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Finding specs on 5150 with 5161 expansion unit

marcoguy said:
I figured you'd poke your nose in this thread sometime :p I'm really trying to get that 5161. If it ends up on Ebay, I will probably go for it.
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Marco; I really hope you do get one. In fact, I like hearing that more of these are coming out of the closet so to speak. That means there are more of them out there that need to be found. And, the more we can find and refurbish, the more we can save for the future.

But that still begs the question: how many of these were actually purchased?
 
bettablue said:
...So again, I have to question the extender card. Is it possible that the BIOS has been configured in such a way that it WILL boot from floppy on this particular system with the 5161 disconnected or powered off?
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I don't follow; sounds like everything's as it should be regarding the 5161 connection, but I don't think the combo has actually 'booted' anything yet other than ROM BASIC.

Just sounds like a bad HD, cable or controller and a bad or non-bootable FDD/diskette.
 
I just now received a PDF document from IBM. It is the Product Announcement for the IMB 5161 expansion units (Both models) and labeled as follows:

Product Announcement March 8 1983

IBM Personal Computer Expansion Unit 5161 Model 1
IBM Personal Computer XT
Expansion Unit 5161-2

The PDF I was sent is really nothing more than an image though, so the text can't be extracted directly. I tried, but either I don't have the correct software, or the text in the PDF is just an copy of the original document. Unfortunately, it also looks like the forums won't allow me to attach the file to a post. Also, I don't have any way of scanning this with OCR to extract the text.

Please send me a PM and I'll email the file.

Personally, I think this would be a good document to add to modem7's site too.
 
If she powers up with the 5161 turned off, she gets an 1801 error; with it turned on, she gets a 1701 error and it goes into BASIC. Sounds pretty straightforward.
 
bettablue said:
Can't seem to add any files at all. I keep getting a red indicator next to the file name. :-|
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The maximum upload limit for the forums is about 100kb per file, slightly depending on what kind of file. Those PDF files are problably way bigger than 100kb. I typically use the site I mentioned above when temporary uploading bigger files to the internet.
 
I just sent a copy of the PDF over to Marcoguy. What's funny is that I can't see anything that would keep me from adding the file. I even zipped the file to reduce file size, and renamed it to get rid of the extremely long file name etc...

Maybe Marcoguy will have better luck posting it thatn I.
 
per said:
The maximum upload limit for the forums is about 100kb per file, slightly depending on what kind of file. Those PDF files are problably way bigger than 100kb. I typically use the site I mentioned above when temporary uploading bigger files to the internet.
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That's it then. Yeah, the PDF is 609K.
 
Apologies for the absence (internet died). Just to clarify a bit, here's the current state of affairs.

If I turn on the 5150 only, it boots to Basic, so I guess that the boot disk is no good.

Last night when I was turning on the expansion unit first and then the PC, I wasn't removing the (apparently un-) bootable floppy (d'oh). I have since removed it, and it now boots up off of the EU hard drive first to a Dos 3.1 but then to a Procomm screen that looks like this:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/444/5150procommscreen.jpg/

If I then press any key to continue, it just hangs. My uneducated guess would be that it's looking for some piece of hardware (a modem?) that's no longer there (maybe it used to be behind the missing expansion slot cover?) or possibly there but not working.


ETA: After an earlier unsuccessful try, I was just able to get it to boot to the C prompt by interrupting it while the autoexec.bat file was running. :)
 
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It looks like the only difference between the 5161-1 and 5161-2 is if a fixed disk adapter was included or not. I assumed they were essentially the same and I don't think that the -1/-2 designation ever officially made it into the model name. At least all the 5161s I have ever seen have just been 5161 with no dashes.
 
DumbQuestionDuJour said:
My uneducated guess would be that it's looking for some piece of hardware (a modem?) that's no longer there (maybe it used to be behind the missing expansion slot cover?) or possibly there but not working
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An excellent guess in my opinion.

Congratulations!!! Sounds like you got it working in spite of all the usual helpful (!) comments and suggestions, not a mean feat by any means! ;-)

Unless you changed something or wiggled some cards/cables/connectors you might see that 1701 hard disk error again though...

So, where do you want to go from here?
 
Congratulations to the original poster. That is awesome :)
I'd figured there would be some problem, like needing a low level format, but it booting up immediately is an epic result. If only you were in NZ, I'd be bidding all over that thing!

Edit: as for the hang, I noticed that when I removed COM1 but left COM2 installed I would hardware lock some programs (because they'd expect to find a COM1), so I wouldn't be suprised if you're correct and it's just missing it's modem.
 
Thanks! No state secrets on the hard drive; just a few directories besides the DOS directory: \UTIL (has either a nu.exe or .com -- is that some ancient version of Norton?), \PCPlus, \PCPay, and \RR. It's been sort of fun exploring it and remembering various stuff about the DOS of that era, which is slowly coming back.

I'm not sure whether to open the case or not; I don't want to risk damaging it, but it would probably be helpful to have a picture of the guts or to at least have a bit more info. I'll probably list it within the next day or two so that my husband can have his office back.
 
Yes, "nu" will no doubt be Norton Utilities :)

You wont damage it just by removing the case, taking a few photos and popping the case back on. On the back you remove the flathead screws holding the lid in place, then just slide the top of the case forward. Nothing fancy. The more 'goodies' that are visible the higher the sale price will be.

To set up the autoexec file a bit nicer:

C> COPY CON: C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $P$G
PATH=C:\DOS
VER
(then on a new line press CTRL and Z)

It'll replace the current autoexec with a normal/boring DOS startup.

Oh and before you send it or move it, you are supposed to park the drive. Look for something like PARK.COM in C:\DOS.
 
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