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The end of the market on 5170s

Also, since ISA is mostly NOT Plug 'n Play, it wouldn't sit well with the MCA. PCI and MCA makes enough sense; at least PCI cards guaranteed to be software configured for resources just like MCA. But in the case of ISA, MCA would think some resource is free, when it actually is not, and I could see that causing some headaches... though I'm sure tech support of ISA cards was a lot of fun back in the day... :)
 
southbird said:
Also, since ISA is mostly NOT Plug 'n Play, it wouldn't sit well with the MCA. PCI and MCA makes enough sense; at least PCI cards guaranteed to be software configured for resources just like MCA. But in the case of ISA, MCA would think some resource is free, when it actually is not, and I could see that causing some headaches... though I'm sure tech support of ISA cards was a lot of fun back in the day... :)
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You'd work it the same way that PCI currently works--you allocate the ISA resources first, then assign what's left over to PCI. There are plenty of PCI-ISA systems, after all.
 
I just picked up a 5170 on Ebay for $19.00
Unknown if it works but the 5150 I bought from the same guy works fine.
Now just trying to find a PS/2 Model 80
 
wrljet said:
Free shipping?
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lol, of course not, but $35 is pretty fair S&H for a 40lb tank like this thing. Was DOA (hence the $19 price tag I assume) but I already got it fired up, I'm itching to get an AT keyboard (used to have a dozen) so I can really start to mess with it. Even with shipping the price is decent considering the ridiculous prices on Ebay, there are units on there for $200+, why would anyone ever pay that?

I had a question though, anyone ever notice that 5170's are always WAY more beat up than 5150/5160's are? Why do you think that is? Every 5170 I have ever seen, looks like it has spent a year on a battlefield or something.
 
I think the reason you see more 5150s/60s in nice shape is because they were more likely to end up in home environments (not many people could afford the asking price for an IBM AT in 1985-87), and an IBM in the home was a status symbol in the 1980s, so people kept them looking nice. ATs were more likely to be bought for business or higher education use, and depending on the culture of the place, those types of machines can get really trashed. Even today, desktop PCs from offices usually get a lot more trashed than home PCs, at least by the time I see them for sale.

My first non-sales IT job was working for a university in the mid 1990s, decommissioning old IBM XTs and PS/2s (I don't think we had any ATs by then) and replacing them with IBM PC 330s. Most of the IBMs that lasted long enough to get to me were really trashed. But when I find an IBM PC or XT at an estate sale today, generally they still look good.
 
I've been looking for a high quality IBM 5170 myself for the past 2 years on Ebay, and all I ever see on there is AT's that seen better days....


:eek:
 
I got mine by asking a seller who had a bunch of stuff going up, week after week, "what else ya got?" and cut a deal off the 'Bay.
 
Dave Farquhar said:
I think the reason you see more 5150s/60s in nice shape is because they were more likely to end up in home environments (not many people could afford the asking price for an IBM AT in 1985-87), and an IBM in the home was a status symbol in the 1980s, so people kept them looking nice.
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The AT is also simply too large, heavy, and noisy to be practical for home use, and it had too short of a useful lifespan. By the time applications started to benefit from 286+ performance, the smart rich kids got a PS/2. :)

doogie.jpg
 
I like the AT chassis because it is large, rectangular, and made of heavier gauge sheet metal than most clones.
 
vwestlife said:
The AT is also simply too large, heavy, and noisy to be practical for home use, and it had too short of a useful lifespan. By the time applications started to benefit from 286+ performance, the smart rich kids got a PS/2. :)
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Agreed. I didn't know anyone in the mid/late 1980s who had an AT at home. Most everyone had an XT of some sort, or, even more likely, a Commodore, Apple, or Atari. I remember two people who had 286s back then. One had an XT-286 and the other had a PS/2 Model 30-286.

In the mid 1990s, when secondhand ATs (or their empty shells) were still easy to come by, I upgraded an awful lot of them into 486s and Pentiums for people. They were big and overbuilt, but that's the way I like 'em. I still have mine, though I never had an IBM board for it. I paid $10 for it in 1994 or 95 at a used computer store. Initially I put a 386DX-40 board in it, then I had various Pentiums in it later on. I wanted to put a Socket 370 board in it, but the memory wouldn't clear the drive bays and I didn't want to cut into the case to make them fit.

I wish I'd saved one of those discarded AT boards so I could restore it.
 
Overflowing Trash Dumpster Derived IBM 5170 PC-AT w/ 5154 EGA Color Monitor

Overflowing Trash Dumpster Derived IBM 5170 PC-AT w/ 5154 EGA Color Monitor

re: Overflowing Trash Dumpster Derived IBM 5170 PC-AT with 5154 EGA Color Monitor.

Now before everybody rushes out to the nearest garbage heap in search of an old time IBM computer, must advise that my find happened back about 15-years ago.

Was attending the Rochester, New Hamphire HAM radio fest in 1995. At the time, many amateur people were getting into PACKET satellite HAM radio. The data transfer rate was around 1200 Baud, so old cast-off computers such as the early generation IBM PCs were good for the purpose. Many sellers at the HAM radio fest were offering various computers on their tables. About half of those were 5150, 5160 and 5170 IBMs. As I recall. the prices were mostly under $100 with lots of them in the fifty-buck range.

At the time in the mid-1990s, many companies were dumping their obsolete 1980s vintage systems for state of the art equipment. By early afternoon, a cold steady rain was falling and the prices of the computers had dropped to ten and fifteen dollars each. As I left, a couple of sellers offered me IBM computers for free. Didn't feel like lugging one of those heavy junky things with monitor through the downpour all the way back to parking lot.

As I approached the car, noticed a big trash bin that was nearby. It an was amazing thing to see. Heaped into a huge pile within the dumpster were computers with monitors. The thing was overflowing with toss away PCs. On the ground next to the dumpster, sitting in the rain was as an orphan IBM AT 5170 computer with monitor and cables. The machine seemed to have been carefully placed there. I felt for sorry for the thing which looked to be in nice condition. Loaded the 5170 into my car along with two older 5150 computers and matching monitors with keyboards.

Eventually, the earlier version IBM PC machines that quit working were thrown into the town dump. I kept the 5170 AT with 5154 monitor for sentimental reasons. As a purchasing agent for General Electric in the early 1980s. I was buying IBM PCs by the pallet full. At the time, the 5170 AT machines in a similiar configuration to my dumpster reject having dual floppy units, modem, printer port and 30 meg hard drive with color EGA monitor along with other technoid goodies were well over $6,000 each. Recall invoices for a dozen IBM machines being over $80,000.

My wife has tried to have my IBM 5170 thrown into the garbage several times now. She failed and I am glad that the thing weighs a ton. This machine chugs along perfectly and makes all the correct noises and beeps. It looks to have been a corporate owned computer as there are various service and inspection tags here and there. On the front is a label that warns employees to, "PROTECT ALL DATA - AT ALL TIMES".

Sometimes the vintage 5170, that today sits over in the corner, gets switched on as a decor item. Usually have some loop DOS program running such as a star chart, chess or tactical hex type war game. Being so dated parked among the modern flat screen LCD monitor machines, the ancient IBM 5170 AT has a distinctly dated charm of it's own.
 
I found an XT-286 Model M in much the same condition. I was driving past the back of a Goodwill, as for some reason people just LOVE to illegally dump donations there after-hours (and since the stuff doesn't belong to the people who dumped it, or Goodwill, it's kinda up for grabs), and saw a keyboard sitting in the rain, on the road. I knew that if I didn't take it, it would be dead by morning, easily. Since it was beige, I hopped out of my car and checked it out, noting that it was obviously a Model M, but one I had never seen before. It had an AT keyboard connector, no indicator lights, and a shiny silver IBM logo. I used it unwittingly on my main desktop machine, thrilled that it still worked, and eventually discovered that it likely was partnered with an IBM 5162 or XT-286 at one point in it's life. It now awaits my acquisition of a 5162 so it can take it's rightful place in my row of silver-label IBM machines.
 
vwestlife said:
AFAIK, nobody ever made a combo MCA/ISA (or MCA/anything else) motherboard, but there were quite a few "flipover" MCA/ISA expansion cards.
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I can't believe I haven't seen this topic until now...

There was a combo ISA/MCA system: the "Industrial" (rack-mount) IBM "Gearbox 800". Mine is from the Johnson Space Center. But it isn't a conventional motherboard, rather a backplane bus that the ISA and MCA cards require adapters to plug in. It's natively a MCA design, and there are many ISA cards that you can't use.

There also was IBM systems, mostly in "server-size", pairing other buses: MCA/PCI, EISA/PCI, and both ISA and MCA adapters to a PCMCIA bus...

And for a list of companies that produced microchannel systems: IBM, NCR, Bull Micro, Reply, Apricot, and Tandy...
 
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