IBM PS2 HW Interface Technical Reference - Common Interfaces (October 1990)
The IBM Personal System/2 Hardware Interface Technical Reference — Common Interfaces, First Edition (October 1990), is a 950-page volume — the largest document in this wiki's IBM holdings. It describes the devices and interfaces common to all PS/2 systems, as opposed to the per-model books.
Its preface sets out the whole library, which is worth knowing when you are hunting for something: Architectures (the Micro Channel architectures), Common Interfaces (this volume), System-Specific Information (the per-model technical references), the BIOS Interface Technical Reference, and the Option and Adapter Technical References.
What it contains
edit- Processors — the 80286 in real and protected virtual address mode; the 80287; the 80386 including virtual 8086 mode and the paging mechanism; the 80387 and its 80486 compatibility; and the 80486 with cache control, cache paging control, the page protection feature, alignment checking and the new instructions.
- Instruction sets — the full 80286 instruction set by category (data transfer, arithmetic, logic, string manipulation and the rest), and the extensions above it.
- Common device interfaces — the serial port and parallel port controllers, the keyboard and pointing device interfaces, and the characters associated with each keystroke.
Vertical bars in the left margin mark technical changes from the previous release, so a diff against the May 1988 edition is visible on the page.
What it does not contain
editNo FRUs, no removals, no component values, no schematics. It is not the Architectures volume — the Micro Channel architecture description is in that separate volume, which is not hosted here; use the May 1988 edition for the channel signal and timing definitions. Video is in the separate Video Subsystems volume.
Download it here: IBM PS2 HW Interface Technical Reference Common Interfaces Oct90.pdf