Noob Purchases IBM 5170

[Swamp_Donkey]

Hi guys, Zoomer here who just purchased a vintage (IBM 5170) computer. First time posting here as well. Apologies as I'm sure this info is covered elsewhere but I can't seem to find it.

Basically I'm wondering how to get this computer up and running. I haven't powered it on but I've opened it up and the motherboard looks very clean, as do the riser cards. I don't have an original monitor but I was hoping there was a cheap and reliable method of connecting a VGA monitor...

I do have a keyboard for it.

What, if anything, should I check preemptively to clean/replace so I don't damage the computer when it's turned on? I know old caps can go bad for instance, but I'm no electrical engineer.

Is it possible to get networking (Ethernet) on this PC? I have a card with two RJ-11 outs and I'm guessing this is a modem card?

Will I need floppy disks to initialize the computer and/or the expansion cards? I have two RAM expansion cards and two different graphics cards and the modem(?) card.

Thanks! :D

 

[modem7]

Hi guys,

Welcome to these forums.

There is lots of IBM 5170 information at minuszerodegrees.net

Based on the 5170 information at that website, to aid possible future discussion, what type (1,2, or 3) of motherboard do you have, and which BIOS is on the motherboard, and what is the make and model of the hard drive ?

I don't have an original monitor but I was hoping there was a cheap and reliable method of connecting a VGA monitor...

For the IBM 5170, it should be simple as fitting an ISA type VGA card. That should get you a display. Then, if required (i.e. a 162 error is shown), you would verify that the video card type set in the motherboard's SETUP (a.k.a. CMOS SETUP) is at the EGA/special setting.

What, if anything, should I check preemptively to clean/replace so I don't damage the computer when it's turned on? I know old caps can go bad for instance, but I'm no electrical engineer.

In the IBM 5170, the caps that have some known history of going bad are on the [IBM CGA card] and the first generation of the [IBM Fixed Disk and Diskette Drive Adapter]. The subject capacitors can sometimes go short-circuit, and if that has occurred on your card/s, the power supply will not turn on due to being overloaded (and will not damage the power supply or anything else).

I suggest that you simply do a decent visual inspection of everything, and if nothing suspicious seen, re-seat the already fitted expansion cards in their slots (a few times, to help clean the contacts), then power on the computer. For all we know, your 5170 will display no errors then boot from the hard drive. If that doesn't happen, the consequent action will depend on the symptom.

Is it possible to get networking (Ethernet) on this PC?

I have not done it myself, but there are others here who will have.

I have a card with two RJ-11 outs and I'm guessing this is a modem card?

I have two RAM expansion cards and two different graphics cards and the modem(?) card.

Provide some photos of the modem(?) card so that people here can try to identify it. Ideally, put them on an image hosting website, then provide links to the images.

If you are unable to identify the RAM expansion cards, provide photos of those as well.

Will I need floppy disks to initialize the computer and/or the expansion cards?

Depending on the situation, the motherboard's SETUP (a.k.a. CMOS SETUP) may need to be configured or reconfigured. Per [here], there are various ways to perform that, including one where the motherboard's BASIC is used. Maybe GSETUP.EXE (or equivalent) is on the hard drive.

As for RAM expansion cards, it depends on the card. Some of the sophisticated cards use vendor provided software for card configuration. To answer card related questions, we need to know exactly what you have.

It is possible to connect a 3.5" 1.44M diskette drive to the 5170 and boot from a boot diskette. Whether that 3.5" diskette can be a 1.44M one, or has to be a 720K one, depends on the revision of BIOS.

Lots of possibilities, but we need to know exactly what you have, and what you observe when you power on the 5170.

 

[maxtherabbit]

the 3com 3c509 series of ISA networking cards work great in all my retro PCs, 5162 XT 286 included (basically the same as your AT)

we have a member here named mbrutman that makes a kickass TCP/IP comm suite for DOS too, all 286 compatible (and 8088 too for that matter)

 

[maxtherabbit]

pictures of the expansion cards you already have would help us get you sorted

 

[bladamson]

I don't have an original monitor but I was hoping there was a cheap and reliable method of connecting a VGA monitor...

A cheap ISA VGA card off ebay will get you going. Since you have a 16-bit ISA bus, you have a lot more choices, so that's good.

What, if anything, should I check preemptively to clean/replace so I don't damage the computer when it's turned on? I know old caps can go bad for instance, but I'm no electrical engineer.

If everything looks good, I'd just plug it in and try to power it on. Be ready to flip it off again if something smokes. If nothing smokes, and you happen to have a multimeter, check the PSU voltages (it will probably need to be plugged into the mobo to provide enough of a load for the PSU to work). But if you don't have a multimeter, don't worry about it.

(Re-edit: I stand corrected by maxtherabbit re: parking MFM drives. Nevermind about all that. ;P )

Electrolytic caps fail open, so they generally don't break anything. The machine just may not work until you replace them, if they are bad, or may work but behave weirdly.

I think some of the IBM expansion cards of that vintage used tantalum capacitors across power rails, which will fail closed and keep the PSU from starting up, but I have never heard of them actually breaking anything. They just have to be replaced.

Is it possible to get networking (Ethernet) on this PC?

Yeah. Again, since you have a 16 bit ISA bus, you have a lot more options. You'll have to provide what is called a "packet driver" specific to your network card to make the card work, though. Some programs may require a TSR TCP/IP driver, too. TCP/IP under DOS is kind of a mess to get working, and I am definitely not an expert on the subject, but here is a page that goes over it: https://www.brutman.com/Dos_Networking/

I've had good success with the 3c509 network cards in ye olden days, although I do not currently own any. Beware of jumperless "ISAPNP" network cards, as they require configuration with ISAPNP software that will only run on a 386 or better, IIRC. You probably want an older card that actually has physical jumpers on it.

While there are some DOS web browsers, they're behind the times vis-a-vis HTML specs, and I wouldn't think a 286 would run SSH very well. You can still use things like telnet, pop/imap, ftp, gopher, etc, though. I find NFS extremely useful for file transfer, although there are probably other things that are easier to get working if you don't have Unix machines that also need love. And the PC NFS driver takes a crapton of memory.

I have a card with two RJ-11 outs and I'm guessing this is a modem card?

Probably. It's basically junk, IMO. All the BBSes nowadays are on the internet with a TCP connection, so once you get your network card going you can just telnet to them.

If you got adventurous, you might be able to cut some traces on it somewhere and reroute a TTL-level serial signal to a Raspberry Pi or something and make it into a wifi modem, but if you are going to get a network card anyway then.......

Will I need floppy disks to initialize the computer and/or the expansion cards? I have two RAM expansion cards and two different graphics cards and the modem(?) card.

I dunno. It's liable to have an old MFM hard drive in it, but who knows if it still works after all this time. If you can post some pics, we can better help you ascertain what you have and how to get it going. With a VGA card, a hard drive, and a soundblaster, a 286 will play a lot of middle-era DOS games pretty well. I recommend Dune, once you get the machine running. :D

Welcome to here, btw. I think this is one of the best communities on the internet, and I hope that your time here will be as enjoyable as mine has been.

 

[maxtherabbit]

There is absolutely no need to park any MFM drives simply to power the system off. Its purpose is to afford them some protection for when the system is moved or going to be otherwise exposed to physical shock risk

3C5X9CFG runs just fine on 286. None of my 16-bit network cards have jumpers.

 

[pinkdonut666]

Welcome to the forums! an IBM 5170 is a great place to start into really "vintage" dos PCS for early CGA and EGA gaming. games from 1983-the early 90s are probably about right.

"PERSONALLY" if you are just getting started i would be on the look out for a couple of things on fleabay or otherwise to make the most painless use. I've had good luck with sellers in eastern Europe.

#1 cheap 16bit ISA VGA card, basically any will do.

#2 ISA sound card, preferably one that has jumpers to configure the IRQ and DMA but thats not a requirement. Sound blaster 16, ESS audiodrive, SB pro 2, SB 2.0 are all great options.

#3 I would personally recommend a cheap floppy / IDE controller card. the MFM controllers are cool in there own way, but the drives are slow and often unreliable in their old age. 16bit ISA IDE/floppy controllers that adhere to the AT standard were commonplace for 286/386 and early 486 systems are fairly common, and they are very convenient. I've used CF card adapters in my AT with a cheap SIS IDE/ floppy controller. I have also used "modern" IDE hard drives with Ontrack and it actually worked fairly well. (didn't have any CF cards handy)

the other advantage of an IDE interface is an easy way to connect a CD-rom drive. Using a backpack CD rom drive is also fairly convenient. I have a couple of 700mb CD-r's loaded up with software, games & drivers. using a backpack CD rom drive i can painlessly transfer over this stuff to any machine with a parallel port pretty much. (I'm lazy and networking is more involved IMO)

 

[Swamp_Donkey]

Thanks all for the very warm welcome!

Hey sorry for the slow reply here. I appreciate all of your advice and help! :D

∘The motherboard is the type three 512K with the 16k crystal

∘The BIOS is the revision from 11/15/85

∘Here is a picture of the Modem(?) card: https://imgur.com/HOJe90h (agreed that it's probably useless).

∘Here is a picture of the RAM expansion card: https://imgur.com/YJ6B71p I think this is the IBM Enhanced Memory Expansion Adapter after looking on minus zero. I don't know if anyone would be able to identify the size of the modules? Pretty curious about that.

∘Here is a picture of the GPU: https://imgur.com/cHyc69f Professional Graphics Controller on the minus zero website. I also have the standard monochrome adapter.

∘The computer does have a hard drive. The sticker reads "299 1 011 4 20" and "1480149295" on the lower part.

I think this is all the info but I apologize if I've left something out.

I powered up the motherboard and the drive controller with only the floppy drive attached and the drive seemed to initialize but I'm not quite sure exactly what's going on since I still can't view an output. No smoke!

I'm working on getting a VGA controller. Thanks for the advice on that!

A soundcard sounds interesting as well. I'm gonna try to look into the ones you listed pinkdonut Are there any music decent creation programs for the AT?

I might also be getting an IDE controller depending on how everything goes. Having a CD-R seems like it would be prudent if I'm unable to get networking set up.

I'm cursorily familiar with telnet though and that seems like it could be fun to set up and mess around with.

Sorry if I left anything out! I should have a monitor set up by this next weekend or so and I'll be able to relay any errors that I'm getting. Hoping that the original drive is still working!

 

[Nevets01]

Holy cow!

You got a PGC in your 5170!
Those are, ah, not common. And not cheap when you do run into 'em.
They're really cool, but unfortunately there's not a lot of software made for them.
(by the way, if anyone has some software for it, other than Autocad, PGCDRAW, and CSHOW, which I already know about, I'd like to know about it)

 

[tipc]

The cga emulation card is sandwiched in the middle, no? Is it missing from his?

You scored big time with that card dude. I mean BIG TIME. Not a whole lot of s/w runs on it lol. But it's still awfully nice to have.

 

[Swamp_Donkey]

The cga emulation card is sandwiched in the middle, no? Is it missing from his?

You scored big time with that card dude. I mean BIG TIME. Not a whole lot of s/w runs on it lol. But it's still awfully nice to have.

The card has three layers and two ISA conectors. Is there much that I can do with it given that not a lot of software runs on it?

 

[Swamp_Donkey]

Holy cow!

You got a PGC in your 5170!
Those are, ah, not common. And not cheap when you do run into 'em.
They're really cool, but unfortunately there's not a lot of software made for them.
(by the way, if anyone has some software for it, other than Autocad, PGCDRAW, and CSHOW, which I already know about, I'd like to know about it)

It seems that they only work fully on a special monitor unfortunately. I believe this computer was an AutoCAD machine for a university and the monitor was trashed before I could get the computer. :/

 

[bladamson]

Ha, nice. :D

Me, I'd sell the PGC and use the proceeds to fund the rest of the project, lol. But iirc those PGC cards can drive a VGA monitor (if it accepts composite sync), if you make an adapter cable. But a regular VGA card would be more useful to you, imo. PGC is rare, but imo not all that useful other than to a collector. I think you can use the PGC alongside a regular graphics card, though, so it's not like you have to remove it to use a regular VGA.

 

[modem7]

∘The motherboard is the type three 512K with the 16k crystal
∘The BIOS is the revision from 11/15/85

From minuszerodegrees.net, you will know that if required later, you can attach a 1.44M drive then boot from a 1.44M boot diskette.

... I think this is the IBM Enhanced Memory Expansion Adapter after looking on minus zero. I don't know if anyone would be able to identify the size of the modules? Pretty curious about that.

What is the part number printed on the chips of each SIMM ? From that, the SIMM size can be determined.

Based on the setting of switches 6 and 7, the card is, in addition to providing extended memory (expansion memory), also providing the conventional memory (base memory) in the address space of 512K to 640K.

The computer does have a hard drive. The sticker reads "299 1 011 4 20" and "1480149295" on the lower part.

That sounds like the drive's track defect sticker.
Does the sticker have a large number printed on it (example shown at [here]) ?
If it does, that will be the IBM type number that goes into SETUP (CMOS SETUP).
If it does not, you would need to supply photos if you want us to identify the drive.

 

[tipc]

the scan rates are very close (PGC and VGA). It emulates CGA (yours for as you stated the 3rd board handles that). I don't know what plans you have for it in terms of software. A vga card certainly wouldn't hurt. The point is that card is very rare and very expensive these days. The AT was made for advanced applications such as cad/cam, etc. The pair work well together.

 

[maxtherabbit]

making a dongle and driving a VGA monitor that handles c-sync is no big thing you should do it

because that's what came with the system keep it true to history, and the card is just cool as heck

a solid % of PC-CRT handle c-sync no problem

 

[maxtherabbit]

that IBM branded memory expansion is no slouch either, you got some high end stuff in that AT

 

[NeXT]

The idea is that you run the PGC as the secondary display card (this is a supported configuration) and you can still run something like a CGA card for the rest. (for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUS5yiu96i4 )
Hmm, actually has anyone seen if a VGA card will behave correctly alongside a PGC in secondary mode?

 

[Swamp_Donkey]

The image render there is quite impressive. I'm actually blown away by the quality since the GPU is from 1985.

I was considering running a two screen setup as shown in that youtube clip, but I may just sell the graphics card cheaply to a good home. Since I don't have the 5175 monitor and because it seems it can only be fully utilized by a small subset of software it seems like it would be a waste for me to keep it. After I get everything set up and figured out I had a nebulous plan of setting up the computer as a word processor and doing some gaming. I also was hoping to maybe do some 16 bit music creation if possible :D So I think one of you guys might get more use out of it than I would. But I'm unsure at the moment since I haven't quite gotten everything figured out.

Thanks for the tips on identifying the drive. It's a Seagate St-4038 with 30 whole MB of screaming fast storage :O

Interesting, so the RAM was actually topping off the 512 on the main board as described on minuszerodegrees. The modules have "94-V0 86 18 HB561009BR-15" on the back. Each individual chip reads "8614 U2002NM 50256CP 15M".

I wasn't planning on including this since I didn't need any clarification on what it was, but since you guys showed a lot of interest in the graphics card, the PC actually also came with the vertical stand. Here are some pictures of it. https://imgur.com/a/U5gVNiA

It's made out of three pieces of rigid plastic: Two faceplates and a "monoblock" that makes up the rest of the case. It's the same kind of plastic you might find composing a mid-century fan blade. The PC has two plastic white runners that bolt to the bottom of the computer. The computer slides in and is crudely popped into place by bending the plastic runners over two catches in the stand.

Hopefully you guys will find it interesting. The PC being vertical was the original thing that piqued my interest about this particular computer :D

 

[modem7]

The modules have "94-V0 86 18 HB561009BR-15" on the back. Each individual chip reads "8614 U2002NM 50256CP 15M".

'HB561009BR-15' will be the part number of the SIMM.
According to the image below, taken from a 1989 dated memory data book, the SIMM is sized at 256 KB (with parity).
The '-15' portion is sure to translate to 150 ns access time.

12 SIMM's of 256 KB = 3 MB
128 KB of that is being used to top up the motherboard RAM to 640 KB, so your 5170's memory is: 640 KB of conventional (base) plus 2,944 KB of extended (expansion).