Nice Find

From: Lawrence Walker <lwalker_at_mail.interlog.com>
Date: Sat Apr 4 00:25:10 1998

 Today I picked up from the garbage a 9pin Epson and what I first thought
was a big old IBM XT figuring I could always off it to someone after I checked
out it's peripherals. When I got home I found it was a 5150. I noticed it had a
paste-on sticker "Intel Inboard 386" Someone's attempt at humor I thought
since the 5150 was the first IBM PC IIRC and likely had only 256k RAM.
 It had the DIN plugs for kb and cassette and two full-ht. IBM fdds; couldn't
see a Hdd. The 5 expansion slots seemed full tho and I was getting more
interested. I hooked up a monitor and kb and fired it up without opening it up
first (I know-risky). Started up fine, flashing cursor checked the drives and
up comes an Intel flashscreen
                          Inboard 386 PC
                         Vers 1.1 02/17/89
                          Intel Corporation
 
                           conv. mem. init. 640 k
                           ext mem. 256 k
                           Initial Op. Speed Very Fast
                           system BIOS 32-bit RAM
                           EGA BIOS ROM
                           iNBRDPC Dev. Driver installed
 I hit a key and up comes a C:\ prompt.!
Nothing too interesting on the HD , usual WP5.1 and Lotus a few others i don't
recognize Very rudimentary Auto and Config usual but with inbrdpc.sys
 Of course I quickly pop it open No HD !!??
It turns out it has a 20 Meg "Plus Development" Hard Card .
 The Intel card is a 16mhz and it has an empty socket for a 387
 The small serial port card has f - 15 pin and 25 pin sockets.
 Small Herc. type card video and prtr.ports
 The floppy controller card has a f-35 pin ext. socket ?
Snooper tells me it has 2 ser ports and 2 paral. configured and bench-marks
20mhz ( don't know how accurate Snoop's bench is but this sure beats an XT)
 I was blown away I didn't think an XT much less a PC could be upgraded
without replacing the MB. And the Hard Card was gravy
 The possibilities are interesting. I'm wondering if I could beef up the RAM
Put in an Extended Graphics Adapter (not Array) and hook up my 3270
type IBM monitor (5272). There's an interesting section in Que's "Upgrading
and Repairing PCs" on the 3270PC BTW. I wonder also what the cassette
and 35 pin I/Os offer in the way of interfacing According to Snooper there's
16 Irq's.and I could free up a exp. socket by pulling the hard card if I could
put in a bigger HD. Would a SCSI card be an option so I could put in 1.2 and
/or 1.44 fdds ?
 It would be neat if I could run Linux on it.
 Excuse my blathering but I'm like a kid with an amazing new toy.

ciao larry
lwalker_at_interlog.com
Received on Sat Apr 04 1998 - 00:25:10 BST