PC Archeology: A left for Dead IBM PC 5150 with a treasure hiding inside 🕷

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

I forgot to mention in the video that there was really nothing interesting on either of the floppies I archived. Also, if you are curious, that EPROM I used in place of the ROM was a WSI 57C49C -- it's a drop in replacement but the issue with it is you can only program it on "fancy" programmers the Data IO 2900... so it's not really useful to most people since those types of programmers are impossible to find.

[@BurritoVampire]

I've seen you reverse engineer weird memory expansion boards before, hopefully you take this Inboard on as a reverse engineering project as a reproduction is likely the only way I will ever come across an original, ever.

[@minty_Joe]

So, was the spider's name "Boris"? 😂

[@mnotgninnep]

I restored my one of these keyboards. The foam degrades inside and causes all sorts of problems, both with stuck keys and non-registering keys. I had to take it apart, clean everything and replaced the foam with a sheet of neoprene. It now works flawlessly. You will need a series of clamps top and bottom and a long one at the sides to help you get the layers clipped back together. Lastly, don’t pull off the space bar. It is clipped to a metal bar underneath and you will both break the plastic clips and be unable to reattach it without disassembling the keyboard again. When you do reassemble it, feed some dental floss through the post hole around the metal bar to pull and hold it up while you click the space bar back in. Once you are sure the space bar is clicked in and seated right, you can then pull it out.

[@networkg]

The spider jump scare alone deserves a thumbs up ! Another great video from the basement.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I went back and played it frame by frame to see if the spider was walking of its own accord or getting pulled by the drive 😅

[@subynut]

That 386 accelerator card is super cool! Growing up, my parents had an IBM 5150 they picked up used. It had 640K of ram, CGA graphics, 1 Full Height 360K floppy drive, and a MFM 20MB Seagate Half Height Hard drive. It originally had MS DOS 3.3, a few games, and MS Works for DOS. My father and I upgraded it to a 386 33MHz and more RAM. During the upgrade, we discovered that the AT spec moved the keyboard port to right between the Keyboard and Cassette ports and increased the number of expansion slots in the same space as the XTs! So, we were limited to external I/O on the outer two slots and internal I/O card in the next two slots in, but couldn't use the rest of the slots near the center as the mounting brackets would not line up! We trimmed the case to allow access to the keyboard port and ran it that way for a number of years. It ran MS DOS and Windows 3.0. I played SimCity, SimFarm, SimAnt, and Railroad Tycoon on it as well as learning how to program in Turbo Pascal on it! Good times!

[@TheMamosians]

That’s a great story :) my dad isn’t very technical but he did help me mount a scsi 1gb hard drive into an akai cd3000xl sampler many ago years for me. I did the setup and config and he got the drill to make a mount as it didn’t support hard drives internally. Also good times :)

[@pupaepedorra]

Seriously, this machine brings me memories of my early days with computers. When i started learning BASIC in the early 90´s, we were using 8088 and 286 PC that were ¨pumped¨ up with max RAM with very few or no wait states. They were all in the same room, as they were the ¨rookie¨ machines. They all had double 5.25 1.2 MB disk drives and no hard disk (on purpose). In that room, you could find a very odd selection of desktop cases, from old 5150, to unnamed clone XT, to even foreign weird ones. My favorite was an upgraded Televideo that was upgraded from 8088 to a NEC V20 and was working with... 640K of RAM!

[@Lukeno52]

That accelerator card is really amazing, and it is so good to see that the machine holding it wasn't confined to a grave. I can only imagine how much of a lease of life it must've given it back in the day!

[@NutDriverLefty]

I was a co-op student at IBM starting a few months after the 5150 was announced. I spent many hours plugging in 16KB RAM chips on the "Type A" motherboards, followed by 64KB RAM chips when the "Type B" motherboards came out. Then the XT, the "XT hard drive nightmare", the AT, IBM Cluster Program, IBM PC LAN Program, and Netware on PC for K-12 education accounts. I finished my co-op assignment a few months before the PS/2 was announced.

[@tedcollins4684]

I worked on 5150s and 5154s. I also helped with the first ps/1s when they were having problems with corona arcing. I designed and built the 1st circuit jig to test audio.

[@alanharkleroad4376]

The spider is like, Happy Halloween, Adrian. But that 386 accelerator card in a 5150 is just insane.

[@Toonrick12]

Indeed. Wouldn't be surprised if this was used in the early 90's before upgrading to a 486. If this computer could talk or have a working hard drive...

[@olddisneylandtickets]

​@Toonrick12 I had the exact same setup in 1989, 5150 was from junk pile at work and 386 card was $20 from some guy name Fish from the Recycler. Machine was finicky but did run 386 speeds and apps and it overheated nicely...

[@katho8472]

LIke a Beetle with a Posche motor in it :)

[@wernerviehhauser94]

​@@katho8472well, Beetles always have Porsche motors since Ferdinand Porsche designed the original Beetle....

[@jacobmckenna8661]

​@@wernerviehhauser94🤓

[@MatthewHill]

9:06 I have those _exact_ same nut drivers! Same gold-and-black color scheme, too! From a toolkit I used back in college to repair PCs on the side. I forget where I got it originally but I'm pretty sure I have it around somewhere! It's been a while since I've had to use it; most modern PCs don't use the nuts those things were uniquely suited to drive. Wow that brings back memories...

[@retro-futuristicengineer]

Funy enough, Epictroncis released a video today, restoring Model F XT and Model F AT Keyboards. He also had some badly desintegrated foam pads and showed some replacements you can actually buy new. Regarding the POST error, I assume that the water in the keyboard caused some corrosion that is causing some kind of short, and be it a stuck key or something like this. The accellerator is great, I'd love to get my hands on one at some time to test around with it.

[@madmanfrommars]

Epictronics even has a Model F repair video from a couple years ago - very helpful when I was doing work on my Model F

[@Epictronics1]

Fantastic find. Glad you could save the IBM. I just made a video restoring Model F keyboards. There is a guy in Canada on eBay who sells new foam pads for your keyboard

[@FLECOM]

was going to recommend your model F video, nice to see you here! thanks for the great content

[@Epictronics1]

@michaelscarport Thanks. Good luck with the restoration

[@Epictronics1]

@@FLECOM Thank you!

[@Epictronics1]

@michaelscarport woot! That is insane! Why YT? I have completely stopped using links in comments because they just get deleted. Those cork feet seem pretty good quality. This is my first KB that had missing feet

[@iceowl]

you've solved a mystery for me. i used to work in a manufacturing shop that made a lot of face plates for telecommunications equipment, which were powdercoat painted. if there was even the tiniest speck of paint missing, they would have it buffed and repainted. i've always thought was silly and wasteful, considering the parts being made are going to sit in a closet and never be seen by anyone who would care about a tiny fleck of paint missing. maybe it's because they want to make sure the powdercoat prevents oxidation.

[@kaitlyn__L]

That’s common with pretty much all painted iron/steel surfaces - a little missing spot, or a bubble under the paint, would definitely corrode within 5-10 years of service. It definitely seems wasteful of paint, but of course that’s much cheaper than sheet steel so it works out.

[@kencollum]

I'm assuming it was just cheaper to install the 386 card once the computer started to become too slow to run major programs than just buy an entire 386 PC although Im sure that in and of itself was not a cheap proposition, however its really nice to see an original 5150 up and running, especially with a faster brain and heartbeat. Great stuff as always Adrian!

[@freeculture]

If memory serves right it was quite the opposite which is why these were never popular. I mean this thing would cost as much as a 386 motherboard, with the penalties of the slow bus. But its amazing something like that even existed, because its of course an "easy" upgrade if you just wanted your spreadsheets to run faster or such.

[@mrnmrn1]

Tip for the bad sector disk: I had very good results with completely unreadable C64 disks (like 80+ % of the sectors were unreadable when archiving them on PC with a 1541 connected to the parallel port). Cut open the disk envelope, place the disk on a paper towel, and clean it with an other paper towel moistened with Windex. Cut open a good condition sacrificial disk and insert the cleaned disk into its envelope. Completely unreadable C64 disks came up 100% readable with this method. That collection of disks was stored on an attic for 15-20 years, and they didn't like it.

[@crashoverride328]

0:30 Ahh, Rogue - a classic game. I remember it well.

[@davidfisher8882]

This video was great to watch. I started my career working on these and other older IBM PCs, terminals etc. I remember there were so many adapter cards our customers would want installed. Math coprocessors, upgraded video, etc. You really took me into the wayback machine Mr. Peabody. Thanks!

[@coriscotupi]

09:05 - I still have a tool set with those e exact same nut drivers. The set came in a "hard cover" zippered black leather case and has also screw drivers, tweezers and an IC puller. After over 3 decades the elastic bands that hold the tools in place got kind of stretched out (I managed to re-tight them), otherwise the kit is in pretty good shape. And it's what I still routinely use today for servicing my PCs.

[@AdamHougham]

Another great episode! I remember in the UK a company called Evergreen Technologies offering complete Pentium-class computer replacement cards for 486 and older machines - the old motherboard was completely bypassed and only used the ISA slot for physical support holding the 'accelerator' in place. The power supply and all IDE cables etc attached directly to the card. I worked in PC manufacturing at the time and they approached us to stock them as an upgrade option - sadly for them we really wanted customers to purchase new machines!

[@jimrky6062]

If you stop to think, after having paid out around $1.5k for a 5150, the $495 upgrade by the InBoard Intel 386 was just protecting the original investment for private parties or small companies.

[@oldhifi8820]

Thanks for the blast from the past, as a lot of your videos are to me. I am from Portland and starting about 35 years years ago(when computers were expensive) I started buying broken and used computers computers and parts. I would rehab them and resell them. I have done everything from the 5150 on up. I recognized what you had the minute I saw it. One time I bought a bunch of XT's out of a warehouse down on Produce Row in SE Portland. About 4 or 5 of them had a 386SX card like the one in your video. Several of the clone XT's had the pop up lid cases where top of.case was like the hood of a car. They were great to use for testing cards, HD's and floppy drives. Seen and done a lot of things. 286-20&25 Harris cpu's that would out run any 386SX, taking MFM drives and using an RLL controller to format them and then double or drivesppace the drive to get more capacity, installing and getting to run operating systems that were supposed not to run on a computer that Installed it on and a bunch of other things. Almost nobody used to wipe their HD"s in those days, I got the surprise of my life when some of the XT"s I mentioned were from the IRS and still had the programs and data on them,. I wiped the drives and reformatted them in a hurry, kind of spooky when you think about it. I stopped selling my rehabbed computers when the new stuff got so cheap like an Athlon dual core and motherboard for $69.00 of which I still have one running to this day. Why buy used when new was so cheap. The only thing today that consider cheap is SSD"s, can buy a 500GB one for less than $30.00.

[@cjh0751]

I always loved that IBM used Cork for feet on their original PC. These are the simple details I remember from back in the day. 5150 always reminds me of Van Halen's album. The 80s were the best years to be alive.

[@capitanschetttino8745]

A truth big as a church my friend.

[@dave_jones]

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug

[@douro20]

Specifically Fel-Pro rubberized cork. I used #3026 which is 3/32" and comes in a 10"x26" sheet. It's very affordable- less than $7.

[@KameraShy]

The power supply on the 5150 was pitifully underpowered. I looked it up and one site says it was 63 watts. I had to upgrade when I added a hard drive. $400 for a 20MB Seagate. Still have the 5150, original green monitor, original ps in a box somewhere, the Seagate and (I think) its interface card and cable. We hoarders preserve history.

[@flunky02038]

interested to kn ow what PSU you chose to upgrade to? Am waiting on a 5150 from eBay and am nervous about using the original PSU.

[@ShamblerDK]

I suspect the foam breaking down has made it conductive. Sounded like several keys were being held down at the same time, when the keyboard was connected. Also, at around 52:00 you're holding one of the live wires from the voltage switch dangerously close to the PSU chassis, which is a ground connection.

[@bewilderbeestie]

If you're in a brown recluse area, one thing you can do is to make sure your house has a decent number of cellar spiders. They're harmless to humans but specialise in eating other spiders, so having some around will massively reduce the number of brown recluses or black widows around. They're also very polite, staying off the floor, and they prefer dark, secluded areas, so you won't interact with them very much. But chances are that spider was just another retrocomputer enthusiast whose ancestors had been patiently keeping the computer cockroach-free for the last decade.

[@alexandrecouture2462]

Great video! I got a very nice IBM PC 5150, with the 64-256k motherboard and a memory board, CGA and 2x 360k floppy drives in a garage sale this summer. The guy asked 20$ for it and I bought it right away. The guy was wondering a little bit why I didn't try to negotiate, but the price was already so good!

[@lordterra1377]

Damn you stole it. I would have too.

[@dhpbear2]

9:10 - Those nut-drivers were originally designed for hex-head (slot-less) sheet metal screws back in the day.

[@bobblum5973]

3/16- & 1/4-inch nutdrivers were the typical ones. Then Compaq came along and started using Torx head screws, as I recall.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I saw someone in another video mention it’s 5.5mm, so most hex drivers miss it (going from 5 to 6). It wasn’t even about IBMs, it was something else and they mentioned IBM used these heads too.

[@bobblum5973]

5.5mm = 0.2165354331 inches, pretty close to 0.25 (1/4 inch) so I think we could both be right. I don't think they were metric threads, but it's been so many years since I had to find replacement screws for that early a PC that I don't remember for sure.

[@eDoc2020]

@@bobblum5973 1/4 inch is 6.35mm so 5.5mm wouldn't make sense as being interchangeable.

[@bobblum5973]

@@eDoc2020 Thanks for correcting that. I think I fat-fingered the touch screen on my phone's calculator. I reworked it, and 5.5mm is roughly 7/32 of an inch. I think that's what I used since I didn't have metric sockets or nutdriver handy back then. 🤔

[@root42]

20:30 the battery looked like a SAFT branded one. Those are often pretty reliable and leakproof. I had a TI chipset 286 motherboard with such a battery, no leakage at all.

[@JamieStuff]

That 386 card is an Intel Inboard 386/PC with the 1 MB expansion daughter board. IIRC, the Inboard sold for around $1K (!), and the memory expansion card was in the $600-$700 range for the 1 MB unit, and the fully populated 2 MB version was around $1K. So, that card you found originally sold for about $1700.

[@philipclayberg4928]

Whew! Reminds me of the 100 MB hard drive that a friend bought for his Apple IIGS computer. He said it cost him $999.

[@LittleDancerByGrace]

@@philipclayberg4928 I bought an entire brand-new MacBook Pro in 2011 for $1100...

[@stevenfleckenstein995]

@@philipclayberg4928 The original ISA LIM 4 2mb EMS memory card available for the XT sold for about $1k per mb. A 20 mb half high Seagate hard drive was $650.

[@GigAHerZ64]

38:00 with shorter cables often termination was done on the controller side just to make it simpler and working.

[@Loki-]

8:50 It's flappin' in the breeze!

[@alfredklek]

Be kind to the spider, she probably spun that expansion card for you during the time that she was guarding that 5150 for you.

[@marksmith9566]

Looks like the keyboard connector can be unplugged and a test cable installed to test.

[@dant5464]

That accelerator looks like an Intel Inboard 386 - I've been watching a bunch of old Computer Chronicles recently and "Add-On Boards (1988)" was one of them - skip to 14:27 in that episode. According to the guy from Intel it comes with 1 meg but the addon board clipped to yours should up that to 3.

[@KameraShy]

It has its own Wikipedia page. "Intel Inboard 386" There were two versions: 386/PC and 396/AT. The PC version sold for $995 while the AT was $2,495 fully loaded. Real money back then.

[@rastislavzima]

1:53 "it got to be rust right?" - seeing brown gunk on the PC. 😂 It reminds me of the memes with the Padme and Anakin.

[@dr.goshleorio8343]

It's funny I don't get half of what you're talking about but your enthusiasm always grabs my attention and keeps me entertained. You are truly the Bob Ross of old computers. Thanks!

[@gvii]

Slotted screws have been around for 400+ years, and Phillips came to be sometime in the early to mid 1900's IIRC . Slotted screws are cheaper to manufacture, they allow for a lower profile screwhead, and you can put more torque into them before the screwdriver starts to cam out, especially if you're using a screwdriver with a hollow-ground blade. The only real advantage of a Phillips over a slotted screw is that it is self-centering. But that one advantage alone outweighs nearly all of the slotted screw's advantages combined. There are some situations where the slotted type of screw pulls ahead, such as the wrist and pocket watch industry where the screws holding the bits of the movement together are almost microscopic and flush-fitted. Where one errant sneeze can end up costing you hundreds or thousands of dollars. One of those screws rolls off the table and hits the carpet, you'll NEVER see it again. Lol....

[@TRS-80Fanclub]

In 1989 My Grandfather had this expansion card. He passed a few years later, and I did inherit this machine. His was populated with 2MB RAM, with 2 5 1/4 , one 3.5 and a standard 20mb Seagate drive. he had hacked a toggle switch to change from 1.44 to 1.2 drive A selection.

[@jessiec4128]

That is an interesting board for sure! Looking forward to the testing of that system. Hopefully it can be brought back to life! I hate finding flat head screws myself. Not very easy to remove. In the late 80s, I was working in the accounting department, and our company was building computers for business, I financed one and I had to build my own because they were too busy to build mine. And it had a very small hard drive. I had tons of programs on it. Lots of games. It ran very good. I wish I had kept it. I sold it and regret that. I am so happy you grabbed that one before it was destroyed!, That added board with the processor and Ram. Making that system Much BETTER!

[@ChristopherHailey]

It's nice seeing a 5150 being brought back. I remember getting one at work when they came out, I was tasked with porting some PDP-11 programs to it. It was interesting to work on a new machine like this. I ended up porting software and writing new stuff, wrote quite a bit of assembly code to make it do some cool things. Loving the channel!

[@michaelbishop3701]

Always amazed at your knowledge of old tech. My first experience with computers was with the Apple IIc and Apple IIe, and the first gen Macs, all with green or amber displays. My first word processor was Appleworks. I created pictures of trucks, motorcycles, etc. with nothing but char$, (character strings) in DOS. That took a lot of lines. Amazing how far tech has evolved. I'm 68, now. My only computer is an Omen 17 gaming laptop with an Intel Core i7 8750h processor and Nvidia 1660 Ti graphics IC. It isn't top tier, but plays games pretty well. Still miss those old machines, working with DOS and Basic. You actually bring back a lot of those memories. Thanks for that.

[@MurrayLewis-k4v]

Across the room is an IBM 5150 that was graciously gifted to me. I have not yet plugged it in, but it looks darn near new. Very little dust, very little use, all original. It sat around a college storeroom since 1998. The last time it was used it was as a monitor stand so the whole class could see the display (my brother is a college professor.) My brother never did plug it in, he just found it outside an office and grabbed it. It is second version. It is also extremely late production. I thank you for this video because I learned a lot of stuff I did not know. Hopefully the monitor I have works (the case is broken.) Thanks again.

[@emmanuelr6698]

Hello Adrian, your videos are a real treats to me, remembering when I had my ZX81, Apple IIe and Apple IIgs. Beware of the spiders ! Cheers

[@dhpbear2]

11:05 - Heathkit as well as Dynaco and just about any other kit company back in the day (1960s.1970s) employed slotted screws while most consumer stuff used Phillips! (?)

[@AnthonyRBlacker]

Oh Adrian, I have the 2 nut drivers as well, they're blue and silver handled, they're in my ORIGINAL little bag I had from 1993, I was 15 and got my first 'real' PC repair 'kit'. It had a bunch of things in it but I STILL have the entire set. I have used those nut drivers SO MANY TIMES!! What a great thing to see!

[@stevenfleckenstein995]

One of the pre release versions of the 5150 IBM PC that was shipped to IBM internal offices for field testing had power supplies without a fan, probably the reason for the covered over cooling vents on cases in later years. They tended to overheat. Not all IBM PC's had black power supplies. Many came with shiny metal cases, I think the vendor for those was Aztec but I could be wrong, was many years ago.

[@batlin]

There is something really nice about the old systems with two 5.25" drives. I had an Atari ST with one 3.5" floppy drive, no hard disk and only 512kb RAM, so copying disks required a couple of disk swaps...

[@blackterminal]

I had a similar setup. Though my father kindly had the ram professionally upgraded to 1mb a year or so after I received the ST for Christmas. None the less I swapped floppies a lot. A fantastic floppy drive that still works to this day. I loved my ST so much. I still have it.

[@batlin]

@@blackterminal yes, the RAM upgrade makes a big difference! After a year or two I picked up another STFM with 4mb RAM which felt infinite. It was enough to set up a 2mb self-compressing ramdisk (Maxidisk) and still have more than enough to spare. Great memories learning to program with GFA Basic, Sozobon C and the various 68k assemblers on that thing. I had to get rid of them upon getting a PC in 1998, but picked up another pair of STs and a Falcon about 10 years later after finishing undergrad.

[@harishnarain]

The Shugart floppy drives were later sold to Panasonic via Xerox. The Panasonic floppy drives that we all have seen more commonly in half height 5.25" form factor were carried over from Shugart.

[@andrewsuvorow6818]

Approximately in 1998 I also encountered the same combo of 5150 and 386 accelerator in it. But my friend who got these boards, was not interested in retro computers and disassembled it for parts. It was not working (missing bios ROM). Also 386 board had only 1 meg and no second board for memory expansion. in all other ways it was pretty much the same (16 MHz and intel sticker inside). even the ribbon cable to 5150 CPU socket was of the same type and color. I begged 4 BASIC ROM chips from this and keep they in my collection until now.

[@hawkmoon3312]

Holee shit. I have the exact same Screwdrivers sitting in my tool kit. Different sizes, too. Could never remember where they came from. Somehow they just got inherited by every toolbox and I never quite figured out what to use them for. Thought they wer for some weird lug nuts. Well, this solves a mystery after 25+ years...

[@aaronperl]

Oh my goodness, another Intel Inboard/386 !! ... as soon as I saw it in there I knew it looked just like the one we used to have. In fact, we also had the 386SX/16, with 2 MB of RAM. We did also have the 387 math co-processor (probably because my dad needed it for AutoCAD and other engineering software). I heard that we had one of the few that actually worked properly, but I've not corroborated that, I just know that it got us a few more years of use out of that machine. I even managed to get Windows 3.1 to run on it (in Standard Mode), despite the documentation explicitly stating it wasn't supported.

[@philipclayberg4928]

And to think that Microsoft once thought that no one would ever need more than 640K of RAM in their computer. Such naivete!

[@DarrylMcGee]

Amazingly, we talked MS into making a special Windows 386 for the Inboard 386. It was based on Windows 3.0. I think I still have the coffee mug MS sent the Inboard team when it was finished. The mug said, “Windows runs on the Inboard 386, who cares” 😅

[@hattree]

Hi Adrian, they did make adapters to use half height drives in these. My dad set one up for me when I was a kid with two half height 360K diskette drives and a ST-225 20 MB Harddrive. I didn't think I'd ever fill it. A company called Hauppauge Computer Works made 386 motherboards with 5 slots that would fit in those 5150 tin cans. I can remember using them to upgrade IBM PC 5150's to 386 in the late 80s.

[@tomiluukkonen4035]

Another previous ST-225 owner here, although I cheated and ran it with RLL-controller for extra 10MB of capacity. Worked flawlessly and as I know that old machine+hdd was still in active use in late 1990's.

[@uziel25]

Great video. Thanks for all that you do to keep us entertained.

[@philipclayberg4928]

And educated. My first computer was an IBM XT 8086 (4.77 MHz) clone by a company called Victor (bought it from a store in Washington DC sometime in 1986). Sat horizontally (not vertically) and had a pop-up lid that made access to the inside very easy. My oldest brother's first computer was in 1978, I think. I don't remember the name of it (and/or which company), but it had 4K of RAM, I think, no monitor (he got a small b/w TV screen (maybe 8" x 8") from a friend to use as a monitor), no sound, no floppy drive (you saved to/loaded from a cassette player), no hard drive. Mainly typed-up and played BASIC games on it (like Hamurabi, Mugwump, etc.). He had a book of BASIC games by DEC, I think (which is where I learned that not all BASIC code is compatible with all computers; some games, even if typed in correctly, just didn't work).

[@DaedalusRaistlin]

As an Aussie, your idea of a giant spider is amusing :) Might be a good idea to blast these with air before digging too deep. But nice find, thanks for the look at it.

[@EnvAdam]

11:18 watches still use flatheads but they are a bit different so you can imagine the mild annoyance of trying to keep a screwdriver centered without it slipping and screwing up very delicate parts like tiny hairsprings or gear teeth.

[@OpossumPiper]

"The things that I don't know about the IBM 5150" is the quote of the day! I loved this video and I've learned some really cool little tidbits about these early 8080s. I can't wait to see follow up videos based on this rescue.

[@dondywondy]

Another great one; I really enjoyed seeing the 386 upgrade board, and especially that it was working. Very cool! Thanks for recording, editing and posting your videos. I know it takes a lot of work!

[@isaactanner6403]

Hi Adrian !! You can use this accelerator pin out to make a cable to use in the MACH20 MICROSOFT Accelerator !! Waiting this video !!

[@humidbeing]

Flatheads are still king in industrial, farm, and basically any dirty/severe environment. Why? Because you can clear the head with the tip of the screwdriver. Philips, torx, etc, can't be cleared of debris. If you try to put the driver in them you will only compact the debris and make matters worse.

[@El_K_Bron_Del_Moycas]

Hi Adrian. Epictronics has recently made a video reconstructing a model F keyboard. The video title is about the 5155 restoration.

[@mdkoehn]

He posted another Model F video just today.

[@TheFrankRocha]

The spider interaction was FANTASTIC!!!

[@aaronperl]

Something for your future video on accelerators. If I remember correctly (it has been 30+ years), there are four "turbo" modes on the Inboard/386, which you can select with Ctrl-Shift-Alt-1 through 4 (with 1 putting the CPU back to 4.77 MHz, 4 going to full-speed 16 MHz). I do remember an additional BIOS thing running during boot, where it initializes and counts the 2 MB of RAM on the accelerator. Maybe that came from a utility program.

[@freeculture]

Hmm a 386 put into 4.77, so you could finally play Digger properly... Aside from the odd badly written game i never saw any use for slowing down cpus that came with the infamous "turbo" switch many clones had.

[@JamesPotts]

Perfect timing for Epictronics's Model F video, today.

[@petermescher332]

Mid 90's IBM Aptivas (re-badged Acer PC's meant for consumer use) also used flat-head screws. In college I had a job bludgeoning student PC's on to the dorm network. (10Mb 10BaseT, Netware, and Windows 95, just one year after release.) Those Aptivas were the bane of our existence; we cut our fingers trying to remove those stupid screws (our toolkits did not have a nutdriver that would remove them) and getting NetWare Client32 installed and working on them usually took about 3 hours, most of which was spent plumbing through the depths of the registry, trying to figure out how the installer screwed up.

[@pc-yx9uh]

i love the BRS interrupt. AKA, big red switch... nice XT. fond memories.

[@jandjrandr]

When I saw the XT to 386 accelerator card I was beside myself! What a find! I had heard of them before, but it was more talk and less often seen on XT systems than say a 286 system being upgraded to a 386 or 386 to 486 which were more common upgrades because you get the full 16-bit ISA or 32-bit EISA or VESA local bus slots. With the old XT mainboards you are stuck with 8-bit ISA.

[@obviouslytom]

I used to have one of those in my bedroom growing up and there are days were I really miss having it around. My dad wrote a program for it that was basically an OS for accessing all of the DOS games we had on it.

[@CaptainSouthbird]

I currently have an original IBM XT motherboard (technically used to be in a Portable but at some point in history it got moved to a regular generic desktop case.) At some point I acquired an "Intel Inboard" myself, which contains a socketed 386DX. I pulled out the 386 and put in a 386-to-486 upgrade. So my XT motherboard reports itself in MSD (Microsoft Diagnostics) as a "486DX" with an XT bus. When I was a kid, I had another specific 386DX upgrade which was called a "Kingston 486 Now!", which contained a socketed 486DX-33. First I changed it out to a 486DX2-66, then I replaced that with one of those "586" upgrade chips. (Don't remember which one.) Unfortunately I lost the Kingston part a very long time ago, and I've never been able to find another. I've long been curious if I could in fact make an XT motherboard have a ""Pentium"" CPU.

[@Pixelmusement]

Quick Thought: Maybe write "No Terminator" on the two floppy drives in case you go to use them at some point and get mystified why they aren't working? That does seem like an easy thing to forget to check, especially with the checkmarks on them now! :B

[@nicksmith4507]

OMG this is an extraordinary story! Fingers crossed for the next episode.

[@kirkanos3968]

Man that board cleaned up really nice.Really beautiful looking.

[@BurritoVampire]

Looks like an Inboard 386, I have one but mine doesn't have the RAM extension daughter board on it. I would love to get enough RAM to run Windows 95 on the thing but without an open source eproduction alternative to the extremely rare memory expansion, all hope is lost!

[@hardlyworgen71]

Windows 95 had a minimum requirement of 4MB if I remember correctly. I once installed Win95 on a 386sx/16MHz with 8MB RAM and it was unusably slow.

[@Milsparro]

I ran Windows 95 on a Pentium 100 with 8MB... Maybe 4MB of ram back in the day... Fast enough to play CDs lol

[@BurritoVampire]

@hardlyworgen71 I'm sure it was. Good thing as a vintage tech person, agonizing slowness is part of the fun! If I want fast, I would just use my newer computers. I mostly just want to point at it and say, "Look at this lettle feller go!"

[@roypennock8046]

As a Canadian I must insist that the square drive, or Robertson as we know it here, is superior to all other screws...🤣🤣

[@Romanon26]

55:03 first tandon drives for IBM PC 5150 rev. A didnt have that logo on the front.

[@bartramirwin]

Awesome video , my first computer was a 8086 , since then i have had thousands of systems so your video and knowledge really takes me back to my beginnings thank you for the walk down memory lane

[@8antipode9]

I was surprised to see it boot to BASIC! My first exposure to PCs was in the 80s, my dad built an IBM PC XT clone from mail order parts. It looked exactly like the PC you're working on now, but it definitely didn't boot to BASIC. That must have been a feature of the IBM ROMS in the official IBM computers. I'm glad to learn something new about something old!

[@fnjesusfreak]

It was.

[@St0rmcrash]

Yeah ROM Basic was an IBM only thing. They included it because of the minimum 16k config with no floppy drives, needed some way to boot it and use the cassette port. IBM wanted to fit into the existing micro market which all booted to Basic, but in the end pretty much the 16k config was never bought due to the high price and businesses wanting floppies and DOS. IBM kept ROM basic around forever too for compatibility (Basic com and basica com both just extend the rom basic) until about the Aptiva line. The clone makers never had a cassette config and most didn't license the ROM basic from Microsoft, instead getting GW-BASIC included on disk with MS-DOS

[@fnjesusfreak]

@@St0rmcrash I do think, though, that some clone motherboards had places to install the ROMs if you had, or were willing to sail the high seas for, them.

[@Snohup]

I recognize why the computer was in that state, as I've done something similar in the past: open, clean, try to fix, fail, remove parts useful to me (VGA card, terminators) and put everything together with the minimum number of screws so it won't make noises while transporting it to the recycling point.

[@crz1990]

When the spider popped out of that non-IBM floppy drive I lost it.

[@TheFurriestOne]

That old enamel case-paint/powder-coat cleans up nice! Some vintage-styled stickers could cover that rust!

[@AmirHusainTX]

Had an Inboard 386 in my XT clone back in the day. These are actually pretty rare. I haven't been able to find one at a reasonable price. Remember running Ventura on a Hercules display and being fascinated by the images. You couldn't do that on the stock 8088.

[@bobblum5973]

*Keyboard:* The foam (or something) is probably making it act like one or more keys are stuck down, so it's constantly sending codes or at the least not properly initializing. *Floppies:* You connect floppy drives, don't change the DIP switches to enable them, and wonder why you're having issues? 😁 *Intel 386 InBoard:* I recognized it, or at least what it was. They made a fair number of InBoard and OutBoard upgrades back in the day. A family member upgraded a Packard Bell with a Pentium Overdrive; switching the turbo off gave us about a 10-MHz equivalent Pentium... Rather slow!

The sticky black foam inside the keyboard can become conductive and cause lots of issues on higher impedance circuits. Make sure you take it off and clean up the surfaces. I would also blow it off with a compressor... Thanks!

[@jstinn123]

I enjoy your "rescue" videos. My community has a "recycle" center. All the e-waste is tossed into a open dumpster and then sent out to be crushed and shredded. I have asked if I can pick from the pile of the doomed vintage computers that show up from time to time, but the recycle center refused to allow it. It's very frustrating and a little sad when I see a pile of computers from the 80s enter the dumpster to be destroyed.

[@dhpbear2]

10:37 - I'm guessing this was a conglomeration of parts from other computers and those parts roughly 'fitted together' to save space!

[@Toonrick12]

To be fair, that basically the IBM 5150 in a nutshell.

[@Kboyer36]

I wonder how hard it would be to reverse engineer that accelerator card? It's always amazed me that with how many custom projects exist now to create new cards for old machines that no one has tried to make accelerators for these old 8088 based machines.

[@everTriumph]

Sometimes with old floppies, the cover is too snug on the disk inside. If you take the side of a pen or pencil and massage the edge of the floppy with it, it will loosen the hold the sleeve has on the disk. Can be the difference between reading a disk and fail.

[@ouch1011]

I got a good laugh from the spider attack. My husband has the same reaction to spiders. He always calls me to come and “dispose” of them.

[@kjtroj]

Nice! I've got one of these old Rev A boards and I had to replace tantalums, due to multiple shorts. That accelerator board is a nice score!

[@TheInkieSquid]

I just watched the "What have I done? I hope I made the right decision!" video straight after this one. Seeing you go through that emotional rollercoaster again as you discuss your decision, as well as the unbridled passion and excitement you share in this video - such as when you discovered the 386 upgrade card - is why I've long enjoyed your content. I hope the Almighty Algorithm rewards you, along with a heap of good luck. As far as sponsorships are concerned: I don't see a problem with taking money from a company in order to share their message if it's a message you agree with. Your honesty and openness throughout the history of your KZbin journey should be sufficient to have earned the benefit of the doubt from regular viewers. After all, the majority of us are probably watching for free anyway and ads have been a part of our society for longer than living memory. Diversifying your income is the safest option and you have to ensure that you come first when it comes to everyday and future expenses. Maybe share your reasons if you do accept ads in the future in kind of a mission statement that your audience can hold you to, but provided that you are compliant with the relevant local and/or national laws regarding what can and cannot be advertised why would it be a bad thing? Besides, you can set rules in your contract negotiation where you won't give up editorial control or be the voice of the company beyond clearly sharing _their_ message, as well as refusing to state anything as a fact unless you have personally experienced that claim in a real-world setting. Anyway, I hope you continue to enjoy making content as I plan to continue enjoying watching it.

[@radio-ged4626]

Last time I looked at a 5150 was probably around 1992. I was very smug when I correctly remembered the IRQ for the floppy drive was 6. So much nostalgia it almost hurts.

[@adamv242]

In the late 90s, I was gifted a 5150 that belonged to a high school friend. His father worked for IBM in the 70s and 80s and the computer was decked out with a 5161 expansion chassis, RGB monitor and a bunch of other stuff. I remember spending hours playing games on this thing at his house in the mid 80s in middle school... Sold most of it on eBay during a financial crisis. Wish I still had it all, for many reasons...

[@SakuraNyan]

11:27 Most likely, they dropped the other screws and couldn't find them. At least, given the sheer number of screws I've lost to things I've taken apart (also applies to the PSU).

[@slightlyevolved]

43:00, I could be very wrong, but didn't the cassette port and floppy disk share that interrupt, so with the switch in No Floppy mode it would be assigned to the port on the back instead of whatever card is trying to use it?

[@tramadol42]

You made me screaming, "You did shut the drives off!!!" 😆

[@chungkingcansuckit6345]

I had something similar and I believe I had that game as well. I had a Commodore 64 for Christmas one year and my first entry into the PC world was a roughly $1500 computer my Dad bought me from us browsing Computer Shopper magazine. It was roughly the size of a phone book filled with ads from people selling computers and products. We found a company that was local and they normally only sold to businesses, but agreed to sell us one. I believe the 8086 was on it's way out and they talked us into a 286. I probably only had 640k memory. Can't remember what speed the processor was. The first PC I ever bought with my own money was a Pentium 486 60mhz I believe. Pretty much from that point on I was building my own PC's instead of buying pre-built ones.

[@jerseyforlife732]

the 5150 is the computer i learned DOS on.. that power switch was so satisfying.

[@Rothammel1]

I also once disassembled an old German science computer. There was no RAM or CPU on the mainboard. a 386 and 387 co-processor were on an ISA card. i put everything in storage.

[@sorcererstan]

Rogue! Love it, great memories!

[@vwfanatic2390]

I had one of those crazy computers when they first came out. That reminds me what would you call a Cray computer if they used this model name/number? Cray-cray

[@AlistairKiwi]

I remember back in 1987 when I first started having to use DOS computers in our business - even then, PCs were insanely expensive & expansion cards were the dream!