30 Apr
2005
30 Apr
'05
9:50 p.m.
On Thu, 28 Apr 2005 23:23:40 +0100 (BST)
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
My PC Techref is the first generation edition. Because my father, as an
IBM employee, bought one of the first PC's on the market and bought
'everything' with it. So my Techref has the distinction of only
covering the 16-64K motherboard. (And, damnit, I don't have
'everything' that he got, just that manual. By rights I should have his
'black paint on power supply' 'black painted card brackets' PC1 system,
which I at one point upgraded for him from 180K to 360K floppy disks.
BUT I DON'T!!)
My 'XT' Techref isn't really that. I have the IBM Industrial Computer
Technical Reference Manual set, which is a superset of the XT.
Apparently the Industrial PC was an XT motherboard in a ruggedized
industrial case, and all the options and add-ins were available, so are
included in the Industrial techref. I also have a two volume 'Options
and add-ins' Techref set, which is two slipcovered books with just the
options and what-not stuff. I think it dates from the pre-XT era.
The other
reason to keep original IBM PC cards is that the
schematics and tech info are published, so they're easy to modify
and/or use for
Agreed.
special purposes, like the disk conversion
devices and functions
people are always talking about here. It's pretty easy to make an
original IBM Floppy Controller work with anything that the 765
controller will talk to.
Although some of the clone cards with a 765 and that little 8 pin data
separator chip (9216 IIRC) were also very hackable.
I hope I'm not the only person with a fairly complete IBM-published
hardware 'technical reference' set for the PC/XT/AT line.
Depends on what you mean by 'complete'. I have :
PC
PC/XT and Portable
AT (with the update for the 8MHz board, later BIOS, etc), it ended up
in 2 binders)
These are the later manuals covering just the mainboard, keyboard,
PSU.
But then I also have :
Options and Adapters (2 volumes) covering the cards, monitors, drives
for the PC and XT
AT supplement for the O&A manual
Scinetific Options and Adapters (GPIB, data aquisition, Professional
graphics)
EGA Techref
PCjr Trechref
All the above are real manauls with schematics, BIOS listings, etc in
them.
PS/2 Hardware Interface Techref -- no scheamtics, no source code, but
better than nothing. It was given to me by a firend, so I am not going
to complain.
I also have the Hardware Maintenance and Service manaul for the AT.
It's a boardswapper guid, but it was given to me (I bought the AT
Techref second-hand, it came with it). It actually has some useful
info on repairing the 5152 printer (== Epson MX80, basically).
I don't have all the O&A suplements, and I don't have the XT/286
techref, although that machine is pretty close the AT in hardware.
-tony