Original IBM PC resurrected

This is my original IBM Personal Computer in all its 4.77 MHz glory, now finally working again after two blown capacitors put it out of commission when I last tried it a year ago. I got this PC, including the original keyboard and IBM CGA color monitor, many years ago from the original owner, who used it as his work computer (it had the company's ID sticker on the case). Originally a 256K dual-floppy machine, I added more memory, a multi-function board, and a 20 MB Seagate MFM hard drive.

Once I get the CGA video board working again, it will be restored to exactly how I had it a decade ago. Amazingly the original battery for the clock/calendar still seems to be keeping the time somehow! As far as I can tell, the NiCad "blue barrel" battery is original to the multifunction board (circa 1987-1988) and has never been replaced.

I also give an example of how some classic DOS CGA games are *not* compatible with modern VGA video displays and will just show a garbled screen.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• lq34+hq35
• ibm
• pc
• personal
• computer
• original
• 1981
• 1980s
• xt
• pc/xt
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• not
• at
• intel
• 8088
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• 4.77
• mhz
• 8-bit
• isa
• 256k
• 640k
• ram
• dos
• ms-dos
• pc-dos
• cga
• vga
• mfm
• rll
• seagate
• st225
• st-225
• hard
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• blown
• capacitor
• capacitors
• first
• boot
• booting
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• test
• vintage
• classic
• legacy
• digger
• game
• 160x100
• 16
• color
• 16-color
• compatible

[PB70CDOEM]

When you get a Chance, Can you Make Copy's of all your Old Dos (and the Packard Bell MS-DOS 3.3) and other old Software Disks in IMA Format (Use the Winimage Program for this) and put them all in a Zip file and then Email it to me? Thanks.

[vwestlife]

@PB70CDOEM There are already web sites which have images of DOS boot disks.

[lucianodinino]

That is a pretty awesome computer, and even awesomer when it has a freakin hard drive! I usually see them with dual full height floppy drives. How did you get the hard drive to work right? Do you use a special card? Im curious..

[vwestlife]

@lucianodinino It is a Western Digital MFM hard drive controller. I forget the exact model number, but it is an 8-bit ISA bus controller.

[vwestlife]

@ccraig412 The original CGA card has 16K of video RAM.

[vwestlife]

@MBaMichel It's an old 8-bit VGA card, I believe made by Western Digital.

[NLGAMER1000]

@XzTS i love the song

[PB70CDOEM]

@vwestlife oh, I Guess I did not look hard enough, can I Get the Link?

[ferencproject]

Where did you get that Seagate MFM HDD?

[XzTS]

LOL, that song sounds familiar...

"Popcorn" - Hot Butter

[XzTS]

My gosh! I miss those 5.25-inch floppies!

[makinbac0n]

I remember digger. We had that on an old Xt in our classroom in 3rd grade.

[CommanderFuckFace]

Rise from your grave !

[cr1901]

@vwestlife Oops lol... I should do my research then. Someone on the VC forums is willing to sell me a multisync monitor which has the 9-pin connector for VGA, but I didn't know that 9-pin VGA only existed for the sake of those monitors.