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Ibm 5150 pc xt?

Roland Huisman

Roland Huisman

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Hello everyone,

I've picked up an IBM 5150 for 25 euro (about 34 dollar).
It's complete with 5151 monitor and keyboard. And it even works!
Not a bad deal I think.

But... I'm a bit confused.

The case has 5150 as model number. The motherboard is a 5 slot 64...256Kb model.
The label at the front says 'IBM personal computer XT'. It's equipped
with an IBM badged WD25 harddisk and the well known Xebec controller card.
So it seems original to me.

But I thought the 'XT' was only for the 5160? Or am I wrong?

The man bought this machine new and it was his only computer.
So I don't think he has changed the cover with an other computer...

Regards, Roland
 
With a PC mother board I can't see it being called an XT. I wonder if the original seller was scamming. After all, having a harddrive, which was not so common on a PC, might be enough to satisfy some buyers that it was a newer model. I'm looking forward to some other comments here.
 
Either one of the badges or the cover was replaced. Simply put, a 5150 PC ≠ a 5160 XT.

I guess it could have been a factory error like when the mint strikes a two-headed coin. But that would be impossible to substantiate today unless there are documents from the 1980s so indicating.
 
Roland Huisman said:
The man bought this machine new and it was his only computer.
So I don't think he has changed the cover with an other computer...
Click to expand...

Then Occam's Razor applies: Whoever sold him the computer had swapped the covers prior to the sale.

If the person you got it from originally paid for an XT, then he was scammed. If not, then it might have been a simple mistake because the covers are identical except for the badge.
 
A person working on it in the 80s or even 90s wouldn't have thought twice about accidentally swapping the cover with another or replacing a damaged one with a different one. Same deal with all the Apple II / II+ parts and revisions that are found intermixed.
 
Maybe the HDD was fitted by a store and the shop simply had a few on the go at the time. Any number of explanations.. but a very good buy for the money :D
 
Yup, great fine and great price! Any of those components could run ya that total most of the time. Always great to find complete systems for a nice price though for a collection.
 
SomeGuy said:
A person working on it in the 80s or even 90s wouldn't have thought twice about accidentally swapping the cover with another or replacing a damaged one with a different one. Same deal with all the Apple II / II+ parts and revisions that are found intermixed.
Click to expand...

Why is that? I'm an old fart who was an adult in those days and I wouldn't have thought twice about that. I don't think people's thinking processes were substantially different in the 80s and 90s. In fact that sounds hilarious when I think about it. :)

Anyway, I'm probably wrong about suggesting a scam. Stone nailed it when he said "Either one of the badges or the cover was replaced."
 
Does the unit have the 63 Watt PC power supply, or is it the 130 watt an XT would have to power that hard drive? If it's the 63 watt job, then I would doubt it came from the factory like that. Maybe someone used a junked XT to upgrade the PC.
 
Hello,

Thank you all for the replies. As I thought the combination of 5150 and XT is not correct indeed.
I will check if there are any dates in the machine and in the cover. I've seen date
stamps in other IBM machines.

Also the question from fatwizard about the power is a good one. I will check it tonight.
I think 63W is a bit poor to run such an WD25 full height hard disk.

Regards, Roland
 
I have seen a share of systems where a person upgraded their computer's insides at some point and as a touch style updated the sticker on the computer to reflect the change. For example, TRS 80 Model III's and 4. ALthough I doubt IBM officially supplied XT upgrade stickers, other manufacturers used to. For example Tandy memory upgrade by VRData, hard to see but they included a replacement sticker

thm_TRS80ModIII_26-1061_wVRData_DiskIII_more.jpg


People were NEVER thinking oh, this will ruin the vintage computer collector value 30 years from now, I better not put the wrong sticker on my computer!
 
Yesterday I checked on eBay and there were a couple of badges on there... one for the portable and one for an AT, so I imagine if OP wants one to be more correct then he should be able to get one fairly inexpensively (each were just a few $s).
 
Or slap an IBM Personal Computer badge on your new quad core. :)

I think some people may have went slappy happy with those things back in the day. For example this turned up on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Persona...Mainframes&hash=item27db10a74f#ht_3644wt_1040

It has an IBM badge, but aside from different buttons, that looks exactly like my JDR Microdevices clone case. This is why it is important to include pictures of a machine with the case off, and when possible a BIOS screen of the machine booting.
 
Either the person selling the "AT" does not know their error, or they are bold to pull that one!
 
Wow, I had nearly that same case back in the day. I made my own tags and sold a few of the machines. I think this photo was in 1987.
old pc 87.jpg
 
I've checked the dates. The main chassis is dated 24 oct 1986.
I think this is quite late for an 5150! And it could not be anything else
because the the label is on the 5 slot chassis.

The cover, monitor and keyboard are also dated 1986. Even the label on
the speaker holder is dated 1986. And it has an 150Watt power supply.
150W was probably quite normal for an 1986 dated machine?

I can't see any strange scratches or something like that around the label.
So it still can be a cover swap which has the same date stamp...

But I really wonder, could is be a left over which was updated by IBM
to an XT to sell it anyway? Maybe to get rid of old stock items?

Regards, Roland
 
Roland Huisman said:
I've checked the dates. The main chassis is dated 24 oct 1986.
Click to expand...
Well, that is interesting. When exactly did they stop producing the 5150? Personally I find later/final produced systems interesting because they include all fixes and updates and sometimes (but not always) represent the "best" of a model. Do the part codes on the motherboard also jive with something made in 1986?

I doubt that "IBM" would have done something like that, but an end dealer, sure.
 
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