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5150 for 335 $?!

BIOS Update Kit for PC (part number 1501005)

BIOS Update Kit for PC (part number 1501005)

IBM also sold a kit that allowed you to change your early PC to a later BIOS.
As noted yesterday, it was free, not for sale.
'Upgrading & Repairing PC's, Mueller, first edition' states that the kit cost $35.
However, with IBM having machines out in the workplace that couldn't use the newer cards (e.g. EGA cards), I can easily see IBM later releasing the kit for free.
 
First BIOS release for 5150

First BIOS release for 5150

According to 'Upgrading & Repairing PCs (first edition)', a way to help identify 5150's with the later revisions of the BIOS is to look for a "B" in a circle stamped on the back of the chassis.
You can see an example in the following link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ORIGINAL-IBM-51...ryZ74946QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Of course, lack of such a mark cannot be used an an indicator of the first BIOS release.
 
Mine does not have the B on the back... but the BIOS is dated 27/10/1982. :)
Same with my 5150. That's okay. Note that I did not say that all machines with the later BIOS' have the "B". I said that the "B" helped identify such machines.

Perhaps a better way of puting it is: If the machine has the "B", you can be very certain that it has the later BIOS' (i.e. extrememely unlikely that someone would retrofit the earlier BIOS?)
 
I did find that the early BIOS will boot into BASIC 1.00, whereas the newest has 1.10. Any ideas when they changed BASIC?
In the 5150, the POST/BIOS is in chip U29, and the BASIC is in chips U30 to U33. The 'Upgrading & Repairing PC's' book refers to IBM's BIOS Update Kit as being a single chip. Therefore we know the kit didn't upgrade the BASIC. None of my reference books contain information of the revisions of the BASIC. There might be something on the Internet.
 
All this discussion of 5150 prices reminds me of an auction on Ebay about 2 years ago. Someone had in a warehouse, a stack of ten IBM 5150's (no keyboards or monitors) that had a starting bid of $9.99 for all ten. What was really going to cost was the shipping charges, they had $100 listed as the shipping charge for all ten units.

So, it would have been a total cost of 109.99 for ten IBM 5150's, ($11.00 per 5150). None of them appeared to be 'stripped', or had any rust or obvious damage, but none of them had been powered up or tested either.

I must confess that I was a bit tempted to bid on that auction, perhaps there was one or more of the early 16-64kb units in that stack (but I really didn't have space for ten 5150's.)

But I didn't bid, the auction closed with no bidders and I never saw them come up again on Ebay. They probably ended up in a landfill.
 
That crap with non original monitor and 20 Mb hard disk gone for 100$.
Do I remember well, that in past 5150s with monitor and keyboard on ebay were around 40$?
 
Heh. Too bad if IBM PC was ultra-hot for exactly one week, and at the time other people locate their old machines, the prices are back to regular level. :)
 
XT/286 was sold for 102 $.
Too much for me, as my XT 8088 was for 64 $.
 
After bidding on many other auctions for a 5150 to round out my collection, I finally scored what appears to be a really great package deal for a great price: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MEWN:IT&viewitem=&item=280043551126&rd=1&rd=1

Of course, the proof is when it gets here, but the seller seems reasonable enough in discussions, so that's promising.

Considering what these were going for, I'd say interest in 5150's has definitely died down to reasonable levels again...
 
Which is the next computing landmark - big or small - that will celebrate? I'm not expecting battered up breadbox Commodore 64's to sell for insane amounts by the fall of next year (25 years), not even if they're boxed. On the other hand, who knows what a bit of media attention can do... :)
 
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