive, a streaming tape drive and a Micropolis 300 Mb ESDI hard drive. I also have another 300 Mb ESDI drive which was never installed. I am in the process of scrapping or donating it.
    It was a rock solid machine that was a decent performer for its day. It weighs about 45 lbs because it was designed for FCC Class B certification, meaning it was meant to sit in the data center and work regardless of electrical interference from other systems. In effect, it had its own standalone rack.
    It was built to last. Aside from the CMOS battery, it booted without any problems after nearly 30 years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello, I grew up using this model of computer. My brother bought it when he went to college in 1988 from the bookstore. I was wondering if you found a home for this machine? If not I would like to know if you would be willing to donate it to a good home? I have the original dos 3.3 disks for the system and the tech manuals. Unfortunately the original system had a failed power supply which we were never able to repair.

      Delete
    2. Hello,

      in case you didn't manage to give it away, or give it to id10solutions, may I ask you if you can keep the manuals, especially technical manuals, for me? And also the VGA Board.

      Please write me to this email address: pevalcas AT gmail DOT com.

      Thanks.

      Regards, Vincent.

      Delete
  9. I was an AT&T VAR (Value Added Reseller) in the days when these machines were new. It is nice to see that you guys appreciate them but there is one feature that I'm surprised no one seems aware of.
    The RAM memory of the machine was physically on the motherboard with SIM sockets as the above pics show, and if I remember correctly, the machines I sold came with 1 mg of RAM.
    At that time I was selling a lot these computer back into AT&T and Bell Labs research facilities. The engineers I was working with were much more savvy to the tech specs of the machines than I was. They would order very technically specific configurations of these machines, often specifying as much as 64 Mg of RAM by using 16 Mg SIMS for each of the SIM sockets, and specifying the appropriate DIP switch settings for such specs.
    What I remember is that we used to laugh, that just a few years earlier, it was so expensive just to get that much hard drive.
    However, I also remember that 16 Mg SIMS weren't that cheat, and, as well, as the SIM sockets oxidized, they became very unreliable.

    Boy, that was a long time ago. I'm 72 years old now, and surprised that I even remember this much.

    It was the heyday of the PC expansion. They were finally taken seriously.

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  10. I have a 6386 WGS it has a disk controller failure...otherwise I have the pc, monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
    Anyone interested?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello I am interested in the 6386. I am in Cleveland OH, but I travel for work. I am currently in Vegas.

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    2. Hello, i am interested in the BIOS of the VGA board, if the board is a VDC600 as the one in the picture.

      May I ask you if you can dump it on a diskette files, following the instructions I wrote in a previous comment (as anonymous).
      Thanks.
      Regards, Vincent.

      Delete
  11. I have a 6386sx/EL20 WGS. Does anyone know what key to press in order to get into the Bios?

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  12. How did you get into the BIOS/CMOS setup? Key presses? Disk? If disks can you post disk images please?

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  13. I'm looking for any and all At&t computers, parts, and manuals. Any type of old or odd-ball computers and game systems, for that matter.

    My mom used to work for At&t back in the day and Bell Labs (in the same building) would throw away all sorts of computers, parts, and engineering circuit boards. The company would let her take home what she wanted. I was a very happy geeky kid! 😉

    I grew up with this stuff, fix it up, and and give it a great home; much better than the landfill.

    970-658-9748
    Colorado

    ReplyDelete