On Sat, 2001-09-29 at 20:23, Don McClure wrote:
> I found an IBM 5150 at a thrift store the other day. I don't usually pay
> much attention to PeeCee's, but the price of this one was about right--
> $3.50 complete with dual floppies and monochrome monitor.
>
> I don't have any boot disks for PC's this old. When I initially turned it
> on, it would start up BASIC, which apparently is in ROM on these machines.
> Lately, it hangs on a rapidly flashing left cursor, sometimes moving to a
> rapidly flashing cursor at the top middle of the monitor.
>
> Questions:
>
> Anybody know what causes this? Power supply? Video card? Loose chip?
Re-seat the chips and see if that helps.
>
> What's the deal with the BASIC in ROM on these machines? Any other early
> PeeCee's have this feature?
All the genuine IBM PC's had ROM basic (I think some of the PS/2 might
have had this as well). This made the ROM difficult to clone while
maintaining full 'IBM Compatibility'.
Jeffrey H. Ingber (jhingber _at_ ix.netcom.com)
>
> Thanks!
>
> Don McClure
> Bel Air, MD
>
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Received on Sat Sep 29 2001 - 19:51:36 BST