Fair warning: The images I'm linking to have a pretty big resolution and might take a while to load if you're on dialup! I left them as urls because of their size.
Got a hold of it earlier this morning, here's what it looks like, along with some retr0bright ingredients i hope to run the case through over the next week or so (it's only 3% hydrogen peroxide)
http://sqpat.com/img/5160/1238800059524.jpg
It's not too messy, but it should look a lot better when I'm done with the cleaning process. Anyway, as I began to take the thing apart, noticed something that I don't think is standard on these cases:
http://sqpat.com/img/5160/1238800135810.jpg
Looked like a couple of serial ports that were hanging out over the back.
Anyway, I took the thing apart. Here's a list of what I found:
- Motherboard seems to be an AMD 8088 model. I assume this runs at the standard 4.77 MhZ or whatever. The 8088 processor says it was made in 1982. Elsewhere it says "64-256KB SYSTEM BOARD". Is this an AMD or IBM system board? I assume it's got 256 K of RAM on it.
- Hard drive is an IBM WD12, 5.25" 10 MB hard drive. Hopefully I can upgrade that to 20 or maybe even 40 later on.
- It's also got a 5.25" floppy drive.
- It had 5 ISA slots in use:
1. An IBM CGA adapter
2. An IBM Hard Drive Controller
3. An IBM 1503969 serial port control card
4. A Quadram Quadboard which seems to have 384 KB of ram, as well as a printer serial port and game port which hang out of the system's casing, as well as another 25 pin serial port in the back.
5. An "Acquisition and Control Adapter", model number is 281-088, this is the one that connects to the weird slot in the back and overall it seems to connect to a pair of 37-pin serial slots as well as some kind of 60 pin (2 rows of 30) device in the back. Here is an ebay listing (not mine) with good pictures of the thing I'm looking at.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Acquisition-Con...296140960QQihZ015QQcategoryZ162QQcmdZViewItem
If you want to take a look at all the pictures I took of the thing, feel free to have yourself a look here:
http://sqpat.com/img/5160/
Anyway, I also have a few questions as well...
1. I got a ps/2->AT adapter, but that probably wont be enough to make a keyboard work unless i flash the BIOS to a newer revision, right? I might eventually try to do such a thing, but for now, I might grab a cheaper XT keyboard I guess.
2. It seems to be a standard IBM CGA card on this thing. Will a simple 9 to 15 pin d-sub adapter work with a modern monitor? Will it properly handle CGA/Monochrome modes? Also, I want to eventually upgrade to an EGA or even VGA card (not to play games, etc, but to try and write some code on my own. I know the processor isn't powerful enough for a lot of that). Would that also be as simple as hooking it up to a modern monitor, or would there be some issue in supporting different display modes?
3. Will a modern computer/monitor power cord work for this thing? I notice it has a male and female port, so I assume that's just for convenience? You don't actually have to use both, do you?
Hopefully I'll have this thing running in a couple of weeks, once I'm done cleaning it up and gathering whatever else I need.
. It would be a longshot, I know.
