VOGONS

IBM XT 5160

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First post, by JAKra85

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My old IBM XT was sitting in the attic for ~10 years.

This is the No.1 PC in my retro PC collection:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ara32t4rV … nU/edit?tab=t.0

Today I brought it down, did a clean, disassembled made photos, reassembled.
Changed the videocard to ATi Wonder 1024 - ISA - 512KB (PN 109-00095-10).
One of the fastest videocards possible from ATi (28800-5) for this CPU.
This is a 16b ISA working in 8b ISA mode.
The PC Tools program reports only 256KB RAM on the videocard, not exactly sure why that is.
Has both VGA and EGA outputs.
(Tried IBM 5151 monitor and an LCD at the same time, does not work. 😜 )

The HDD was stuck, did not spin. WD40 on the axis and a 10 minute manual spin solved the issue.
The FDD was also suck. It did spin, but the stepper motor was stuck. WD40 plus some grease on the head rail a bit of back and forth movement solved the issue.

Motherboard:

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Videocard:

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RAM cards (2x256KB):

The attachment 20260524_141431.jpg is no longer available

Working (again) IBM XT:

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Will do a few more pictures tomorrow during daytime.
Also, planing a 8087 FPU upgrade soon.

Last edited by JAKra85 on 2026-06-04, 08:41. Edited 1 time in total.

Retro PC Gallery:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ara32t4rV … nU/edit?tab=t.0

Reply 1 of 5, by CC-Adam

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Nice setup! 👍 Cool that the hard drive came back to life, was it a 10MB Seagate?

I've seen there are a few apps that let you do a couple of dual monitor tasks if you have both CGA and MDA cards, think Lotus 123 was one of them, what did you try with the dual monitors on this ATI card?

Reply 2 of 5, by NeoG_

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Always great to see another historical machine up and running again

98/DOS Rig: BabyAT AladdinV, K6-2+/550, V3 2000, 128MB PC100, 20GB HDD, 128GB SD2IDE, SB Live!, SB16-SCSI, PicoGUS, WP32 McCake, iNFRA CD, ZIP100
XP Rig: Lian Li PC-10 ATX, Gigabyte X38-DQ6, Core2Duo E6850, ATi HD5870, 2GB DDR2, 2TB HDD, X-Fi XtremeGamer

Reply 3 of 5, by JAKra85

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CC-Adam wrote on 2026-06-03, 07:56:

Nice setup! 👍 Cool that the hard drive came back to life, was it a 10MB Seagate?

I've seen there are a few apps that let you do a couple of dual monitor tasks if you have both CGA and MDA cards, think Lotus 123 was one of them, what did you try with the dual monitors on this ATI card?

Thanks!
Yes, it has the original 10 MB Seagate ST-412 in it.
I was just curious to see what happens if VGA and MDA are connected at the same time. There was no motive behind it, only curiosity.
The MDA monitor did not get a signal.
With this videocard it takes a bit of time for the MDA monitor to get a signal. Maybe I will try by attaching the VGA after I have an MDA output.

In the next couple of weeks an FPU (Intel 8087-1) will arrive and thinking of adding a mouse later.
I want to try SimCity, this game can use the FPU. Few games used it in this era.
Stunt Track Racer from 1989 is another one. This being a racer game I might do a "benchmark" with the original AMD 4,77MHz CPU and FPU ON and OFF.
Grand Prix Circuit cannot use FPU and runs quite badly (~7-10FPS), but it is still fun!
Oh, and since the IBM 5151 monitor has a very high persistence the whole game was green smear on this monitor... and this was state of the art back in 1983.
How far we evolved with 1000Hz refresh and 0,1ms response OLED monitors.

Retro PC Gallery:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ara32t4rV … nU/edit?tab=t.0

Reply 4 of 5, by BitWrangler

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Yeah best game playing mode back in the day was to turn your lights off and turn the brightness all the way down on the monitor for less smear.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 5 of 5, by CC-Adam

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Excellent, I would like to see Sim City on there! Will it be even remotely playable, even with the FPU? I have a 5160 I might need to give it a try I've been wanting an excuse to dig it out again. Don't have a co-processor for it though (yet!...)

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