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Happiness in Geeksville!

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bettablue

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2011
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Location
Eugene, OR
:p My 5150 was finally brought home! My wife stopped ar her brother's place on the way home from her trip to California and picked up my machine. We just got done unboxint it and during the setup we heard a huge metalic rattle coming from inside the computer. When we pulled the top, I found that I had gotten a small discount. There a few coins floating around the bottom of the case. I still have not been able to get power to the machine, but while I had the top off, I looked at the expansion card that are installed. It loook like there is a memory board, a parallel port and of course, the color video. Ther is another port on the video card that I am not familiar with. I'm assuming that it is for connecting another type of monitor, but I'm not sure. The memory card has been fully populated and is labeled CK 901881. I can't seem to find anything about this card, but it looks as though it has a full compliment of 384Kb on board. The computer looks as though it has been well cared for too. In fact, the expansion cards all look new. There was another bonus. Inside one of the floppy drives was an original IBM diagnotic disk.

Tomorrow, I'll be booting up for the first time since I've had it. For now, I'll just sit in front of it and drool! :D
 
Would the other port on the video card be an RCA socket for composite video? I think that is standard on a CGA card.
 
No, I don't think so, but then again... . ;-) It's not an RCA composit connector. I know what those are. This port looks like a refersed 15 pin connector. It has holes where the pins would insert. It may be another type of video connector though. Since it is on an EGA video card, I know it has something to do with video output, but that's all.

I will be picking up an ISA serial card for it and a PCIE serial card for my current PC so I can connect the two together, but for now, the 5150 looks pretty complete.
 
Sounds like an EGA/VGA card, if it has 15 pin and 9 pin connectors. Check the parallel card to see if it has a header to plug in a serial port ribbon cable, some multi I/O cards have one port on the card and another cabled to the next slot. :)
 
Make sure you get all those coins out..... check under the motherboard to make sure theres not one
stuck under there......will definitely cause a short !
 
Let me answer one question at a time. Yeah, I got the original 16 color display that came with it, along with the keyboard. Man that board is heavy. Probably THE heaviest keyboard I have ever handled. I forgot just how BUILT these systems are. You can see the system I bought at this link:

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcf...splay-and-IBM-PC-keyboard&highlight=bettablue

I had just started using a model M keyboard with my current PC about 4 months prior; a home built system I put together in early 2010. That's what started me thinking about the computers I used in college. When the 5150 entered my mind, I started looking all over for one. I made a few friends along the way, and one of them, Hargle pointed this post out to me. Short story, I made an offer and it was mine.

Yeah, my wife and I got all the coins out. But I will have to say, it scared the hell out of me when I heard things moving in the unit when we started moving it around. When we opened it up, I also took the opportunity to look around a bit. I looked at all of the capacitors, and checked for corrosion. I checked out the expansion cards. There was a little dust, but not nearly as much as I was expecting. A little blowing out with a can of compressed air took care of the dust, and a small grabber with tape on the end got the coinage.

I could boot it up this morning, but I know me. If I did, I wouldn't make it to work today. I'm going to wait till tonight to do my first boot. I'll be checking things out to see just how much RAM is installed, and run some diagnostics to check the hardware, but from what I can tell, this computer looks to be in great shape. Needless to say, I think I got one hell of a deal.

There are still so many things I want to do with it. I need to get a serial card for it, and one for my current PC. I aslo found a null modem cable on Amazon.com for only $2.99. Once I get it connected to my current PC, I'll start writing some floppies.

I think my wife is going to hate me for a while. ;-)
 
That's cool I love playing around with the 5150, unfortunately mine is in storage right now. It works great, just in storage. :)

Do you think you would add an 8 bit ISA IDE adapter and a compactflash to IDE, if you had the chance? Or would you leave it with dual floppy? Like I said earlier, my dad and I put a ISA IDE card in ours in 91, because Kalok had just come out with a 40 MB hard drive, and we wanted to try it out on the 5150. :)

--Brian
 
At this point, I want to keep the computer original. I just ran a complete set of diagnostics and everything is fine with the unit. I am having a small problem though. It seems that the copy of DOS I have is corrupted. I currently don't have any way of writing a new DOS disk. So, if someone has any ideas, please shoot me a PM. I hate to ask, simply because everyone here has been fantastic already, but if someone has a single floppy diskette with a version of DOS that will work with my new baby, I will be more than happy to pay for the disk and postage.
 
I just realized something too. There is a power outlet on the back of the 5150 to plud in the monitor, but the cable I need to get power this way is missing. Where can I get one of these power cables?
 
That power outlet was primarily intended for the monochrome monitor (which has no power switch, and a permanently attached cord to plug into that socket). But, there is nothing stopping you from plugging your color monitor into that. The cable is a common, industry standard IEC M-F cable, and is widely available. IEC receptacle power strips are commonly used on server racks and similar gear, and many servers even ship with this sort of cable. They are sometimes also called IEC extension cables. For example, here is one on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=07ZY8GYF6KSF2MKJPVW1

Next thing you need to do is get a system set up for writing 360k floppies on a more modern PC. If your current machine can't support 360k drives, it shouldn't be hard to find a PC that does.

-Ian
 
Now that I think of it.... If there were some way to get it to recognize a usb thumb drive... That would negate the need for a lot of other hardware and make transferring files a whole lot easier. I just don't want to make this computer into something it's not. Has anyone ever tried that one? I wonder where one would place the usb or connector to plug in the thumb drive without somehow ruining the case, or drilling holes, etc.

neutrino78x said:
That's cool I love playing around with the 5150, unfortunately mine is in storage right now. It works great, just in storage. :)

Do you think you would add an 8 bit ISA IDE adapter and a compactflash to IDE, if you had the chance? Or would you leave it with dual floppy? Like I said earlier, my dad and I put a ISA IDE card in ours in 91, because Kalok had just come out with a 40 MB hard drive, and we wanted to try it out on the 5150. :)

--Brian
Click to expand...
 
bettablue said:
Now that I think of it.... If there were some way to get it to recognize a usb thumb drive... That would negate the need for a lot of other hardware and make transferring files a whole lot easier. I just don't want to make this computer into something it's not. Has anyone ever tried that one? I wonder where one would place the usb or connector to plug in the thumb drive without somehow ruining the case, or drilling holes, etc.
Click to expand...

I don't know of any 8bit USB cards and the few ISA cards with USB ports needed a much better CPU than the 5150 offers.. Your best option is 8bit IDE card plaus an IDE to Compact Flash adapter that has a connector on a 5 1/4" faceplate. When you need to copy files off the 5150, turn off the 5150 and remove the entire CF card. But only the expansion card and funny face plate will be different from a standard 5150 so no drilling would be required.
 
I agree. Wishful dreaming. I don't want to destoy what this machine is. There won't be any holes drilled into the case, or open expansion slot covers. My 5150 is a very nice example of what the 5150 really is and I'm not going to make it something it's not designed for. I bought it because I wanted the experience of running this computer the way I did in college. So yeah, it's a nostalgic thing for me. Not a pet project to see what I can make it do.

I wonder though, since my primary computer conntects to the network/Internet through a wired connection on my router, I was thinking that I might also be able to add a network adapter to the 5150. I found a network adapter on E-Bay: 'IBM-PC-XT-8-bit-ISA-Ethernet-Card-3COM-IE-Controller'. Will this work, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Next on my list is something I found on modem7's web site. And, the cost of doing this will be a LOT less too. Of course it won't be as simple (or complicated, which ever way you look at it) as connecting directly to a network, but it will work, all the same. I was thinking about going the zip disk rout. I found a parallel zip drive for only $10.00 and some zip disks starting at only 2 cents. With the software mentioned on modem7's site, it look like I can move files over pretty easily and effectively. Due to my desk's arrangement, I'll just need to an additional parallel cable to connect it to the 2 systems, seperately, of course.

Again, thans for all the help. You guys are awesome!

MikeS said:
Yeah, I think where to put the connector would be the least of your worries... ;-)
Click to expand...
 
The only "IBM-PC-XT-8-bit-ISA-Ethernet-Card-3COM-IE-Controller"s I could find on eBay were over $100 and have token ring (BNC) connectors. You do NOT want these. They will not work with a modern router, and if they do, I'm pretty sure someone here will send you one if you'll pay shipping. They are very common and fairly useless. :)
 
Look for 3com 3c509's aka etherlink III cards. Come in 8 and 16 bit. I believe the 16 bit cards work in an 8 bit slot.
 
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