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IBM PC 5150 Rev.A (Early S/N : 0101876)

What a narly looking scsi cable lol but awesome find! 👍 Mhmmmm cassette interface... Wish I never sold mine. At least I still have my 5160 and 5162 mutant. =)

Sadly I think one of the 2 is gonna have to go next year. Tryin to declutter my life mostly to whats important. I hoarded way too much stuff. Still looking for a 5151 monitor though.
 
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IBM PC 5150 Rev.A (Early S/N : 0101049)​

is now sold on eBay.

www.ebay.com

Vintage IBM 5150 PC Personal Computer 1982 Powers On & Beeps FOR PARTS OR REPAIR | eBay

For Parts or Repair since we are unable to test it further! The PC is physically in Very Good to Excellent Condition, and we air-blasted the inside which didn't have much dust at all. To see the inside of the system, See Pictures 5, 6, and 7.
www.ebay.com

But, BIOS may be replaced with Rev.2
 
fs5500 said:

IBM PC 5150 Rev.A (Early S/N : 0101049)​

is now sold on eBay.

www.ebay.com

Vintage IBM 5150 PC Personal Computer 1982 Powers On & Beeps FOR PARTS OR REPAIR | eBay

For Parts or Repair since we are unable to test it further! The PC is physically in Very Good to Excellent Condition, and we air-blasted the inside which didn't have much dust at all. To see the inside of the system, See Pictures 5, 6, and 7.
www.ebay.com

But, BIOS may be replaced with Rev.2
Click to expand...
Yeah, I decided I would finally grab an early rev 5150 to mess with and couldn’t pass this one up. I had one in high school when they first came out…really brings back memories!
 
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When that #1049 machine arrives, would you give us the BASIC ROM date codes? I believe they are still original. U33 BIOS was replaced. I would like to correspond the date codes with another very early 5150 with unknown serial number. Awesome score, congrats.
 
chris_nh said:
When that #1049 machine arrives, would you give us the BASIC ROM date codes? I believe they are still original. U33 BIOS was replaced. I would like to correspond the date codes with another very early 5150 with unknown serial number. Awesome score, congrats.
Click to expand...
Will do. It should arrive mid-next-week.

I wish this had the 4/24/81 BIOS though. I would have swapped the BIOS ROM myself with rev3…but it would have been nice to have on hand. The rest of the system appears to be in excellent shape. Curious about some of the cards in it.
 
However, the surprising thing is that only three units with serial numbers less than 5000 were identified in the IBM PC 5150 Rev.1 (16-64KB) model exhibited on eBay this year. 2 units are as they have already been introduced here, and the other 1 was not introduced here, but it was a broken junk product.
 

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fs5500 said:
However, the surprising thing is that only three units with serial numbers less than 2000 were identified in the IBM PC 5150 Rev.1 (16-64KB) model exhibited on eBay this year. 2 units are as they have already been introduced here, and the other 1 was not introduced here, but it was a broken junk product.
Click to expand...
What exactly is "surprising" on that? Apart from the fact that I never understood why people care about low serial numbers, it sounds like you think the number of units sold on eBay somehow reflects how many of them are still around.
 

Timo W.​

If you are trying to disparage the value of the early model of the IBM PC 5150, let alone understand it, I hope you do not write in this thread. If you are not interested, please go to another thread.
 
Serial 101049 arrived today. Below are some of the highlights. Let me know if there’s any other info you’d like…I’ll be stripping it over the comings days. It’s had some upgrades over the years but in pretty decent shape.

1) Blackish power supply with raised nuts
2) Metal speaker holder
3) 100% blue tantalum caps, socketed 8088
4) one tan/one white main power connector
5) floppys/MDA card/U33 upgraded, not original
6) expansion card screws are socket-only, no flathead slots
7) BIOS pic attached

6FC4DFCD-91B7-43FD-A4AC-2D8F24B3C3FC.jpeg

However…

As luck would have it…I had a true “barn find” today. I found serial 122448 shoved in the back of an antique mall booth 200 mi north of me and I drove up to get it. This one was special. An IBM engineer ordered this for his son in Oct 81 as a Christmas present. Said son used it for a month after Christmas and decided he didn’t like it…so the whole setup was put away in the original boxes…for 40 years! Family finally brought it back in the open (probably due to to family death)…turned it on, no-go. Based on symptoms, it’s a bad tantalum cap or two. I stumbled upon it and immediately jumped. Spent a bit more than I anticipated, but certainly much less than piecing all of this together.

Again, this one was special. It was ordered/configured “maxed out”..,and it’s all in as-new condition with original boxes.

Listing below of what I got…all rev 1, first edition:

1) 5150 with dual single-sided drives, populated to 64k. Black power supply with raised nuts. Plastic speaker holder, mix of blue and yellow tantalums.
2) original rev1 U33
3) MDA card with light pen connector, black slot plate
4) CGA card with black slot plate
5) game card with black slot plate…I’ve never even seen these before
6) 64k upgrade card with black slot plate, bought/installed Jan 82
7) floppy controller with black slot plate
8) 5151 monitor
9) model F keyboard (no metal DIN connector though…darn)
10) 5152 printer with the IBM branded stand and original “beefy” parallel port cable
11) first edition of the following, with manuals and disks: Guide to Operations (also has cassette), DOS 1.0, BASIC, Hardware Maintenance and Service, VisiCalc, EasyWriter, Typing Tutor, Software Submissions (!), warranty card, welcome letters, etc.

Gonna be a busy few weeks getting this sorted out. I may marry these two systems together, we’ll see…
 
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TWAIN

Thanks very much for posting photo of early IBM PC BASIC ROM.

I've only seen 4 of the IBM PC 5150 early versions (P/N of motherboard: 1802437, 16-64KB) on eBay over the past year.
Unfortunately, I couldn't confirm whether the initial BIOS (P/N: 5700051) plugged into the U33 was plugged in as it was until owner opened it.
We have confirmed 3 out of 4, but the model (S/N: 0101876) that was originally posted in this thread has not yet received any information from the current owner.
2 out of 4 confirmed that the BIOS was already upgraded, and 1 The motherboard has failed, but the BIOS has been reported to be of the original type and there is nothing wrong with it.
 
Motherboard of serial 101049 fully out. Very interesting. The part# is 1802429 and has mod/patch wires on both sides. Most chips are dated May/June of 81. Pics of top and bottom attached to this post.

56C0B905-C704-4B20-8646-170AFF91148D.jpeg

1A07C54D-9CC6-42C9-9EBD-71410EF45F6E.jpeg
 
TWAIN said:
As luck would have it…I had a true “barn find” today.
Click to expand...
OK this is very interesting. You have the oldest 5150 I have on file and the first with a plastic speaker mount. Last I have on file with a metal one is 0122227, yours is 0122448 so that's like approx 200 machines in between. we are getting very close on the speaker mount issue. Wish we were closer on the brown raised nut PSU and black sunken nut PSU.

I had not known of motherboard differences, (apart from brown PSU connector), where is the part no. printed?

What floppy controller do you have in the later machine? (see minuszero) the early one has a big metal caned part on the bottom left.

Thanks for the info and pictures
 

TWAIN​

Thanks! I really didn't know P/N of early IBM PC 5150 motherboard is 1802429.
My motherboard of P/N is 1802437.

I wonder your motherboard works well.
 
fs5500 said:

TWAIN​

Thanks! I really didn't know P/N of early IBM PC 5150 motherboard is 1802429.
My motherboard of P/N is 1802437.

I wonder your motherboard works well.
Click to expand...
This system was booted by the seller prior to shipment. Still, I’m going to take my time and be careful with this one.
 
mR_Slug said:
OK this is very interesting. You have the oldest 5150 I have on file and the first with a plastic speaker mount. Last I have on file with a metal one is 0122227, yours is 0122448 so that's like approx 200 machines in between. we are getting very close on the speaker mount issue. Wish we were closer on the brown raised nut PSU and black sunken nut PSU.

I had not known of motherboard differences, (apart from brown PSU connector), where is the part no. printed?

What floppy controller do you have in the later machine? (see minuszero) the early one has a big metal caned part on the bottom left.

Thanks for the info and pictures
Click to expand...

The floppy controller on the (somewhat) later system is the early model with the IBM metal chips. All of the cards are of the very early type.

The motherboard part# is to the left of U33 of the pic I posted.

As far as the plastic speaker holder…122448 appears to have been picked up on Oct 12, 1981 but unknown how that relates to mfg date.
 
Andrettigto said:
PKHOURY has s/n 100485 and the main board has no silkscreened p/n on it. PSU question on early Model A 5150
Click to expand...
Interesting that 100485 has the same mod wires on it that mine does, but no part #. I also didn’t notice but mine has those black square caps at the polarity RAM as well. All very interesting differences that show IBM’s progression on these systems. I hope PKHOURY got his running.
 
Hey guys. I am still working on my 5150 early model (would it be a Rev B if its a 16KB-64KB board with the Oct 1981 bios as opposed to the April 1981 bios?). Anyway I had a general question. Been doing alot of repair work on my 5150's and 5160's in the past few weeks. I have one board that came out of a 5150 that I am not sure is authentic. How can you tell if a board is IBM or Clone?
 
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