VOGONS


First post, by bhtooefr

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Thought I'd go ahead and post up this machine (my oldest x86 machine).

IBM 5155 Portable Personal Computer
IBM XT motherboard (previous owner had a VIP TXM/10-II 9.54 MHz clone board installed) with 128 KiB RAM installed
AST SixPakPremium with second serial port and game port options installed (second serial port has a 16550 UART) and 1024 KiB EEMS (I could use a PremiumPak to take that to 2048...)
IBM CGA (presumably original to the machine)
IBM FDC (presumably original to the machine)
WDC WD1002-27X RLL hard drive controller (previous owner had a WD1002S-WX2 MFM controller installed)
SMC 8003WC ethernet controller (you know how hard it is to find a short (to fit behind the drives) 8-bit ethernet card with UTP support (because AUI transceivers are awful)? Pretty hard, and this one is UTP draft standard. Works fine, though.)
Single floppy drive
Seagate ST-238R hard drive (when I saw that this thing was actually a 238R, not a 225, I had to buy the RLL controller, and it being a short card helped out my slot allocations a lot)
Microsoft BallPoint (because why not, I had the serial port free)

And, pictures:

IMG_20160215_173342.jpg
I'm aware of the irony of running a demo that displays 1024 colors on CGA, on a monochrome display.

IMG_20160215_174305.jpg
Yes, the I/O bracket in slot 4 is a bit bent. Technically, running a 25-pin serial port is an anachronism, too - the card's official serial ports are all 9-pin.

IMG_20160215_175208.jpg
This is slightly ridiculous. And, there's two slots left unfilled! (Really, slot 6 is the only one that'll be practical to fill, I think - slot 8 is where all the cabling for the drives had to be stuffed on top of.)

IMG_20160215_175238.jpg
And a side view.

Reply 1 of 7, by dexter311

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Wow what a machine! Thanks for posting, it's super interesting, that screen with that colour scheme just exudes warmth.

How "portable" is this thing exactly? Because it looks like it weighs 20kg+! Also, that ball mouse is awesome. What sort of stuff do you run on it?

Reply 2 of 7, by bhtooefr

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It's built like a tank, but not quite that heavy. Original spec weight is ~30 lbs/13.6 kg, but I just put mine on my scale, and it's 15.8 kg.

I do the odd bit of DOS gaming on it, I've got WordPerfect on it, every now and then I'll telnet to my server to IRC from it (or just use IRCjr with my ZNC), and I had Windows 3.0 and GEOS on it (but they were pretty bad on that hardware, to be honest).

Reply 3 of 7, by chinny22

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Very cool, not that familiar with stuff this old. It looks like you can attach a external monitor? That would definitely be cool as while the inbuilt screen is unique I can imagine it isn't that much fun to play games on, where an external monitor gives you best of both worlds.

My 486 lost a slot due to ribbon cables, replacing them with rounded cables managed to free it up, Doubt if you will find a rounded floppy cable with 5.25 connector though, just an idea if you need that slot

Reply 4 of 7, by bhtooefr

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Yes, you can turn the brightness down on the internal monitor, and use an external. (Or, even, use three monitors (internal, color composite external, and RGBI external), although they're all going to display the same thing of course.) It's worth noting that the external composite display and the internal share the composite port essentially, so plugging an external composite display in causes the internal to dim a little bit (because the voltages drop with the second display in the circuit).

Reply 6 of 7, by matze79

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chinny22 wrote:

Very cool, not that familiar with stuff this old. It looks like you can attach a external monitor? That would definitely be cool as while the inbuilt screen is unique I can imagine it isn't that much fun to play games on, where an external monitor gives you best of both worlds.

My 486 lost a slot due to ribbon cables, replacing them with rounded cables managed to free it up, Doubt if you will find a rounded floppy cable with 5.25 connector though, just an idea if you need that slot

Just make the cable your self.

Just need a hammer, 34pin header connectors (http://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-17-pin- … bbon-cable.html), a old ribbon cable (just cut as needed) and heat shrink tube.

You want to connect first connector, push it with some force to the cable and get some pressure on it with the hammer.
when its connected just seperate the wires of the flatcable and pull the heatshrinktube over it, connect the second connector make the same. Don't forget to twist the right wires as usual on floppy cables.

Or you can force the 34pin connector trough a heatshrinktube. That will work too.

https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board

Reply 7 of 7, by ibm5155

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Hey, stop showing my interior!!!