I uploaded a short of the scale comparison between the new slim board and standard "wide" board design, should have my samples in a few days, but now I need to locate a good 5160 XT
I'm not into DOS or gaming, yet I find your videos so interesting and enjoyable that I watch every one of them. The only sad part is remembering the machines I scrapped when everyone else did. 😢
I knew from the start decades ago that if I throw any machines away, I might regret it, thus I've kept every computer that me & my family have gotten over the years, since the C-64 in 1983 (I have 3 64's). I don't really collect computers, thus my "collection" is just keeping what we've bought for actual usage. This includes a few 8088's. However, I did find about 5 Windows 7 & 8.1-era laptops at the recycler for free a few years ago, but I have yet to start working on them, heh. Gonna try to use them for RUclips editing & uploading, & then maybe try my hand at these types of vintage machine videos, hopefully. We've also kept a handful of typewriters (manuals, electrics & electronic) that we bought over the years, since the 1970's, as well as desktop printing calculators. And I'm hoping that the unknown future is not going to press me to get rid of any of my machines out of desperation & necessity any time soon.
indeed, wish still had the Tandy 1000 that had back in the 80s. At the time it was an affordable entry level PC clone - nothing special to write home about, but these days its a highly prized vintage collectable :-)
@@TheSulross ... Funny you say that, I still have a Tandy 1000A that my family friend gave to me for free, including a free dotmatrix printer, a composite amber monitor & some floppy disks, back in the mid 1990s. I assume he had had it since the 1980s prior to giving it away to me. I think he used it for a car shop business. Once I got it, I had connected an external Zip drive to it, & I think I also put in a hard drive at one point early on. Three decades later & all those things still work. The only thing I don't like about the 1000A is that the power supply fan is noisy & it runs off 120V AC, so I am going to try to modify it & disable that fan & maybe add a 12V less noisy computer fan or something. The MCGA/TGA feature alone is worthy of keeping a 1000A. :)
2 pc sprint video the same week !!!! I had one also for my Columbia Data Products VP 1600 transportable project rebuild hoping it will run at 8 mhz I could only find 24mhz crystal locally
I overclocked my Atari PC3 a year ago by installing a NEC V20 and replacing the standard crystal of 24Mhz to one of 30Mhz. it went from 8Mhz to about 11 Mhz. that with the V20 gave it a great speed boost. The VGA card that I installed before that had to be changed to another model since it paniced since the ISA bus also overclocked because of this. went with a ET4000 (16 bit but works great in a 8-bit slot).
@@Epictronics1 Well, part of the appeal to overclock was to speed up the god awful speed of the ISA bus, and IIRC most cards handled a 30-50% speed increase quite well. I never tried it with a wide range of cards of course.
@@Epictronics1 Many later ISA cards tended to handle overclocking better, because the longer ISA was out, the more variability there was in the bus. ISA card vendors had to account for that increased variability if they wanted their card to work with as many bus speeds as possible. Some really terrible clone "turbo" systems in the 286 era would run the ISA bus at the CPU speed, so you could have an ISA bus that ran at 16-20 MHz. Very few cards work at all at this speed. By the time the Pentium came out, the ISA bus regularly ran at 11-13.8 MHz, being on a /3 divider off the PCI bus. Since the PCI bus itself was usually on a /2 divider off the FSB, you could end up with wildly out of spec clocks like 37.5 or 41.5 if you had a 75 or 83 MHz FSB, which directly affected the ISA bus clock. Thanks Cyrix.
I had a similar microscope, but I was able to modify the exposure and ISO in the menu system. Mine has the capability to use as a USB camera device, but it's basically useless without adding a TON of light, because the driver support is so bad.
I've got a 5160 motherboard that I picked up for cheap because it's faulty, which I really wish I had the time to troubleshoot and repair. Sadly it's pretty low on the list of projects, since I don't have a case to put it in. I've been keeping an eye out on eBay for even an XT clone type case (let alone a 5160), but they're not really easy to find in good condition for a reasonable price. I did just buy a NEC V20 chip, so the PC Sprint would definitely be a cool upgrade if I ever get the 5160 board up and running.
@@Epictronics1 Who knows, my memories from when I was a kid might be flawed too. I may have had slowdowns but still played through because it was still at least playable. Also, I think I was able to play this on my other PC that I had back then, an XT clone with a hercules monochrome card. I remember it being not the easiest to find games that could make use of that card, outside of the Sierra and Broderbund titles that I had.
yeah, was rather shocked at the slow play speed given Prince of Persia runs at decent play speed at 1Mhz on an Apple II with color graphics. The visual quality was ver nice indeed on presumably EGA graphics mode, but surely there's a more efficient way to drive that mode and get a playable game play speed
I NEED one of those squeaky drives in my life LOL! Coincidentially, I have an XT to repair/test/restore sitting in my shop! Much dirtier than yours! And it has a squeaky drive in it! It's not mine though so the happiness is going to be short-lived. Nice job with the floppy drive!
You may want to check the DIP switch configuration on your 5160 motherboard. The beeps you are getting during power on are not normal. I believe the beep code the system is giving you is a video error which means you probably have the DIP switch set wrong for your graphics card. It is probably set for a CGA or MDA card when it should be set for a card with a BIOS ROM because I am pretty sure the card you are using has it's own video BIOS chip like EGA and VGA cards do. Most software will still work properly with the video DIP switches set wrong but a few applications may get confused if they rely on the DIP switch settings instead of detecting the video hardware directly.
@@Epictronics1 : Good to know, that somebody's already working on it... Though, just for inspiration, I think there'd be two ways, both pin headers out on one side. Or, my personal favourite (and for more mechanical stability), one line of pins on each side, thus mounting the board in the centre of the socket. You might even go overkill and use an edge connector, instead of a DIP socket (and pin headers). In my uneducated opinion that would certainly the "quote on quote" (yes, I spelled it out) Bad Ass Solution. I know, what's the point in an edge connector if you have to solder anyhow, but... why not...
IIRC, the 5.02 release fixed the somewhat intentional crash of the editor on non-IBM hardware. (It checked for the BASIC ROM, for no apparent reason, I think.)
I'm also having a fiddle with that (I just started learning Kicad so love any chance) ... I forked the Github and have shaved 1.91mm off ... width goes from 29.21mm to 27.3mm. Could probably take more off by moving the R3/D1/D2/etc from the right side to the left side of the components? /Brett
@@Brfff It's rather difficult to measure. My best guess is that we need to shave off 2mm on the ISA slot side and slightly more on the other side to clear the AT connector. I'd be happy to order the first set of PCBs to test.
The problem with painting floppy disk drives is that inevitably the paint will scrape off and expose the original color (usually around the flap and the button) and it looks worse than before. Ask me how I know..... :D
Since you have added the overclock board for turbo, with headers for turbo and reset switches, along with the 3.5 floppy adapter, I wonder if there is a way to add those switches to the 3.5 adapter that does not look too out of place on that old XT.
That is actually an excellent idea. I just mounted the turbo switch and the reset button on a slot cover at the back but your idea is much more practical. I'll see if I can find nice matching switches to put in the front panel instead, Thanks
Thank you again Sir. I'm waiting for my 256Kbit chips to arrive (from Unicorn Electronics in the US) so I can upgrade my 5160 motherboard to 640KBytes as well. I'll definitely look at doing this upgrade too. /Brett
@@Epictronics1 I shaved 2.46mm off the PCB width (26.75mm vs original 29.21mm) ... will print out the PCB and have a quick check in my 5160 before getting the boards made to see if it's any better ...
Is the tiny notch in that wedge tip on your soldering iron original ?... or did it accidentally or purposefully get added ? I filed a notch in one of mine just like that for hitting pins and legs.
I use the same PC-Sprint+V20 setup in a 5155 and it works really well. Ended up doing the stacked sockets as well but turnpins since they seem to be more tight.
I used machined/turnpins too. It works ok but I would have preferred a slightly smaller PC-Sprint that would sit flush in the original socket. I'm definitely putting one in the 5155 too
@@TheSimTetuChannel I forget what exact V20 model I got, though if I recall it was a plastic package and definitely one of the faster rated versions. It runs at 7.37 MHz in my 5155 and I am assuming it could probably be clocked higher but didn't have more suitable crystals to test (seems to be more forgiving than an 8088 in any case).
A very worthwhile upgrade, and that 3.5" drive in there actually aesthetically works better than I'd thought it would. The whole thing looks great! I never was much of a fan of the angled IBM front bezel TBH, though. I liked the looks of the Compaq Deskpro Model 1 far more. I wish I'd held onto mine.
@@Epictronics1I saw one on ebay (US) today for $200. Not in bad cosmetic shape. No keyboard or monitor with it, though they were both listed too by other sellers. The monitor was another $225, though. If I had the time to do the system justice, I'd snatch it all up. Maybe you should do so, and then make a video about it. I'd definitely watch that! :)
"It doesn't matter how much space you have - you'll just fill it up with stuff." My lady says this to me. I think she's exaggerating though. I still have a path to the door and everything.
These are all useful skills to have that prepares us for when the high altitude EMP blast sends Western civilization back to the 19th century. Resurrecting old computers, we'll be like Cuba keeping 1950s cars running for decades.
IBM XT 5160 repair and restoration: ruclips.net/video/X15hLGrxD0s/видео.htmlsi=2B1YYq-04cesUUl4
Suport me on patreon.com/Epictronics
I uploaded a short of the scale comparison between the new slim board and standard "wide" board design, should have my samples in a few days, but now I need to locate a good 5160 XT
I'm not into DOS or gaming, yet I find your videos so interesting and enjoyable that I watch every one of them. The only sad part is remembering the machines I scrapped when everyone else did. 😢
Thanks. Yeah, we all made the same mistake. Thank god for eBay
I knew from the start decades ago that if I throw any machines away, I might regret it, thus I've kept every computer that me & my family have gotten over the years, since the C-64 in 1983 (I have 3 64's). I don't really collect computers, thus my "collection" is just keeping what we've bought for actual usage. This includes a few 8088's. However, I did find about 5 Windows 7 & 8.1-era laptops at the recycler for free a few years ago, but I have yet to start working on them, heh. Gonna try to use them for RUclips editing & uploading, & then maybe try my hand at these types of vintage machine videos, hopefully. We've also kept a handful of typewriters (manuals, electrics & electronic) that we bought over the years, since the 1970's, as well as desktop printing calculators. And I'm hoping that the unknown future is not going to press me to get rid of any of my machines out of desperation & necessity any time soon.
@@robwebnoid5763 Awesome, I wish I had done the same
indeed, wish still had the Tandy 1000 that had back in the 80s. At the time it was an affordable entry level PC clone - nothing special to write home about, but these days its a highly prized vintage collectable :-)
@@TheSulross ... Funny you say that, I still have a Tandy 1000A that my family friend gave to me for free, including a free dotmatrix printer, a composite amber monitor & some floppy disks, back in the mid 1990s. I assume he had had it since the 1980s prior to giving it away to me. I think he used it for a car shop business. Once I got it, I had connected an external Zip drive to it, & I think I also put in a hard drive at one point early on. Three decades later & all those things still work. The only thing I don't like about the 1000A is that the power supply fan is noisy & it runs off 120V AC, so I am going to try to modify it & disable that fan & maybe add a 12V less noisy computer fan or something. The MCGA/TGA feature alone is worthy of keeping a 1000A. :)
"Sounds better than most songs on the radio today."
Sad but true.
I've never owned PCs quite this old when I was young but it's nice to see them running in this day & age!
Awesome. I just sent one to Adrian Black and he got an XT clone to 11Mhz! I like the red PCB. Got mine from PCB Way too.
Oh, I had missed that video, I'll watch it now
@@Epictronics1 cpugalaxy 1fps Quake challenge soon?
@@NielsHeusinkveld Haha, I wonder how many hours it would take for an XT to run through a quake-era benchmark if we could make it run it
2 pc sprint video the same week !!!! I had one also for my Columbia Data Products VP 1600 transportable project rebuild hoping it will run at 8 mhz I could only find 24mhz crystal locally
IBM's FDISK is blue from version 4.0 for some reason, but otherwise identical to Microsoft's.
I overclocked my Atari PC3 a year ago by installing a NEC V20 and replacing the standard crystal of 24Mhz to one of 30Mhz. it went from 8Mhz to about 11 Mhz. that with the V20 gave it a great speed boost. The VGA card that I installed before that had to be changed to another model since it paniced since the ISA bus also overclocked because of this. went with a ET4000 (16 bit but works great in a 8-bit slot).
Great, maybe it would be possible to make an interposer for it to separate the ISA bus from the faster crystal too?
@@Epictronics1 Well, part of the appeal to overclock was to speed up the god awful speed of the ISA bus, and IIRC most cards handled a 30-50% speed increase quite well. I never tried it with a wide range of cards of course.
@@Epictronics1 Many later ISA cards tended to handle overclocking better, because the longer ISA was out, the more variability there was in the bus. ISA card vendors had to account for that increased variability if they wanted their card to work with as many bus speeds as possible.
Some really terrible clone "turbo" systems in the 286 era would run the ISA bus at the CPU speed, so you could have an ISA bus that ran at 16-20 MHz. Very few cards work at all at this speed.
By the time the Pentium came out, the ISA bus regularly ran at 11-13.8 MHz, being on a /3 divider off the PCI bus. Since the PCI bus itself was usually on a /2 divider off the FSB, you could end up with wildly out of spec clocks like 37.5 or 41.5 if you had a 75 or 83 MHz FSB, which directly affected the ISA bus clock. Thanks Cyrix.
I had a similar microscope, but I was able to modify the exposure and ISO in the menu system. Mine has the capability to use as a USB camera device, but it's basically useless without adding a TON of light, because the driver support is so bad.
I've got a 5160 motherboard that I picked up for cheap because it's faulty, which I really wish I had the time to troubleshoot and repair. Sadly it's pretty low on the list of projects, since I don't have a case to put it in. I've been keeping an eye out on eBay for even an XT clone type case (let alone a 5160), but they're not really easy to find in good condition for a reasonable price. I did just buy a NEC V20 chip, so the PC Sprint would definitely be a cool upgrade if I ever get the 5160 board up and running.
The trick is to have as many projects as possible, that way there is always something to work on while looking/waiting for parts lol
I used to play Prince of Persia on my IBM PC with a CGA card back in the early 90's. It played very nicely.
I think the fancy EGA graphics are slowing it down. I'm gonna have to do a comparison
@@Epictronics1 Who knows, my memories from when I was a kid might be flawed too. I may have had slowdowns but still played through because it was still at least playable.
Also, I think I was able to play this on my other PC that I had back then, an XT clone with a hercules monochrome card. I remember it being not the easiest to find games that could make use of that card, outside of the Sierra and Broderbund titles that I had.
yeah, was rather shocked at the slow play speed given Prince of Persia runs at decent play speed at 1Mhz on an Apple II with color graphics.
The visual quality was ver nice indeed on presumably EGA graphics mode, but surely there's a more efficient way to drive that mode and get a playable game play speed
I NEED one of those squeaky drives in my life LOL! Coincidentially, I have an XT to repair/test/restore sitting in my shop! Much dirtier than yours! And it has a squeaky drive in it! It's not mine though so the happiness is going to be short-lived.
Nice job with the floppy drive!
Thanks Tony. Looking forward to an XT restoration video on your channel!
You may want to check the DIP switch configuration on your 5160 motherboard. The beeps you are getting during power on are not normal. I believe the beep code the system is giving you is a video error which means you probably have the DIP switch set wrong for your graphics card.
It is probably set for a CGA or MDA card when it should be set for a card with a BIOS ROM because I am pretty sure the card you are using has it's own video BIOS chip like EGA and VGA cards do.
Most software will still work properly with the video DIP switches set wrong but a few applications may get confused if they rely on the DIP switch settings instead of detecting the video hardware directly.
Thanks, I'll check and set the jumpers accordingly
I had a Type 10 in a 286 - it was the same physical size, BUT half the capacity ;)
haha, and yet, I think these drives are awesome :)
@@Epictronics1 They make great noises!
the circut needs to be redesigned so it fits vertical so putting 2 x 90 Deg pin headers coming from board edge
That would work. Not sure if there are such machined pin headers though. Regular pin headers would crush the socket
@Gurudumps Great!
Instead of shaving off the edges, of the add on board, how about using pin headers to mount it vertically (like a riser board)?
That would totally work too. However, super-skinny boards are already in the making by a viewer : )
@@Epictronics1 : Good to know, that somebody's already working on it...
Though, just for inspiration, I think there'd be two ways, both pin headers out on one side.
Or, my personal favourite (and for more mechanical stability), one line of pins on each side, thus mounting the board in the centre of the socket.
You might even go overkill and use an edge connector, instead of a DIP socket (and pin headers). In my uneducated opinion that would certainly the "quote on quote" (yes, I spelled it out) Bad Ass Solution.
I know, what's the point in an edge connector if you have to solder anyhow, but... why not...
IIRC, the 5.02 release fixed the somewhat intentional crash of the editor on non-IBM hardware. (It checked for the BASIC ROM, for no apparent reason, I think.)
Ill redesign the board in a few to better suit the 5160.
Great, thanks!
I'm also having a fiddle with that (I just started learning Kicad so love any chance) ... I forked the Github and have shaved 1.91mm off ... width goes from 29.21mm to 27.3mm. Could probably take more off by moving the R3/D1/D2/etc from the right side to the left side of the components? /Brett
I'm guessing the Model 5155 (Portable PC) will have the same issue?
@@Brfff Yes, They have identical motherboards
@@Brfff It's rather difficult to measure. My best guess is that we need to shave off 2mm on the ISA slot side and slightly more on the other side to clear the AT connector. I'd be happy to order the first set of PCBs to test.
Nice!!! I'm in the process of getting parts to do the same for my mint IBM 5155, I'll keep you posted with the results.
Good luck with the project
NEC V20 D70108HCZ-16 is now in and works fine.
Waiting for my PC-Sprint board from PCBWAY...
The problem with painting floppy disk drives is that inevitably the paint will scrape off and expose the original color (usually around the flap and the button) and it looks worse than before. Ask me how I know..... :D
If I only had the time to use it enough to wear the paint off! I'd be more than happy to respray it again :)
@@Epictronics1 Plastidip - I think I may try that next time.
Another great video from you! Thanks for sharing
Thanks Rudy
Since you have added the overclock board for turbo, with headers for turbo and reset switches, along with the 3.5 floppy adapter, I wonder if there is a way to add those switches to the 3.5 adapter that does not look too out of place on that old XT.
That is actually an excellent idea. I just mounted the turbo switch and the reset button on a slot cover at the back but your idea is much more practical. I'll see if I can find nice matching switches to put in the front panel instead, Thanks
Startech makes all manner of useful stuff, both old and new.
These brackets are great
makes you question why they didn't just ship the machines with higher clocks.
Thanks for the content- Awesome
Thanks!
Thank you again Sir. I'm waiting for my 256Kbit chips to arrive (from Unicorn Electronics in the US) so I can upgrade my 5160 motherboard to 640KBytes as well. I'll definitely look at doing this upgrade too. /Brett
Thanks, Good luck with the project
@@Epictronics1 I shaved 2.46mm off the PCB width (26.75mm vs original 29.21mm) ... will print out the PCB and have a quick check in my 5160 before getting the boards made to see if it's any better ...
Is the tiny notch in that wedge tip on your soldering iron original ?... or did it accidentally or purposefully get added ?
I filed a notch in one of mine just like that for hitting pins and legs.
It's actually just a very worn tip :) I've had it for ages. I kinda like it this way
I use the same PC-Sprint+V20 setup in a 5155 and it works really well. Ended up doing the stacked sockets as well but turnpins since they seem to be more tight.
I used machined/turnpins too. It works ok but I would have preferred a slightly smaller PC-Sprint that would sit flush in the original socket. I'm definitely putting one in the 5155 too
Nice to hear it works on the 5155 as I'm waiting for my PC-Sprint to push my NEC V20 D70108HCZ-16 to the next level... Which V20 model do you have?
@@TheSimTetuChannel I forget what exact V20 model I got, though if I recall it was a plastic package and definitely one of the faster rated versions. It runs at 7.37 MHz in my 5155 and I am assuming it could probably be clocked higher but didn't have more suitable crystals to test (seems to be more forgiving than an 8088 in any case).
What's with the weird vertical white bar on the 5153 monitor at 15:34?
I don't know. Never seen that before
@@Epictronics1 Is it something you saw IRL, or could it be a video editing artefact?
@@ropersonline I got it IRL. Could be an AST graphics card thing
A very worthwhile upgrade, and that 3.5" drive in there actually aesthetically works better than I'd thought it would. The whole thing looks great! I never was much of a fan of the angled IBM front bezel TBH, though. I liked the looks of the Compaq Deskpro Model 1 far more. I wish I'd held onto mine.
Thanks, Yeah, I'd love to have an early black front Deskpro. I've been trying to find one for years
@@Epictronics1I saw one on ebay (US) today for $200. Not in bad cosmetic shape. No keyboard or monitor with it, though they were both listed too by other sellers. The monitor was another $225, though. If I had the time to do the system justice, I'd snatch it all up. Maybe you should do so, and then make a video about it. I'd definitely watch that! :)
@@msthalamus2172 I had a look but couldn't find it. Could you send me a link? epictronicsyt@gmail.com
prince of persia worked ok with a 12mhz V20 XT clone and 8-bit paradise 256k VGA card back in the day.....
Yeah, now that I think about it. I think I played it on an 8086. Maybe a 286 isn't really needed
Is it the maximum magnification it can go up to? Sorry I would need at least double that for it to be useful.
I had the microscope as far as possible from the PCB for soldering through-hole components, so minimal magnification throughout the video
"It doesn't matter how much space you have - you'll just fill it up with stuff."
My lady says this to me. I think she's exaggerating though. I still have a path to the door and everything.
😅
have you tried giving that v20 the full 10mhz it deserves?
I'll order some more crystals and try to find faster RAM chips. Coming up soon!
'promo ended' for the 201Max :(
Oh well...
Oh crap. Something's wrong, it should last until September 12. I'll check and fix it. Thanks for letting me know
These are all useful skills to have that prepares us for when the high altitude EMP blast sends Western civilization back to the 19th century. Resurrecting old computers, we'll be like Cuba keeping 1950s cars running for decades.
👍
this guy sounds like christopher walken, with an accent lol
cga should have been illegal
It existed for a valid set of reasons.