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What do you guys think? 512 to 640?

lyonadmiral

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Jun 3, 2009
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Peru, New York
Hi Guys,

The last few years have been very tumultuous to say the least, but at least I'm some what back on my feet and slowly am putting back together my 5150 collection. I don't want to get greedy so rather than go for a PC, an XT, and an AT, I'm just going to work on a 5150 with the Expansion Unit. In this rebirth of collecting I want to be original as I can be. The 5150 has a Rev B 256 KB motherboard and I suppose if I could find them I could bump it up to 640 KB using an IBM 256 KB expansion card and another one with only 128 KB on it, but if I only add the one card, is the lack of that extra 128 KB going to make a difference?

I've planned it out I'm only going to use IBM or IBM branded cards in these units so... let me know what you think about the memory question or anything else.

Thanks,
Daniel
 
Depends on the software you run.
Many 8088 machines in the mid 80's only shipped with 256KB or 512KB. The IBM AT only shipped with 512KB by default.

There is a bit of a habit, myself included, for people to run software that was made after IBM stopped even making them. I think half the software on my 640KB XT's has a date of around 1990. My actual software from the mid-80's will run with 256KB RAM for the most part. I got one software title where they even labelled the disks "LEFT" and "RIGHT" (can't remember the name off the top of my head).

Just my two cents, if you list the programs you'd like to use (or even the type) we could comment on potential issues of sticking to only 512. I actually kept my 5150 as 256KB, but it's a twin floppy setup, so wont be running anything fancy.
 
Just my two cents, if you list the programs you'd like to use (or even the type) we could comment on potential issues of sticking to only 512. I actually kept my 5150 as 256KB, but it's a twin floppy setup, so wont be running anything fancy.

Mostly the IBM Assistant Series; Writing, Filing, Planning and some games.
 
I'd also expect most games that are actually enjoyable on an XT, will run in 512KB too.
I managed to get Leisure Suit Larry running off floppy on my 256K 5150 (MDA card replaced with Mono Graphics).
 
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