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5150 to work as a functional word processor

R

Redspasz

New Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2014
Messages
6
Location
Toronto Canada
Greetings,

I am looking to get my 5150 fixed up to work as a functional Word processor. Here are some of the obstacles I need to overcome.

1:/ No DOS disc to boot from. I cant seem to find one on Ebay.

2:/ No Program. Cant seem to find a hard copy of a word processor.

3:/ I do have a minicribe 2012 drive, but no controller (anyone know the best one to use)


Machine boots into basic just fine.

Thank you for any help!

~R_MG_0722.jpg
 

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Welcome to these forums.

Lots of IBM 5150 info (including programs) is at www.minuszerodegrees.net

Redspasz said:
1:/ No DOS disc to boot from. I cant seem to find one on Ebay.
Click to expand...
A member here may post you a 5.25" one. Whereabouts on the world are you?

Note that your 5150 (as is) has the ability to boot from a 720K diskette. Information (and an image of a boot diskette) is [here].

Redspasz said:
3:/ I do have a minicribe 2012 drive, but no controller (anyone know the best one to use)
Click to expand...
Your 5150 photo shows the 64KB-256KB version of the 5150 motherboard. That means that it will have the third BIOS revision, which supports hard disk controllers.

However, adding a hard drive to the 5150 is problematic, because of the limited capability of the 63W power supply to power a large 'clunky' full-height hard drive such as the Miniscribe 2012, in addition to the motherboard and floppy drives. More information on that subject in is the 'Hard disk drive' section at [here].
 
I'll gladly provide you with what you need to read and write comfortably on that machine, but how much actual "word processing" do you wish to do? There are some excellent editors that are very small and easy to use, and which would work in that environment. To me this is a good machine for writing - even a book. However, you're not going to get WordPerfect to run on it without a HDD. And as modem7 points out, that needs a new PSU. Personally, I think that takes the fun, and style, out of using a classic (and classy) two floppy machine.
 
When booting from 360 Kb floppy discs, I find Professional Write to be one of the best word processors out there. Small, and yet loaded with features, PW is really a great way to go. I also agree with ole Juul. I have an IBM 5150 that runs strictly from floppy disc. The dual full height 360 Kb drives are fun to work with at times. While small compared to the storage capacity of other floppy disc formats, they can hold enough to write a novel.

In fact, I know of someone who recently had her novel published after writing it on her own 5150. She had to bring her work to another computer for printing, but the 5150 did the job quite nicely.
 
bettablue said:
In fact, I know of someone who recently had her novel published after writing it on her own 5150. She had to bring her work to another computer for printing, but the 5150 did the job quite nicely.
Click to expand...

Even the newest HP LaserJet printers (with EIO slots) can support a parallel port card (you can also find older HP lasers with built in LPT for under $50 on craigslist), so it wouldn't be too hard to even print from a 5150.

I would also look into an XT-IDE or XT-CF then you don't have to rely on floppies and its much easier to read/write a CF card than it is to read/write a 360k floppy disk on a modern PC.

I think a 5150 would make an excellent word processor outfitted properly though.
 
Somewhere in the collection of 5.25" disks I posted about a year ago, there's the demo prerelease version of Microsoft Word. It's fully functional, can run from a single SSDD floppy. Since you've got 2 floppy drives, you're ready to go. Word 1.0 can indeed run from floppies. Failing that, there's always WordStar. Was there ever a PC version of Spellbinder?
 
thank you for the reply!

I am going to write scripts for children's TV shows. Unfortunately one of the drives is missing its Lever, so I am not sure if its even funtional. I also have an external
So I guess the real problem is getting dos and the programs required on floppies.

Very Jazzed to sit in front of the 5153 click clacking away in the wee hours of the morning :)

Best regards.

~R
 
Ole Juul said:
I'll gladly provide you with what you need to read and write comfortably on that machine, but how much actual "word processing" do you wish to do? There are some excellent editors that are very small and easy to use, and which would work in that environment. To me this is a good machine for writing - even a book. However, you're not going to get WordPerfect to run on it without a HDD. And as modem7 points out, that needs a new PSU. Personally, I think that takes the fun, and style, out of using a classic (and classy) two floppy machine.
Click to expand...

It would be amazing if you could provide me what I require! just tell me what I need to do! And thank you so much! I am very excited.
 
Ole Juul said:
Hi Redspasz. It's about 4 a.m. and I just noticed this. I'll get on it tomorrow. I'll post a package somewhere.
Click to expand...

OK, I made a little package for you. Grab the zip file here.

I forgot to mention in the included notes, that PP.COM can set the left margin and print both with, or without,
a header.

Notes:
Code: 
Minimal resource collection of writing utilities suitable
for running from a 360K floppy. This will leave plenty of
room for files even if there is only one drive. Delete what
you don't need in order to maximize space. There is all
that is needed for serious writing and printing.

TED   COM  3,072   Small editor. No word wrap, but excellent.
TER   COM  4,096   A much improved version of TED. Still no wrap.
DM    COM  8,564   Very capable file browser. View any type of file.
PP    COM  9,564   Very convenient printing utility. "PP /?" for info.
RED   COM  6,893   Small editor with wrap, margins, and more.
RED   KEY  1,184   Important note about RED. F1 gives more help.
RED   DOC  3,788   Email about RED. Delete after reading. 
ASCII EXE  5,792   Displays a screen of ASCII characters.
WC    EXE 13,120   Wordcount utility. Delete if not needed.

I'm not sure what resources you have. Hopefully you can unzip that file (MINIED.ZIP) and put the parts you need on a floppy along with the bits you need to boot. I usually put this stuff in a /UTIL directory, or similar, and add it to a path in an AUTOEXEC.BAT. If you need help doing all that, let me know. I could theoretically also make a bootable disk image that you could write. Or even mail you a working disk - all set up and ready to go. I prefer e-mail for its speed and convenience: oj@cgs.pw works.
 
I don't know if you have the power supply hard drive problem solved, but one solution was to add a hard card. I did this with my 5150 that had the 63w supply, the hard card was the plus card 20. I ended up placing the machine in the living computer museum that is in Seattle WA. As for early word processors, I always fancied word perfect, or an early version of word.
 
Don't forget MultiMate, It was more or less designed for the PC. I believe I still have a copy somewhere. The only downside is that my version doesn't lend itself to a HD very well for some reason.
 
There would have been two. Plain old Wordstar, which was available for the PC right from the start and utterly compatible with the 8-bit Wordstar that I was using on 8-bit CP/M gear. Later in the 80s, it was Wordstar 2000, which was not at all compatible with the old Wordstar--not in the least. But it could handle prop spacing gracefully and had many advanced features (such as auto-hyphenation)--it was also much larger in footprint than original WS. I used it right up through a good part of the 90s.

The cool thing about PC Wordstar is that if you have an "almost" PC compatible, the customization memory area still is functional, so you can patch the thing to work off a terminal if that's your pleasure.
 
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