Found! Ibm xt and monitor

[Uberdork]

Driving down the street minding my own business and then I saw it a vintage ibm plus monitor sitting on the side of the road outside of a house on the real estate market. Honestly I drove by it, but decided to turn around to inspect. Actually I was impressed by its condition. It was only placed there recently and experienced no weather. Unfortunately someone got thdir first and took the wires including the vga off the monitor likely snipping it for its copper. Do not blame him/her copper is $3 per lb locally. Anyway I have it now and are trying to piece it together. The computer turns on with the fan running and a red light illuminated on the front. While the monitors cord was snipped it does turn on and the dials function properly.

Everything appears to be intact but there are expansion slots being utilized by things I know not what. Unbelievable how many ic chips are in this thing and must be 2-3 times heavier than a modern computer.

I am in the process of getting it to work and I need help. First off being its age is 41, is a mouse necessary? Are there any programs that utilize a mouse? There is a mouse port so I am assuming so, or is it ahead of its time?

I plan on doing a simple splice for the vga cable, i ordered a new 9 pin, its arriving tomorrow. The soldering job looks difficult so i am shamefully going to use electrical tape.

Anything I should know?
I was considering extracting the gold but have no sulferic acid to dissolve the ic chips. Sure a lot of gold compared to newer computers. I think I will piece it together.

Any help or advice?

 

[NeXT]

Congrats on the find! You have there what looks to be a 5160 with the color graphics adapter, an AST Six-Pack Plus or a clone, IBM's standard 360k 5.25" floppy controller and a hard disk controller with I'm betting is a 10mb hard disk. This was for a long time a very common configuration. There's one extra card closest to the power supply but I can't immediately recognize it.

One thing I can assure you is that the intact value of the machine far outweighs the scrap value of the gold and other metals. The IBM 5153 color monitor even with a snipped cable is worth money, just very hard to ship due to the plastics being very fragile.

 

[jafir]

Welcome!

A member of this forum has created an amazing website with just about everything you'd need to know on early IBM PC, XT, and AT computers: https://minuszerodegrees.net/

It looks like you have two serial ports, so you could probably connect a serial mouse if you wanted to, but you probably don't need to. There is lots of software that CAN use it, but not too much where it is mandatory.

I would be more concerned about a keyboard, if you didn't get that too. XT class computers aren't directly compatible with AT or PS/2 keyboards, so a passive adapter will not work. You either need an adapter with a microcontroller that can do the conversion for you, or you need to look for a keyboard this is XT compatible. Compatible keyboards aren't too hard to find on ebay, if you know what to look for. There is more information here: https://minuszerodegrees.net/5160/keyboard/5160_keyboard_support.htm

You can connect the CGA card to a TV or monitor with composite input, if you just want to confirm you can see something on the screen before your repair cable shows up.

 

[modem7]

Welcome to these forums.

Confirmation:

Slot #1:
Slot #2: 'IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter' - see [here].
Slot #3: AST SixPakPlus (that text should be printed on the card somewhere), a multi-function type of card.
Slot #4:
Slot #5: 'IBM Fixed Disk Adapter' - see [here].
Slot #6: 'IBM 5.25" Diskette Drive Adapter' - see [here].
Slot #7: Parallel/printer port from AST SixPakPlus.
Slot #8: 'IBM Asynchronous Communications Adapter' - see [here]. A serial port card.

 

[modem7]

First off being its age is 41, is a mouse necessary?

To have the computer start up and display something on-screen, the answer is no.
To have the computer start up and display something on-screen, you don't even need a keyboard, although without a compatible keyboard connected, a 301 error is expected on-screen.

... and took the wires including the vga off the monitor ...

What you have there is CGA, not VGA.
The diagram at [here] will assist.

 

[modem7]

The computer turns on with the fan running and a red light illuminated on the front.

That red light is on the hard drive. It is an activity light, and is normally only on when the hard drive is doing something (e.g. self test, writing data, reading data).

This is a very slow computer. For example, without a monitor, at power-on time, you will not see it SLOWLY do a test of the RAM. If things are basically working, expect one or more beeps from the speaker (and possibly the floppy drive being accessed) up to a few minutes past turning on the power switch. Getting a display up and running is a priority.

 

[andy]

It's funny that someone snipped the monitor's cable, worth maybe $0.50 in copper, but left behind easily $400 worth of vintage computer equipment.

I have a 5153 monitor cable sitting around that I can examine, and post how the 9 pin connector should connect to the internal connector.

 

[seaken]

Ughh, my heart sank thinking about you trying to extract the gold. I'm glad you didn't make that choice. This model is very valuable in the vintage computer community, which may be why you came here to this forum.

We know that not everyone has an appreciation for old computers and their history. Many people see it as junk, which is probably why it was sitting on the curb. If you are not "into" vintage computers and their history yourself maybe you will be able to find a home for that equipment. It's okay to sell it and make some cash. But please appreciate that it has value as one of the trailblazers to what we witnessed in the past in the growth of personal computers.

Welcome to VCF Forum.

Seaken

 

[Uberdork]

Congrats on the find! You have there what looks to be a 5160 with the color graphics adapter, an AST Six-Pack Plus or a clone, IBM's standard 360k 5.25" floppy controller and a hard disk controller with I'm betting is a 10mb hard disk. This was for a long time a very common configuration. There's one extra card closest to the power supply but I can't immediately recognize it.

One thing I can assure you is that the intact value of the machine far outweighs the scrap value of the gold and other metals. The IBM 5153 color monitor even with a snipped cable is worth money, just very hard to ship due to the plastics being

Congrats on the find! You have there what looks to be a 5160 with the color graphics adapter, an AST Six-Pack Plus or a clone, IBM's standard 360k 5.25" floppy controller and a hard disk controller with I'm betting is a 10mb hard disk. This was for a long time a very common configuration. There's one extra card closest to the power supply but I can't immediately recognize it.

One thing I can assure you is that the intact value of the machine far outweighs the scrap value of the gold and other metals. The IBM 5153 color monitor even with a snipped cable is worth money, just very hard to ship due to the plastics being very fragile.

Ty for your respond. I purchased a 9 pin cable for the monitor and while there are 9 pins on the male connection on the computer there are only 7 wires in the monitors cable that connects to the computer. 7 wires come out of the monitor and connect to the computer with 9 pins. Im confused, Can you help?

 

[modem7]

I have a 5153 monitor cable sitting around that I can examine, and post how the 9 pin connector should connect to the internal connector.

No need. See post #5.

 

[modem7]

Of note:

If that IBM 5160 has been sitting unpowered for years, then there is a reasonable chance that a tantalum capacitor somewhere in it is going to fail sometime within the first, say, 10 hours of operation. In some cases, people hear a bang sound. (In some cases, nothing is heard at all.)
We here are well aware of the situation, and should it occur, can steer you to a resolution.

But the main point of this post is one of safety. Those capacitors sometimes literally explode, relevant if you have the cover off the 5160. Perhaps you have already read about that [here].

 

[alank2]

If you have a thermal camera, you can "see" the high current as heat on bad tantalum's as well.

 

[modem7]

Ty for your respond. I purchased a 9 pin cable for the monitor and while there are 9 pins on the male connection on the computer there are only 7 wires in the monitors cable that connects to the computer. 7 wires come out of the monitor and connect to the computer with 9 pins. Im confused, Can you help?

Refer to the diagram at [here].

In the cable, there are 7 wires, and a shield. The shield connects to pin 1 of the DE-9 connector. Pin 7 in the DE-9 connector is not used.

 

[Uberdork]

Alright, thee shield you speak of is a jacket? Is it woven metal strands likely aluminum that cover the 7 wires?

 

[modem7]

Alright, thee shield you speak of is a jacket? Is it woven metal strands likely aluminum that cover the 7 wires?

Yes.

 

[modem7]

Alright, thee shield you speak of is a jacket? Is it woven metal strands likely aluminum that cover the 7 wires?

Yes.

If the shield connection is a problem for you, do not be too concerned. It is not mandatory; there to reduce RFI.

 

[Uberdork]

Ty for your help everyone. Today I soldered the wires together. Never actually successfully soldered anything until today. I found though after only connecting the necessary 7 of 9 wires on the de-9 cable that while the monitor did reflect a change from black to a light green, nothing appeared on the screen. I did get some flickering lines which I am assuming is the program coming through in waves.
Not sure of anything else. I included a photo of the wiring and screen hopefully someone can help me determine the next step.

 

[Uberdork]

Ty for your help everyone. Today I soldered the wires together. Never actually successfully soldered anything until today. I found though after only connecting the necessary 7 of 9 wires on the de-9 cable that while the monitor did reflect a change from black to a light green, nothing appeared on the screen. I did get some flickering lines which I am assuming is the program coming through in waves.
Not sure of anything else. I included a photo of the wiring and screen hopefully someone can help me determine the next step.

What I have determined is that the wiring is slightly correct. The blurred or fuzzy lines are actually words that I can not make out. They change a minute after start up. Two beeps are heard and the words change. Are there any start up videos online for tiis computer?

 

[Uberdork]

Here are more photos of the hardware.
Let me know if anything looks odd.

 

[Uberdork]

What I have determined is that the wiring is slightly correct. The blurred or fuzzy lines are actually words that I can not make out. They change a minute after start up. Two beeps are heard and the words change. Are there any start up videos online for tiis computer?

So the green is simply the brightness. After turning it down the screen went black and the blurred letters became more obvious but still indecipherable.