I found an IBM PC XT in my university (photos)

Auzner

Limp Gawd
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Jul 18, 2009
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413
*It has come to my attention that it is important to point out that this is a clone, and not directly manufactured by IBM*

This is pretty cool so I thought I'd share. Most of us weren't into computers when these were around, or not even born yet (like me). Our actual lab workstations are modern Dells with widescreens :p

It's not the only thing from the 1980's I've found in this lab. The XT must have had some 8-bit ISA card for robot control since there is a back panel cover missing. Also there's the note on the front about a robot. I'm guessing it got stored for awhile, no one knew what it was, and since it said "robot" on it they stashed it in here in case SkyNet needed it one day.

I've used a clone of this kind of computer before, but I was a little kid (even then it was old) and that one had a hard drive to boot from. This one has no hard drive, and I have no operating system, or software for it, nor a 5.25" floppy drive. The graphics adapter uses an RCA connection for CGA NTSC. A compatible monitor is in here too, as well as an XT keyboard, and a spare Taiwanese clone of the graphics adapter in an IBM box. I happen to collect 1391401 Model M's, so I could bring one in for it if I ever happen to find an OS. I'd sure like to power it on and see if it still functions! I wouldn't get to keep it, but at least someone looked at it before it gets another ~20 years of neglect.

Now I actually want to find a 5.25" floppy drive for a networked PC. The 600 page manual for this appears to be about two semesters worth of content for logic and assembly. This thing today is like an incarnation of modern computer and microcontroller fundamentals. It won't do instagram or youtube, so I'm probably the only person who doesn't see this as scrap metal and hazardous waste. I have a much more thorough computer history project involving IBM that I'm developing on the side. Probably won't post that until 2013.

Some online resources for this machine:
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=274
http://www.retroarchive.org/dos/docs/index.html

My cellphone photos: (look how clean it is!)

Edit: IT WORKS! I couldn't resist and just had to power it up! I found an XT keyboard in here too and happened to bring an RCA cable today. It did exactly what I expected; made classic computer noises, slowly counted kilobytes of ram, beep, and then complain there's nothing for it to do. It felt exactly like a broken terminal in Fallout 3 or New Vegas. That would be some fun software for it! Emulate the "hacking" program.

Quick video

A.
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B.
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1. Front View
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2. Front Bays with Cover off
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3. Back Panel
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4. Power Supply
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5. CPU
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6. Memory
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7. Full Length Cards
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8. Floppy and Com Controller Card with Zilog Chip
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9. Card Holder
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10. Motherboard Chips
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11. Motherboard Chips
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12. Floppy Drives
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13. Floppy Drive Labels
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14. Power SWITCH! KLACK!
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15. Clone Adapter ("clone" written on back of box)
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16. Graphics Card Close-up
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Wow... that's super clean!

If that's an XT, you can't use a Model M with it; XTs won't use AT keyboards (and vice versa). If you have floppy disks, I think you should be able to plug the drives into something more modern (as long as it still has a floppy disk controller), but I think you'll have to stick with low density disks (360k).

With the right software and a network card... that XT could be your networked PC with a floppy disk (although that's a little chicken and egg unless you can get something with a network boot rom to work). Found some crazy stuff with a little bit of searching http://users.ohiohills.com/fmacall/
 
Awesome! and so undusty!

Loved seeing 1986 stamped all over the chips inside too
 
I didn't know XT and AT were electrically different! I thought the 5-pin DIN meant they were all the same. Supposedly some Model M's will work, but at least now there will be no surprises. Someone designed a converter using a PIC12. I suppose I could try and secretly borrow a floppy drive out of it so that I can plug it into a modern PC. I don't know where to find 360k floppies! Finding 8-bit ISA cards is another tricky thing. I have little experience with this kind of hardware and confining the system to that room makes it even harder. Networking it and getting it online would be a fun project! I have no idea if I want to gamble $25 on it right now, but it could be my only chance. I'd probably go to campus during winter break to play with this. It would be impossible to use ethernet on the campus network though, they whitelist workstation MAC addresses and expect everyone to use wireless.
 
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I wouldn't pay $25 for an 8-bit isa card, yikes. Are you still in the bay area? It's pretty likely that weird stuff has one in their as-is area, and there are some other computer surplus stores around too. Also I'll check my boxes of computer junk; I used to have a bunch of 3c503s (would need a transceiver if you don't want to do 10base2), and I might have one with me. Otherwise, I do have one at my parents house (SoCal), but it's installed in a machine, so I'm not sure when I'll be there and have time to take it out (it's no longer being used, but i never got around to removing it). The interwebs say some 16-bit network cards will work in an 8-bit slot, is worth a try if you already have a 16-bit card, but probably not worth acquiring a 16-bit card.

If you're borrowing the floppy drives, be sure to borrow the floppy cable too, modern cables don't have the edge connector that those drives have.
 
Thank you for your offers, if I can get parts I'll definitely try them out in the XT.
I'm not currently in the Bay Area. I was at Weird Stuff awhile ago and they seemed to have gotten rid of a lot of older cards. Maybe they just moved the aisle. I have never used 10base2 before and don't really want to start. :p I still have a few old floppy cables I specifically kept for a possible scenario like this. I got rid of all my ISA parts years ago, I try not to keep too many old things. I've been getting rid of a lot of 2003-2009 stuff lately. The $25 is still cheap for the convenience provided. I know that's a possible interface, and the seller claims it works. It would save a lot of time shopping. I don't really intend on buying it since it's not my XT.
 
I found an XT keyboard in here! I brought an RCA cable today and have just powered it up for fun. It still works! I've added photos to the OP.
 
That takes me back. I used to work on XTs and ATs all the time in the late 80's/early 90's.. We moved from dual floppies to hard drives (I installed more 20 and 30MB Hard Cards than I can count), in addition to the standard Seagate ST225 and ST238R (the cool thing was to buy an ST225 and use an RLL controller and you got the 30MB of the ST238R!). If you had an ST451 40MB, you were rich. One of my first PC "hardware hacking" projects was to make a standard ISA slot for my Tandy 1000 EX (ordered the schematics, and found every connection I needed on the MB for a standard slot and ran a bird's nest of wires to the slot and added an RLL controller so I put a hard drive on it)... Man, those were fun days.
 
That's awesome! Yeah this thing has 7400 logic chips in it (primitive enough), building your own "cards" for it looks very possible. I'd love to put a hdd controller in this and a network interface. I need to go out and find an XT of my own. Or find the proper person to ask on how to have this campus asset released to me.
 
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If three is a Hamfest in your area you can still find stuff like that. I used to go to them all the time.. There are people with HAM radios that still use Commodore 64's for packet radio. Just to be clear.. I am NOT into HAM radio.. I may be a nerd, but I'm not a HAM radio nerd :)
 
I was given one of these by someone who was looking to get rid of some equipment in their basement. It was very fun putting many rounds of 7.62x54R through it. It cost me more to shoot it than I would have made selling it.
 
That looks like a clone to me, a DTK brand. An XT "compatible". ;) I still have a few original XT 5160 true blue IBMs stashed in case I need to hack into W.O.P.R and save the world from nuclear holocaust.
 
Yea it's not an IBM, no IBM logo.

I keep on wanting to buy myself a PS/2 model 25 for some strange reason.
 
Memories... That was the first computer I ever used. Who remembers Zork and 50 floppy disk installs of Xenix?
 
Get it online and see if you can get some wares running to load hackaday's retro page

very cool, unfortunately every 5 1/2" floppy I have tried to read in the last 5 years has been bitfaded
 
WoW havnet seen teac in quite some time. Brings back a lot of memories.
 
it is obviously a clone, it says CSUS and DTK right on it.

the question the OP is interest in is: what happened to DTK? they were "Datatech Enterprises Co., Ltd." they had the trademark for "Bare Bone". and their end has not been recorded on the internet.
 
With that amount of chip, I wonder how high is the power consumption at idle and load :D
 
Yea it's not an IBM, no IBM logo.
That looks like a clone to me, a DTK brand. An XT "compatible
An XT came with a hard drive. Perhaps yours is just a regular IBM PC clone.
it is obviously a clone, it says CSUS and DTK right on it.
Apologies for the inaccuracy, but I can no longer edit the thread title. I was not fully aware of the significance of it being hard/software compatible vs actually manufactured by IBM. When I was first taking photos and creating the thread I had not powered it up yet to see "DTK". And I assumed the "CSUS" (initialism for my college) logo was something somebody did for fun in the tech shop to customize the computer for lab.

I will be visiting this lab again shortly, but have still not found 5.25" floppy disks for it. There are some in lab but I will not erase them nor do I know what they're for yet.
 
Speaking of old computers, I saw this posting recently on local CL:

http://saginaw.craigslist.org/sys/3463341982.html

for an IBM AT 5170

He wants $900 for it though...I'm not sure what old computers like this are really worth. Not my area of expertise.

The answer is not 900 unless it comes sealed in box. I would say it is worth between 0 and 250 but only to a collector 900 is aimed at a seriously obsessed collector who has been looking for that model for a long time but that model is not that hard to find even in working condition those things were pretty much bullet proof... To every one else it is a toy or garbage.
 
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When someone makes a post like this about a machine from that era and acts like they're some archaeologist that just discovered a fossil from ten million years ago it makes me feel really fucking old. :(

I was a teenager when that machine was brand new...

Fucking kids.... now GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
 
win 3.1 can't run on a cga card!

that ibm is cleaner than my current pc.

i had a ibm pc xt back.
 
Oh god I hated changing those old memory chips. Was glad when graphics cards quit using that style too. Last vid card I had that used those mem chips was a Cirrus Logic VLB card.
 
Ah classic computer and man that thing is one of the cleanest I've seen.
and I always loved those giant power switches, years ago one of my 1st mods was putting one of those big red switches in my case.
 
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