5494 Remote Workstation Controller
The IBM 5494 is a remote twinaxial workstation controller. It is based on the IBM PS/2 platform and uses microchannel expansions.
Hardware
The 5494 comes with a single combination twinax and serial controller in its base configuration. It supports the 4-port twinax brick using the standard DB-9 connector, and EIA-232, V.35, and X.21 in a proprietary connector. A second twinax/serial combination controller can be added.
The 5494 also supports Ethernet and Token-Ring options. However, although the Ethernet and Token-Ring options use the same hardware that a normal PS/2 uses, the card IDs on the 5494 variants of these cards differ from the standard PS/2 models and so cannot be used with the 5494.
The 5494 IPLs from a single 2.88 MB diskette; no 1.44 MB version of the 5494 software is available. As it is a standard IBM PS/2 diskette drive, 5494 diskette drives also suffer from leaky capacitors. Using a PS/2 to Shugart adapter or a Gotek has not been tested.
The 5494 uses a Dallas DS1287 real-time clock module and will not start with a dead clock battery. The 5494 has not been tested with modern replacements such as the Glitchworks DS12887.
Software
Like the earlier 5394 Remote Workstation Controller the 5494 has a built-in setup mode used to set and configure communications, terminal, and emulation options. However, there was also a PC-based configuration utility allowing the user to build configuration and IPL diskettes from a PC, but as of 2024 this configuration utility has been lost.
