IBM 5535 Multistation

There is something melancholy about this picture - back to the days where a computer was a finely-tuned workstation.

No noise, not fluffiness. No adverts! No algrythms.... just an industrial machine doing a few important tasks..... 

IBM Japan had a range of Kanji-character-enabled desktop computers, called the Multistations. This was part of that family with the addition of a greyscale LCD display. Although 5535 is the 'laptop' range of machines, With the sheer size and weight (7kg), I think you would consider it more like a 'space saving desktop', much like the IBM Convertible. It has a sibling called the 5535-S which has a slightly different design and is 'less boxy'.

My machine is a 5535-M19, which sold for 595,000 YEN - equivilent to about £8,000 in today's money. It rocks a 286 CPU running at 10Mhz. It has an expansion slot on the left side and a 1.44Mb 3.5" floppy disk drive on the right.

The display is a rather unusual 16-dot mono with a strange resolution of 720x512.

My machine has a 3274 adaptor with big fat connector sticking out of the side, which would support coaxial connection via 3270 to an IBM mainframe's 3274 controller. The 3247 controller was a huge box connected to a mainframe to offload connection processing to the mainframe.

Convertible Flavours

If you know your IBM Convertibles, you'll quickly see a resemblence in the external design of the 5535 Multistation. Whilst the 5535 is a lot more bulky, with a larger screen, fan on the back, expansion slot on the side and a hard drive, sitting the machines side by side really highlights how the aethetics of one informed the other. We'll have to assume the Convertible came first.

The metalwork, the paint, the branding, the carry handle, the awkward lid-release buttons, the feet.... all straight off a Convertible.