Hey Guys

[Rolf]

I'm 50 something. Live & Love Melbourne, Australia.
Started with a C64 in 1983. Dropped out in '88.
Inherited a 286 in '95 and within a year I'd gone >386, >486, >AMD586,
>Pentium..Blah Blah..
In September '97, I found a 5150! It is my most prized possession!!!
It is the reason I'm here.

 

[joe sixpack]

Nice, Does your 5150 work?
Welcome to the board!

 

[Rolf]

2 joe sixpack

2 joe sixpack

Hey Man it is SOOOOOOOOOOOO alive!
It runs IBM DOS5 & MS Win2..MS Works2..etc etc
It's use config is: 360K Floppy. (I got 4 spares & 6 boxes of virgin Discs)
43Mb MFM/RLL H/D (Yeah I know that aint like Original, but try running the above on dual floppies. It Sux!) (Hallelujah 4 XT power supplies)
Yamaha No Flicker CGA card. (I have 2 genuine IBM cards but they flicker like F#%K. That's the way they were.)
Genuine PC Keyboard.
Genuine 5153 CGA Monitor. (Occasionally pisses me, cos I only get monochrome Win2)
640K RAM (Thanx 2 a QUBIE SIX PAK PLUS expansion card. Which also gives it a Real Time Clock)

Should I go retro, I have the Original IBM DOS2.10, BASIC2.10 and Guide to Operations Packs, that made up the Purchase Package.

It's D.O.B: Sept 1983...P.O.B: Wangaratta, Vic, Aus.
Role: My PIM and Database 4 my computer inventory.

Now 3 Q?s 1)Is there such a thing as an 8 Bit VGA card?
2)Can the memory be expanded beyond 640K?
3)Wots ur story?

 

[joe sixpack]

Re: 2 joe sixpack

Re: 2 joe sixpack

Now 3 Q?s 1)Is there such a thing as an 8 Bit VGA card?
2)Can the memory be expanded beyond 640K?
3)Wots ur story?

Sounds like you got a pretty expanded machine.

1: yes, good luck finding one.

2: If im not mistaken the 8088 had 16bit memory addressing...
meaning it could address memory at 16bits if you do the math that
comes out to 1mb so as the cpu will take it im not sure how you would
upgrade the 5150 (i dont have one)

3: my story? well i have a 5170 stock machine: 286@8mhz, 512kb, 30mb hdd, 1.2mb dshd 5.25, Bios: 11/15/85
Other then that the oldest hardware i have is the mainboard from a laser turbo XT-1, mac plus, & atari xl 1200

 

[Erik]

Welcome to the VC Forum!

The 5150 is a nice machine and the first I ever owned. I've even got my original IBM DOS 1.0 disk around here somewhere!

Enjoy!

Erik

 

[Terry Yager]

Hello Rolf,

We used to run a program called FlickerFree to workaround the CGA "snow" bug. Mebbe you can find a copy somewhere on daNet.
My first IBM-compatible was also a 5150. I got it for changing the engine in my friend's truck. (He owned a computer store, and we used to barter for mechanical work. That's how my collection got it's start).
The 8088-class machines can only adderss what's called "Expanded Memory" through the use of special memory cards and driver saoftware.
http://www.google.com/search?source...GGLD:2005-03,GGLD:en&q=define:expanded+memory
These are kinda hard to find these days, but they do show up on eBay occaisionally.

--T