[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Can You Do Real Work With the 30-Year-Old IBM 5150? here

[JustinSalvatost6j]

Great article on the IBM 5150! For more vintage computing fun visit www.colecoadam.wordpress.com

[anonymousr46j]

Great article on the IBM 5150! For more vintage computing fun visit www.colecoadam.wordpress.com

[8tqf]

We had one of these at work in the "computer room." We had to take turns using it to type up reports, and to look up information on CompuServe. Oho yes, we could also book flights on EasySaabre. Anyone remember that?

[DoctorDoom]

Good times!

[Patruns]

What, no Leisure Suit Larry?

[Midnight1]

Patruns, on 12 August 2011 - 06:34 AM, said:

What, no Leisure Suit Larry?

No PacMan?

DoctorDoom, on 12 August 2011 - 06:18 AM, said:

Good times!

Yea, the good ole days!

[TheOldTopkick]

This article almost makes me wish I hadn't parted out my old machines. I guess nostalgia is an old man's game.

[miles]

Almost gets me to go boot up my old IBM PS/2 model 70 machine.

[Jon4prw]

Hmmmm. I still have my old clone, a Leading Edge Model D. It's been a few years, but it worked last time I pulled it out of the closet. This was a modern machine, though, with a 20M hard drive!!

[A41202813]

"I’m a computer collector, and many of us like to think that a computer wants to feel useful, even in old age".

You Bet.

I Just Finished My Weekly Fridays Accountant Processing, Using Old Software And Hardware Standards.

Good Memory Lane.

[dk3d]

I did some math the other day comparing a Core2Duo against one of the original 386's. The 386 was unquestionably a much faster CPU than the IBM machine shown above.

The 386 cpu ran about 3 million operations per second.

Today's core2duos run about 22 billion per second.

So the Core2duo is about 7500 x faster than 386

I do alot of 3D graphics, and generating the final image after all the modeling and layout is done is called "rendering". A "render" being the final image.

If we take render that today took about 1 day to complete, and we've all had those... If we had started that same render on the old trusty 386 CPU, if we started it back in 1991 when some of us were probably still using 386's, we'd still be waiting for it to finish today!!

That render that takes us 24 hours today, would have taken ... No joke... A little over 20 years to complete.

"just a couple more years honey, renders almost done then I'm coming to bed... Promise."

[stanleighco]

My wife worked in a law office where they had to boot the PC with one floppy disk then start WordPerfect 3 with another disk and then finally install the data disk.

[NathanB]

I really enjoyed this story--thanks!

[stanleighco]

My wife worked in a law office where they had one of these things without the hard disk. Had to boot it up with a DOS floppy disk...then install the WordPerfect floppy disk to launch the program. Then eventually, insert a floppy disk to store the files on it. And then using a Daisy wheel printer.

[mjd420nova]

I followed the progression of the IBM PC from its base model with 64KB memory on the system board, then the next with 256KB. AST made a memory card, serial port and clock card all in one with 384KB memory expansion to give the system the 640KB maximum. They still had the 360KB single/double sided, five and a quarter inch floppy drives. Some third parties came up with a 20 MB HARD CARD to plug in to the motherboard. Even Intel made a 2 MB memory expansion called an ABOVE BOARD. They had expansion units that were just a blank font case with a ten inch drive holding 10MB. requiared a huge cable and interface card in each case. Then the IBM AT model moved up to the 90286 processor, 20MB hard drive and the 1.2 MB, five and a quarter inch floppy. Bigger hard drives were added with newer drivers to make up for the software limits. Bleeding Edge machines were a pain to work on and Compaq followed a close second for inflicting flesh wounds. The Compaq Portable was a real boat anchor with the IBM PC JR. falling into the category of worthless. IBM's eventual release of the PS2 models brought the three and a half inch, 1.44 MB diskette drives and hard drives up to 80 MB. This was all within eight years of evolution. Many companies make advances by concentrating on the newest and fastest chips for their platforms, Black Ship being one of the first to release the first 80486 based machine but was soon swept up in the avalanche of HP and Dell with the biggest market share. IBM has and always will be the biggest mainframe hardware for huge databases or speedy parellel processors for data collection and problem resolution such as with air traffic control. I still use an AT model in my home security and control system. It has no network connection and all inputs are analog so most of the slots are filled with ADC cards for some functions and the rest with multi-port serial cards for system control and ADC devices at the end of those lines. I get better control with analog signals on the data lines that low levels of digital signals do without having to deal with induced signals or cross talk. The 80286 runs at 12 MHZ(MCS). The system board does have an open socket for the 80287 co-processor but it isn't needed and is a true collectors item. Compared to my server with quad core and a 1 TB, four drive SATA array, well, there is no comparision. A five year predicessor was made by DEC and used eight track tape drives to load the OS and programs, Boot tapes were 15 foot long, operating system tapes were 50 foot and data tapes were 100 foot or longer. Those clunky tape drives were the highest failure item and took constant cleaning to prevent wear and tear on the tapes. Nothing worse than busting a tape while trying to boot.

This post has been edited by mjd420nova: 12 August 2011 - 08:29 PM

[ahumanbean]

I love this article. I still remember many similar experiences. I was also using a Commodore 64 and a TI 99 4A system back in the day.

[jmjohnson]

Having actually worked on these beasts in a work environment.... I vastly preferred my Atari XE130 at the time. Like the PC, it could load a real OS - in fact BASIC was NOT baked in. It's productivity apps generally ran circles around those for the PC. But better technology does not equate to longevity. I wasn't truly happy with the PC until Windows for Workgroups 3.1 came along.

[pdl1]

Imagine if cars had progressed like computers! We'd be going thousands of miles per hour. Still it's interesting how the growth curve of a new technology parallels that of a new living being, like us.

[joubaur]

"...many of the most-used keys have an unusual design (a peak on top of a lower-set key face)"

I don't understand what you mean by this. Sure wish you'd included a pic of this so we could see it. You included a pic of the keyboard, but, not clearly enough to see this, (or at least you didn't point it out.) What's the sense in mentioning it if you're not going to show us?

"...many of the most-used keys have an unusual design (a peak on top of a lower-set key face)"

I don't understand what you mean by this. Sure wish you'd included a pic of this so we could see it. You included a pic of the keyboard, but, not clearly enough to see this, (or at least you didn't point it out.) What's the sense in mentioning it if you're not going to show us?