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I want to build a powerfull 5150 IBM PC ...

I don't think the 5161 is worth your time unless you want it for collection purposes. There are 3 much better ways to add hard drives to your pc.

1. Replace the 63W power supply with an XT power supply and install an internal harddrive.

2. Get a SCSI controller and an external HDD with its own power supply.

3. Order an XT IDE controller (are these hard to get now), and hook it up to a compact flash adapter

I've personally done al three in that order. I recommend the XT-IDE controller if you can get it.
 
Speaking of hard drives, I just found my 8-bit 20 meg Plus Hard Card. I also recommend one of those in a 5150. I'm running mine through its paces right now.
 
It should be possible to just barely squeeze all the cards you could ever possibly need into a 5150. Here is a photo of the inside of my own 5150:

So, AC, do you have any CD-ROM reading/writing capability in your 5150? Perhaps with parallel port? Your setup seems very simi9lar to mine. I don't have the sound card, not sure what I have in its place...my 5150 is in storage right now...

--Brian
 
If you cut the back off, you can install a much better mother board - I've done it! hehe It was a long time ago and I certainly wouldn't do that now - but then I wouldn't "upgrade" one either. :)

Regarding the 5161 expansion unit, I just came across the extender and receiver cards if anybody is interested. I don't have the cable or the box though.
 
If you cut the back off, you can install a much better mother board - I've done it! hehe It was a long time ago and I certainly wouldn't do that now - but then I wouldn't "upgrade" one either. :)

Regarding the 5161 expansion unit, I just came across the extender and receiver cards if anybody is interested. I don't have the cable or the box though.
LOL! I 've got the cable and the box ;-)
 
Are the old PC parallel ports true bi-directional? I would think a parallel port ethernet adopter requires it to be.

Many of them will work without bi-directional ports. They use the status lines to send data back to the PC 4-bits at a time. Obviously that's much slower, but better than nothing.
 
Ibm 5150 pc dos

Ibm 5150 pc dos

Hi, I'm writing from Italy. I just found in an attic a PC IBM 5150 complete with 2 drives, monochrome card, controller card SS / DS, and network card (AUI). I do not know if it'll turn on again, but if it'll works, where I could find the PC DOS version 1.0 to load on it? Here are some its pictures.

http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2623.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2624.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2625.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2626.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2627.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2628.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2629.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2630.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2631.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2632.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2633.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2634.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2635.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2636.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2637.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2638.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2639.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2640.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2641.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2642.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2643.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2644.jpg
http://elazzerini.interfree.it/scheda/Foto2645.jpg

Thanks for any advice and support.
Enrico - Pisa - Italy
 
From your photos, I see that you have a 5250 emulation card--you don't need this as I don't believe you intend to access an IBM System/34.

Your video interface is the monochrome display adapter. You'll either need to find a 5151-compatible display or replace the card. I'd suggest a VGA card which will allow you to use a modern monitor.

You can get by without a new power supply if you use a low-power solution, such as our own XTIDE that will accept CF card memory.

Other than acquiring a co-processor board, you can fill out the memory using more 4164 DRAMs to bring your motherboard to 256K, then add an memory expansion board to get to 640K.

As mentioned before, you can replace the CPU with a NEC V20 chip, which will give you a bit more processing power.

You're a bit limited by the 5 expansion slots that this motherboard provides, so you can't add too many cards without having to remove others.
 
From your photos, I see that you have a 5250 emulation card--you don't need this as I don't believe you intend to access an IBM System/34.

Oh man, memory lane. I once wrote a high speed (in 1986) data transport between a System/36 and a 3B2's using a PC with one of those. It would ftp files to/from the 3B2 and then poke/peek characters directly into the terminal frame buffer to add/delete records through an RPG app on the S36 - then poke in the EBCDIC send key. Pretty cutting edge for the day. Sadly it was deemed easier to emulate terminal input in such a way and not have to rewrite S36 code than to send everything over SDLC. The world of twin-ax, AUI and vampire taps doesn't seem that long ago sadly.
 
Ibm 5150

Ibm 5150

I want to thank all of you for the valuable information.

I just tested the IBM drives but while it seems i can format both them at 360KB (even with IMD) if i try to read them I get an error of reading. If I force the formatting them at 180KB (/f:180) they work and i can write and read from them. They are two Tandon TM100 and they should operate at 360KB. I'll try to see if one side of the two heads sould be dirty, but I get the same thing with both units. I carry out this operation with a PC and a card PRIME 2C MKIII Hard Disk_Floppy Controller on a Lucky Star motherboard with Pentium MMX I430VX-ITE8680 and I normally use it with 5.25"HD and 3.5" HD.

Regards
Enrico

SDLC-HDLC : so far in the time. i remember just when i worked for telecom italia and i used an hp 4951 datascope to analize the serial port of wan modem to check what happend... too so far in the time.
 
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