Siemens-Nixdorf (SNI) was the largest information technology company in Europe in the mid 1990s, providing computer and software solutions in the telecommunications, personal and super-computing domains. SNI got dissolved into smaller companies over time, one (SBS) focusing on business solutions and another on ATMs and cash registers (Wincor Nixdorf). The personal computer business was fully merged into Siemens by 1998 and, and after a joint-venture period (FSC), ultimately absorbed by Fujitsu in 2009.
The Scenic Pro C5 is a typical PC system that you would find all across Germany in the mid 90s to the early 2000s in different variants and processor options; it was popular in schools, public administration and banks.
The system in this case is equipped with a Pentium 200, 96MB RAM, 256kB 2nd level cache, a Cirrus Logic GD5446 graphics adapter and a Fujitsu 1GB IDE hard disk and a quad-speed CD-ROM drive. It lacks the onboard multimedia options (Soundblaster 16) as well as the built in card-reader that other variants offer, which indicates that it probably began its life as an office computer.
Restoration
The machine came off eBay in rough shape: the case had corrosion, it looked beat up and was in dire need of a bath. The inside was okay though, albeit quite dirty. The motherboard fortunately uses a CR2023 coin cell, so there was no battery damage. In fact, after a first inspection and cleaning, it came to life immediately on the bench.
The diskette drive got a cleaning and re-lubing, there were no leaky caps in there, and of course the broken bezel was fixed. It works just fine since then. I was less lucky with the CD-ROM drive that showed weak signs of life initially but then faded away quite quickly, so I replaced it with a different drive I had on hand.
The restoration is shown in the below YouTube video, please check it out if you aren’t scared of a PC being hit with power tools and rust converter:
Upgrades
Following the restoration, I added some upgrades to the Scenic Pro C5, consisting of:
- 1MB video ram using cheap chips off eBay to unlock more color depth at higher resolutions
- Soundblaster 16 Vibra sound card
- 3COM Etherlink XL Network card for easier file copying
- Adaptec 2940U2W ultra wide SCSI host adapter
- IBM DNES 9.1 GB ultra SCSI harddisk and a Toshiba XM-6401B quad-speed SCSI CD-ROM
I went a bit wild with the storage system, replacing the IDE devices with an ultra wide SCSI hard disk and a SCSI CD-Rom. Finally, I installed Windows 98SE to try out all the upgrades and of course to answer the question of all questions: will it run Doom?
Please see the upgrade process in the below YouTube video and find out the PC runs Doom:
Nextstep / Openstep
Around 1993, Next decided to make a shift and to become a software company, ceasing production of black Next hardware. The Nextstep OS was renamed to Openstep and made available to a number of processor architectures, including RISC systems such as HP-PA, Sun Sparc and Intel x86.
Siemens-Nixdorf, being the largest IT company in Europe at that time, announced in fall 1993 together with several other PC makers during the Nextworld expo and the Cebit show in the same year to ship Nextstep pre-installed on their hardware. Epson and Canon released actual products, such as the Canon ObjectStation, but I did not find evidence of SNI actually shipping Nextstep based systems.
I decided to try out and see how compatible the SNI hardware is with Nextstep and if a respective product would have been feasible. Actually, I had to use OpenStep 4.2 instead of the intended NextStep 3.2 for this because the Scenic PC with its upgrades is “too new” for the older NextStep release.
See in the below video how the installation process of OpenStep went:
Spoiler: the result – OpenStep runs quite nicely on the Scenic Pro C5 PC
A PSU oddity
The machine features a soft-power switch with several options to power-up, configurable in the BIOS:
- By switch
- By Keyboard or Mouse
- By the Card-Reader
- By an incoming fax call (modem on serial)
At the same time, it uses an AT style power connector. To make the extra features work, a separate 3-pin connector CN12, labeled “PS_ON” is provided on the mother board. It supplies +5V standby power via the black (left, toward the power connector) and the red (right, far from the power connector) wires while the white lead (middle pin) is an active low control signal that starts up the PSU when one of the above conditions is met. As long as this signal is held low, the PSU runs, letting it float turns the PSU off.
| PS_ON Connector (from left to right as on the photo) | |
| 1 Black | Ground |
| 2 White | Power On signal, active low |
| 3 Red | +5v standby |
The board will POST even with the 3-pin connector unplugged, shorting black and white starts the PSU.
On the PSU power connectors, the wiring is as per the AT standard (source), however the colors are not!
| Connector P8 (from left to right as on the photo) | |
| 1 White | Power Good (+5v) |
| 2 Red | +5v |
| 3 Orange | +12v |
| 4 Blue | -12v |
| 5 Black | Ground |
| 6 Black | Ground |
| Connector P9 (right of P8) | |
| 1 Black | Ground |
| 2 Black | Ground |
| 3 Yellow | -5v |
| 4 Red | +5v |
| 5 Red | +5v |
| 6 Red | +5v |
Technical Brief
| Model | Scenic Pro C5 |
| CPU | Intel Pentium 200 MHz |
| FPU | built in |
| Memory | 96MB, 256L-2 Cache |
| Harddisk | 1.1GB Fujitsu IDE harddrive, later 9.1GB IBM SCSI |
| Removable Media | 1.44MB Floppy Disk, 4x CD-ROM (IDE, later SCSI) |
| Video | Cirrus Logic GD5446 SVGA Graphics Adapter w. 1MB (later 2MB) VRAM |
| Other | * Slot for keycard reader, AT Style PSU w. soft power function * Vibra 16 ISA soundcard * 3com Etherlink XL PCI network adapter * Adaptec 2940U2W SCSI host adapter * 2x ISA, 2x PCI slots (one shared) on riser card |
| Manufactured | 1997 |
| Release Price | unknown, TBD |
Resources
Siemens D943 mainboard manual english / german
References
Links to other items in theVintage collection
NextStep related:
PC related
- IBM PS/2 L40SX Notebook
- IBM PS/2 P75 Portable
- IBM 5160 XT
- IBM 5155 PC Portable
- Toshiba T3200 Luggable
- Toshiba Libretto CT50
External Links:
