IBM PC 5150 with Hercules graphics, repair & upgrades to perfection!

[@Epictronics1]

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[@awilliams1701]

"I need to connect the power" Reminds me of a story my dad told me. This was in the early 80's. They just got a computer. It didn't work. The guy it was meant for was an electrical engineer. He took it apart and couldn't see anything wrong. My dad was like.......did you plug it in? It worked just fine. LMAO An Electrical engineer!!!! seriously!?!?

[@Epictronics1]

😆

[@Davide0033]

trust me, sometimes it gets easy to forget the basics especially if you think you might know the issue. that happens from time to time

[@awilliams1701]

@Davide0033 for sure

[@jasonl800]

Always loved the long persistence phosphor on the IBM green screens. The trail effects were cool. 😊 Also made the screen almost flicker free.

[@Epictronics1]

Considering it's only 50Hz, It looks rock solid!

[@blakecasimir]

Another great classic PC video from you. Nice work!

[@Epictronics1]

Thanks :)

[@nuherbleath461]

I have a 5150 with a Hercules card, what I did was use the HGCIBM driver to give me CGA compatibility and it works on pretty much most games I throw at it. The best part is with monochrome, it turns the cyan, magenta and white into a nice smooth greyscale which looks great on the 5151. 0:48 also?? No clue that these had rifas in them? Mine haven’t gone bang yet so…

[@Epictronics1]

That's very useful, thanks. Yes, some of these have nasty little RIFAs in them, ready to go bang :)

[@nuherbleath461]

@@Epictronics1is yours a 230v or 120v unit? I assume that might play a part in it?

[@cbmeeks]

For those doubting the efficiency of the 6502, remember Prince of Persia was developed on an Apple IIe 1MHz with 128K of RAM and ran just fine. 😀

[@Nukle0n]

afaik the 8088 needed 4 clock cycles to do anything, and the 6502 could do two things every clock cycle. So that's quite the difference in efficiency.

[@Epictronics1]

Good point. I'll try the Apple version when the Apple // is on the bench next time

[@antonyd5976]

I love the matrix reference. the screen saver looks so cool on Hercules green screen. just like in the movie where everything in the matrix has a green tint.

[@Doubleshotgun]

I loved this repair! 💙 Also the timing is perfect too, I'm making a game designed for a IBM 5150 with Hercules Graphics Card. I would love to see my game running on this!

[@Epictronics1]

Remember to send me a copy when it's done :)

[@drgusman]

Those artifacts may be caused by the 200ns DRAM, at 200ns the max access speed is 5Mhz, would be worth to try the graphics card with 100ns DRAM.

[@Epictronics1]

The thought crossed my mind as I was editing. I'll give it a try

[@rogerss1]

Very cool. I never realized there was such a thing as a zero ohm resistor or just what history they had. Certainly a more elegant solution than putting a wire link across... or dribbling solder, which is what would have come to my mind.

[@Bergi2000]

Great work! 🙂

[@Epictronics1]

Thanks!

[@Pippo.Langstrumpf]

I always wanted to access to cassette port over DOS, instead of Basic. But not enough time.

[@Epictronics1]

Sounds like a fun project. I grew up with a casette deck only. No floppy drives!

[@thedungeondelver]

Imagine nVidia or AMD or Intel announcing that their newest generation of video card would also have a few USB ports on it :D

[@da1l616]

They did. Back when VR was next big thing(tm), Nvidia added a USB-C port for image and data connection over a single cable for VR Headsets.

[@8antipode9]

I feel kinda bad, I just bought a lot of 50 4164 DRAM chips from eBay for $30! I go through a lot of them, fixing up TRS-80 CoCo2s. Maybe you don't use them as much as I do, but getting one of those Arduino based DRAM testers is VERY worth it. I can't say whether they use the best testing algorithms or not, but they make finding the bad chips much easier.

[@Epictronics1]

I certainly use plenty of these :) I'm hoping someone will make a really good RAM chip tester.

[@rager-69]

I like that you use your sponsor, PCBWay, to make boards rather than using perfboard and messy solder blobs or wiring. I'm all for quick and cheap, but it's a bad look if you don't use your sponsor.

[@Epictronics1]

I used to make adapters like this by wiring two sockets together, but this is so much nicer!

[@stevenretroworkshop2113]

The 639K is right. The 1K (000000 -to- 0003ff) is Interrupt Vector Table and the 639K for BIOS and DOS.

[@awilliams1701]

"that was too much flux" no such thing! LMAO

[@Epictronics1]

😆

[@edwinconcepcion1135]

Another game that supports Hercules is Test Drive (the original) from Accolade

[@Epictronics1]

I might give it a try, thanks

[@yannisgk]

if it supports only CGA graphics, use "simcga"....in the most of cases , your pc will run them.

[@rager-69]

Skinny Sprint? I'll need to search for that video to learn about it.

[@Epictronics1]

It's awesome. You need one :)

[@nazgulsenpai]

Maybe this one can decrypt the CERN messages so we can prevent WW3.

[@Epictronics1]

I tried in cassette BASIC but it couldn't do it. I'll try again in advanced disk basic

[@jkeelsnc]

It depends on how original you want to keep this system. But for me, I would keep the Soundblaster and an add an XT IDE card with CF boot card into DOS. Even if you just keep it with the floppy you could keep the Soundblaster. I realize you have limited expansion left so you have to be selective. The Hercules graphics card is actually pretty good for monochrome graphics.

[@Epictronics1]

Unfortunately, I ran out of slots. I would have to remove one card to install an XT-IDE

[@Nukle0n]

@@Epictronics1 It'd take it more from vintage but you can get reproduction memory expansion cards that'll easily take it to 640k and only take up one slot, then you could add an XT-IDE card in another slot, but again idk if that's really the point here. An alternative fun thing would be an external Gotek to interface with the 50-pin d-sub connector on the floppy drive.

[@Epictronics1]

@@Nukle0n I considered it, but descided to use period correct cards for this build. I do have some interesting plans for that external connector though :)

[@jkeelsnc]

@ quite true. Still a nice 5150 you can enjoy with the authentic floppy experience.

[@khangaudio399]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@dorinxev]

You could save some space and replace some cards with Picomem, imho

[@Epictronics1]

I considered it but decided to go roughly period-correct with this build. That being said, the picomem seems like a great option

[@jasmijndekkers]

Hi Epictronics, You use a Varta coincell, thats wrong! Varta kill so much motherboards in the past. :Joke . Nice build and repair. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

[@Epictronics1]

lol. Thanks!

[@2xtreem4u]

Moo gun :)

[@Epictronics1]

:)

[@AndrewFremantle]

I didn't think Hercules had a graphics bitmap capability......

[@jasonl800]

Hercules did. Original IBM MDA graphics adapter was text only. 😊

[@yannisgk]

with turbo mode you lose on electricity amount...non turbo: 4.77, turbo: 8 MHz.

[@aplmak1]

MT ram chips stink!! I’ve had issues with them too!!

[@Epictronics1]

Yepp, apparently even these older ones too!

[@aplmak1]

I’ve always found it on my older Micron chips myself.

[@awilliams1701]

oh it's not just C64. It's in apples and many other computers. MT ram 64k = 99% the reason it doesn't work.

[@Epictronics1]

Yepp, in IBMs too!

[@sgkonfetti]

From my point of view "Perfection" means including a FPU

[@Epictronics1]

I have one, but I'm not aware of any game I want to play that actually uses it :)

[@SergiuszRoszczyk]

@@Epictronics1maybe MS Flight Sim, otherwise only some Fractal demo ;)

[@sgkonfetti]

@@Epictronics1 A Nec V20 could be fun.

[@Epictronics1]

@@sgkonfetti They are. They increase performance by 10%!