| Make | Digital Equipment Corporation |
| Model | DECstation 220 |
| Model Number | PC645-A3 |
| Serial Number | 2003127 |
| Processor | 12.5MHz Intel 80286 |
| Bus | |
| Release Date | 1989 |
| Cost New | $2,630 (different model) |
| Acquired | 2016-06-11 |
| Configuration (as collected) | WordPerfect keyboard DEPCA network card Intel Above Board Plus 8 Conner CP-3024 21MB hard disk drive 1.44MB floppy disk drive |
| Current Configuration | Unchanged |
| Status | Not operational, battery leakage damage |
Not to be confused with the MIPS line of DECstations, the DECstation 220 was the successor to the Rainbow. It has a 12.5MHz Intel 80286 processor and was DEC’s first IBM Compatible PC and represents DEC’s acceptance that it would have to embrace the PC rather than try to build non-compatible machines like the Rainbow. However, it was still important to integrate it with the VAX world, so this machine came with a DEPCA network card. I am told this particular machine was booted off a MicroVAX 2000 (that also came with this item, but which did not work). The machine was used with PCSA, which later became PathWorks.
This particular machine was made by Olivetti (in fact from the BA241 CPU board it appears to be a re-badged M250-E). It came with spares of just about everything except the case and the Intel Above Board Plus 8, even a spare riser and spare connector cables.
The hard disk (including the spare) contained images and files of the following software:
- CP/M-80 Kermit
- DECmate (in Italian apparently)
- DOS utilities like ARJ and PKZIP
- HP150 – Basic, Word, Visicalc, Wordstar Dbase II, Kermit, Terminal Emulators
- PCSA 3.0
- Pathworks 4.1
- Windows For Workgroups 3.11
- IBM Pascal
- IBM Fortran
- MS-DOS 6.22
- P/OS ??????
- Rainbow – CPM/86, Utils, Mbasic-86 (Italian again)
- Windows 95 (not sure what exactly)
Details of my attempts to restore it are on the blog.
Rob's Old Computers 
Dear Rob can I ask you for favor. I’ve Decstation 320sx and I’ve setup error. Have you a setup disk for decstation ? may it is the same like for yours 286 dec ? Greetings. 🙂
Hello Tomasz, I can’t remember, I haven’t looked at this machine for quite a while. I will have a check for you.
All I can find is a couple of MS-DOS 3.30 disks. I don’t seem to have the Utilities disk, which I think is what you are looking for.
Dear Rob, thank you for your help. When I wrote to you, I wrote one more email to some other and he gave me this file 😊
He gave acctually access to Compaq and his other brands archive – please take a look http://declegacy.gomtuu.net/legacysupport/digital/epidmstr.html
May you will need it some day 😊
Best regards !
That looks really useful, I will have a good look
I have a few bios/setup/utilities/diagnostics disks for digital and amstrad pc’s as well as a few others.
here is the disc you need.
http://www.filedropper.com/digitaldec286biossetuputilitiesdisc
the disk contains the full bios setup software along with system diagnostics software and a few utilities for speed and setting passwords etc, this disk covers all the decstation pc based 286’s that were produced in collaboration with the olivetti group.
it is in the disk image format, you will need a 720kb blank floppy, don’t even think of trying to use a 1.44mb blank floppy as the computer won’t boot from it when you have lost all bios config settings, to extract it you need a program called winimage, i would recommend version 8.5 which is readily available for download.
you can get a copy of the bulk of my archives from vetusware as i have uploaded a lot on there.
Hi!
Can I ask you to share dump of DEPCA boot ROM? It’s a plain 27128 chip. I’m interesting in netbooting diskless DOS clients. Thanks.
There isn’t a 27128 on the boards I have. I have attempted to dump the ROMs before. I am not certain if the dumps are good, however I have posted them here: https://rjarratt.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/decstation220.zip. It would be good to know if they help.
Thank you for bothering with my question! Sorry for not being clear, however. I’ve mean ROM chip from network card. It’s full length ISA-8 card with BNC and mouse port on back panel. ROM has label “DEC89 LM8932 287E5”.
Ah, sorry. I have the card right next to me, but I will have to get my old PC out to get the programmer. I will try to do it in the next day or so, if I forget, feel free to remind me!
Ok, thank you!
Hello Vladimir, I have posted the ROM here: https://rjarratt.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/depca-dec89-lm8932-287es.zip
Wow! Thank you very much!
Actually this wasn’t their first IBM compatible pc. There was the earlier DEC VAXmate computer released in 1986. It has the distinction of being the first Diskless PC which booted off a network boot image and used network drives on VAX computers. It could have an optional 20 or 40 Mb hard drive in a pancake that installed under the main box.
The VAXmate ran MS-DOS and its applications fine. However you couldn’t really install additional cards so I guess it depends on your definition of “PC Compatible”.
I ran a Fidonet BBS on a VAXmate during the late 80s at the University of Saskatchewan, storing the uploaded files on a VAX 8600 sevrver account mapped as a disk drive so it could be shared to our campus.
I have a VAXmate, but sadly the flyback transformer in the monitor failed, although the rest of the machine still works. See my page on it here: https://robs-old-computers.com/collection/vaxmate/. I guess it does depend on exactly what you mean by IBM compatible, I guess the DECstation 220 was more compatible than the VAXmate, which is very proprietary on the inside.