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I finally have an IBM XT

6885P5H

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2015
Messages
320
Location
Québec, Canada
After 7 years of wanting one, I finally have an IBM XT. It was never something that I really wanted like I want to have an Olivetti M380-40, I was even accepting the fact that I might never ever own one, but uhhh well now I have one... I am a bit disappointed though as I've been tricked by the face plate; the reason I wanted to have one was to have a full-height hard drive, and the hard drive that's in it is an half-height :-? even though the face plate looks like a full-height drive is inside... I paid a lot of money for it too (125$) so that sucks but it did come with an IBM XT keyboard so now I can finally use my IBM PC and it also came with a very-neat looking Tatung monitor...

But anyway, it does seem to work, I can boot into DOS 5 and do stuff, but I got stuck into a program once and had to restart the computer by pressing ctrl-alt-del and this made the hard drive unable to boot for a few minutes (even after turning the computer off and turning it back on). Very creepy experience so now I'd like to know of a way to image the hard drive before it dies or something. Can I connect the hard drive in a modern computer and image it or will it (or the controller card) only work in an XT machine? Also, do you guys know what caused the hard drive to temporarily "die" after restarting the machine with the key combination?

Sans titre.jpg
 
Theoretically you can move the HDD and the MFM controller into an ISA PC and use linux (with the 'xd' driver), but I'd simply use FastLynx.
 
If you don't have any method for creating new 5.25" disks, I would use the system to create a few boot disks - you may end up needing to clean the floppy drive heads.

As Gabucino mentioned, for quickly getting files off a failing drive I use FastLynx (LapLink 3 seems more popular but I much prefer FastLynx 2). It will run fine on a Windows 98 or older host computer, and all you need is a null-modem serial cable which are still used so can be bought new cheaply. The software has a remote upload feature so you don't even need to copy it to a floppy - as long as the host PC runs DOS and has MODE.COM available, you can install over the serial cable.

A modern Windows box can access network file shares on Windows 95/98 machines - so it's an easy way to get data on and off.

That doesn't help with any problems the system might have, but that's how I quickly get files off.
 
...the last time I did this, I used Interlink/Intersvr from a DOS 6.22 boot disk; parallel LL cable to a system running win98SE. Parallel cable transfer (assuming that you have printer ports) is much faster than the serial version.
 
Alright, so it looks like I have no other choice but to use a serial or parallel connection to get files from it... Its got a parallel port on the MDA card, and its got a "Paradise Systems 5-Pack" multifunction card in it that has a DB-25 connector on it. I am not sure if that connector can be configured to offer a parallel or serial connection though... It's got some DIP switches marked "LPT" and "COM" but I don't know how to operate them...

Sooo what's the best thing to do here? Use the parallel connection on the MDA card?
 
If you use the parallel connection, you need a special "Laplink parallel" cable.

Your Paradise card should have both serial and parallel, but the connectors, while both being DB25 are different genders. A parallel DB25 shows "holes" on the connector body (female). A serial connector shows "pins" (male). I suspect that you're probably missing the cable that connects to a header on the Paradise card that provides the serial interface. In any case, the connection between two PCs isn't quite "straight" through. It's a "crossover" cable, sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "null modem" cable.
 
A Laplink parallel cable... Got it, I'll try to find one for sale where it won't cost me too much Canadian Pesos...

The Paradise card only has 1 connector, but its got DIP switches marked LPT and COM on it so I'm thinking that maybe the connector can be both a serial and parallel..?
 
A Laplink parallel cable... Got it, I'll try to find one for sale where it won't cost me too much Canadian Pesos...

The Paradise card only has 1 connector, but its got DIP switches marked LPT and COM on it so I'm thinking that maybe the connector can be both a serial and parallel..?

Parallel will be a 26 pin header, serial a 10 pin, more than likely. So Paradise board will probably support both.
 
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