First post, by Great Hierophant
- Rank
- l33t
Never have I had so clear a vision of what my perfect PC will be. I see this PC and am struck in awe about its potential. It is so right, so perfect that all intelligent people will gush with praise about the system I built:
I start with an IBM PC Model 5150. The motherboard will contain the 10/27/82 BIOS and have the maximum 256KB of RAM on the motherboard. It will come with dual 360KB Full-Height Floppy Drives. I may also attach an external 720KB Floppy Drive to the controller (which supports two internal and two external drives) for convenience sake. I will also install an 8087 co-processor. I will put into the ISA slots an MDA and a CGA. I will connect the MDA to an IBM 5151 Monochrome Monitor and the CGA to an IBM 5153 Color Display for dual-mode action (twenty years before its time.) As IBM suggests, the MDA (which contains a fully functional parallel port) will be the primary display for the best text. In another slot I will install an IBM Game Adapter. To that card I will install two IBM joysticks. I will attach an IBM 83-Key Keyboard. Finally, I will look into obtaining an appropriate IBM Dot-Matrix Printer. Now, the 5150 has five ISA slots, and four cards (MDA, Game, CGA, Floppy controller) are to be installed, yet still there are important options. I can put an IBM Serial Adapter in the fifth slot, or do something more exotic.
Well, IBM also put out something called the 5161 Expansion Chassis, which uses a 5150 case and includes 8 additional ISA slots and two full-length 5.25" bays. I shall put in that an IBM Serial Adapter, a Second Floppy Disk Controller and two 720KB Floppy Drives (requires a DOS driver in Config.sys, no BIOS support so no booters) a 10 or 20MB Hard Drive and Hard Drive Controller (IBM's XT upgrade w/ on-board BIOS) and a 384-512KB RAM Upgrade Board. It has its own power supply, probably XT rated (~130 Watts). Later upgrades may include a second serial or serial + parallel adapter or a 1200 Baud Hayes-Compatible Modem.
Does anyone have knowledge about the about the above configuration that would make it not work?