IBM XT 286 Part 1 hard drive issue

OAK is very good board, run fine in ms-dos games. Brand new parts! In 2020 ! Again... just amazing!!!

[@PiotrK2022]

Meh, old junk - who cares...

[@appwraith]

I love these old IBM machines, they are just so cool! I hope to get one someday.

[@manuell3505]

It's very important. I have a IBM 5155. A Leisure Suit Larry hotel gambling session evaluates your day...

[@gilbert1975nf]

I wish I could have some of this IBM.... So hard to find out thus treasures here in Brazil and when found it are so expensive.... Anyway this is a great content.... Congrats.

[@RetroSpector78]

Thx ... you gotta be patient ... look in local ads and just ask around ... you never know what you end up finding. Places like ebay is the worst place to find them.

[@gilbert1975nf]

@@RetroSpector78 Actually I have found one IBM complete, with original IBM monitor, but cost around US$ 3 000,00 or more. I don't know if that is the normal price for this precious thing in other countries but I think it very overpriced....

[@RetroSpector78]

My very first IBM I ever bought (and first video I created) was a 5162. I paid 75 EUR (for the case + a non matching 17 inch IBM monitor).

[@GuybrushThriftweed]

@@gilbert1975nf That is way overpriced. They went up in price but still...Today I saw an 5151 monitor for around 300€ on ebay. Crazy!!!! It ruins the hobby.

[@rallyscoot]

@@GuybrushThriftweed That people throws these old computers on a landfill ruins the hobby as well. And now them want them again..

[@GuybrushThriftweed]

Thank you for helping me with my 5162. I really need to learn more about this stuff. I added the GPU from my spares box since the EGA Wonder was artifacting/broken.

[@RetroSpector78]

No worries ! :)

[@JimLeonard]

I've never seen a system delivered incorrectly -- did you attempt to stick the hard drive in, not understanding the drive select ID and cable issue? Or did you receive it this way?

[@GuybrushThriftweed]

@@JimLeonard It came with a very noisy and non-working drive, identical to the one in this clip. Recently I picked up two IBM's and this drive was in a broken 5160. Not knowing about DS on a MFM drive, I just swapped them. And yes, this kind XT hardware stuff is pretty unknown to me sorry...

[@parrottm76262]

Brilliant! I always forget the old WD drives meant Winchester. How soon we forget the lineage of our faithful hardware.

[@RetroSpector78]

Western Digital was my first guess :) But after some research learned to find out it was not.

[@Geforcefly]

I have a soft spot for these IBM XT2 (I like calling them that for short) machines; I consider them to be one of the first "sleeper" machines due to the zero wait state memory, allowing them to walk all over the 6MHz AT in performance.

[@RetroSpector78]

yeah ... should really do a head 2 head video with my IBM 5170 :)

[@GuybrushThriftweed]

@@RetroSpector78 That would be nice. I believe there is some footage of it on YT.

[@DxDeksor]

Actually, stason.org is an "empty shell". What you're referring to is actually "Total Hardware 1999". This site is composed of only .html files and have been replicated on several places. Here's a better replica than stason.org www.uncreativelabs.de/th99/ (without ads and with no modification to the text, because if you didn't notice, documentation of HDDs sometimes don't make much sense because there are more line breaks than originally).

[@RetroSpector78]

Wow did not know that ... everybody seems to be referencing stason in the retro forums.

[@DxDeksor]

Yeah because it's the first replica that pop up on google for some reason. But TH99 will be obsolete soon thanks to me >:)

[@kpanic23]

I usually just put the drive select shunt block one pin aside, so it bridges DS1 and overhangs the socket by one pin.

[@RetroSpector78]

Here it was mechanically not possible as there was another chip in the way.

[@kpanic23]

@@RetroSpector78 Hm, I see. Maybe if you bent the leads out or clipped them? But I guess that would be more hassle than just bending a piece of wire :D

[@ThorLite]

Nice videos and narration.

[@RetroSpector78]

Thx a lot ... appreciated it !

[@SanzarBellow-tc1zk]

Excellent, this video is my cup of tea. I have performed my share of shouting euphamisms to the sky with clawed hands facing up, all while staring at error codes related to hard drives on vintage PCs....please keep the videos coming.

[@dykodesigns]

Those floppy and hard drive cables are easy to get confused. I learned a hard lesson about a year ago when I tried to connect a 5.25” panasonic floppy drive thinking it was a floppy cable. I scartched my head why it wasn’t working, turns out it was a hard drive cable like the one in the video. I had spent a lot of money on that drive on ebay, send it back to the seller in the uk, was a lot of trouble get the money refunded. In other words it was a complete nightmare and my last experience with ebay only because of IBM making things confusing with their twisted cables🥶. Well, the whole ordeal thought me a lot about floppy cables and I made a whole study of potential pitfalls with floppy drives only because that floppy error 40 give my nightmares! True story. You are a life safer because with modern computers with sata cables whe take things for granted but back in the day you literally pull out your hair wondering why something didn’t work. These vintage pc’s demanded respect from their users, almost like stubborn cats.

[@RetroSpector78]

yeah ... will do a separate video on the floppy drives on cabling / termination / mixing different types / setup of all of that.

[@BurnedPinguin8630]

Is it bad that I focus more on what's in the background than the front?

[@BollingHolt]

Man! The ST-225 was indestructible. I used to collect and sell a bunch of them as "recently" even as 1993-94 when building "new" machines out of leftover inventory. I was surprised to see that was an ST-225 when you pulled it out as I was expecting a true, full-height drive, not a half-height with special mounting hardware. I've actually never seen one done like that. Cool! And great video as usual.

[@RetroSpector78]

Thx a lot !

[@SeltsamerAttraktor]

3:30 is it really 1.2Mb ? And not 360k?

[@RetroSpector78]

It is a 1.2mb disk drive. “ A standard configuration includes an Intel 80286, 6 MHz microprocessor with zero wait-state, 640 KB of planar memory, a 1.2 MB diskette drive, a 20 MB fixed disk and a serial/parallel adapter.”

[@nickwallette6201]

Whew! I can’t handle all that hardware.

[@javilarg]

This is the computer on which I learned to program MS-COBOL.

[@TzOk]

After configuring the right drive type in CMOS, have you tried to check if there was any content on the drive? This could even be enough to boot from this drive.

[@RetroSpector78]

The drive came from an XT machine so it was low level formatted in a way this AT controller could not understand. That’s why it needed to be low level formatted again. (That’s also why there was a drive select - cable mismatch). Should have made that more clear in the video.

[@Grishanof]

4:27 > RGB connector For a second I thought ibm was that far ahead of its time

[@MessalineApghar]

IBM was.. There was something that isnt well known but they created a video card and display system capable of 1600x900 in the CGA display era. It was called PGA ( professional graphics adapter) and worked using multiple slots like SLI . it was mostly used by TV broadcasters for graphics and overlays

[@psionski]

Hahahah :D

[@philippeannet]

Thanks a lot for that video !! Just busy trying to revive the 5162 / 5154 pair from my father (they were in the cellar since the mid 90's...). It started with the magic smoke on the display, so I'll fix the 5154 PSU first before trying to startup the PC... I'm crossing fingers, but have somehow little hope that it was handled properly (it has the 20MB drive, they surely never used the park utility), would be very happy to see the code from my Turbo Pascal experiments from the mid 80's, when I was a teenager... :-)

[@osgrov]

Nice. I didn't know about twisted MFM cables, that is nice to know, and definitely an error I might have made. I've really only used IDE and SCSI, missed out on a lot of the older disk tech. Maybe an idea for a future video? There were others as well, I remember seeing ESDI and RLL drives, but know nothing about them. I wish these old IBMs were easier to come by. I saw one for sale last year, and it sold for over €600, and that didn't even have a keyboard. Meh. I so want one, preferably an AT with an original EGA card and monitor! :)

[@HabadzaKalfa]

Nokia Data label spotted at 0:00. I believe those Alfaskop computers are exactly the same computers that were sold in Finland under locally better known brand MikroMikko, of which I also have a very similar looking sample in my storage. However, did not exactly know about such separate branding with these computers, even while this kind of things were far from uncommon. Any plans on featuring this unit in a future episode?

[@notsure1135]

My first computer, well, mine was the model before. 4mhz. 1987. Loved it. Kings Quest.

[@najila4291]

Thank you so much for these videos! I've recently come into ownership of one of these XT 286's, and these videos have been invaluable as a starting vintage computer collector. Thanks a ton!

[@lwvmobile]

This video and repair reminds me of some old IBM manuals at my old work place related to repairing AS/400 and also IBM printers. While not the same, working on old hardware like this really does need thick manuals to reference diagnostic codes and pages upon pages of flow charts to map out the process for changing parts out. I don't know how anybody could have worked out all these steps, especially BOTH the cable type with the fold AND the jumpers. I kind of wonder if computers back then needed to be so complicated due to hardware limitations, or if it was just bad engineering that led to them being so seemingly unnecesarily complex.

[@yuryschkatula9026]

Fantastic! I never had 286 at my hands (started later with 486) but this is anyway a thrilling video!

[@idahofur]

Okay so do you like the green hdd led or the red one? lol

[@alvaroacwellan9051]

Hm, MFM drives having drive select IDs like FDDs is kinda new to me, so thanks for the info. Yeah, I should have known that. Yet I didn't. Therefore, thumbs up!

[@GuybrushThriftweed]

That makes two of us :)

[@Lee_Adamson_OCF]

IDENTICAL?!?! But the hdd leds are different colors! ;D

[@RetroZiztendo]

I was recently thrown for a loop with some full- and half-height floppy drives that had similar drive select and termination issues.

[@Automaniac_official]

Why didn.t you use debug.exe program for formatting???

[@RetroSpector78]

Автоманьяк TV the “simple” debug command g=c800:5 only works on XT class controllers to load up the built in LLF routine in the controllers card bios chip. This 286 is an AT class machine (despite its name) and as such it is the PC and not the controller card that is responsible for the LLF. It is possible to do it via assembly language via debug, but it’s a lot of lines of code to type. So using the IBM diagnostics disk (or gsetup, or a proprietary western digital app) is the most practical way.

[@Automaniac_official]

@@RetroSpector78 ok. XT 286 has different mfm controller?

[@RetroSpector78]

Автоманьяк TV yes. 16 bit AT mfm controller.

[@Automaniac_official]

@@RetroSpector78 aah. Ok. Merci pour deine antworte

[@pwissink1]

Good video again. Yes, I did learn something. Now I know how to correctly install an old harddisk in those old machines. Hope to find one one day.

[@mikemoyercell]

why would someone dislike this? good work as always man!

[@DxDeksor]

If these XT 286 are just AT with a smaller motherboard, wouldn't that mean they're the very first so called "baby AT" computers since the baby AT form factor is the same as XT's form factor ?

[@RetroSpector78]

Not sure if they were the first. The 5162 was released in 1986 and the 5170 in 1984. Not really sure what other players were active between those 2 models.

[@NintenloupWolfFR]

I have an OAK video card like this one, they are slow and uninteresting, the kinda cards you'd put in a 286.

[@RetroSpector78]

And so we did ;)

[@VinnieMelo]

I love the sound of th MFM drives

[@sgkonfetti]

To get the best performance of the harddisk, you need to find the best interleave.

[@RetroSpector78]

yeah ... might do a benchmarking video on that .... still a lot to discuss about regarding these old hard drives (mfm / rll encoding, interleaves, error checking, surface scans, ......)

[@catriona_drummond]

How did the OAK turn into a Trident during system diagnostics? :P

[@RetroSpector78]

haha ..... I was having issues with my screen capturing and all of the footage of the IBM 5162 with the Oak got "stuck" after about 10seconds .... so I used to footage of the other IBM 5162. That one had an EGA card but swapped it with a Trident to do the video capturing. So cheated a little bit ... (did mention it in the video) :)

[@Vein1986]

I bet those cards have bad capacitors

[@nneeerrrd]

14:49 seems you not only switched the HDD, but a VGA card too... Not good (

[@nneeerrrd]

...and then later on you've switched VGA card back. hm... what's the point? :)

[@doktor6495]

Flashes me back to my PEACOCK 286 PC times and installing MS-DOS 6.22! Nice video, thanks! Greetings, Doktor64!

[@AncientElectronics]

I've read those OAK VGA chips are pretty slow, then again I doubt the VGA speed matters at all on an 8088. I always do like the cards that offered the digital out and the analog VGA. Some of the later ATI VGA wonder cards have both and they can auto sence so no switch boxes to mess with. I have one in my 286.

[@llloyd4]

So, this leads to the question, what, besides aesthetics, is the difference between the XT 286 and the AT 286?

[@dLLund]

taller case for at286 vs xt286. therefore, taller cards in an at286. lotsa at286 cards won't fit in an xt286. at286 machines MUCH more common than xt286. lotsa at286 clones. i don't remember seeing ANY xt286 clones. take care & stay safe,

[@tsechinhung]

my first pc - 80286

[@erin19030]

I worked on these when they were new in the mid 1980's . They were more about hardware than software with DOS 2.0. When you bought one it came on.y with a motherboard and a monochrome video board. You have to buy and configure the machine as you wanted it, thus the name Personal Computer.

[@geezergeek1637]

Very Good. Nice trip down memory lane.

[@RetroSpector78]

That's the plan ! Thx.

[@CoolDudeClem]

I used to HAVE one of these! I wish I hadn't given all my old computers away.

[@alberto_canero]

Nice video, as I see the graphic card 1024K has more memory that the machine itself 640K ?

[@CRG]

Another great video, looking forward to the next part. Convinced me that I need to take a look at my own 286. It's hdd is near dead though, makes awful noises. It's a bit of an odd machine actually as it's essentially a full 286 system on an isa card. There is no motherboard as such but just a riser with the floppy and ide controller on it which the 286 card plugs into and has space for 2 more 16bit cards.

[@charlesdorval394]

I've always found those cards quite interesting, I see them as kind of the ancestors of all those SBCs we have today

[@CRG]

@@charlesdorval394 I've just spent the last hour trying to work out the configuration settings of the HDD after the battery had died. Such a pain as the drive had no writing on it to tell what the cylinders, heads etc are but eventually got there. Its a chips & technologies board with a harris 286 processor. Just need to quieten the HDD then drop in network and sound cards and it'll be done!

[@DuckGWR]

Man, I really need to get my XT 285 motherboard issues sorted out...

[@davida.7586]

Really very useful information. Thank you!

[@Captain_Char]

I still have parts for a western digital model x 10mb drive, oddly a lot of the chips are labeled Proto

[@matthewplehn4271]

great content! was hoping you would go back to doing these types of videos

[@OuTannu]

did i spot an ESCOM tower? what specs does that have ? :-)

[@RetroSpector78]

Have 2 escom minitowers, one with an eacom badge (a pentium 100 shown in my redhat video), and another one with a commodore badge (cyrix 166).

[@OuTannu]

Brings back memory's :-) we had pretty much the same machine, but ours had a COASt installed :)

[@heilong108]

Nice OSSC you got in the background there

[@RuruFIN]

Most interesting of those 80s IBM machines.

[@PaulinesPastimes]

Interesting and informative as usual. I have an IBM Valuepoint type 6384, 486 DX2/66 and I love it. Nice info about the web sites too. Cheers.

[@RetroSpector78]

Thx ! Glad you liked it.

[@PaulinesPastimes]

You're welcome.

[@Romanon26]

This WD-25 disk drive was from XT system. You can recognize it by red led light (WD-25 disk drive for IBM XT-286 has yellow/orange led light) . Also XT systems are using straight cables, so this explains jumper position 1 and also different formatting (You had to perform low level format to use this drive). End of detective story ;)

[@RetroSpector78]

Was that a formal convention (the LED color / cabling style ?)

[@GuybrushThriftweed]

@@RetroSpector78 Curious myself...

[@Romanon26]

@@RetroSpector78 I am not sure but it comes from my experience. Red led - XT, orange led - XT286. It also applies to floppy drives.

[@vitonildo]

How do you know the type of the drive? 2 or 13? Where this information comes from? Thanks.

[@nticompass]

It's written on the drive itself. There was a sticker on the drive that said "type 2" or "type 13".

[@RetroSpector78]

It it is not written on the disk you can look up the CHS of the make / model of the drive. Once you know the CHS you can translate to an IBM type number.

Just amazing! 286 is my first pc !

[@intel386DX]

fantastic video as usual thanks! :)

[@RetroSpector78]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@garyslatter9854]

Kids today would have heart failure

[@PiotrK2022]

Meh, who cares about so old junk...

[@realbigtrees]

fiiiiiiiiiiirst