IBM 5285

From: Alan Greenstreet <aeg_at_paradise.net.nz>
Date: Mon Jun 30 17:44:01 2003

Hi All

Another recent addition to my growing collection is, as the title
suggests, an IBM 5285. It has a 12" display and dual 8" floppy drives.
The separate keyboard is connected at the front of the machine by a
large 25 pin connector.

Originally passed to me as "working" the machine fired up to display
what looked like a single ASCII code at the top centre of the screen
and a column of blocks on the far right. The keyboard is laid out very
much like a terminal keyboard and testing the keys the keyboard buffer
quickly becomes full. This results in what looks like a series of
memory addresses along the bottom of the screen.

All the while the two 8" drives are merrily spinning away. I have one
disk with the machine which when inserted in either drive fails to read
or alter the state of the display.

My initial thoughts were faulty connections. I took the covers off to
reveal about a kilo of dust liberally spread around the inside. I
cleaned each component carefully and replaced the boards. Now I don't
get anything on the display and the drives still whirr around oblivious
of disk or no disk...

So... my questions are:
1. Has anyone come across this model before and is it a dumb terminal?
2. What checks would you suggest to solve the disk access problems?
3. Can anyone point me towards a repository of information about it?

Thanks in advance

Alan
Received on Mon Jun 30 2003 - 17:44:01 BST