IBM 5100 Serial Number Project (and a question or two)

From: Tony Eros <Tony.Eros_at_machm.org>
Date: Tue Aug 24 17:42:41 1999

I just received a 5110 (BASIC-only, no tape drive) with serial number 30163.

I've got a couple of quick questions for the experts.

First off, I think I may be getting an error on startup. When I power the
system up, the display shows

AACCEEGG

on the top line. After five seconds,

AACCEEGGJJLLNN
RRSS44

is displayed on the top two lines. One second later,

AACCEEGGJJLLNN
RRSS11

is displayed on the top two lines. After three seconds, the top two lines
are erased and

LLAA00
_ _ (two flashing underscores)
     EEDD

is displayed on the last three lines of the display.

Actually, when the display switch is set to "64", the above strings appear
on both the left side and center of the screen.

Is this some sort of error display? Does anyone have any sort of error
summary for the 5110? The "Process Check" light remains dark. Hitting the
keys produces no result.

Second question: what's the BNC connector on the back of the system for? I
read somewhere that the 5110 and 5120 had composite video output, but I'm
not sure.

-- Tony
Received on Tue Aug 24 1999 - 17:42:41 BST