From: asr@castle.ed.ac.uk (Angus "Fluffy" Rae)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Taken delivery of an old PC... now what?
Date: 2 Sep 92 12:29:09 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: CATHY_VoiceMail_Project

wiegand@rtsg.mot.com (Robert Wiegand) writes:
>asr@castle.ed.ac.uk (Angus "Fluffy" Rae) writes:
>>here's the info I have, and I wonder if someone out there can fill in
>>the blanks. The badge on the back says IBM 5150, and it boots up into
>>IBM Basic version C.01, which surprised me - I expected it to complain
>Real IBM machines have Basic in ROM. If no disk is found they default
>to ROM Basic.

Almost sensible... :-)
This version seems to try and use the cassette port... when I try and
load anything I hear a little relay click from within the case and
nothing happens... it refuses to accept standard disc filenames either.
(i.e. load "a:/test.bas" returns "bad file number".)
Anyone know if it can read from disc? And how to get it to do so?

>>next card is marked "Addram Plus" and also has a 9pin and a 25pin
>>socket. I assume that these are serial ports of some kind, but the card
>>also seems to be a memory expansion of some kind. It has a large number
>>of what seem to be RAM chips and a NiCad battery marked "DataSecurity".
>From the card name it should be a RAM card. I'm not sure what the
>battery is for, unless the card also has a clock.

That could be it... unfortunately if it is a clock store then it's not
working as I have to set the time and date on bootup (with a borrowed
version of Dos, thanks Clive). On further thought, at least on my Atari
the clock has to be copied to the internal clock on boot by a program,
so this might be the case here.

>>The discs are 5.25 inch but I'm not sure how much they can hold, or
>>whether they can access double sided or not. 
>I would guess double sided single density (360K), but they could be
>single sided. You should be able to tell by visual inspection of
>the heads.

Hoboy, I formatted some discs in the lab here to 360K because I thought
that was single sided. Eeeech! They work, so I guess it's double. 

>>that will fit in that blank socket? Does the AddRam board need some sort
>>of boot software, as the Basic startup said I had 62k which seems a
>>little low...? And why the heck am I bothering to do this?
>If only 62K show up than I don't think its seeing the RAM board. I'm not
>sure what you need to make it work.

That's what I thought...Okay, has anyone out there had experience with
this board, or something similar? I'm assuming that the board is either
faulty or incorrectly set, or needs some sort of boot software (which
would explain the clock problem, as I assume the board clock would need
copying to the internal clock on boot...)

>Generally - It sounds like you have a nifty antique which is almost
>useless as a real computer. Fixing it up to something more powerfull
>would cost about the same as just buying a new computer. So have fun
>playing with it, but don't expect much.
I expect nothing, to be quite honest - my current goal is to get
something semi-substantial running on it, perhaps moria or just larn -
Ultima Underworld is right out....! And Windows? Pah... can you even get
windows to run on an 8088?


-- 
Angus G Rae, the Cuddly Vampire Teddy Bear [asr@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk]
"Let me explain about Genetic Engineering. That's where you take a cell
from a human being and put it into a sheep, in the hope that one day it
will go out and buy something."           Neil Innes, More Jam Tomorrow