The 5155 Challenge...

...At least that it what I called the little challenge I gave myself tonight. I had my IBM 5155 (aka the Portable PC) opened up in order to test some MFM hard drives (a task that failed miserably because the drive controller couldn't handle the ST-251 drives). As often happens, I got sidetracked and started pondering the very limited clearance that most of the slots in the 5155 have, due to the hard drive and floppy drive taking up so much space. I found myself thinking that it would be a shame to waste so many otherwise useful slots; and I subsequently started plotting out what could fit in there. Here is a picture of the (almost) final results... I say almost, because the one full-clearance slot that is still empty has a card slated to go in it, a 3Com EtherLink II. I just have to remember where I put the thing. The last slot is currently being used up by the parallel and joystick connectors that are coming off the IO card in the first slot. I may go ahead and remove those connectors and use that slot for a dual joystick controller card that I have around here somewhere. FWIW, here is what Crysta is now equipped with... Slot 0: - IO Card (RAM, Serial, Parallel, Joystick) Slot 1: - Floppy Controller Slot 2: - Sound Card - Covox SoundMaster II Slot 3: - Reserved for NIC (3Com EtherLink II-TP) Slot 4: - CGA Adapter - DFI 2002 Slot 5: - HDC - WD1002A-WX1 Slot 6: - SCSI - NCS-250-SC Slot 7: - Reserved for Suncom Joystick Card So, anyone else here ever maxed out a 5155 before? Great thing about having SCSI capability is that being limited to a 20MB MFM hard drive is no longer a major concern. If I need more drive space, all I have to do now is hang an external SCSI drive or two or three off the system. Also, while I was working on Crysta, I was thinking that this might actually be a good candidate for the control terminal for the Cromemco System Two; at least until I can get an actual Cromemco Smart Terminal... Anyway, enough random nattering from me for tonight. Time to get the clutter cleared up and go get some sleep. -- Scarletdown