Amstrad PC5086 and PC5286HD

[paul.brett]

Hi all,

I picked up an Amstrad PC5086 and an Amstrad PC5286HD, both with XT/AT switchable keyboards, one monitor, one generic mouse, one analogue joystick and some cables/manuals all for £5 from Fleabay. I was able to collect this lot, otherwise postage would have been a killer.

The PC5086 is great, but both floppy drives only seem to want to work at 720K, although I'm reasonably certain that they should be 1.44MB units. Anybody want to comment on this? I have loaded Amstrad DOS 3.2 and GEM onto this thing, as I assume that's what it came with.

The PC5286HD is also working, and included some classic software, such as F15, Links 386 and some cruddy 'business' software. Once again, I found the floppy drive to be less than adequate. I was able to read a 720K floppy disk once or twice, but mostly, nada. I opened up the unit meaning to replace the floppy drive, but it seems to be a non-standard interface. Looks like I'll have to put up with it for now.

Fortunately, the one program I did manage copy onto the machine (during one of those brief bouts of spontaneous cooperation) was intersvr.exe. This allowed me to link via the parallel port and transfer a whole lot of other files over. I now have it networked via a 3COM Etherlink III and Microsoft Netclient.

I feel dead chuffed with my 2 shiny new additions to my collection. Any help with the 2 floppy problems appreciated.

Paul.

 

[nige the hippy]

I have a pc5206 in pretty good condition I got from the tip for £2, you're welcome to it for £2 + shipping (or if you're passing this way!). I can check the floppy out later if you like.
Actually it's quite nice for an amstrad!

I'm also having a bit of a clearout so there may be other (not very) goodies up for grabs at silly low prices,

List to follow eventually

 

[Jedinovice]

5086=720K only

5086=720K only

The 5086 will only be able to read 720K floppies. All 8086's are limited to 720K only. OK, technically there were a coupe of latter XT types that included a 1.44MB floppy BIOS but these are rare. A 720KB floppy is as far as 8086's went.

The Amstrad 3.2 rendering you are using is not absolutely necessary for the 5086. In fact, it might cause problems. The amstrad 1512/1640 required a special version of 3.2 due to the propriatory nature of the hardware. The later amstrads could handle any version of DOS.

Dunno about the 5286 floppy.

Please note that you can't format a 1.44MB floppy as 720! It doesn't hold! I know from bitter experience. You must use DD floppies on the amstrad's to transfer data. If you're covering the extra hole or (if the 5086 ignores the media which it might) then you'll find you lose data, disks won't read, boot and all manner of woes!

 

[JohnElliott]

The 5086 will only be able to read 720K floppies. All 8086's are limited to 720K only. OK, technically there were a coupe of latter XT types that included a 1.44MB floppy BIOS but these are rare. A 720KB floppy is as far as 8086's went.

I've had an Amstrad 3086 work with a 1.4MB floppy drive, so a 5086 probably can support such drives, if you can find one with a suitable connector (it isn't a standard one).

The Amstrad 3.2 rendering you are using is not absolutely necessary for the 5086. In fact, it might cause problems. The amstrad 1512/1640 required a special version of 3.2 due to the propriatory nature of the hardware. The later amstrads could handle any version of DOS.

The 1512/1640 can handle any version of DOS (or CP/M-86) as well. The custom 3.2 version isn't "required" as such - it just supports some extra features like setting the RAMdisc size and screen colour from non-volatile RAM.

 

[Jedinovice]

I've had an Amstrad 3086 work with a 1.4MB floppy drive, so a 5086 probably can support such drives, if you can find one with a suitable connector (it isn't a standard one).



The 1512/1640 can handle any version of DOS (or CP/M-86) as well. The custom 3.2 version isn't "required" as such - it just supports some extra features like setting the RAMdisc size and screen colour from non-volatile RAM.

Not my experience. I put 3.3 on an 1640 once and the keyboard wnet nuts. All the advice from the contemporary mags was "Only use the 3.2 supplied with the Amstrad."

 

[JohnElliott]

Not my experience. I put 3.3 on an 1640 once and the keyboard wnet nuts. All the advice from the contemporary mags was "Only use the 3.2 supplied with the Amstrad."

That's true; the keyboard has more keys than a normal XT and you need the KEYB from the Amstrad 3.2 to support the extra ones. Should be possible to run it under later other DOSses, though, with the help of SETVER.

 

[Rauli]

The PC5086 is great, but both floppy drives only seem to want to work at 720K, although I'm reasonably certain that they should be 1.44MB units. Anybody want to comment on this? I have loaded Amstrad DOS 3.2 and GEM onto this thing, as I assume that's what it came with.

In John Elliot web page about Amstrad XT computers, he says the floppy controller in the PC5086 does support high density drives.

I have a PC5086 and I haven't replaced the drive, but I did some research about it. My drive is a Citizen with a 26-pin ribbon cable. This PDF is not about the same model, but about other Citizen drive with a similar cable: http://info-coach.fr/atari/hardware/fd-hard/citizen-x1de00a.pdf

Or, if you have already solved it, please, tell me what you did.

 

[binterz]

Hi all,

I picked up an Amstrad PC5086 and an Amstrad PC5286HD, both with XT/AT switchable keyboards, one monitor, one generic mouse, one analogue joystick and some cables/manuals all for £5 from Fleabay. I was able to collect this lot, otherwise postage would have been a killer.

The PC5086 is great, but both floppy drives only seem to want to work at 720K, although I'm reasonably certain that they should be 1.44MB units. Anybody want to comment on this? I have loaded Amstrad DOS 3.2 and GEM onto this thing, as I assume that's what it came with.

The PC5286HD is also working, and included some classic software, such as F15, Links 386 and some cruddy 'business' software. Once again, I found the floppy drive to be less than adequate. I was able to read a 720K floppy disk once or twice, but mostly, nada. I opened up the unit meaning to replace the floppy drive, but it seems to be a non-standard interface. Looks like I'll have to put up with it for now.

Fortunately, the one program I did manage copy onto the machine (during one of those brief bouts of spontaneous cooperation) was intersvr.exe. This allowed me to link via the parallel port and transfer a whole lot of other files over. I now have it networked via a 3COM Etherlink III and Microsoft Netclient.

I feel dead chuffed with my 2 shiny new additions to my collection. Any help with the 2 floppy problems appreciated.

Paul.

I had one of these when they came out. (The 5086). It came preloaded with MS-DOS 3.3, and Amstrad's CounterPoint GUI software. Just for info. As far as I remember, it was only one single 720K floppy drive, with a 40MB hard drive. Ah, the memories of my introduction to the PC world.