The IBM PC 5150 -- Getting It Just Right

Jump directly to these sections:
Current setup: • The IBM PC 5150 -- Get...
Information about the MP 6311 / HM6311Q Mono/CGA card I use: • The IBM PC 5150 -- Get...
Demonstrations: • The IBM PC 5150 -- Get...
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You saw a little bit about my old IBM PC 5150 in my repair video, but let's take a deeper dive at this machine, how it was when I got it and how it is now.
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Videos mentioned:
Repair of my IBM PC 5150 - • Fixing a PC that won't...
Fixing old hard drives with lubricant - • Method to revive hard ...
Removing Rust with Wheel Cleaner - • Can I save an old IBM ...
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Information:
HMC HM6311Q / MP 6311 Mono/Color Graphics card - No information, see link above to jump to my video where I show the jumper configuration sheet.
IBM PC 5150 Rev A Information - www.minuszerodegrees.net/5150/...
IBM Floppy Controller Versions - www.minuszerodegrees.net/5150/...
Historical Memory Pricing - jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm
XT-CF Lite Card - www.malinov.com/Home/sergeys-p...
mTCP DOS TCP Stack - www.brutman.com/mTCP/
AST MegaPlus II with MegaPack Ram Card - www.minuszerodegrees.net/manua...
PC Limited ZM2 MFM Controller - Might be this card: stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-dis...
CCS Monochrome Display Adapter - Looks to be a "SuperVision" by California Computer Systems, supporting up to 132x44 text (www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread...)
Clock Command I shows (look under generic) - minuszerodegrees.net/rtc/rtc.htm

[@happysprollie]

I once knew an AST salesman - a bit of an asshat, to be honest - who was once heard suggesting to a customer over the phone that it would be better to buy an unpopulated memory board and "RAM it up yourself". He couldn't understand why everyone in the office was weeping with laughter.

[@danmackintosh6325]

Ahh, the sound of an old PC POST-ing just never gets old...

[@mamaluigi2064]

I've always wanted an IBM 5150 My dad used to use them at work in the early '80s these machines are so collectible and so cool

[@_Thrackerzod]

Fun fact: PC's Limited was the company we now know as Dell. I'm guessing the controller was from one of Dell's very first computers.

[@nukemanmd]

You beat me to it. PC Limited has some of the best prices on hard drives back in the day. My first 20 g hard drive was from PC Limited. I recall it selling for $999. I remember wondering how I was ever going to fill it up. LOL.

[@nukemanmd]

Oops. You got me.

[@harshnemesis]

@smakfu lol amiga is so bad even fat16 can handle 2gb so on my 486 I have 4gb cf card (that came from my pocket pc pda, when I replaced it with a 16gb) of course I could have fat32 but I want the windows 3.11 and dos so fat16 is more proper

[@askhowiknow5527]

Stephen ...20GB or 20MB?

[@mikesilva3868]

📼☻

[@datashed]

My first computer was a 5150! Love these machines. So solidly built, and the keyboard has never been matched.

[@MichaelKingsfordGray]

It HAS been matched, and exceeded by a long stretch! By HP. (My first computer was an HP9100A, in 1969.)

[@cbmeeks]

Great video. The 5150 is on my short list of computers to get next. I just bought a PCjr that I hope to restore.

[@pvc988]

4:25 That HDD controller card had a Z80 CPU on it. It was a computer by itself.

[@KuraIthys]

That's pretty common for a lot of things, both historical and new. The irony historically is that the controller cards were similar in power to the main system, where in modern systems a CPU used as a controller for something is generally a lot weaker than the main processor in a computer. I believe atari floppy drives were similar to commodore ones in that regard... As were a bunch of things.

[@BlackEpyon]

@@adriansdigitalbasement All that computing power on the 1541, but was slow as hell over that serial interface. At least they fixed that with the drive they used for the C128.

[@officermeowmeowfuzzyface4408]

@@BlackEpyon it wasn't the serial interface that was slow. They left the on-chip serial disabled for backward compatibility due to a bug in the original 6522 VIA. The bug was fixed in the 6526 and modern variants of the 6522, though the kernal code still does the "bit bashing of bytes" instead of relying on the interface to push one whole byte at a time.

[@VintageTechFan]

@@KuraIthys It did come back with GPUs ;)

[@eznix]

The first part time job I had was setting up IBM XT's and AT's at the local college. I remember the jumpers giving me fits of frustration while trying to install memory in banks and then configure the jumpers to see the memory. The memory came in tubes of IC chips and the pins were easy to bend if one were not perfectly lined up with the sockets. I do not miss those days at all.

[@LarryDeSilva64]

We had those IBM 5150's at work I started working in 1977 so they were quite a boon back in 1981 but the way you have updated yours is nothing short of amazing for an old 1981 computer. I even got the nostalgia bug and recently bought an old Commodore 64 and am in the process of collecting all of its parts to get it to work. Thanks for making the fun and informative videos Adrian.

[@CrystalMcNair]

This bad boy looks like my first ever computer, an IBM XT clone we affectionately called "Rudy". It was an 8088, 2.5mhz cpu, 20mb harddrive, single double-density floppy drive, and an amber shaded monochrome monitor that showed variations of the amber color. We had a deskmate like program as well, and it allowed us to chance the "color" of the interface... I chose "Cyan", which was the brightest, so I accidentally thought the color "Cyan" was that amber color until I grew up. Hahaha. Used to play Wizardry until the cows came home on that badboy. It also supported Hercules, but didn't seem to run much else. I remember buying a modem card for it, a 2400 baud one, and going to BBS', and talking with a friend after directly connecting to his computer.

[@heyyyitsjosh]

you are a genius! I love your videos, the cga toggle switch genuinely blew my mind!

[@kwisatzhaderach1458]

Played so many games ss a kid on this at my grandparents' house. Loved it.

[@AdamChristensen]

Those are some nice ISA cards!

[@dagglock7615]

I have an 5155. I'm thinking some of the neat things that you have done will work on my 5155. I learned something today and it because of you. Thanks a ton!!

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

Thank you very much for demonstrating the CGA/monochrome switching and the networking/telnetting card. The telnetting in particular may come in very handy for me in a resurrection project I am doing on a Dell System 200 that has been dormant in my parents' basement for about 25 years.

[@luisluiscunha]

Nice computer... Great preservation work. Well done. Thanks for sharing.

[@Hiphopasaurus]

The 5150 is such a thing of beauty! BTW 3:55 The original April 24, 1981 BIOS does support double-sided drives, as the original limitation of 160KB disks was DOS 1.0. Support for double-sided support was added in DOS 1.1. The 1982 revision's big feature was adding expansion ROM support, meaning it would be the earliest that could possibly boot from a hard drive.

[@scottbaran2219]

This was an awesome episode!

[@user-pm7cc9mx6j]

I really enjoyed your video! Excellent job!

[@scottaw1981]

i basicly as old as this. Whish i still had one of those, green mono always so lovely.

[@MegaManNeo]

I am born in the early 90's but to experience BBS like that makes me somewhat jealous. Hope you can enjoy your new machine.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Same. You might enjoy Digital: A Love Story, it's told through the interface of an Amiga dialling into various BBSes (and using calling card hacking software too).

[@FDCAFOK]

I was around 16yrs old when this came out.

[@kpanic23]

That's a really cool graphics adapter card! In the past, I had used ATI EGA Wonder 800 cards, they are also able to emulate color output on a monochrome TTL monitor. Even 16 "color" EGA! By the way, the MDA's resolution is not 640x350 ;) It uses a 9x14 pixel font, multiplied by 80x25 that's 720x350. Hercules uses a strange interleaved memory organization, splitting the memory in 4 chunks. Hence the vertical resolution has to be divisible by 4, resulting in a resolution of 720x348... I absolutely love your setup! Congrats for finding such an early model! Keep it running!

[@chaos33709]

I loved that computer. I wish I still had mine.

[@AnimalFacts]

Nice setup.

[@mrb5217]

Adrian, thanks for the tip with the Intel 8/16 NIC and mTCP. I picked one up and was able to get my IBM 5155 Online!

[@offensivejerk]

Thanks for that ANS file!!! I just stole your idea and put it on my computer. It looks so awesome!

[@MontieMongoose]

I really love these computers.

[@jakubtrzebiatowski5308]

Thank you for the video! I love this computer

[@trevorpomroy550]

I just got finished adding a monotech xt ide and v20 to my 5150. I have a tip for anyone trying to run QuickBasic 4.5 or later on these. (PDS and VB 1 too) QB hangs on startup on mine with either the original 8088 or the v20. It turns out Microsoft had a KB article covering this. The FPU detection code causes the hang. If you don't have an 8087, SET NO87=NOMATH to disable the FPU detection. Thanks for the deep dive! Very helpful!

[@osgrov]

Very nice 5150, Adrian, I'm quite jealous! So far I've only seen two 5150s in the wild here in Sweden, and both sold for much more than I could afford at the time. Hopefully I'll find one with my name on it some day!

[@constantinescuiulian3282]

Hello, if you are still interested, I have one for sale, working and in a top shape condition.

[@UnkyjoesPlayhouse]

I got my start with a 5150, it was my first real X86 computer, until then it had been the Vic-20, C64, and Atari computers, I worked for an Apt Complex and the owner bought this thing new and I got to figure out how to make it run, many a late night spent in front of this TANK and I do mean TANK, it was a wonderful computer :) We added a 20MB hardcard into the unit after having it about 3 months, no more floppy swapping :)

[@therealgaragegirls]

I remember wanting one of these in 1985, but they were out of my price range at the time.

[@patrickcarrillo714]

one thing that I like throwing into these machines is the 8087 Math co processer adds a little more capablilites to the computer

Really nice! I would appreciate a bigger video talking about DeskMate and similar options, like QuikMenu, GEM and GEOS/NewDeal Office. I’m also curious about the DOS version you’re using. Thanks for the video!

I love this channel ! 10 deslikes ? Some people are ridiculous

[@mikemac2188]

Pretty awesome stuff These computers or legendary pretty amazing to have a working one I like to use my computers in not just look at them There is nothing wrong with that but I like to use them. Correctly It seems to be the same with you so pretty awesome. Great video I got a lot of enjoyment out of it in May watch it again a few times lol😎🍻👍

JUST AMAZING! MY FIRST COMPUTER! 😃

[@AshtonCoolman]

I like getting old PCs like this and upgrading them to the limit of their hardware. I have a VGA card that works in 8-bit slots that I'd love to throw into a 5150 or Turbo XT. Right now I have a 286 12Mhz 've used with a fast VGA card, SIIG EIDE+BIOS card, ESS sound card, CD-ROM, Compact Flash hard drive, and RAM expansion card. It was good fun but I retired it to soup up a Packard Bell 486SX-25 I needed the ISA cards for.

[@bobz1736]

Great vid as always. I'd leave the battle scars as they are rather than repainting... it's part of its history

[@jaykay18]

5:40 perhaps that RAM on the original display card was for a print spooler/print buffer for the parallel port? I had a number of IBM Proprinters over the years, and one was lucky enough to get a 16K print buffer chip installed. When PrintScreen was pressed (in text mode), you'd see the cursor run through all 25 lines of the screen in one shot, and the printer would just go as fast as it could, but the system was already freed up. In a printer without said buffer, you'd get a few lines buffered, and then you'd wait, and watch the cursor advance a line each time the printer got through with a line. Also worked in graphics mode, but you still lost control of the system for about 3/4 of the page; I guess that 16K didn't go too far. Of course, using a software-based print spooler it could dump everything to RAM and then to the printer as a TSR. I know I've seen that color emulation SOMEWHERE before, but I have no idea where. Anyway it's awesome that the card you have does that, gives you just about everything. I think you need to find yourself a DE-9 switchbox and cable both those monitors up. It's also pretty cool having both a monochrome and a CGA adapter in the system and being able to switch between them, KZbinr "AkBKukU" had a video on that. I'm not sure what the function of the other DB-25 port mounted in the case itself was, you mentioned that was only for early revision machines. I've never seen that populated (perhaps I've seen only newer 5150s). Where does that plug into exactly? I've also noticed that your right-side floppy drive is seek tested at POST. I was under the impression that factory configuration would have the left drive seek tested (and be drive A), while the right drive would be drive B. Just mentioning from a historical standpoint. Regarding your conversation with goodwillhart regarding the CIRCLE command in BASIC, I believe you are 100% correct, you have to use the disk-based BASICA (Advanced BASIC) for extended drawing capabilities as such. Otherwise, I'm quite jealous! I currently have a late-model XT (1986) with a Seagate 20MB ST-225, 640K, and CGA card. That's hooked via composite to the big screen in the living room, and it has an early non-indicator-light Model M, not a Model F. One day I'll have to get a CF adapter for it, though that ST-225 probably has a few hundred thousand miles left in it, they last forever!

[@hakemon]

I see we both watch the same videos. :p

[@jaykay18]

Great minds think alike, and I guess watch the same types of videos!

[@jaykay18]

Interesting on that kind of text mode! Fun fact: the original 80x25 text mode was not an accident. Punch cards held 80 characters and 12 lines, so an 80x25 screen showed the contents of 2 punch cards, plus a status line! I've never seen that port populated on the back, but given the limited 5 slots of the machine I'd expect it wouldn't be terribly uncommon that it's populated. Realistic early config would be an MDA card with Parallel port, serial port card (or "ASYNC card" in IBMspeak), floppy controller, and maybe a RAM expansion card. There's 4 slots. If you had CGA, you'd probably still do the 4 slots by having a serial/parallel combo card.

[@gstcomputing65]

I had a 5150 with a Hercules card, Zuckerboard, the original IBM monochrome monitor, a 360k 5 1/4" and 720k 3 1/2" floppy. It was in almost perfect condition, and it even came with the dust cover for the monitor and computer. I stupidly got rid of it in the mid-90's.

[@Synthematix]

C64 was my favourite 80s machine

[@BlackEpyon]

A point about using the CF cards on XT machines, is that the card needs to be formatted for the XT first. Use fdisk /mbr to clear the master boot record. Once it's formatted properly on the XT, you can transfer it back and forth. Something funky about the way the XT does the MBR... I had a similar issue when getting a CF card going on my Tandy 1000HX. The ROM boot (F8) just looks to address 18h in memory. On the IBM PC, this was the BASIC ROM.

[@emprsnm9903]

After tinkering with CF cards in old machines, I found that issue where some large CF cards just don't work in a certain machine. A workaround that I found to be very reliable, was to first go for a era size-appropriate match. As in a 5150 or XT, would sport a 5mb-30mb HD, so a 16MB-128MB CF would function well. And a 386 machine would sport a 40MB-120MB HD, so I'd try a 64MB-256MB CF, and so on. I found this to be more prevaliant in later machines because of their BIOS's (integrated IDE). So even a used tiny CF would be a easy quick solution over partitioning and testing a GB sized CF card. My educated guess was the CF's dirve geometry was parallel to HDs in smaller cards. Later on, some CF card manufacturers likely got more exotic in their drive geometry for speed reasons, sacrificing backward compatibility to do it, and most camera users etc. (primary target market) were never affected, nor noticed. A side benefit to smaller card size is also, having just one full sized partition filling it all up (per dos version limits). Which is also period feeling/matching in practice. In the case of a 5150 with a tiny 64MB CF, thats 177 360K floppys on the CF. Anyone would be hard pressed to fill that small CF up; with software that would run on its 8088 CPU. As an aside, CF's that small are likely not going to be fakes or respecs, because there's no profit in bothering doing so now, and back in 199x China didn't contaminate the market with that yet. Another tip some might not know, is to partition and format your CF on the target machine. And don't risk corruption by transferring files with it in another machine. In practice, CF's are finicky compared to USB sticks, and older machines are less tolerant to HD/CF layouts, and changes to them that other machines might commit to them.

[@Romanon26]

Both drives are IBM branded. That second one had logo not because IBM, but because that logo had only later models (1983+) of floppy drives. Earlier models was without IBM logo on the front side. Also dont be misled by single side drives. They were supplied ONLY with very very early models (serial number cca 120000 and less)

[@Romanon26]

@@adriansdigitalbasement in 90% was IBM floppy drive from Tandon (your right drive) in other causes was different brand. Regarding to your cable, in IBM PC and also in XT was left drive always boot drive - A:, right drive was B: or hard drive :)

[@dLLund]

adrian - this is the 5150 machine for which i sent you the metal bracket, included w/ the dual-cf ide adapter. i was hoping it would fit the XTide-cf card. maybe even room to drill a hole for your video card toggle switch. take care & stay safe.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Thanks David!

[@hipwave]

I still regret that 5150 with monitor I didnt buy at the junk store for the equivalent of 25 us$

[@kd1s]

At one point I had an XT with a V20 processor. Good machine. I ran Waffle on it for Usenet.

[@PicaDelphon]

the Bast Video card I used in my IBM stacked unit was the ATI VGA Wonder XL 24, a 16 bit card I used in both my 8086 unit and my 80286 512k units it came w/ it's own Mouse port that was sooo Much better then the Serial Ports..

[@tschak909]

The controller is the original Xebec 1210 ST-506 controller, the non-IBM OEM version.

[@celebratelife6908]

I am very impressed with your knowledge and experience in regards to your electronic repairs. I live here in Portland and I would like to talk to you about helping the BLM protesters. I am sure that the heat ray the government has can be nullified simply. I believe you said that you have a 3D printer. I think we could make a difference. Aaron Bingaman

[@michaelperugini4199]

Do you have a video on STEP by STEP process of setting up DOS TCP ?

[@denshi-oji494]

The 5153 CGA monitor is nice, but I prefer the newer 5154 CGA/EGA monitor. I have never seen that new of a hard drive in any PC or XT for many years. Usually I saw the older full height hard drives. Those AST cards were very nice multi-function memory add-on cards. Usually, at least the cards I am familiar with, unless my memory is faulty, the Floppy controller you have SHOULD be good for 4 floppy drives. The external connector would connect to another matching case, same size as the IBM PC/XT, with up to two more floppy drives! I used to have one of the Floppy expansion cases, and cable... Not sure if I still do or not... Auto-switching Video... many of the monitors had a pin shorted or not in the video connector to tell the computer which monitor type was connected. It would do the same thing as your switch on the back of the computer. By the way, those types of cards were quite common for a long time and yes, it is cool running full graphics on a monochrome monitor. Y2K, was a big concern, that was a very BIG non-issue. There are little utilities to run that bring the computer up to a post Y2K standard. But, unless you really had a program that was using dates without any checking that could possibly allow over-flow, or other non-valid conditions to occur and cause corruption, it really did NOTHING...

[@cheater00]

man, what a great video. you really got this set up how you wanted it. how did you configure the hardware and drivers, interrupts and addresses? stuff in autoexec.bat and config.sys? could you make a video about this please?

[@SuperMoleRetro]

I have an IBM employee purchase 5150 still in the boxes from the early days (computer, model f keyboard, printer and monitor). I bought it several years ago for $100 and at the time the guy told me it cost them $3500 new even with the employee discount. They added in a hard drive at some point, so I am on the lookout for another disk drive. Luckily at the time I was buying up my collection, everyone else thought these old machines were junk and were happy to get anything for them.

[@dsmandras]

Last week I got a 5150 from 1983, along with a 5153, Model F, and all the documentation in its original boxes for $65. Only issue was replacing bad ram and fixing one of the doors on the floppy drive

[@LarryDeSilva64]

@@dsmandras Where I worked at Pacific Gas and Electric they were tossing them(ibm 5150's) in dumpsters by the late 80's who knew nostalgia computer collecting would take off like it has now.

[@ThePillenwerfer]

I had a similar graphics card called a Graphics Solution. It would operate either a Hurcules as Hurcules, CGA as CGA, Hurcules as CGA or CGA as Hurcules.

[@2j4ez]

Nice . Bbs on a 5150 I do bbs on a c64 it’s great

[@criticalpoint7672]

Yes, very nice video. Do more videos with this computer. Play some CGA games on it.

[@JarrodCoombes]

Ok, so how do you do that IBM logo with system info? Custom app, or something available out there? I'd love to see a copy of your Autoexec.bat and config.sys too. Oh, and one last thing, whats the serial number of the unit? I'd like to pass this onto someone who is trying to collect a list of serial numbers and manufacture date of these early revisions.

[@AlphaFox78]

its just ascii in the autoexec

[@JarrodCoombes]

@@adriansdigitalbasement Ahh, nice. It's a great idea. Did you see my question about the serial number?

[@JarrodCoombes]

@@adriansdigitalbasement Whats the serial number of the unit? I'd like to pass this onto someone who is trying to collect a list of serial numbers and manufacture date of these early revisions, and maybe tease out a pattern.

[@neutrino78x]

you know what you should do is get a copy of IBM Professional Editor (it's on ebay from time to time). When I was a kid, my friend's dad worked at IBM and got a copy of that for free. We loved playing around with that program on their IBM PC/XT, it was similar to the Boxer text editor that we had on our IBM PC at my house but it had some different nuances. Anyway when you start it up, it shows a neat looking IBM logo in extended ASCII, similar to your logo here. It says "The [big IBM logo] Personal Computer Professional Editor By Walter J Paul (FOR IBM INTERNAL USE ONLY)". Of course if you buy a copy from Amazon it won't say for internal use only lol. But anyway, I would get a TSR that can capture a DOS screen to a file such as one of these: freesoft.cyberside.net.ee/FreeSoft/screen.htm#screencapt and then run IBM Professional Editor and capture that screen. :)

[@JarrodCoombes]

@@adriansdigitalbasement If we are right about the serial numbers, that would mean yours was one of the first 136 thousand made, and those chip dates do seem to confirm that. So yours would have been sold sometime between April of 1982 (when they hit 50k units solde) and August of 1982 (when they hit 200k units sold). Very cool!!! And thanks for the IBMLOGO.ANS, I plan on using it on all my old IBMs!

[@duncangarnett1976]

You mentioned Portland, do you live there? I've been watching "Grimm" on Netflix lately which is based in Portland, great show BTW🙂It really looks like a nice place.

[@asgerms]

I wonder how that graphics card actually produced the grey-shading on the monochrome monitor, as the monitor has a digital interface with only off, on, intensity. Perhaps some combination of fast pulsing and a monitor with long afterglow. Anyway, that card could/should have been huge back in the day. I would have loved it on my monochrome XT (which was very nice with a hercules card).

[@friendlyjapanesebusinesswoman]

I love your video

[@millermonsterair]

5150.... the name says it all. its gonna be crazy. lol

[@paulrobertz8491]

Very interesting! I have an identical CGA/Monochrome graphics/parallel port card and couldn't find documentation anywhere else. Do you set the PC's dip switches for a monochrome card or for a CGA card?

[@rottmanthan]

i have a 5150, i am in maine and the computer happen to be from the university of maine which i thought was cool, so im leaving that sticker on it. but the monitor i got from another place and the keyboard came from another place, in the monitor i had to change a cap and fix a wire, but works good now, lots of burn in but still plenty usable, and the keyboard F1 and F2 are white, i assume that has something to do with where it was used. but it all works as it should.

[@eformance]

That video card has 2 oscillators, suggesting it can output multiple frequencies. I'd guess it's a Mono/CGA card, since HGC required a separate ASIC and 64KB of RAM. That had 8x2K chips, giving 16k, but MDA would have only had 4K IIRC.

[@xantam23]

Thumbs up on on the Interpol shirt. :)

[@JimLeonard]

That's a very unique video display adapter. Normally when you type MODE MONO and MODE CO80 to switch between modes, it works on a system with two physical adapters (color and MDA in the same system) to choose which screen is considered active in DOS. This is the first time in 35 years I've seen an adapter that presents as both adapters *and* allows you to switch which one is active. It would be interesting to know how far the emulation goes, for example if the "hidden" mode's memory is still available. (Meaning, when in mono mode, try writing to B800:0000 and then reading it back and see if it reads correctly.)

[@JimLeonard]

@@adriansdigitalbasement Thanks for the detail. Glad CGA_COMP was of service. Emulating CGA on a monochrome monitor was not uncommon. What WAS uncommon was emulating both standards at the same time on a single card. You've got a very uncommon card there! (As is the rev A 5150, but you knew that -- can sell for quite a bit now that it is working)

[@papafrank7094]

Many thanks for this video. I am in the process of restoring a 5160. I need assistance with documentation and identifying the model number of a memory expanson card. There are identifiers of note are MF100 REV2, D1-VO, COMPEQ 8514.

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

jon titor would be proud. now really it isgreat to see this computers now working and conecting even. i have one pc-xt but i have to re-arm it. i don't know if the motherboard works. where do you find documentation for the pc xt?

[@BlackEpyon]

That 74ALS374 at the bottom of the video card is an octal latch over what looks like the data 0-7 pins. Not sure what that's for.... Probably just so that it can hold whatever was last fed into it. Address selection looks to be done internal to that ASIC in the middle. I can't get a read on those RAM chips, so I have no idea how much this card has (probably 16k or something like that).

[@rich1051414]

Weren't double sided drives available at the same time these were on the shelves? Seems like it would be an out of the box upgrade, and period correct enough.

[@Obie327]

Adrian I really enjoyed your tweaked 5150. Two questions if not already asked: Main motherboard ram be upgraded from 64kbs? Get the full 640k or higher. Graphics performance upgraded and VGA support? (switchable when needed) Or is this a mute point since we might be encroaching into 286 or above? Just curiously hung up on the ultimate or best case scenario version.

[@Obie327]

@@adriansdigitalbasement Gotcha! Makes sense. If I may reminisce on one of fondest early Systems was the Packard Bell 486SX 25Mhz (new) turned ultimately a Cryix 586 150Mhz with 8X CD Rom, Sound Blaster awe 16, 2 gig hard disk and 20mb's of system ram. (software ram doubled) What made this special was the turbo button to 8 mhz and breaking the picky legacy 600+ KB memory Dos gaming Barrier with Windows 95A version. (Started with clean Dos 6.22, Window 3.11 for work groups and upgraded to 95A) Early Direct X support up to 3? My memory is a little hazy but sold it to a friend years ago. I had a lot of variety and fun with that system.

[@only257]

Awesome 😎

[@tarstarkusz]

For DOS gaming I think the Tandy is a better option. Tandy can do pretty much anything this computer, as it is configured, can do, but it does other things even better. Unlike other newer computers, it will run at the right speed. Also, my days BBSing was done with a C64 and C64, even though it is lower resolution, looked way better than ANSI, though I do like the ANSI graphic converters.

[@hakemon]

I wonder if the greyscale emulation works by flicking the intensity and signal on and off every other frame, and because the phosphors have such long persistence on this monitor that it doesn't appear it's flickering at all.

[@BlackEpyon]

Which version of Deskmate was that? So far as I know, each Deskmate distro was only compatible with Tandy machines of the specific model it was made for (their DOS distros were kinda finicky too). I could be wrong. I don't actually use Deskmate that much, I'm just curious.

[@snowdog993]

IBM Pearl White and Pebble Gray. You may find a good match at an auto painting shop.

[@ultrametric9317]

Do you know about dual-head? The MDA and the CGA used different ROM addresses and ports (B000-B0FF, 3B0 to 3BB and B800-B8FF, 3D0 to 3DF respectively) meaning you can run both monitors at the same time. The MDA was a valuable thing to have right up into the late 1990s because you could run a debugger on the MDA when writing Windows code which used SVGA graphics. This solved a difficult problem, symbolic debugging on Windows, for almost no money. The 5151 MDA is the best display for day in, day out text work I've ever used, and that includes a LOT of devices :)

[@subtledemisefox]

The beginning was like some kind of movie lol

[@only257]

Cool remember when I was nine in 1993 at my dad's work and the computer guy had the same computer he added a ega card card adlib sound card and a lot of memory, 3 1/2 floppy drive and regular floppy drive at the time👻

[@loganjorgensen]

6:34 Dear God RAM was expensive bitd, been looking into it for a project and I can see why companies were always cutting back from the prototype specs. O_O Yeah idk why there wasn't more extensive monochrome support when faced with colors as few or as loud as CGA used, nothing wrong with 2bpp GB style greyscale graphics. Well if you had the single side drives back then you'd have wanted the doubles anyway lol. Sweet BBS demo, was just wondering today how many are running in the present. :D

[@retroelectrons2]

awesome!

[@miladmiladzade7572]

Old computer like apple 1 was full of ic's but today has many resistors capasitor and other staff

[@chriskarson4881]

Would have liked to see a CGA card with composite outputting 16 colors with games that support it. IBM CGA on a TTL monitor is so gross compared to Tandy/PCJr/CGA-Composite.

[@davel8116]

NANSI.SYS... ahh the good ol days. Surprised you aren't using ZANSI.SYS. Now if only we could get Telemate updated to support telnet/SSH BBS's. Good call on the network, but surprised you aren't running a Novell server as a networked drive would make this system king. I've seen people emulating Netware 3 on a raspberry pi. And there are a couple unicorn FastEthernet 8bit compatible cards out there.

[@ultrametric9317]

Anyway, I'd look for an original Hercules card or clone to run parallel to your CGA card.

[@cidsapient7154]

i wish i woulda held on to my 5150, it had cga idk what we did with it tho i was only 10 or 11 when i remember having it last and it was already over 10 years old

[@wolvenar]

I have had a 5150 for a while.. need to finish the job. But in the meantime I am working on a Tandy 1000sx. My 5150 has rust trouble (much worse than yours). I am still trying to work out what to do with the external case. The inside the metal was rusting, which was an easy fix. It was sat outside a bus garage for decades, used as a stand for pressure washing, yet the main board was perfect. Actually considering the abuse it is all in shockingly good shape. A temporary power supply swap and I find that it Powers up and runs great. Anyone have any suggestions for repairing the rust on the pebble gray case color?

[@IkarusKommt]

That card seem to have a custom chargen ROM. Does it have some unusual font?

[@Alexis_du_60]

Nice setup man, where I live IBM PCs are rare as hen's teeth let along they were eclipsed by eithier the clones (mostly AT-class clones) or (in the case of the XT-class machines) the Logabax Persona 1600 (aka the AT&T PC 6300 and the Olivetti M24 in USA).. I nearly got a Tandon XT Clone but lost the chance too (the seller asked 150 euros for a XT clone that didn't even turn on.... Sad)

[@Alexis_du_60]

@@adriansdigitalbasement I live in France actually... There was some ATs and XTs sold but no 5150 PCs. I've not yet found nothing... Aside a very early AT clone that had visibly been soaked in seawater given how rusty it was.

[@Alexis_du_60]

@@adriansdigitalbasement I don't know about this, I do know that DOS was localized to French for the rest aside the keyboard I have no idea about the rest.. Even tho most computers I saw had only the keyboard and OS localized. Edit: and yes we did have AZERTY model M keyboards, pretty bizarre to see them with the French layout :)

[@XolaresTiberius]

Some CF cards dont support older style IDE and only work with ATA33+. I use 16GB SDcard and with 32bit CPUs i use PCDOS 7.1 for FAT32LBA and for Older i use MSDOS6.22 or PCDOS 5

[@ethanspaziani1070]

I love this technology I wish there were more people nowadays reproducing these machines or at least repairing them so that we canoe where we came from these machines although out days now are important to our computer history and evolution as a society into the technological era we need to keep good clothes record of these German or where we came from not to make mistakes for the future this can be said for a lot of things

[@Romanon26]

Anyway, great video, I am also IBM PC collector ;) Can you upload your autoexec.bat file with that IBM logo on screen? Thanks :)

[@neilaldenarmstrong9806]

Geez that HDD sounds like a jet engine revving up.

[@ihartmacz]

Great video. Will you please start a Patreon?

[@grifter1964]

How can you tell if the PC has single sided or double sided floppy drives? Thanks

[@haroldmitcheltree518]

That's a XEBEC 1220 HDD/FDD controller.

[@zoomosis]

Perhaps the original video card didn't include a parallel port, which is why it was upgraded.