Resurrecting an IBM 5160! Hopefully....

[DistantStar001]

Just got an IBM 5160 XT in pretty rough shape.  Cosmetically, it was looking pretty decent on the outside, but internally, that's another story...  First, it was almost filled with what turned out to be powdered laundry detergent.  I've gotten most of it out, but it seems to have had an unfortunate effect on the black paint on the lower case.  Much of it seems to have crumpled off and when I ultimately had to wash out the detergent, much of the deteriorated paint went with it.  Question one: Any recommendations on a touchup paint?  I'm not too worried about the inside.  But it would be nice to get the exposed parts of the front panel.

To be clear, before I cleaned it all the paint was present.  This was the detergent, as the most affected areas coincide with the heaviest concentrations of detergent.

 

The motherboard is clean now and I can't see any corrosion on the board itself.  All the IC legs look shiny and metallic.  Unfortunately, the  capacitor at C58 has blown out on the right side.  (Not sure that the direction of the explosion matters, but there it is all the same).   It's since been removed.  Looking it up, it appears that it (and C56) was unnecessary.  So I've elected not to replace it for the moment.  

 

Overall it looks good (minus the offending capacitor)

 

Once cleaned, and reassembled, I tried a power test.  From the sound of it, the hard drive is spinning up, but makes a knocking sound as it does.  If it's bad, I have a spare.  No idea if it works, but I have one.  The floppy drives light up in sequence.  Heads move.  So until I can check with a disk, I'm assuming they're fine.  At least, I have no way of checking until I get a compatible monitor!

 

Following all this, I get two short beeps.  Which I think is expected? (lack of monitor and all)  Question: The machine came with a Hercules card installed.  Unfortunately, for the time being, I don't have a compatible MGA or CGA monitor.  What I do have are two 486s with VGA cards installed (at least one of which is on the fritz) So I'm wondering if such a card would be compatible with the XT?  I want to get an MGA Monitor eventually (preferably a 5151, as I love green phosphor).  But until I do, I'll have to make do with the LCDs I've got.

 

Last are the cards installed (and in order from the PSU down).  

 

Not sure who made it, but it was attached to the HardDrive.  So I'm assuming that it's the controller.

 

No idea!  Haven't looked it up yet.  From the port on the back, I'm guessing another drive controller of some kind?

Floppy controller.

 

Again, no idea.  If you can't tell, I'm not too familiar with PCs...

 

Video card.  I did look that one up. 

 

That's it for now.  If anyone could tell me what I've got, how to get it working, or if I'm even on the right track, it would be appreciated!

 

Oh... Also, any upgrades or accessories that might make this more usable going forward.  I'm not looking to max it out, or turn it into another 486 or anything.  Just run simple games and hopefully make floppies for some of my older 8-bits.  TRS-80, BBC Micro (if possible)...  Whatever I can't figure out through alternative means.

 

Additional question: Where can I get some new cork feet?  It's missing two, and the remaining ones have seen better days!

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by DistantStar001
Additional Question

[mr_me]

The wx-1 hard disk controller is made by Western Digital.  The Everex card was probably for a tape drive.  The rs-232 card should be the serial port. 

 

Assuming your vga cards are 16-bit, some are 8-bit compatible but you'd have to check its documentation.  Jumpers on the 5160 would have to be set for vga compatibility. 

 

You'll need video to know what the two beep error is.  Do you have an XT keyboard?

Edited April 11, 2023 by mr_me

[DistantStar001]

14 hours ago, mr_me said:

The Everex card was probably for a tape drive.

It isn't easy to see in the picture I posted, but this is the port on the back:

Seems like a bit of an overkill for a cassette drive?  What would connect to it?

14 hours ago, mr_me said:

Assuming your vga cards are 16-bit, some are 8-bit compatible but you'd have to check its documentation.  Jumpers on the 5160 would have to be set for vga compatibility. 

Not sure...  I didn't think so at first, but then I took out one of the cards in question, and I think this is compatible.

15 hours ago, mr_me said:

You'll need video to know what the two beep error is.  Do you have an XT keyboard?

Yes, I have an IBM model M.  But I hadn't connected it.  Turns out that was the error.  Now I get a single short (apparently happy) beep!

[mr_me]

The Everex card might connect to an Everex quarter inch tape drive, not a cassette drive.  These were high capacity digital tapes meant to backup large amounts of data, for the time.  (It could be a SCSI interface.)

 

You'd have to check the documentation of that VGA card to see if it works in an 8-bit slot and then check compatibility with an IBM 5160.

 

Is it an AT keyboard?  AT keyboards have different signalling from XT keyboards.

 

Edit:

The computer is missing a parallel port.  It was probably originally on the video card before it was upgraded.  Only needed for printing.

 

I'd add an ethernet card to help with transferring files.

Edited April 12, 2023 by mr_me

[DistantStar001]

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

The Everex card might connect to an Everex quarter inch tape drive, not a cassette drive.  These were high capacity digital tapes meant to backup large amounts of data, for the time.  (It could be a SCSI interface.)

Thanks, but too bad I don't have the drive for it.  But I probably wouldn't have much use for it if I did.  As it stands, I can't even get it to access the hard drive.  Still working on that.

 

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

You'd have to check the documentation of that VGA card to see if it works in an 8-bit slot and then check compatibility with an IBM 5160.

Got it to work.  And it even stopped beeping errors at me once I set the dip-switches correctly!  Eventually I even got it to boot from a floppy instead of dropping me into BASIC.  However, I have to wait to insert it until the drive lights up.  If I put it in too soon, or leave it in between boots, the computer drops to BASIC.  One would think that as long as a disk is in the drive, the drive would read it, but apparently not?  Still don't know if that's normal.

 

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

Is it an AT keyboard?  AT keyboards have different signalling from XT keyboards.

XT.  It's a silver badged Model M.  Unfortunately, it's the one with the lock lights that the XT can't operate, but it works and close it's enough for now.

 

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

The computer is missing a parallel port.  It was probably originally on the video card before it was upgraded.  Only needed for printing.

The Hercules Card has one, but the VGA Card doesn't.  Eventually, I hope to find an IBM 5151.  Then I'll put the Hercules back.

 

8 hours ago, mr_me said:

I'd add an ethernet card to help with transferring files.

I'll look into that.  But for now, I was thinking of adding a Gotek as my second drive.  The B drive I have isn't reading disks, and the Gotek would allow me to transfer disk images to real floppies for some of my other computers with minimum setup.  As it stands, my primary (modern) computers are Macs.  And they network through WiFi.  A hardwired Ethernet setup would be a little difficult at the moment.  But eventually...  Sounds like fun!

[82-T/A]

On 4/11/2023 at 3:31 AM, mr_me said:

The wx-1 hard disk controller is made by Western Digital.

 

To access this controller and change the settings, you need to run DEBUG from a DOS boot disk.

When Debug comes up, you type "g=c800:5" without the quotes.

 

This is one of those things that you remember in life, and it sticks with you, even though it's totally useless information and only helps someone maybe once in a 1000 years. Thank you for giving me this opportunity, hahah...

 

EDIT: Also... when getting this thing to run, I would strip out all the cards, and start testing it one at a time. First card you'll want to put in is a graphics card, of course. Then put in a floppy controller... and then a hard drive controller. Leave out cards that don't serve a purpose to you (like the Everex card.). They simply take up IRQs and addresses that you may want for other things.

 

Edited April 24, 2023 by 82-T/A

[mr_me]

That does run the rom program on the controller.  Some controller settings are on physical jumpers on the controller card.

[82-T/A]

5 hours ago, mr_me said:

That does run the rom program on the controller.  Some controller settings are on physical jumpers on the controller card.

 

Yeah, it's so you can do low-level format, configure the sectors per track, landing zone, interleve, etc.