IBM XT 5160

[@BollingHolt]

I wish I could get my aunt's old 5160 working. She gave it to me YEARS ago... it ran last in the early 2000s. Then I moved, it got improperly stored, movers lost the damn keyboard (I'm still seething about that), and it doesn't want to do anything except spin up the hard disk. The 5153 display still works like a champ, and I've been using it for the last year on my Tandy 1000 TL/2 until two nights ago when a friend shipped me a proper Tandy CM-11. ;)

[@aaldrich1982]

Hi Ancient Electronics! Wishing you good health and a good day. Thanks for another video. I live in Gloucester, England and love old computers, consoles and tech. My cat Marble is also a fan of computers but also mostly being a kitten and dashing around. Mostly that.

[@jedikwon]

43:59 omg! Thank you so much for the manual! I've been looking for the switch setting for years. I got the card from ebay without manual and I had no idea how to configure the switches. Now I know thanks to you!!

[@BuzzsawGaming]

Cool XT man! 🦎🦎

[@кирилборисов-с4и]

факт

[@erichkohl9317]

Boy this mild mannered XT turned into quite a beast of a machine!

[@acidhermit]

I know that you've been collecting for a long time and that's why you have all these machines, but what I find incredible is how you and some other youtubers I saw find these old IBM machines in the wild (not saying it's the case with this one but you mentioned before finding one at a Goodwill I think). Here in Argentina these old IBM's are very rare to find online let alone in the wild. Also we don't have thrift stores and flea markets don't really sell these type of things, so the whole notion of going some place and pick one up it's weird to me to say the least lol. I wish we had places like it cause online these machines go for a lot of money that I'm not willing to pay, even generic 286's can go for a lot online these days over here particularly with 3 digits inflation.

[@AncientElectronics]

Both the XT and IBM CGA monitor in this video were found at a thrift chain store. I wouldn't say it's common anymore to find things like vintage computers at thrifts but it does happen on occasion. These items were part of a rather large collection that was donated, we're talking Amigas, Apples IIs and an Apple III, macs, etc...it was crazy. prices were all over the place with some items being grossly overpriced while others were super deals. An Amiga 2000 was priced at $25. The IBM and monitor were grabbed from this store by a friend and fellow collector who passed them on to me.

[@acidhermit]

@@AncientElectronics Wow that was crazy that they gave all those computers to a thrift store. But It's how it should be in my opinion, things are too overpriced these days. Good that you got a hold of a few of them though 👍

[@AncientElectronics]

@@acidhermit My guess is that the collector was probibly older and passed away and their wife/family had no idea what to do with everything and just donated it all unaware it had any value. That would be my guess anyways.

[@LotoTheHero]

I expected a NEC v20. Was very surprised to see the 286 accelerator. Also kinda expected you to go with a VGA card, but IIRC those can be a bit slow. Cool build though! 👍 It's neat to be able to switch between the 8088 and the 286 easily.

[@OzzFan1000]

DOS 3 and 4 used the SELECT command to install onto a hard drive, but without online help via "/?" you needed the manual to figure out the required command line options. I believe it was intended that you boot of the floppy and it would run SELECT for you.

[@danotten3344]

I had a 5160 that I upgraded the memory to 1mb right on the motherboard, no need for a memory expansion card. Also upgraded the CPU to a NEC V20 chip.

[@AncientElectronics]

perhaps your thinking of a non-IBM turbo XT board in a similar case? I don't believe any of the IBM models could be upgraded over 640k from the motherboard. even the XT 286 maxed out at 640k on board.

[@danotten3344]

@@AncientElectronics Google search this: 1M memory upgrade mod for IBM PCXT 5160 and Portable 5155

[@RobertoCorreaEdwards]

Very nice machine!! I think you should try performing a Low Level Format on these MFM hard drives

[@scottmm78]

Try disabling the 8087 first had similar issue one with a different accelerator board and the fpu was causing a conflict

[@memadmax69]

Stick a VGA card in that thing. Use a trident VGA card. Its 8bit ISA compatible(even thou its a 16bit card, it will work with 8bit). Using VGA offloads graphics calculations from the CPU(unlike EGA/CGA which require the CPU to make all graphics calculations). You'll get somewhere in the neighborhood of a 20% faster machine overall just by doing this. No, going back to CGA does not help(maybe a little). You also shove a 8mhz 8088 on there along with the 8mhz crystal and the machine should handle it just fine.

[@AncientElectronics]

I heavily considered a VGA card as I have several that will work in an 8-bit slot but in the end I decided it wasn't with the spirit of what I was doing with this machine and I felt the EGA card was more appropriate. I also wanted to pair the XT with the IBM CGA monitor for this video so a VGA card would have been pointless even if it had dual VGA and TTL outputs. I can't speak much on whether CGA mode makes games run faster as I only compared 1 game between EGA and CGA modes (Eye of the Beholder) but I can confirm CGA mode ran noticeably smoother and faster, especially in the introductory cutscreen. I've had commentators in my past video also comment on this issue claiming "even at 7.16Mhz 8088 doesn't have the power to move 32KB of frame buffer (needed for 16 colors mode)." This was referring to 16 color games running too slow on a Tandy 1000 so I'm not sure if the same logic applies to EGA.

[@memadmax69]

@@AncientElectronics I wonder if setting the EGA card to output to a CGA monitor made it "slower"?

[@protox07]

Awesome

[@Ozfrank]

Like by default!

[@charlesdorval394]

Neat :) Someone has to build a PCB that just spins those old drive and seeks the heads, idk have it follow the HDD activity light or something ... hehehe Same for floppy drives tbh

[@_specialneeds]

None of that is ancient. Punch cards and vacuum tubes are ancient.