Vintage Keyboards + IBM 5160 Teardown

[JP!]

Today was a big mail day I spotted this one on eBay just a few days ago as a BIN and couldn't pass it up even though I already have some IBM PC's and and some XT keyboards.

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This lot came with an XT keyboard plus a second keyboard which I didn't ask about. I figured I would get some crappy BTC keyboard.

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Omron B3G-S Amber switches. Nice and clicky and they feel nice!

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Interestingly this came shipped from Texas.

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Aftermarket dust cover

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This template means business

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Brand new

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The teardown

Spoiler:

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Aftermarket dust cover for the drives

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System is fully stocked with add-on cards.

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Interestingly this pc has an AMD processor which runs at a whooping 5 mhz Apparently in 1982 the Intel 8088 CPU was selected for IBM PC computers on the condition that there will be a reliable second-source CPU manufacturer. This helped AMD to negotiate new license agreement with Intel, which gave AMD rights to x86 technology and allowed them to second-source 8086 and 8088 microprocessors. Also pictured is an Intel 8087-3 math co-processor.

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Megalithic 41 MB hard drive

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I think the most interesting find of the lot is this fancy add-on card. At first I thought it was some kind of memory expansion card but it took me a while to figure out what this was. It is a DSI-020 coprocessor board that uses the 12.5-megahertz versions of the 68020 CPU and the 6888I FPU (floating-point unit). Basically a plug-in board that provides 32 bit computing power and math processing for 16 bit machines.
Full write up on this: http://www.retronik.fr/motorola/68K/680 ... oprocessor_[BYTE_1986_%2028p].pdf

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Also comes with this AST memory expansion board.

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[Daniel Beardsmore]

"COLOR GRAPHICS", from back when that was actually significant claim!

Also, Tai-Hao keycaps on a Costar keyboard … curious.

[Ir0n]

Your XT is way more decked out than mine.. I'm jealous.

I've thought about getting some of the newer ISA cards people are making for them just so I can use a some what modern monitor.

I can't find a IBM 5151 Display for mine. Lol

[JP!]

Your XT is way more decked out than mine.. I'm jealous.

I've thought about getting some of the newer ISA cards people are making for them just so I can use a some what modern monitor.

I can't find a IBM 5151 Display for mine. Lol

I hear ya there. A vga card and one of those compact flash cards would be nice.

[depletedvespene]

"… or if the drive experiences shocks in excess of 40 G's".

Forty.

How much of a shock are modern-day hard drives designed to withstand?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

My instinctive thought was 230 (from some spec I read once) — over 200, as I recall.

A very quick Internet search gives me, for 2004, 50–65 G operating, and 300+ G non-operating. I assume I had read the non-operating figure.