ew0054
Troll Extraordinaire
I love old computers! My current vintage project is an IBM 5160 (1983) running DOS 4.01. I got it on eBay with monochrome green monitor for a really good deal almost a year ago. I have been planning some projects to do with it such as EEPROM/Flash chip programming and a B.B.S.
Well I also have another hobby of mine to support these ventures. It's called junkin'! At the end of every month my town has big garbage pickup, so people throw out a lot of appliances and stuff. Every now and then I get lucky and find a few computers. These are usually nothing special - Pentiums generally. So I take them apart and use what parts I can in my projects, sell some parts on eBay, or put together complete Win95 systems to sell as "retro gaming PCs."
Anyway, I just found an ISA 33.6k modem that I can use in the IBM 5160! The reason why I can use this one is because it has the short ISA slots (not the ones with two segments) as this is the only slot type on the 5160's motherboard. I do have a copy of GAP B.B.S. software from somewhere, so maybe I can finally set up my own B.B.S.!
I actually ran the B.B.S. on my other machine, a 486/66 with a 9600 baud modem a while back. It DOES work, and I use another computer on another phone line to dial in through Windows Terminal. So all I should have to do is port the software over to the 5160 and it should run. I think chances are good that it will run under DOS 4.01, although my 486 machine uses DOS 6.22.
Now to find a 5¼" diskette amidst all my junk!
Also, is anyone here familiar with PIC programming? Maybe you know of a brand of an old model programmer I could search the net for? I am thinking maybe if I can't find one I could whip one up somehow to interface with the serial port. I have a modern PIC programmer that I used in a class, but it's for USB.
It's fun to mess around with old stuff, especially the really old stuff! The IBM 5160 is a very interesting machine. Did I mention this one has the stock 10-MB hard disk? Sweet!
Well I also have another hobby of mine to support these ventures. It's called junkin'! At the end of every month my town has big garbage pickup, so people throw out a lot of appliances and stuff. Every now and then I get lucky and find a few computers. These are usually nothing special - Pentiums generally. So I take them apart and use what parts I can in my projects, sell some parts on eBay, or put together complete Win95 systems to sell as "retro gaming PCs."
Anyway, I just found an ISA 33.6k modem that I can use in the IBM 5160! The reason why I can use this one is because it has the short ISA slots (not the ones with two segments) as this is the only slot type on the 5160's motherboard. I do have a copy of GAP B.B.S. software from somewhere, so maybe I can finally set up my own B.B.S.!
I actually ran the B.B.S. on my other machine, a 486/66 with a 9600 baud modem a while back. It DOES work, and I use another computer on another phone line to dial in through Windows Terminal. So all I should have to do is port the software over to the 5160 and it should run. I think chances are good that it will run under DOS 4.01, although my 486 machine uses DOS 6.22.
Now to find a 5¼" diskette amidst all my junk!
Also, is anyone here familiar with PIC programming? Maybe you know of a brand of an old model programmer I could search the net for? I am thinking maybe if I can't find one I could whip one up somehow to interface with the serial port. I have a modern PIC programmer that I used in a class, but it's for USB.
It's fun to mess around with old stuff, especially the really old stuff! The IBM 5160 is a very interesting machine. Did I mention this one has the stock 10-MB hard disk? Sweet!
