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New haul.. And a couple questions

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k2x4b524[

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Jun 13, 2009
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Tacoma, Washington, USA. Zip code 98404
This weekend, i went down to Hillsboro from Seattle and got some things.

1-IBM 5160
1-IBM 5150
1-IBM 5151
3-Boxes of books

The 5160 had the following

Half height Teac FD55-BV 360k
Seagate ST-412
2x memory cards - An IBM 64-256kb memory expansion with 256kb on it, and an Everex EV 183 with 128kb on it *This gives the XT its 640kb load out
Paradise Autoswitching EGA adapter
Standard floppy controller

The 5150 had the following
2x full height floppy drives
Winbond hercules video *without the extra rom*
A quadram quadboard with 256kb installed
Standard floppy controller
IBM 5161 Extender card *now i want to find thd receiver and chassis

My questions:

The Teac 55-BV will format a 360kb here and there, but will default to single sided formats. I took a q-tip and skimmed between the heads, and got a bunch of hairs. What elst might be causing a 360 to defult to 180

The ST-412.. Bless it..
It powered on, but no love from the spindle
The platters would wiggle, barely but nothing
Head assembly was free as a bird
The spindle needed help in the form of me turning it back and forth a couple of times between power cycles. Scared the lady friend when it broke free and spun up. It is now spinning, upside down *found a previous thread* And for the most part is running at normal sound level with the occasional ping, poing and scrape. I figure if i let it run for a couple of days like this, as mentioned, it might return to normal operational sound. Which brings me to my next question.

Is there any way to lube this thing? The thread i found mentioned a channel you could squirt some wd-40 enriched with light machine oil, or white lithium aresol, which i have some of *The aresol*, but can't seem to find the channel with which to use the white lithium *i see a small groove just under the edge of the spindle motor, but am not sure this is it*

The EGA card - Can you use a mono monitor with it if the card is set to drive a mono display? The 5151 doesn't care for it, neither does the Goldstar mono that i have

The Winbond hercules card - The PC and XT see it as a standard mono card, and every regular hercules card i find online, has a driver disk with it. The winbond one doesn't. Are there generic hercules drivers floating around i can use? The chipset is W86855af, 64kb on board, googles as a hercules chipset

On full height maintenence - I have already restored 3 Tandons to operation by lubricating the slide rails for the heads, but is there anything i can do for the stepper motors? Surely, they've grease that dries out at some point too?

On to the box of books:

IBM Technical reference 2.02
IBM Technical reference for XT and Portable
IBM Hardware Maintenence and Service for PC-XT Vol 1-3 Complete - With advanced diags
IBM Hardware Maintenence and service for PC Vol 1-2 *The binder for 3 was empty* With advanced diags
IBM Macro Assember *No Disk*
Dos 2.0 Technical reference
IBM Guide to Operations for PC and XT *Various revisions /w disks*
IBM Easy Writer /w disks
3rd party guide to IBM resources *just a compilation of resources that IBM authorized*
Peter Norton guide to DOS
And assorted addendum pages to the IBM manuals *Still shrink wrapped*
 
Hercules monographic cards do not usually need any additional software to operate. If a program supports Herc, all you have to do is run it, and it should work. New cards often would have come with diagnostics and demos, but usually nothing you absolutely needed. That said, there is a nice downloadable program called SIMCGA that enables many CGA-only programs to run with a Hercules monographics card.

EGA cards can be used with a mono MDA monitor if the DIP switches are set properly. However, this configuration is not Hercules compatible, nor does it permit the typical color EGA graphics modes.

When a 360k floppy drive only formats 180k, that does usually indicate some issue with the second (top) drive head. The DOS formatter detects that and thinks it is a single sided drive.

To rule out any DOS or BIOS issues, you could try using a tool like ImageDisk, that bypasses both, to try reading a 360k disk, and see what it does. Gunk on the head is a common problem, you say you arleady cleaned it and it was dirty. It might just still need a bit more cleaning. Other possibilities include a bad cable, damaged drive electronics, damaged spring preventing enough pressure against the disk, or damage inside the head itself.
 
SomeGuy said:
EGA cards can be used with a mono MDA monitor if the DIP switches are set properly. However, this configuration is not Hercules compatible, nor does it permit the typical color EGA graphics modes.
Click to expand...

The one prominent exception to this is the ATI EGA Wonder, which had an ASIC capable of dark magic to massage video modes meant for other monitors to work on almost whatever monitor you actually had attached to the card. But so far as I'm aware a Paradise EGA card doesn't do this so, yeah, all you'll get is a single monochrome 640x350 mode that's not supported by very much software. You're probably better off with Hercules in that situation.
 
Eudimorphodon said:
The one prominent exception to this is the ATI EGA Wonder, which had an ASIC capable of dark magic to massage video modes meant for other monitors to work on almost whatever monitor you actually had attached to the card. But so far as I'm aware a Paradise EGA card doesn't do this so, yeah, all you'll get is a single monochrome 640x350 mode that's not supported by very much software. You're probably better off with Hercules in that situation.
Click to expand...


How do i even know that the herc card *or clone in this case*, is even being seen as a herc. Everything sees it as MDA just fine. I have a in-between machine that i will be taking home soon with a pile of software that i can see what it will do or not. For now, i am happy with the possiblity that i may have a good herc card *even a clone* since i can't find an EGA monitor, or CGA card and monitor that isn't priced the earth.
 
SomeGuy said:
Hercules monographic cards do not usually need any additional software to operate. If a program supports Herc, all you have to do is run it, and it should work. New cards often would have come with diagnostics and demos, but usually nothing you absolutely needed. That said, there is a nice downloadable program called SIMCGA that enables many CGA-only programs to run with a Hercules monographics card.

EGA cards can be used with a mono MDA monitor if the DIP switches are set properly. However, this configuration is not Hercules compatible, nor does it permit the typical color EGA graphics modes.

When a 360k floppy drive only formats 180k, that does usually indicate some issue with the second (top) drive head. The DOS formatter detects that and thinks it is a single sided drive.

To rule out any DOS or BIOS issues, you could try using a tool like ImageDisk, that bypasses both, to try reading a 360k disk, and see what it does. Gunk on the head is a common problem, you say you arleady cleaned it and it was dirty. It might just still need a bit more cleaning. Other possibilities include a bad cable, damaged drive electronics, damaged spring preventing enough pressure against the disk, or damage inside the head itself.
Click to expand...

The thing is, the Teac reads a disk or two fine, with writing, then just defaults to single sided. That was after the hairs were removed. I plan on getting in between the heads with either a cotton bud ot a 5.25" cleaning disk *I have one of those things*. To see what happens, in the interim, i've installed a CDC full height, but really want the Teac to be spot on again
 
k2x4b524[ said:
How do i even know that the herc card *or clone in this case*, is even being seen as a herc. Everything sees it as MDA just fine.
Click to expand...

Run a piece of software configured for Hercules graphics. As I think was said already there is no BIOS support for Hercules, DOS itself or IBM BASIC has *no idea* it's anything but an MDA card. Here's a list of games that supposedly support it natively:

https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/dos/tic,2/ti,4/

Or try SimCGA.
 
k2x4b524[ said:
It is now spinning, upside down ... I figure if i let it run for a couple of days like this, as mentioned, it might return to normal operational sound.
Click to expand...

Be careful with this. Upside down is the one installation orientation prohibited by the original Seagate instructions. And for at least one good reason that I and at least one other here have experienced - any liquid lubricant released from the bearing that gets past the dust seal will run down the spindle till it hits the first platter surface, where it will be flung out across the surface. The next event is head crash, and the drive is done. I recommend storing and running these old drives on their sides as a safer way to redistribute bearing lubricant.
 
Stinkpot said:
Be careful with this. Upside down is the one installation orientation prohibited by the original Seagate instructions. And for at least one good reason that I and at least one other here have experienced - any liquid lubricant released from the bearing that gets past the dust seal will run down the spindle till it hits the first platter surface, where it will be flung out across the surface. The next event is head crash, and the drive is done. I recommend storing and running these old drives on their sides as a safer way to redistribute bearing lubricant.
Click to expand...

Good to know. I came home after it sitting off from last night,and it is running quiet now, save for a faint scraping, which is the bearings I think. I will be flipping it back before bed. Again, thanks for the heads up
 
A couple years ago I picked up an XT clone with a Herc clone card. Just for laughs I plugged in the graphics demo that came with Turbo Pascal 4, and it detected the card! Until that point I thought it was only an MGA clone. Had it plugged in to a 5151 and displayed the demo. No drivers.
 
A bit of an update - Also an attempt to bring my threads about this matter into one thread

I have stripped one of the 5150's down for parts - It didn't have anything in it to keep it intact, so it is now a parts donor to my built 5150 with the 20mb hard card

The PC-XT now has a fully functional hercules card - I found the hercules software for the actual herc board and the Multitech board i have is full herc compatible, i just need to find out if it does hardware cga emulation or if i'm limited to SimCGA or UniCGA.
More on the XT:
The ST-412 now runs 99% quiet, there is a little bit of a scrape from the bearings, but it is faint - The drive also has a bit of a shimmy, i can dampen the vibrations with rubber grommets i think
Will be getting a V20 + Coproc upgrade soon
8-Bit VGA may be in order if i can find a card + monitor without the ebay tax - Speaking of monitors, i may be looking for one of those oldies that could do mono up to vga
I'd like to feed it 1mb of ram also. I've the 64-256kb board with the AST Sixpack plus for 640k. I have the IBM 64-256kb memory card outside from the donor 5150.
I am thinking of swapping the sixpack with the ibm card, the setting the sixpack card to backfill the 128kb, then the remaining 256kb above that with qram. I also need to obtain the AST drivers for the card.
I have installed a 1987 silicon valley ide controller for the high density floppy capability via 2m Bios
I would like to get the 5161 expansion chassis - or at least something similar. - i've got the extender card, but no receiver cable or extra planar to go along.

I will also be making a wishlist after Xmas.
 
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