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IBM Portable PC (5155) questions

D

dongfeng

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I have recently acquired an IBM Portable PC - many thanks for Jorg for helping me with this! :D

It's quite a nice machine, and in good condition. The second floppy drive has been replaced with a 10MB hard disk - not original, but a nice upgrade :)

What graphics card should the 5155 have? At the moment it is fitted with a Hercules card, but I have a suspicion that CGA is original. It might even be a Hercules CGA card, I haven't had a close look yet.

The main problem is that the remaining floppy drive - a rather nice half-height IBM-logo'd 360kB - is very intermittent and doesn't work too well. When transferring files from a floppy, it very occasionally works but usually gives an "error reading from track xx" error. I've cleaned the heads with a cleaning diskette which didn't seem to make any difference.

I thought I would simply be able to swap the faulty drive with a generic HH 360kB, but it appears that the ones in the Portable are slightly narrower. My replacement drive also doesn't have the screw mountings in the same place.

Is the 360kB drive in the Portable the same as in the PC Jr?

I'll get some photos later :)
 
The machine shipped with a CGA card and an amber monitor. This is readily answered by a simple Google search and Wikipedia. Why do you suspect that there is a Hercules card in there?

Clean the drive by taking care of the heads and cleaning/lubricating the drive rails. The drives are commodities and there are many OEM makers of them; Qume and Alps would have been two that IBM used originally on the PCjr, and possibly on your portable.
 
Thanks for your reply :)

The graphics card says "Hercules" on it, hence my assumption :) As I'd like to return the machine back to original specification, I just wanted to be 100% sure what card I would be looking for. As always, I checked Google, but I found references to it having a Mono card, plus the fact that it has that amber monitor. The Hercules card adds to the confusion!

I have already cleaned the drive heads (with a cleaning diskette), but I'll try cleaning and lubricating the drive rails tonight - fingers crossed that it works :)
 
The 5155 came with a monochrome CGA-compatible monitor (colors were represented as shades of gray) and card. It should be CGA; Hercules came out with cards that did both at one point, so it is probably already "upgraded". Run a CGA-only game (Alley Cat would be a good test) and see if it runs.
 
It came with a CGA card, so that the user would have the option of using an external color monitor if one was available. As for the width of the drive faceplate, a standard bastard file worked wonders when I shoehorned a hard drive into mine.

--T
 
Cleaning and lightly lubricating the drive rails seems to have done the trick. I never even thought of that one! Thanks, Mike :)

Looking further into the inside of the Portable, I am pretty sure the CGA card was swapped out when the hard drive was added in 1987. The HDD controller card is a full-length one, so I don't think the CGA card would fit!

The design layout is awful, you can't even fit the small ISA cards behind the floppy drives!

Alley Cat runs perfectly, so I guess the Hercules card is a CGA one after all. The other Hercules CGA card I have is marked as a "Hercules Color Card", whereas this one has no designation apart from "Hercules". I'm a little hesitant to plug my 5153 into the back, just in case :)
 
Besides cleaning the drive heads cleaning the rails is really critical, and a lot of drives get retired prematurely because people neglect the rails. I'm glad it worked for you - it is something that I learned from my PCjrs very early on.

Besides cleaning the rails, lubricating them is also advised. I wouldn't use machine oil - that generally attracts dirt. A silicone based lubricant works very well. Apply with a precision applicator or a Q-Tip, never spray ...
 
dongfeng said:
I thought I would simply be able to swap the faulty drive with a generic HH 360kB, but it appears that the ones in the Portable are slightly narrower. My replacement drive also doesn't have the screw mountings in the same place.

Is the 360kB drive in the Portable the same as in the PC Jr?:)
Click to expand...

You noticed that did ya? It's about 1/8" thinner. Don't know if the floppy from a PCjr will work or not. Actually, never even thought of that!

Another pretty simple mod for the PPC and the XT (same motherboard!) is to upgrade to 640K on the motherboard.

If anyone is interested, I'll dig out the procedure and post it. It's extremely simple and takes about 15 minutes providing you know which end of a soldering iron to hold onto!!!

sc0734ig.gif
 
I have a printout of the 640kB modification, but I'd like to keep the machine somewhat standard :) Luckily I have a memory expansion on a small card that should fit. There's a card in there at the moment with an extra 128kB (expandable to 256kB, so 512kB in total).

The generic HH 360kB drive I had wouldn't fit - too wide, screw mountings in a different place, and the locking latch gets in the way of the case. After scouring Google for pictures, I am pretty sure the PCjr drive is the same as the one IBM fitted to the 5155. It appears to have the same IBM logo, and latch that opens to the left.

Mbbrutman, since you are the PCjr guru around here, does this drive match a Jr?

5155_drives.JPG


I can't resist a photo of the machine either :)

5155_booting.JPG


(Apologies for the poor clarity, it's nighttime here).

I also found an interested cardboard cutout that was placed in between the HDD controller card and the edge of the case to prevent them earthing out on each other. Kind of cool it's been there for all those years :) I put it back in place for future owners to discover :)

5155_cgabox.JPG
 
Just as I thought it was it was all up and running the floppy controller card has died :rolleyes:

Swapped over with the one in my XT and the problem follows the card. I can't see anything obviously wrong with it, so something on it has died somewhere.

Anyone got a replacement they'd like to sell? :)
 
What's it say below the Hard Disk?
Land Yacht? :p:p:p

Now, Dongfeng, a FDC I can take with me, and if you can get it from me in either Dover, or at heathrow on 10/4. Someone on here can send it to me, and I can take it with me.

It'll at least save $$ on Inat'l shipping, seeing as Air is the only method nowadays.

MB: When you say rails, you mean the rails the head travels back and forth on? I usually use a white lithium grease on those puppies, as well as where the latch makes the frictional contact to lower/raise the assembly. That lithium grease lasts like forever. Also use it on my lathe, mill, drillpress, bandsaw, etc...


Tony
 
I haven't tried the white lithium grease on the rails that the heads travel back and forth on, but I imagine it would work. Usually I see that kind of grease used on more industrial sized mechanisms, like cars ..

I use a light machine oil with Teflon in it from Radio Shack - it works very well for a light mechanism such as drive heads.
 
And my experience has been to apply the oil described by mbbrutman, spread it around and wipe it off. It will leave a very thin layer of oil.
 
I personally prefer 3-in-1 as it is light, protective and you can polish the rails to take off the excess.

I've seen lithium grease harden from the heat inside old computers and then needing to be scraped off. It may depend on how thick it's put on though.
 
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