geekygator
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2008
- Messages
- 8
Hi, new forum!
I found an old IBM 5162 with the green monochrome 5151 monitor in a back room today with some sort of printer, plugged it in and turned it on, and to my surprise it worked. It is my mom's (she used to work for IBM), and I havn't gotten to question her about it yet.
It seems to have booted up fine, checked all 640k of memory, then presented me with a console which I had no idea how to use. It says it is running IBM Personal Computer Basic C1.10, Copyright 1981. The screen is blank except for, near the bottom, a few F-key labels, like LIST, RUN, some other stuff, then KEY and SCREEN. I tried pressing a few, tried out a few of the console commands familiar to me, but all it spat out was SYNTAX ERROR then Ok. I'd just like to tinker a bit, get how to move files, maybe run a program or two. The only floppies I've found is Turbo Tax Personal 1990 edition, so I guess if nothing else I could do taxes from 18 years ago. A quick users' guide would be much appreciated.
I noticed somewhere else that the 5162 has a 286 processor, 640k of ram, and a 20MB hard drive, which seems like a perfect setup for MS-DOS or the equivalent. Is there anything I could do with this, especially considering that it only has 5 1/2" floppy drives. (PS- is there any way to write 5 1/4" floppies now-a-days? A USB drive would be pretty slick, but I doubt there is a real market for them... ).
TL;DR: I've got a 5162 with IBM PC BASIC, what can I do with it. Can I write 5.25" floppies.
Thanks
I found an old IBM 5162 with the green monochrome 5151 monitor in a back room today with some sort of printer, plugged it in and turned it on, and to my surprise it worked. It is my mom's (she used to work for IBM), and I havn't gotten to question her about it yet.
It seems to have booted up fine, checked all 640k of memory, then presented me with a console which I had no idea how to use. It says it is running IBM Personal Computer Basic C1.10, Copyright 1981. The screen is blank except for, near the bottom, a few F-key labels, like LIST, RUN, some other stuff, then KEY and SCREEN. I tried pressing a few, tried out a few of the console commands familiar to me, but all it spat out was SYNTAX ERROR then Ok. I'd just like to tinker a bit, get how to move files, maybe run a program or two. The only floppies I've found is Turbo Tax Personal 1990 edition, so I guess if nothing else I could do taxes from 18 years ago. A quick users' guide would be much appreciated.
I noticed somewhere else that the 5162 has a 286 processor, 640k of ram, and a 20MB hard drive, which seems like a perfect setup for MS-DOS or the equivalent. Is there anything I could do with this, especially considering that it only has 5 1/2" floppy drives. (PS- is there any way to write 5 1/4" floppies now-a-days? A USB drive would be pretty slick, but I doubt there is a real market for them... ).
TL;DR: I've got a 5162 with IBM PC BASIC, what can I do with it. Can I write 5.25" floppies.
Thanks