19 Jan
2005
19 Jan
'05
9:52 a.m.
['scope]
I'll see if anyone in the local radio club has any
I could borrow for a few
evenings. I know how to use one, it's just been a few years. I have an old
Heathkit scope behind me, but there's another thing waiting for my
attention. The trace is about as wide as my pinky and as noisy as heck. Not
real helpful I'm afraid.
Ah yes... Some Heathkits are prone to that. It's either a changed
resistor in the EHT divider chain, an internal leak in the CRT, or a leak
in the mains transformer (I've come across all 3 faults...) You pray it's
the first one, of course.
[...]
What is the general opinion on adding an HD to this
machine (if it will even
work)? I've got plenty of ST-406/ST-512 interface drives and controllers for
8 bit machines. Of course I only want this for show and tell, so it is not a
requirement.
IBM never supported a hard drive in this machine, but that doesn't mean
it won't work. As it's a stock XT motherboard with the standard BIOS,
electronically (and with the firmware) there's no problem. The only
problem is getting it all to fit.
IO bought my 5155 (second-hand, of course) with a half-height 5.25"
Winchester in one of the drive bays, cableed to a half-length controller
card in one of the slots. It worked fine, but as I wanted to make the
machine as near original as possible, I removed it, and fitted a real
'IBM' Qume floppy drive. That hard drive has now been recycled (don't
panic, I mean it's gone into some other machine, probably not even a PC,
that neede an ST506 drive).
Another option that certainly works is to use the IBM 5161 expansion
cabinet. You have to put the extended board in slot 2 of the 5155, since
that's the only one it will physcially fit in. You then put a hard disk
controller in the expansio unit, and hae 2 full-height bays for the
drives. The only problem is finding a complete 5161 with the extender
card and the cable.
I suppose (although I have never tried it) that a hardcard would go in
slot 2 also.
-tony