Picked up this IBM 5160 XT lot

[Zap!]

The XT has always been very special to me, because it was the first PC and first anything with a hard drive that I ever had. I foolishly sold it in 1994, and have been looking for another for while now. Found a XT lot on Craigslist for $400 that was about an hour away from me, in NJ. I offered him $300, he took it, and I picked it up on Tuesday. In the listing was a "hard drive does not work," but it sometimes worked when I shook it. It's since been formatted, but is still shaky. It's a 20MB. I ordered a XT-IDE, which is a much better solution for the long term.

 

Overall, it was in great shape. Slightly dusty inside, and a few scuff marks that I got off, but that was it. It has several cards, but no Game Port. One card looks like it has a coaxial cable port (third one from the right).

 

In the lot, I got the following:

 

IBM 5160 XT

IBM 5153 CGA monitor

AOC International Spectrum Series VGA monitor (dated August 12, 1994)

Original manual

Belkin Power Authority II surge protector

Two Model M mechanical keyboards

Two mice, one being a trackball

Box of random disks

 

Anyway, here's some pics. I'm overjoyed with happiness.

 

 

 

Edited June 13, 2021 by Zap!

[wierd_w]

I have been helping Zap! get this beast going. (long chain of PMs)

 

One of the items in there is a rather unusual bit of kit-- A DCA 05-0060-03 PC/3278 IRMA adapter, which was used to interface the computer with an old IBM mainframe.

In his picture dump, it is the third card from the right, as seen from the back.

 

I have no idea what he is going to do with it, since it is really just an interesting bit of esoterica without a mainframe to attach to...  but who knows. Mentioning it here might get the attention of somebody that needs one (and does not want to hork out 80$, like that Ebay seller wants.)  It is my understanding that one can get it to work with a more modern IBM server, like an AS/400, but again-- you would need one of those beasts.

 

Bitsavers has some limited documentation about the device:

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dca/irma/

 

and archive.org has a selection of software that could be used with it, preserved via wayback:

https://web.archive.org/web/19970419174451/http://supportweb.attachmate.com/file/filelibrary.htm

(DCA was purchased by Attachmate. The old cards are supported)

 

 

The hard disk controller is an IBM/XEBEC version 3. 

 

I helped Zap! get through the low-level initialization and high-level partition/format for that drive. (Seagate ST-225, back when seagate made bulletproof drives.)  It was having issues locating sectors, and I suspect it had gunky bearings on the drive sled stepper motor. It's since been cleaned up, and the sector markings re-created. (I suspect that it had been LLF'd while the head actuator was gunky. After cleaning, it still could not locate sectors. Either the sector marks themselves just bitrotted due to random inversion events, or they were not in the correct positions. A new LLF after reconditioning the stepper seems to have sorted it, but sadly nuked any data on there.) Seems to be running fine now.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2021 by wierd_w

[+OLD CS1]

16 hours ago, wierd_w said:

Seagate ST-225, back when seagate made bulletproof drives.

Back before Conner. I remember those days. Nicely done on the system, fellas. That be one historic beastie.

[wierd_w]

2 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

Back before Conner. I remember those days. Nicely done on the system, fellas. That be one historic beastie.

Zap! tells me there are still some issues with the drive. Given it is over 30 years old, that is not surprising.  He needs to aggressively test the platter surface; it's possible the coating has warn off over 30 years intermittent use.  I suggested a dos 6.22 boot disk with scandisk on it.  (I don't think norton disk doctor would run on dos 3.1)

 

 

[Keatah]

The infamous SpinRite was designed for stepper-motor drives. Is that what we have here?

 

[wierd_w]

It is, but spinrite wants a high density diskette drive, and this is low density.

[Hwlngmad]

On 6/12/2021 at 11:45 PM, Zap! said:

The XT has always been very special to me, because it was the first PC and first anything with a hard drive that I ever had. I foolishly sold it in 1994, and have been looking for another for while now. Found a XT lot on Craigslist for $400 that was about an hour away from me, in NJ. I offered him $300, he took it, and I picked it up on Tuesday. In the listing was a "hard drive does not work," but it sometimes worked when I shook it. It's since been formatted, but is still shaky. It's a 20MB. I ordered a XT-IDE, which is a much better solution for the long term.

 

Overall, it was in great shape. Slightly dusty inside, and a few scuff marks that I got off, but that was it. It has several cards, but no Game Port. One card looks like it has a coaxial cable port (third one from the right).

 

In the lot, I got the following:

 

IBM 5160 XT

IBM 5153 CGA monitor

AOC International Spectrum Series VGA monitor (dated August 12, 1994)

Original manual

Belkin Power Authority II surge protector

Two Model M mechanical keyboards

Two mice, one being a trackball

Box of random disks

 

Anyway, here's some pics. I'm overjoyed with happiness.

 

 

 

Congrats on the pick-up.  Looks like one helluva lot.  Enjoy!

[Keatah]

All this.. All this, this "stuff". Looks like a lot of fun!

[wierd_w]

I have identified the remaining cards in this system.

 

The multi-IO is an AST mini IO II, which contains a realtime clock chip. (SCORE)--  It DOES have a 15 pin gameport header.  I have advised Zap! to get an appropriate IDC pigtail. I also forwarded him to an archive with appropriate AST clock utilities.

https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/io-cards/A-B/AST-RESEARCH-INC-Multi-I-O-card-I-O-MINI-II-202123.html

 

 

The floppy disk controller is a low density IBM diskette controller.

http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/oa/OA - IBM 5.25 Diskette Drive Adapter.pdf

 

The final, short card in there is an IBM async card; a glorified serial port.

http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/oa/OA - IBM Asynchronous Communications Adapter.pdf

 

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by wierd_w

[wierd_w]

OK, I am going to kick this out here:

 

Zap! would like to have the MFM controller and his shiny hawt XT-IDE to co-exist.

 

 

Here is the issue:

 

These things TOTALLY CAN coexist.  However, the MFM controller will always enumerate its drives in the interupt handler table FIRST. This means that drive 80h is going to be living on the MFM controller. (No bueno, if you want to boot the CF card, for reasons that should be plenty aparent.)

 

XT-IDE can be turned on with a boot menu, but the rom in his controller did not have this built in the tree when it was created. (because cheap seller, I think.)

 

The XT-IDE can be instructed to boot from a device OTHER than 80h, but when attempting to flash, it complains that the eeprom type is not large enough after setting the option.

 

 

I have advised him that at this time, his options are:

 

Boot from the ST-225, and have DOS 6.22 on there, so that he can access the CF card as drive D.

 

or

 

Forego coexistence for now, until we can devise a better solution. (Such as getting a larger eeprom into his socket, and flashing it with a more capable XT-IDE build)

 

 

I am open to suggestions however.

[The Usotsuki]

That's similar to what I did with my PS/2.

 

I boot PC DOS 7 from spinning rust and the CF is D:.

[Great Hierophant]

On 6/13/2021 at 3:47 AM, wierd_w said:

I have been helping Zap! get this beast going. (long chain of PMs)

 

 

I helped Zap! get through the low-level initialization and high-level partition/format for that drive. (Seagate ST-225, back when seagate made bulletproof drives.)  It was having issues locating sectors, and I suspect it had gunky bearings on the drive sled stepper motor. It's since been cleaned up, and the sector markings re-created. (I suspect that it had been LLF'd while the head actuator was gunky. After cleaning, it still could not locate sectors. Either the sector marks themselves just bitrotted due to random inversion events, or they were not in the correct positions. A new LLF after reconditioning the stepper seems to have sorted it, but sadly nuked any data on there.) Seems to be running fine now.

 

 

 

A fine looking system, could you tell us how you cleaned and relubricated the bearings on the drive sled stepper motor?  

[wierd_w]

The step motor is basically just that. It is functionally not much different from the kind used in modern 3D printers.  The armature shaft is exposed at the bottom, and the bearings contact the armature shaft. As such, it is possible to wash out the bearings (VERY CAREFULLY) with alternating treatments of electrical contact cleaner (to get old oxidized oils out), and then lubricate the bearings with a light machine oil. (I am partial to A1 oil.)

 

If the bearings are seized, use a drop of knock-er-loose penetrating oil first. 

 

the ST-225 has a factory test jumper that makes the head assembly do endless full actuations over and over.  This is useful to make the drive exercise itself without a computer attached.

 

the contact cleaner treatment is usually not needed though, unless there is clear and obvious signs of lacquered oil on/around the armature shaft of the stepper motor.

 

 

For ST-225, the step motor is the small motor in the corner.  Avoid the motor shaft underneath the plastic skid protector-- that is the platter motor.  If you oil that, make sure it is some tiny fraction of a drop, since it will wick up the shaft, and can then splatter out onto the platters if you apply more than that, and that would be most unfortunate indeed. 

 

 

While I do not encourage anyone to open up the disk drive, this is what it looks like inside.

 

As you can see, the step motor that drives the head is actuating a control arm, and is quite distant from either the platters or the head assembly arm. As such, it is pretty safe to oil the shaft.

 

The shaft of that step motor is exposed on the bottom, as seen here:

 

 

[wierd_w]

See also, this video from Adrian's Basement.

 

 

[Zap!]

10 hours ago, The Usotsuki said:

That's similar to what I did with my PS/2.

 

I boot PC DOS 7 from spinning rust and the CF is D:.

I wanted to do the exact opposite: Boot from the CF, and have my old ST-225 hard drive be drive D.

[The Usotsuki]

Might need a custom bootloader for that, to swap the drives in the BIOS.

[wierd_w]

XT IDE bios is able to do this, but Zap!'s eeprom is too small to hold the reconfigured bios.

[Zap!]

I just got a Microsoft green-eyed mouse, which was the first mouse they ever put out.  It was listed for $79.95 obo, and as untested and scratched up. I offered $60 and he accepted. Well, I plugged it in and it works like a charm! Even better yet it cleaned right up with some Windex and Magic Eraser. So excited, it really fits the XT’s look and time period.

 

Also use the WiFi232 to go online and on the BBS'. Next up, maybe a sound card and some games that take advantage of the mouse.