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ibm at 5170 wanted

Exactly, Druid.

IBM didn't have the best or fastest PCs (although they did have very nice sheet metal work) and are by no means the rarest (other PC brands like Eagle, Columbia and Stearns are far more uncommon). I dumped my 5150 PC with 64K on the mobo for a Taiwanese clone with an 8MHz CPU and 8 slots as soon as I could.

If I were collecting IBM, it seems as if systems like the 6150 RT would be the logical choice. Not just an assemblage of commodity components, but real IBM-unique technology.
 
Chuck(G) said:
... I dumped my 5150 PC with 64K on the mobo for a Taiwanese clone with an 8MHz CPU and 8 slots as soon as I could. ...
Click to expand...

I did the same thing although the clone BIOS wasn't very good. I got a copy of an IBM BIOS and installed it in my clone machine to make it more compatible.

The reason I collect the IBM machines of that vintage is simply because IBM was the dominant player then. Once they came out with the PS/2 line their dominance dwindled quickly.

I'm also partial to the 5150 since it was my first PC! I also worked at IBM at the time and it was an exciting time to work there.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I dumped my 5150 PC with 64K on the mobo for a Taiwanese clone with an 8MHz CPU and 8 slots as soon as I could.
Click to expand...

One of the reasons IBMs are rare here in New Zealand (especially ATs) is because the Tiwanese clones were half the price and often just as good if not better. I suspect New Zealand companies were not so wedded to the IBM name as US ones were, and were maybe more price sensitive. IBM's really cost and arm and a leg here in the 80s

Tez
 
Chuck(G) said:
Okay, you collectors, I've got a question.

Suppose you had a 5170 case, keyboard and iBM monitor, but under the 'hood" was a third-party motherboard, but with the 5170 BIOS installed. As far as what it runs, or won't run, you can't tell any difference from the real thing. IBM's own diagnositcs pass.

Is this "as good as" or "much inferior" to an echt 5170. If the latter, why?
Click to expand...

Interesting discussion. I guess for me, I'd prefer it if everything was original but I don't collect for resale value, and provided everything "looked" authentic when being used (external appearence, keyboard was the same, font was the same, bootup messages exactly the same) I'd probably tolerate it and wouldn't actively seek a geniune motherboard. You have to cut your cloth to what you can afford, and how much you are prepared to pay for "purity" does have it's limits.

Having said that, it would still niggle at me.

I know with my Apple II Europlus, there is something about seeing that stamp, "APPLE Inc, 1979" on the motherboard everytime I pop the hood. It just makes me feel good. That computer took me a long time to fix and if the clone ROM had said "Apple II" rather than "Ready Go" on bootup, I might not have persisted. I would have just used the clone board in the Apple Case.

In the end I'm glad I saw it through.

Tez
 
Anything less then IBM parts inside an IBM case is just plain worng, That's like taking a 1969 Mustang GT 428 Cobra Jet, putting in a 1971 Ford Pinto engine and calling it the same. No one in there right mind would anything to do with that.

But I guess it's how you look at things too, lets say you justed wanted that 69 mustang to just run and drive and cared about little more then it would be good I guess if it would even move ;-). But I think lots of folks care a lot more then that. Having an IBM computer with missing IBM parts and clone parts in it's place is like having comptuter and no place to plug them. having a car with no place to drive it ect
 
frozenfire75i said:
Anything less then IBM parts inside an IBM case is just plain worng, That's like taking a 1969 Mustang GT 428 Cobra Jet, putting in a 1971 Ford Pinto engine and calling it the same. No one in there right mind would anything to do with that.
Click to expand...


I'm not sure you get the analogy. A Pinto mill in a Mustang wouldn't perform as well, but a clone board in an IBM would not only perform as well, but would perform indistinguishably from the original. Nothing you can do, no test you can run, no visual inspection of the exterior--nothing short of opening up the case will reveal that the mobo's not an IBM. That's because the IBM mobo is built of commodity (i.e. nothing is unique to IBM but the etching on the PCB) parts. Anyone with access to the same parts could--and did build the same thing--and even improve on the original.

It's almost as if you were quibbling where the ore for the iron in the block was mined--that if it came from Canada rather than Minnesota, there's no way the engine could be any good.

(BTW, I'd love to get my hands on a 6150--it really was unique.)
 
That is not totally true. What about the BIOS, compaq 1st cloned it the clone BIOS is not the same line by line as the IBM BIOS. If that was the case IBM would have sued them then!



Chuck(G) said:
I'm not sure you get the analogy. A Pinto mill in a Mustang wouldn't perform as well, but a clone board in an IBM would not only perform as well, but would perform indistinguishably from the original. Nothing you can do, no test you can run, no visual inspection of the exterior--nothing short of opening up the case will reveal that the mobo's not an IBM. That's because the IBM mobo is built of commodity (i.e. nothing is unique to IBM but the etching on the PCB) parts. Anyone with access to the same parts could--and did build the same thing--and even improve on the original.

It's almost as if you were quibbling where the ore for the iron in the block was mined--that if it came from Canada rather than Minnesota, there's no way the engine could be any good.

(BTW, I'd love to get my hands on a 6150--it really was unique.)
Click to expand...
 
But my original question related to copying the BIOS and using it on the third-party board. It's not as if 5170 BIOS images aren't readily available.

At any rate, we're talking about the 5170 here, not the 5150. By the time of the 5170, BIOS cloning had gotten to be a regular industry. The funny thing is that even IBM had to resort to certain "cloning" tactics that Phoenix and Award had already adopted to get the 5170 BIOS to work with old BIOS-dependent 5150 code.
 
I think it really depends on your reason for collecting. If your goal is to have a perfect original that you leave on the shelf to show off, it's different than if you want something that you actually use regularly. To use the automotive analogy again, if I had a Model A that I drove regularly, I'd much rather it have the mechanical brake system replaced with a more modern, dual-cylinder hydraulic system (preferably disc). OTOH, if I had an all-original one, I'd be more inclined to trailer it from one show to the next, just in hope of winning prizes for it's originality. Since I'm of the belief that cars are made to drive, I think I'd prefer the upgraded, more drivable one tho.
Course, when you're talking 'Vettes, all bets are off, eh Erik? The folks who own them like to have all-original parts, even down to having the proper head markings on every bolt. My cousin used to work for Paragon, (which I'm sure Erik is familiar with), who make and sell reproduction parts for Corvettes, as well as dealing in originals. The most desirable (expensive) parts are of course, NOS, but strangely enough, in most cases, an old, used part will fetch a handsomer price than a brand-new, identical repro, which in some cases are so authentic that even show judges can be fooled by 'em. They just want to know for themselves. (Of course, we all know Erik is not one of those snobs, right?)

--T
 
My AT is only for display in my living room and use on occasional winter days. I had many examples once but had to pick one to ship all the way to new Zealand when I moved here, their rarity here being something I was unaware of at the time. My biggest mistake however was not harvesting the remainders for spares, rather keeping them intact for the very few interested recipients in SoCal 5 years ago. I even hand-delivered one 100 miles away at my expense just to "save" it from destruction.

A hard disk failure would be the most likely setback even though I have a spare SCSI subsystem of the correct time period on hand.

I like it to keep it as close to stock as possible but have a few of its contemporary aftermarket upgrades like AST/Intel memory cards, MS mouse, '287, and a genuine Hercules. But I'm concerned I have the disk interleave set to 2:1 rather than the stock 3:1, pretty anal huh?

But when you open it up it looks pretty much exactly as it did when new, and that's the payback for me.


Speaking of IBM sheetmetal, the company I worked for in 1984 purchased diskless IBM AT's in quantity for use in industrial machinery. They used only the motherboard so many people in the company had taken the cases home and fitted them with clone motherboards.
 
I'd call a faster, better motherboard an upgrade :)

Face it. IBM had this "Hey, we're IBM" attitude and that worked, for a while. Then the common reply was "BFD"

If I'm restoring a computer for resale, it will be all original, but, if I'm going to USE it, I'm going to want something with a little more balls than IBM OEM.

It must have come as quite a shock to IBM that not everyone was willing to pay $3,333.33 per letter for their little ol' 6 MHz AT when they could get a 12 MHz with more RAM and a bigger hard drive for a little less than 2 letters.
 
I could see that a 5150 in original condition (particularly the 64K planar ones) might have real appeal to a collector/archivist, since it was the IBM PC.

But the AT was just a step along the way. Nothing special except for the 80286 and IBM wasn't even the first there. Just another IBM box.
 
Chuck(G) said:
...the AT was just a step along the way. Nothing special...
Click to expand...

... and the 16-bit ISA bus, the battery-backed RTC and BIOS settings, the BIOS-supported hard disk geometry, the front panel key lock, but mostly the first attempt at a protected mode in the CPU.
 
paul said:
... and the 16-bit ISA bus, the battery-backed RTC and BIOS settings, the BIOS-supported hard disk geometry, the front panel key lock, but mostly the first attempt at a protected mode in the CPU.
Click to expand...

There were 286 machines before the 5170 (Intel was sampling early steppings of the 286 when the 5150 came out). I think I can even document Xenix running on one before the 5170 was announced. Implementing PM on an 80286 is a matter of software, not hardware.

There were many 16-bit buses out; adding 8 more data bits and a few extra DMA and interrupt lines was nothing special. In fact, the S100 IEEE-696 bus people took thier 8-bit data, 16-bit address bus and extended it to 16 data bits and 24 address bits without changing the connector! Other buses, such as Multibus had been 16 bits from the very start.

The Motorola CMOS clock chip was out long before the 5170. Using the CMOS on the chip, I submit, was convenient to keep configuration information around. If IBM had really been thinking, they would have used an NVRAM, such as the X2444 (as others did), so that configuration information didn't go bye-bye when your battery failed.

The 5170 contains only commodity parts. No IBM-engineered components at all (unless you want to count piggyback DRAMs).

There's nothing that makes a real 5170 inherently superior to a clone. And there was nothing revolutionary in the design.
 
frozenfire75i said:
That's why I don't own a 5160 or 5170 ect... It is just a clone really of the 5150 based upon the 5150.. the 5150 was the ture masterpeice.

The real change and design did not come around till 1987 with PS/2 line!
Click to expand...

Let's see, where to start ... The IBM PC XT introduced:

  • Eight slots on the motherboard instead of 5
  • Beefier power supply designed to support a hard drive and extra cards
  • Dropped the cassette port interface that nobody was using

One can argue that a 5160 is close to a 5150, but try swapping the BIOS from one machine to the other and see how far you get. (Hint, it won't work.)

And the IBM PC AT introduced:

  • 16 bit I/O with extra IRQ lines
  • 16 bit path to memory, including motherboard memory
  • High density floppy controller
  • CMOS RAM for configuration and date/time
  • New keyboard protocol including the ability to send commands to the keyboard
  • New CPU (80286) support with a new 'protected' mode of operation for advanced operating systems
  • Extended memory (above 1MB support)

Calling a 5170 a clone of a 5150 is absurd.
 
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