bettablue
Veteran Member
Am I bragging? Probably, but that's what this forum is all about, right?
I am definitely the proud owner of a beautifully kept and restored IBM 5150 Personal Computer. There are virtually no signs of wear anywhere on the computer, monitor or keyboard. When the system was delivered to me, it came in the original boxes with all of the packaging materials intact. That accounts for the remarkable physical condition of the case.
The system came with an original 1984 256K mother board, plus an IBM CGA graphics adapter that has a parallel port instead of the usual composite out, plus it had the usual floppy controller with dual 5.25" full height floppy drives, a 384Kb memory expansion, IBM 5153 CGA color monitor and original 83 key keyboard.
Repairs to the system were all centered around the original floppy drives. Neither were very stable while reading known good floppy diskettes, so they were both sent in for cleaning and calibration. One drive was completely gunked up with old floppy residue, and the other was definitely way out of alignment. However, they were both soon repaired and working perfectly.
I have since upgraded the system a couple of times, ending with the following: Removed the original 384Kb memory expansion along with a combination parallel/serial port card, and game controller. Then a new AST Six-Pack plus was installed that has it's own 384Kb Ram, clock, parallel, asynchronous serial port and game port all in one. Before this upgrade, all of the PCs internal expansion bays were filled and no additional expansion was possible. However, by installing the AST Six-Pack,one of the internal expansion slots remained open. That will be used in the very near future. An extender card for an IBM 5161 Personal Computer Expansion Unit will fill out the available expansion in the main unit.
The system also has an IBM 5152 graphics printer, and most importantly, the aforementioned IBM 5161 Expansion Unit.
The IBM 5161 Expansion Unit is also in fantastic physical condition. While it may not be in the exact same condition as the 5150 Personal Computer as far as signs of wear are concerned; what is visible is very minor. Two of the cork pads on the underside of the unit were missing. So they were replaced with stock that is so close to the original, they may as well be. No-one can tell the difference. In addition, there is a single scratch that arcs across the very top of the expansion unit's case. This scratch is so minor though that it can only be seen under certain lighting conditions. It most certainly did not go through the paint, but barely caught the surface.
The expansion unit came with no useable hard drive or controller. However, a Full Height MFM 10 Meg Miniscribe hard disk drive with a Xebec conroller was purchased and installed. There is of course, the receiver card needed to allow connection to the main PC, and it came with an additional game controller card. which was removed, due to the fact that the PC already has a game port adapter as pasrt of the AST Multi card.
Future upgrades will be additional ISA cards to complete outfitting the expansion unit. These will be things that won't be affected by the additional wait states inherant with the installation of the expansion unit itself; such as a 33.6Kbs data/fax modem, dual serial port card, 8 bit network adapter, sound card, etc.
In the end, this will pretty much be the best IBM 5150 Personal Computer system that could have been bought or built back when these computers were new. And most importantly, keeping in line with my own personal desire to keep the system as close as possible to being all IBM, I think I've done a pretty good job! I'll post more photos as I make more progress, and of course, the final project.
All I can really say is that I'm quite proud of what I was able to put together, with the help of a few people here in the forums.
I am definitely the proud owner of a beautifully kept and restored IBM 5150 Personal Computer. There are virtually no signs of wear anywhere on the computer, monitor or keyboard. When the system was delivered to me, it came in the original boxes with all of the packaging materials intact. That accounts for the remarkable physical condition of the case.
The system came with an original 1984 256K mother board, plus an IBM CGA graphics adapter that has a parallel port instead of the usual composite out, plus it had the usual floppy controller with dual 5.25" full height floppy drives, a 384Kb memory expansion, IBM 5153 CGA color monitor and original 83 key keyboard.
Repairs to the system were all centered around the original floppy drives. Neither were very stable while reading known good floppy diskettes, so they were both sent in for cleaning and calibration. One drive was completely gunked up with old floppy residue, and the other was definitely way out of alignment. However, they were both soon repaired and working perfectly.
I have since upgraded the system a couple of times, ending with the following: Removed the original 384Kb memory expansion along with a combination parallel/serial port card, and game controller. Then a new AST Six-Pack plus was installed that has it's own 384Kb Ram, clock, parallel, asynchronous serial port and game port all in one. Before this upgrade, all of the PCs internal expansion bays were filled and no additional expansion was possible. However, by installing the AST Six-Pack,one of the internal expansion slots remained open. That will be used in the very near future. An extender card for an IBM 5161 Personal Computer Expansion Unit will fill out the available expansion in the main unit.
The system also has an IBM 5152 graphics printer, and most importantly, the aforementioned IBM 5161 Expansion Unit.
The IBM 5161 Expansion Unit is also in fantastic physical condition. While it may not be in the exact same condition as the 5150 Personal Computer as far as signs of wear are concerned; what is visible is very minor. Two of the cork pads on the underside of the unit were missing. So they were replaced with stock that is so close to the original, they may as well be. No-one can tell the difference. In addition, there is a single scratch that arcs across the very top of the expansion unit's case. This scratch is so minor though that it can only be seen under certain lighting conditions. It most certainly did not go through the paint, but barely caught the surface.
The expansion unit came with no useable hard drive or controller. However, a Full Height MFM 10 Meg Miniscribe hard disk drive with a Xebec conroller was purchased and installed. There is of course, the receiver card needed to allow connection to the main PC, and it came with an additional game controller card. which was removed, due to the fact that the PC already has a game port adapter as pasrt of the AST Multi card.
Future upgrades will be additional ISA cards to complete outfitting the expansion unit. These will be things that won't be affected by the additional wait states inherant with the installation of the expansion unit itself; such as a 33.6Kbs data/fax modem, dual serial port card, 8 bit network adapter, sound card, etc.
In the end, this will pretty much be the best IBM 5150 Personal Computer system that could have been bought or built back when these computers were new. And most importantly, keeping in line with my own personal desire to keep the system as close as possible to being all IBM, I think I've done a pretty good job! I'll post more photos as I make more progress, and of course, the final project.
All I can really say is that I'm quite proud of what I was able to put together, with the help of a few people here in the forums.
