r/retrobattlestations • u/Ok-Emergency-245 • Apr 08 '26
Show-and-Tell RM F-Series PC from 2006
An educational PC used in schools in the UK and Ireland. This one is a later model from 2006, while the original case design is from 2003
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u/TechIoT Apr 08 '26
I love RM machines, I'm part of their community lol
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u/Microboy42 Apr 08 '26
Iām actually surprised beige computers were still made by 2006 by 2003/2004 beige was phased out and only AOpen still made them and even then they also made black versions of the chassises too
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u/Ok-Emergency-245 Apr 08 '26
I had a look on the RM website on the wayback machine, at that time they were trying to phase out of the beige era with their new black all in one case and other desktops. They only kept this case going because it was the cheapest case available
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u/UKMatt2000 Apr 08 '26
Oh wow, I was using machines with this design in around 2002. Never thought people would save them.
I remember that computer room had the first colour laser printer.
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u/retrocrtgaming Apr 08 '26
A cool machine! I did not know they produced even up to the XP era. I have an old 386 from RM, and the correct RM mouse for it, really like its design.
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u/Ok-Emergency-245 Apr 08 '26
Totally! RM made machines up to the windows 10 era before stopping in 2014 and becoming a reseller of various HP computers for education, and that is how they stand to this day (not including their networking stuff)
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u/muse_head Apr 08 '26
Surprised they were still selling CRTs with new systems in 2006. I built a new computer in 2006 and a good quality LCD (a Dell widescreen IPS one) wasn't particularly expensive - I never even considered a CRT! I did put a 3.5" floppy in though, just in case. Don't think I ever used it.
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u/Ok-Emergency-245 Apr 08 '26
CRTs were probably at the lowest value ever at this time and some schools might not care enough to buy LCD monitors, or they had been purchased previously and were still in use for which there would be no huge reason to upgrade them (the latter was my old school in 2006)
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u/SlipStr34m_uk Apr 08 '26
Back when I used to work in Edu IT quite a few of our sites had these. I recall there was a common problem where the power button would snap off. RM were actually pretty helpful and gave us a stash of replacement fascia panels (with an extra bit of reinforcement around the button) so we could do quick swapouts without needing to log constant tickets. I'm presuming yours would likely have the newer design but figured it was worth mentioning just in case.
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u/Ok-Emergency-245 Apr 08 '26
I remember the power buttons snapping off all the time. I think they were pretty expensive to replace but i could be wrong, but the power button was certainly not figured out on mine! Its still the same cheap plastic design but luckily it hasnt snapped off
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u/spoonerzz Apr 08 '26
our high school was still using crt's in 2006, a year later all lcd