So here's the story. I first acquired the IBM 5170. I was dumping my trash at the landfill and there is an area to drop off electronics. I glanced over on my way out and seen the desktop unit sitting in the pile. I wasn't sure what it was when I left, but I had a plan to snatch it. The landfill has a policy that you cant pick things out. I went home and got a dead crt monitor and went back to the landfill with my wife. (CRT monitor was an excuse to be at the pile) It was perfect when we pulled up to the pile. The one landfill worker had his back turned. I told my wife, as soon as I get the CRT monitor to put in the pile, you run over and grab the desktop unit and slip it in the trunk. hehe. So at the right moment, we made the swap. Landfill worker did not see the desktop being snatched. When I got it home, it turned out to be a IBM 5170. I hooked it up to a monitor, and fired it up. It worked perfectly and booted to dos from a 5 1/4 disk. Here's a picture of it.
Secondly, The IBM 5150. A real find! I went to a computer recycling place to drop off some junky pentium 2 PC's for work. After unloading, I asked if they had any old computers for sale. A worker walked me over to a IBM 5150 that had been on the backroom shelf for a couple years. He looked up the going price on ebay and said it would cost about 250.00 to purchase it from him. I wanted to see it run. So another worker hooked it up to boot it. There was no video on the screen. He rebooted it multiple times to try to get it to work. On the last time he booted it, I heard the ole disk drive and beep, but no video. I quickly said, hey, it doesn't work correctly, so I'll give you 20 bux for it. He scratched his head for a minute and said ok. I paid him the 20 bux and went on my way. When I got it home I hooked everything up. Well it turns out the worker that was presenting the 5150 to me did not have the monitor connector pushed in all the way. HA. The 5150 worked flawlessly. For 20 Dollars I got a 5150 WITH color monitor, Original clicky keyboard, manuals/Original IBM dos. Here's a picture of the 5150.
Secondly, The IBM 5150. A real find! I went to a computer recycling place to drop off some junky pentium 2 PC's for work. After unloading, I asked if they had any old computers for sale. A worker walked me over to a IBM 5150 that had been on the backroom shelf for a couple years. He looked up the going price on ebay and said it would cost about 250.00 to purchase it from him. I wanted to see it run. So another worker hooked it up to boot it. There was no video on the screen. He rebooted it multiple times to try to get it to work. On the last time he booted it, I heard the ole disk drive and beep, but no video. I quickly said, hey, it doesn't work correctly, so I'll give you 20 bux for it. He scratched his head for a minute and said ok. I paid him the 20 bux and went on my way. When I got it home I hooked everything up. Well it turns out the worker that was presenting the 5150 to me did not have the monitor connector pushed in all the way. HA. The 5150 worked flawlessly. For 20 Dollars I got a 5150 WITH color monitor, Original clicky keyboard, manuals/Original IBM dos. Here's a picture of the 5150.
