IBM 5150 Personal Computer

[FDIV]

I got this a couple days ago but I have been two buisy to get around to putting it up. It needs alot of work as I think it was stored outside sometime in the past. The general idea is there though. The first PC in the manner that we use the term today (obviously not the first personal computing machine.) I have no idea if it boots yet and unless I find an ega monitor or some way to adapt ega - vga I'm not likely to find out anytime soon. What do you all think of the processor though. Not what I expected. I can't even tell it's an 8088 by looking at it. If it wasn't sitting in the processor slot on the motherboard I don't think I could pick it out of a lineup. Anyhow, the find made me quite happy at $20 out the door.

[fRaSsL]

It's the real XT.

[Alcochaser]

That is no XT. That is the "PC" one of the first. You can tell by the fact it has only 5 expansion ports, and on the back it will have a cassette port in adition to the keyboard port. It is not 100% original though It has at some time had an aftermarket half height floppy to it. As well as an aftermarket multifunction/memory board. The video card does not look original as well. It is too short. An original CGA or Monochrome board would be full length. Odd though that someone did all those upgrades and did not install a Hard Drive.

[fRaSsL]

I believe the XT have had the cassette port...

[tlccomp]

I think CGA not EGA monitor.
Let me know if you need one.

[gshv]

The processor is nice. It's an IBM 8088, I'd pay $20 just for the processor

Gennadiy

[FDIV]

I have been looking around a bit and it seems that these 5150's did not have a standard original configuration. They were all configured to order. Some had no floppies and ran off tape, others had the two full height ones. Also, which expansion boards were included was also not standard. It looks to me like on this computer it was shipped with two floppies one of which appears to have been replaced as the half height is not original. Also, the display adaptor does not appear to be original. The multifunction board and the floppy interface board I think are original though. As two the display adaptor: I have no idea if it is cga, mda or a later ega adaptor. It cannot be an original cga adaptor though because these had an rca output jack. I think finding one of these original cga adaptors on ebay is my best option since then I could use my old apple IIe monitor or a television set. Here is a photo of the back panel for those interested.

[bacterio]

Not all the 5150 have the same configuration, look at mine's (it came with a 5 1/4 fdd and 20 mb mfm seagate hdd)

[jrmunro]

FDIV

Here is a video card that has both CGA and two MDA outputs ( colour and mono ). I have had this laying around for years. I used a 286 MB with a 12" MDA monitor and it works. I couldn`t test the CGA output.

You can have it if you want to pay the shipping from Vancouver, B.C.
Or maybe you have a chip to trade for it.

John

[Alcochaser]

Okay... now I see, the Video Board is almost certainly a Monochrome board. They allways had a Parralell port on them.

DO NOT MIX CGA AND MGA EQUIPMENT!

Mixing CGA and MGA will result in burnt out equipment! You CAN however mix EGA and CGA equipment.

Now that said, there are some 8 bit VGA boards, and some 16 bit VGA boards that could operate in 8 bit slots. This would allow you to use any VGA monitor or LCD. To run one, you would set the PC to "No Video" on it's DIP switches.

Hah that would be flunky... a PC with an LCD on it.

[jrmunro]

[Alcochaser]

It was not aimed at you, still. you have to be -very- carefull with those cards. Back in the day, those cards were responsible for a good bit of equipment damage, they are allright if you know what your doing. But set the switches wrong and you -will- let out the "magic smoke". The problem is that CGA/MGA/EGA and even some VGA used a 9 pin female port. Hook the wrong monitor to the wrong video port and you will smoke something.

Thank goodness for VGA!

FDIV, I am experienced with the older hardware. Let me know if you have any more questions. But from what I see, you have an original PC with a neat IBM 8088, Original floppy board, aftermarket multifunction/ram expansion board, and after market MGA board. You are correct on the flopies. Full height 360K and one half height 360K. The half height is not a 1.2MB beacuse the PC/XT floppy controler does not support High Density floppies. The Half Height is you A drive, and the B drive is the full height.

I cannot see if the machine has the IBM ROM BASIC chips in it, those were a form of BASIC programing language in the ROM of the PC.

Now your making me wish I had my first PC, it was not a PC, but it was a 265KB XT that I had pushed to the limit and was frankenstiened together from tossed out parts from my fathers workplace.
Orignal Ceramic 4.74MHZ AMD 8088 replaced with a NEC V20 (10% faster at same clock speed.)
Intel 8087 (Must have cost a fourtune when bought, pulled it from a non working IBM PC like yours), worked fine with the V20. And I actually had a copy of DOS Lotus 123 that used it.
AST Multifunction Board, Serial, and Paralell ports Clock Battery, and provided 1MB of extra ram, it filled in the full 640K and then the extra could be used as EMS memory with a device driver. So my XT had 1.2MB ram or so total.
Western Digital autoconfigure controler with Seagate ST225 MFM hard drive.
Hayes 1200BPS internal modem.
I actually loaded DOS 5.0 on it, it ran fine.

Now I wish I had it...... *sigh* I hated it back then, everyone else had 386s and 486s and I was stuck with this... at least it ran any DOS program.

[Robev]

I can sell you a tested 8 Bit VGA Card for US$20.00 plus shipping if you are interested.
Cheers.