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Help me upgrade my IBM 5170 - To the MAX!

S

Springbok

Experienced Member
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Aug 9, 2013
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171
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Orlando, FL
Hi all,

I managed to pick up an IBM 5170... a PC I have wanted more than any other.

I don't even have it yet. I don't even know if it is the 6Mhz... or the 8Mhz version. All I know is that even though it was dirty, It looked like it would clean up really well. No paint scratches. No dents. Even had the keys. Picked it up for $250 shipped.

My goal is to upgrade it as much as possible. To the Max. The only caveat is that I want to be able to return it to stock, i.e. I do not want to make any case modifications that require drilling, welding etc.

So... was hoping you guys could provide help/info/links on what changes to make. As mentioned. I want info for what ever the max possible upgrades would be for Hard Drive, Graphics Card, Sound Card, BIOS, CPU etc.

Thanks
 
Cevyn said:
Ideas:

1. A XT-IDE adapter for both IDE HDD and/or CompactFlash cards
2. Resound OPL3 or other vintage 8bit sound card (some old fully jumpered 16-bit SB Clones will work in 8-bit mode in an 8-bit slot)
3. VGA card like Paradise Systems VGA PVGA1A-JK
4. Math coprocessor if one isn't present already
5. Get 640k on the mainboard and throw in an EMS memory board
6. BIOS you can get some AT28C64B eeproms and programmer and burn the open source XT BIOS (OpenSOC86)
7. Find a clock card if you want to keep time while powered off
8. And throw in an NEC V20 CPU
Click to expand...
FWIW, a 5170 is an AT. :)
 
Cevyn said:
8. And throw in an NEC V20 CPU
Click to expand...

Exactly where would one put the V20? Glue it to the front pane? As Stone says, the 5170 is a 16-bit 80286-based machine with 16-bit slots. A conventional IDE+floppy adapter would work well for storage; forget about failing MFM drives.
16-bit sound and video additions would be nice, as would some more memory and a NIC.
 
When you start adding extremely rare and expensive sound and video cards you can easily exceed $1,200 in upgrades! Good luck & have fun! :)
 
But you can still get good video and sound cards for ~ $50.00 each. Why would you want to put something exotic in a 5170?
 
Getting back on topic ...

My idea of a well equipped 286 class system looks like this:

  • 8MB of RAM. (16 would be the maximum, but 8 is above what most had.)
  • 80287 math co-processor
  • Promise EIDE Pro IDE adapter and a hard drive that works with it.
  • Network; NE2000 or something that is actually 16 bits, not just 8 bits.
  • SCSI? Why not ... works well for CD-ROMs, Zip Drives, tape drives, external hard drives, etc.
  • VGA or SVGA card. (SVGA for the higher resolution.)
 
Going for the MAX will be expensive and much of the capability will never be used. A reasonable and relatively affordable set of upgrades would be

SVGA card even a cheap slow card should be more than able to handle what the CPU can dish out
16-bit IDE + floppy card which should allow for the use of reasonably sized Compact Flash cards
sound card though things like MP3s will over task the CPU
network card
memory card (if you can find one) but in most cases 2 to 4 MB of extra RAM is more than adequate to cache multi GB drives and run software
80287 probably useless since who is going to run a big spreadsheet on a 286 regularly

CD-ROM is a bit of a problem. Nice to have but the 5170 only has 2 external bays and the floppy drives are likely to be more useful. SCSI card with external drive works great but SCSI cd-rom drives are absurdly expensive. Parallel port drives are getting hard to find.
 
If you get a bootable SCSI card with floppy support like the Adaptec AHA-1542CF, you won't need an IDE card at all which will save you a slot. That covers hard disk, floppy drives, and CD-ROM in one slot, and also allows the option for tape drives, SCSI Zip or Jaz drives, SCSI CD changers, scanners, etc.

A video card is of course required and takes another slot. VGA sounds nice, but if it were me I'd stick with EGA and connect it to an original IBM 5154 EGA monitor if I could get one (or something very very similar like the Princeton Graphics EGA monitor), otherwise an IBM 5153 CGA monitor which is probably a lot easier to find. I would consider a PGA card (and the monitor that goes with it) to be the most "MAX" upgrade for a 5170 but those are extremely hard to come by and the PGA card occupies multiple slots which is a big minus.

I would consider a sound card and a network card to be mandatory accessories (SoundBlaster AWE64 and 3Com 3C509 would be my choices), which takes you to 4 slots filled.

That leaves 4 slots for serial/parallel ports and memory cards. You might need to reserve another slot for a mouse if you're using something like an InPort or bus mouse (rather than a serial mouse). Depending on what software you want to run, you might want to have an EMS memory card in addition to the XMS card I assume you will almost certainly have.

80287 FPU and an original IBM keyboard of course. Either the Model F (original AT) or the Model M (enhanced) depending on your preference. If the 5170 is to have/display, go with the Model F. If you'll actually want to use it the Model M layout will probably be better. If you have software that came with a keyboard overlay then which overlays you got may dictate your choice of keyboard.
 
kgober said:
A video card is of course required and takes another slot. VGA sounds nice, but if it were me I'd stick with EGA and connect it to an original IBM 5154 EGA monitor if I could get one...
Click to expand...
Even if he's able to locate one who's gonna pay for it? :) :) :)
 
I’m pretty sure he has one, but fedex (or the previous owners packaging) shattered the case. If I’m thinking of the right person.
 
kgober said:
If you get a bootable SCSI card with floppy support like the Adaptec AHA-1542CF, you won't need an IDE card at all which will save you a slot. That covers hard disk, floppy drives, and CD-ROM in one slot, and also allows the option for tape drives, SCSI Zip or Jaz drives, SCSI CD changers, scanners, etc.
Click to expand...


If you get a 1542CF card and put it in the 5170 with an IBM BIOS I would be very interested to know if it will actually boot from a SCSI hard drive. I could not get mine to do this at all, and I know of at least one other person who ran into the same issue. When I replaced the IBM bios with something else it worked just fine. Had the same results in my 5162.
 
None of the above. I'm not aware of any NEC V-series chip that fits an 80286 socket V20-30 fit in 8088 and 8086 sockets, respectively. The V40 and 50 (and other V30 variants) are nominally 80186-like and still include 8080 emulation. The V60, 70 and 80 are very different RSIC CPUs, not x86 compatible. (It's a shame that they don't much attention here).
 
Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

I received the 5170. The case was not quote in the condition I was hoping for. It is also the early 6Mhz system. I think I am going to part this one out, and hold out for a better conditioned one.
 
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