The IBM RT was a computer based around the PC-AT bus and IBM's ROMP processor, a spin-off of the IBM 801. The system was introduced in 1986 as the RT PC (RISC Technology Personal Computer) and ran AIX 1.x and 2.x, or alternatively, the Academic Operating System (AOS). It was commonly, but incorrectly, known as the PC RT, and IBM later simplified the name. It didn't enjoy much success, and all models were discontinued by May 1991. However, the system spurred further development, as it was followed by IBM's RS/6000 and the corresponding POWER processor line, which is the basis for today's PowerPC. A computer is a device or machine for processing information from data according to a program — a compiled list of instructions. ... It has been suggested that XT bus architecture be merged into this article or section. ... The ROMP or Research (Office Products Division) Mini Processor chip, also known in some circles as 032, was first developed in 1981 and was originally designed to be used in office products, primarily text editing systems such as the IBM Office System/6 and DisplayWriter. ... A CPU The exact term processor is a sub-system of a data processing system which processes received information after it has been encoded into data by the input sub-system. ... The 801 was a RISC microprocessor architecture designed by IBM in the 1970s, and used in various roles in IBM until the 1980s. ... 1986 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Advanced Interactive eXecutive (AIX) is the brand name of IBMs proprietary UNIX operating system. ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The IBM pSeries, formerly called RS/6000 (for RISC System/6000), is IBMs current RISC/UNIX-based workstation and server computer line. ... POWER is a RISC CPU architecture designed by IBM. The name is a backronym for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC. The POWER series microprocessors are used as the main CPU in many of IBMs servers, minicomputers, workstations, and supercomputers. ... PowerPC is a RISC microprocessor architecture created by the 1991 Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance, known as AIM. Originally intended for workstations, PowerPC CPUs have since become popular embedded and high-performance processors as well. ...

Three models were produced, the 6150, 6151, and 6152. The basic types of machines were the tower model (6150), and the desktop model (6151). All these models featured a special board slot for the processor card.

There were three versions of the 6150/6151 processor card: the standard 032 processor card had a 170ns processor cycle time, 1MB standard memory (expandable via 1MB, 2MB or 4MB memory boards) and optional floating point accelerator. The Advanced processor card had a 100ns processor cycle and either 4MB memory on the processor card, or external 4MB ECC memory cards, and featured a built-in 20Mhz Motorola 68881 floating-point processor. The Enhanced Advanced processor card had a cycle time of 80ns, 16 MB on-board memory, while an enhanced advanced floating point accelerator was standard. IBM machine number 6152 was a hybrid IBM PS/2 model 60 with a special mirco-channel board version of the 032 processor, dubbed as a "crossbow" board. It ran only the AOS operating system downloaded from another IBM 6150 or 6151 also running AOS, via a LAN TCP/IP interface. In computer science and information theory, the issue of error correction and detection has great practical importance. ... Lan can stand for several things: A local area network Lan (airline) formerly LanChile Lan Peru Lan Mandragoran, a fictional character in the Wheel of Time series. ... The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols that implement the protocol stack on which the Internet runs. ...

The IBM RT had a varied life even from its initial announcement. Most industry watchers considered the RT as "not enough power, too high a price, and too late". Many thought that the RT was part of IBM's Personal Computer line of computers. This confusion started with its initial name, "IBM RT PC". Initially, it seemed that even IBM thought that it was a high end Personal Computer given the initially stunning lack of support that it received from IBM. Considering the RT system's modest processing power (when first announced) coupled with announcements later that year by some other workstation vendors made most industry analysts question IBM's directions. AIX for the RT was IBM's first public foray into UNIX. The lack of software packages and IBM's sometimes lackluster support of AIX, plus the sometimes unusual changes from traditional UNIX operating system defacto standards caused most software suppliers to be slow to embrace the RT and AIX. The RT found its home mostly in the CAD/CAM and CATIA areas, with some inroads into the scientific and educational areas, especially after the announcement of AOS and substantial discounts for the educational community. The RT also found use as shopping store control systems, and interface system between IBM's larger mainframes and some of its point of sale terminals, store control systems and also machine shop control systems. IBM PC (IBM 5150) with keyboard and green screen monochrome monitor (IBM 5151), running MS-DOS 5. ... AIX or Aix may be: Aix, a genus of two species of dabbling ducks, the Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) and the Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata) AIX operating system Athens Internet Exchange, (AIX) a European IXP a place name: Aix-la-Chapelle, or Aachen, a city in Germany in France: Aix... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Unix-like. ... Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of a wide range of computer-based tools that assist engineers, architects and other design professionals in their design activities. ... Integrating computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) with computer-aided design systems produces quicker and more efficient manufacturing processes. ... CATIA is the CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suite developed by Dassault Systemes and marketed world-wide by IBM. It is commonly referred to as a 3D PLM software. ...

The RT forced an important stepping-stone in the development of the X Window System when a group at Brown University ported X version 9 to the system. Problems with reading unaligned data on the RT forced an incompatible protocol change, leading to version 10 in late 1985. In computing, the X Window System (commonly X11 or X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays. ... Brown University is an Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island. ... 1985 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

This entry incorporates text from the RT/PC FAQ .

External links

• IBM RT PC-page
• The IBM RT Information Page
• JMA Systems's FAQ Archive
• Liebig University's FAQ archive
• ftp-rt.dementia.org