IBM 5150 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

28 Feb 2013

------------------------------
On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 11:53 AM PST Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus wrote:

...
 We have IBM 5150s here.  I can put almost any 8-bit ISA
video card in it,
and get the boot sequences on the screen.  If it is supposed to be color,
but comes up b/w, then I make a batch program called color.bat or whatever
and reference the driver for the card, and presto, I have color. Some of
these old cards came with drivers, and I have a very large collection of
these very old drivers. 
 But again a driver is different from the post code contained in the extension rom.  You
can also change the screen from a black and white screen (not the same as an MDA screen)
with a mode command in dos or screen in BASIC.

...
 Some of the old cards have switches or some other means
to set the graphics
mode and resolution, but others do not.  There are very few old 8-bit cards
that will not work on the 5150. 
 True. But there are a lot of cards out there that aren't CGA, MDA, EGA, PGC, VGA and
they're seldom seen.

...
 I have never seen Autocad for a 5150, but there are
color games for the
5150, and if you have a color monitor, the games have code in them to set
the colors and resolution.  Since there were a number of cards, and thus a
wide variety of options for the game programmers, they usually chose 8 or 16
colors, and told the user to choose 40 or 80 columns, and then you had a
color game.  Granted, circles and ovals looked like a bunch of tiny squares
lined up to make a circle or oval, but they ran pretty well. 
 Autocad didn't need drivers for CGA, but did to run advanced modes of some cards even
if they did emulate or were really CGA but on steroids. You needed drivers to run A* in
high res modes on the IBM Professional Graphics Controller, which starts right up as
double scanned CGA (on a 5175 or multisync). Autocad had to provide drivers for bloody
loads of cards if they wanted their s/w to work. Whether the high res modes were
initialized by the driver or at 
startup along with the CGA's 6845 registers I couldn't tell you. But probably at
POST.
 I did have a problem with the PGC card on one AT, but didn't investigate and the
problem may have been that it was setup for MDA (do you set dip switches in an AT like a
PC or PC/XT?). But 
I seem to recall putting in a VGA card subsequently. Does the VGA also look like an MDA to
an early PC/XTG/AT?

...
 -----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Chris Tofu
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 12:51 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: RE: IBM 5150

------------------------------
On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 10:18 AM PST Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus wrote:

 Why can't you just write a small batch program
that references the 
driver and the necessary commands, and put it on the startup disk?  If 
not enough room on a 360K, then you can use a second floppy.  We used 
to do this for customers all the time, 15 years ago.  Also included 
small start up menus, etc. 
 Drivers = extension rom code? Interesting proposition. I'll wager it's not
very straitforward. Numerous graphics cards had drivers for say Autocad and
whatnot. But that's entirely different from the startup code needed to set
up initial register values and whatever on the cards chips.
 It seems what you're saying is the pc will startup w/o video (usually
returns an error, but you can use a pc w/a terminal off the rs232 port, just
don't ask me the particulars). Then initialize the video card as dos is
starting. Seems possible, would be interesting to see someone do it.

 -----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org 
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of madodel
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 11:48 AM
To: General at proxyz14.mailnet.ptd.net; 
Discussion at proxyz14.mailnet.ptd.net
:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: IBM 5150

On 2/28/13 9:43 AM, TeoZ wrote:
 The ROM say IBM 1981, this unit must be early, Serial # 0155185 (did 
 they start from #1?).

I was told by David Both that he used the very first PC off the 
assembly line to write the PC Documentation.  When I asked what 
happened to PC #1 after he was done with it he said as far as he knew 
the same thing they did to all their internal use machines at the time.  
Stripped it for parts for warranty repairs.

Mark

 So I guess I have to find an original IBM CGA card then and all is well?

 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher Satterfield"
 <christopher1400 at gmail.com>
 To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
 Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 3:53 AM
 Subject: Re: IBM 5150

 I believe your VGA problem has to do with the older IBM ROMs, I 
 believe you need the '82 BIOS to use a VGA card or any card with it's 
 own BIOS, and being as I have a 16-64 KB 5150 with the newer BIOS I 
 assume yours will work also, saying you have an EPROM programmer.

 --
 C:\win
 Bad Command Or File Name
 C:\

--

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