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An Eclectic Canadian Collection of IBM PC compatibles
- Thread starter pinkdonut666
- Start date
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
thanks! To be perfectly honest there aren't any CP/M machines that really interest me. My main usage and interest in these old machines is for gaming, and unless a CP/M machine came across my path locally (extremely unlikely) I don't really have any desire to go searching for one.
there are so many big $$$ Things I have on my wishlist (IBM 5154 & IBM JX for example) and I sorta want to get into MSX machines
so little time, so little money, so many cool machines
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
there are some recent acquisitions I am very eagerly awaiting, but it might be another week or two... GRUMP! international shipping -_-
some sneak peak photos tho I can't help but share as I'm WAY too excited.
some sneak peak photos tho I can't help but share as I'm WAY too excited.
VintageVic
Experienced Member
Very nice, I'd be excited too 
.
What is that pc ? Are you willing to share the blow your wallet took for this one ?
. What is that pc ? Are you willing to share the blow your wallet took for this one ?
Trixter
Veteran Member
Counting your chickens before they hatch is a sure-fire way to anger the shipping gods.
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
Very nice, I'd be excited too
What is that pc ? Are you willing to share the blow your wallet took for this one ?
Leading Edge Model D (DC-2010E) it cost me $20US plus $20us packaging and $130US shipping.
the IBM 5154 after shipping and gouging was about $600cad and will hopefully be here tomorrow afternoon... fingers crossed it arrives intact.
VintageVic
Experienced Member
Real bargain on the equipment itself!
It's a sad thing how much shipping costs.
For me, being EU citizen, I would have to add 24% VAT to orders outside
EU and then +10% for toll to the previous total. This makes my combined tax 36,4%
which is counted on items + shipping both. Your 170 $ would mean 231,88 $ to me, if I
had ordered the unit. Perhaps there is some small comfort in that for you.
Tax penalties and costly shipping pretty much limit me to acquiring vintage items from EU area.
It's a sad thing how much shipping costs.
For me, being EU citizen, I would have to add 24% VAT to orders outside
EU and then +10% for toll to the previous total. This makes my combined tax 36,4%
which is counted on items + shipping both. Your 170 $ would mean 231,88 $ to me, if I
had ordered the unit. Perhaps there is some small comfort in that for you
.Tax penalties and costly shipping pretty much limit me to acquiring vintage items from EU area.
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
Well Both items arrived in one piece thankfully!
I LOVE the sharp EGA graphics on the IBM 5154. something about a digital TTL display that is much more crisp than an analog VGA one.
I tried it out first with my IBM XT to get a good comparison side by side with the IBM PC & 5153.
of course the 5154 is much better match for the IBM 5170 :D
I also did some period correct upgrades to my 5150 with a second quadram quadboard. I originally just purchased the quaboard for the expansion bracket but figured, why not install both to upgrade to 640k? so I did lol.
The expansion box is great for the 5 slot 5150, might look slightly silly sticking out the back but it really was a smart solution and I always wanted one but they seem fairly uncommon.
The Leading edge Arrived yesterday, and I was very suprised how clean it was inside for being an ewaste rescue.
unfortunately the keyboard has some problems, some keys don't work, and it was extremely dirty. not to mention yellowed. but I have cleaned it and am working on repairing the keys that don't work.
The Seagate ST225 that I'm guessing was an upgrade doesn't seem to work at all, it spins up and the heads move but it won't format or do anything useful. So I shelved it for the time being. I didn't really like the black Bezel anyway.
Surprising to me Leading Edge's CGA implementation seems to be extremely compatible with the original IBM CGA card. I have noticed all kinds of weird incompatibility with some software on clone cards. But My guess is leading edge basically copied IBM's homework 1 for 1.
I found a beige bezel cover that seems to fit the leading edge case well, and I dug out a know good 20mb 3.5" MFM drive and put it in there. Seems to work very well Now I just have to find a leading edge monitor, possibly an amber monochrome one for something different.
and there we go! basically my entire fun budget for the YEAR already spent. :huh: gotta love this hobby
I LOVE the sharp EGA graphics on the IBM 5154. something about a digital TTL display that is much more crisp than an analog VGA one.
I tried it out first with my IBM XT to get a good comparison side by side with the IBM PC & 5153.
of course the 5154 is much better match for the IBM 5170 :D
I also did some period correct upgrades to my 5150 with a second quadram quadboard. I originally just purchased the quaboard for the expansion bracket but figured, why not install both to upgrade to 640k? so I did lol.
The expansion box is great for the 5 slot 5150, might look slightly silly sticking out the back but it really was a smart solution and I always wanted one but they seem fairly uncommon.
The Leading edge Arrived yesterday, and I was very suprised how clean it was inside for being an ewaste rescue.
unfortunately the keyboard has some problems, some keys don't work, and it was extremely dirty. not to mention yellowed. but I have cleaned it and am working on repairing the keys that don't work.
The Seagate ST225 that I'm guessing was an upgrade doesn't seem to work at all, it spins up and the heads move but it won't format or do anything useful. So I shelved it for the time being. I didn't really like the black Bezel anyway.
Surprising to me Leading Edge's CGA implementation seems to be extremely compatible with the original IBM CGA card. I have noticed all kinds of weird incompatibility with some software on clone cards. But My guess is leading edge basically copied IBM's homework 1 for 1.
I found a beige bezel cover that seems to fit the leading edge case well, and I dug out a know good 20mb 3.5" MFM drive and put it in there. Seems to work very well
Now I just have to find a leading edge monitor, possibly an amber monochrome one for something different.
and there we go! basically my entire fun budget for the YEAR already spent. :huh: gotta love this hobby
Last edited:
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
Picked up this IBM Aptiva 2134 for cheap locally. Seems to be a pretty low hours machine, in very very nice shape. Still has the original IBM Mwave, 120mhz Pentium, 16mb of ram, and a 1.2gb Quantum hard drive.
it was still running the original factory preload of windows 95, which as you could imagine had it's fair share of issues...
But thankfully https://archive.org/details/AptivaProductRecovery
So i got the machine like factory "fresh" upgraded to 32mb of ram because why not, and tried out a game of the era that surprisingly runs great on this machine from 1996.
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
I just love the industrial design of this machine!
I finally got a working AT 360k drive, and I really like the way the AT looks with dual 5.25" drives. something about it just looks better than a 3.5" B drive.
of course the IBM 5154 really suits the IBM AT perfectly. With the knobs color coded to to the floppy drives... mmmmmmm i like.
Looking good! Happy to see that the 5154 survived shipment... how was it packed and boxed? After my recent thoroughly-deceased arrival, I gotta know.
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
it was backed in an extremely heavy duty box, with that soft expanding foam packing bag things. the fit them all around the monitor in the box then let them expand to fill the box perfectly.
I was extremely impressed. I had contacted the seller on ebay beforehand to MAKE DAMN SURE it was packed well. when i'm spending $600 Canadian on something i don't want it to arrive smashed up...
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
I finally got my hands on one!
wow these things seem to be surprisingly uncommon and expensive...
IBM Personal System /2 display adapter. from 1987 (otherwise known as the original IBM VGA) and the only stand alone ISA VGA card IBM made.
Sold as an upgrade for systems like the PS/2 Model 30 with MCGA, or for PC, XT, & AT systems to use the new IBM 8514 PS/2 display.
this being back in 1987 when "VGA" hadn't caught on as a standard yet, as EGA was only just catching on having been launched in 1984 with the introduction of the IBM AT. The same graphics were included on the planar board of premium PS/2 models like the Model 60 & 80. But lower end PS/2's such as the Model 25 & 30 featured MCGA which did not fully support all of VGAs features.
I really wanted one of these as theoretically someone could have purchased an IBM AT in 1987 or 1988 (would have been an 8mhz 286 model at that time) & equipped it with the then cutting edge PS/2 display. (unfortunately my IBM 8514 has a bad flyback transformer) but i have a newer IBM CRT that still fits the look.
wow these things seem to be surprisingly uncommon and expensive...
IBM Personal System /2 display adapter. from 1987 (otherwise known as the original IBM VGA) and the only stand alone ISA VGA card IBM made.
Sold as an upgrade for systems like the PS/2 Model 30 with MCGA, or for PC, XT, & AT systems to use the new IBM 8514 PS/2 display.
this being back in 1987 when "VGA" hadn't caught on as a standard yet, as EGA was only just catching on having been launched in 1984 with the introduction of the IBM AT. The same graphics were included on the planar board of premium PS/2 models like the Model 60 & 80. But lower end PS/2's such as the Model 25 & 30 featured MCGA which did not fully support all of VGAs features.
I really wanted one of these as theoretically someone could have purchased an IBM AT in 1987 or 1988 (would have been an 8mhz 286 model at that time) & equipped it with the then cutting edge PS/2 display. (unfortunately my IBM 8514 has a bad flyback transformer) but i have a newer IBM CRT that still fits the look.
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
I have a thread HERE where I am asking for assistance and/or opinions on upgrading one of my IBM AT systems.
Sort of a "make do" replacement for not being able to find / afford an Inboard AT to upgrade the machine to a 386 i purchased this Mylex FULL AT 386 motherboard and it is awesome! (and higher performance than an inboard anyway)
and don't worry about me ruining the originality of the machine that had already been don e for me:
Sort of a "make do" replacement for not being able to find / afford an Inboard AT to upgrade the machine to a 386 i purchased this Mylex FULL AT 386 motherboard and it is awesome! (and higher performance than an inboard anyway)
and don't worry about me ruining the originality of the machine that had already been don e for me:
austinramsay
Member
Awesome collection man! Nice to see there's quite a few of us of our age on here :D Too bad there isn't more of our age group interested in things like this. I'm just getting started with my collection but I think I'm off to a good start. I just got a 5150 with a 5151 monitor and model F keyboard. Needs some work to fix a 12v short somewhere but shouldn't be too bad. Already have a network card on the way for it along with some software so should be fun. Soldering iron, multimeter and tantalum capicators on standby for when it comes in! I had an Apple IIc like 10 years ago I got at a school auction I went to with my dad. That kind of kickstarted my love for vintage computers. But besides that, I've been a computer nerd since I was like 8 years old anyway so it was only a matter of time lol.
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
thanks man! I started out collecting retro video game consoles when i was 7 or 8, Started with the Atari 2600 my dad purchased new from sears back in late 1977.
My first computer was a dell XPS 650R with windows 98se, and that was our only computer until 2008 or so. Around that time, 2007/2008 I remember getting into watching Youtube videos (we didn't get broadband until late 08/09 so my first youtube experiences were over dial up on win98se.
After discovering AVGN & LGR among other you-tubers, it really fueled the fire i already had for game consoles, and I started collecting P-III era systems.
It wasn't until MUCH MUCH more recently that my love affair with MS-DOS machines started when i picked up my IBM 5150 & 5153 CGA monitor.
and it sorta spiraled out of control from there.
SPEAKING OF SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL
I'm now the proud owner of half a dozen IBM PS/2 MCA systems! These were all former Alberta Government machines saved from recycling by a local computer shop employee who traded them to me for some Socket 7 stuff and an AWE64.
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
The machines I got were 2x P70, 2X model 60, model 70, model 77 & model 90xp and I will slowly be trying to get them up and running.
AndyM1981
Experienced Member
That sounds like an awesome collection you're building and a ton of fun to tinker with. As a fellow Canadian I know the difficulty in trying to find vintage machines up here so kudos on getting that large haul to work with.
pinkdonut666
Experienced Member
IBM P70 cleaned up very well! I am so incredibly happy to have one of these! the orange neon gas plasma screen is amazingly cool.
I have my work cut out for me getting these machines working.
I ended up getting the Model 77 486DX2 working quite well!, and the model 90 should be good once I find a hard drive for it.