Old IBM compatible PC/XT/AT cards

[james_s]

I've always liked the IBM ATs. A few years ago somebody found a stash of NOS ATs still sealed in the box, I was really tempted to buy one but couldn't justify paying a few hundred bucks for something I don't need.

[rsjsouza]

At the time, math coprocessors were available from even more manufacturers than CPUs. Cyrix got its start making x87 coprocessors, and they were also available from Intel, AMD, IIT, Texas Instruments, Weitek, ULSI, Harris, and Xtend.

Also NEC (?) had a CMOS math chip for the 8088.  I put one in my Toshiba T1000 laptop (4.77 MHz 80C88).  The T1000 has the 768 KB memory expansion board which increases the RAM to 640K.  The rest of the memory is used as a RAM disk.    The T1000 is still ticking.  I just rebuilt the battery pack a couple of month ago.  I mainly use it as a terminal to Data I/O Unisite and 3980 device programmers

And yes, the PC/AT had a math chip and a 16 MHz crystal upgrade.   It has a 20 MB Rodime hard drive which now sounds rather iffy.

In my country (Brasil) the coprocessors were not readily available; Cyrix started to flood the market there only when their i387 was mainstream.

The PC-XTs in Brasil were mostly NEC V20s; much faster at 10.368MHz (IIRC) when compared to the regular 4.77MHz. Our 286, however, was a full blown 16MHz and the motherboard had SIPP memory interfaces.

[rrinker]

 I swapped my 8088 with a v20 in my system - it was already an 8MHz 8088 so it was faster even without the NEC CPU, but the NEC one was even faster. I don;t recall (or at least it wasn't as readily available) NEC math coprocessor, I had an ordinary Intel 8087.
 Digging in a box of old chips (in anti-stat foam), I somehow still have the v20. I don;t think I would have bought 2 of them, and I last used the machine in the mid-90's when I donated it to the model railroad club I belonged to, complete with a couple of programs I wrote to keep track of membership and also manage the small store we ran. Can't imagine I would have swapped the CPU back, but obviously I did. Unless I came across a second v20 later on - I put the v20 and the 8087 in it when I was still in college, probably in '87.

I do remember STB, and particularly AST - one of the companies I worked for, we commonly sold AST servers.

[TheEPROM9]

Feel free to post pictures of your oddball vintage IBM PC/XT/AT compatible cards.

To get started, this is an old IRMA board used to interface the PCXT with an IBM 3270. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irma_board

Yep that be my mystry card =-)

[rich.holmteam]

Odd ball board.  Emulex DCP-286.  We used them for high speed async and sync market data feeds in the 80s and 90s.  In the late 1990s, everything switched to udp and tcp.

Cheers,
Rich


Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

[NoPizzaTonite]

My old BYAD CPM card running in my IBM PC. 

https://youtu.be/SbYcjrezJHs

Hi Joe

I have an identical setup to what you have in your video:
https://youtu.be/SbYcjrezJHs

same 5150, same BYAD card, etc

Our systems could be twins

I am missing the BYAD software/manual you use in your video. Can you help me with this?

-Alex

[joeqsmith]

My old BYAD CPM card running in my IBM PC. 

https://youtu.be/SbYcjrezJHs

Hi Joe

I have an identical setup to what you have in your video:
https://youtu.be/SbYcjrezJHs

same 5150, same BYAD card, etc

Our systems could be twins

I am missing the BYAD software/manual you use in your video. Can you help me with this?

-Alex

I suggest starting a thread and provide some idea what equipment you have available and what tools you are using?   I am not sure if the old image software would support a USB floppy, new PC or even if you have a new PC with a floppy.   Lot's of unknowns.  I am expecting you have all the details sorted out.    Do you even know if the card you have is functional?  You have a PC that you can use it with.   

Make a blog on the open forum and we can get started.

I suggest using this area:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/vintage-computing/

Looking at Rawwrite, it seems they have some newer flavors but nothing for a modern PC and no mention of working with a USB floppy.

How are you planning to get the data onto the disks?  What equipment do you have (working) that we can use?

[james_s]

A fairly easy way to get old software onto old disks is to put a XT-IDE card in the PC and use a more modern IDE drive or CF card to transfer the disk images and then write them using a disk imager program that runs on the old PC.

[joeqsmith]

I assume you are thinking they have a modern PC with CF support, write the image to CF,  plug the CF into the XT-IDE card, plug that card into the PC and transfer the data to floppy?

One problem is the early PCs didn't support calling external PROMs.   I am not sure if there is a modern version of RAWWRITE that supports a USB floppy. 

I'll wait and see what the OP has in mind. 

[NoPizzaTonite]

I was going to use the Gotek I configured for my 51xx PCs -
See my video here: https://youtu.be/G4xUo2LKrKo

I create boot disks with it

There is a Win version of Rawwrite as well:
http://www.chrysocome.net/rawwrite

I'm certain I can adapt to whatever is convenient since I have a lot of different ways I can support (Gotek, XT-IDE, Rawwrite, FTP, etc.).
Might be a newbie to the forum here, but not a newbie to the retro computers I grew up with - I have a lot of retro systems (IBM, TRS80, Commodores etc)
It's just the BYAD software has been elusive for me since this card is so low production

Don Maslin had a set of (2) BYAD diskettes in his collection (per the Comp History Museum), but no one seems to have them in the archives  - so I jumped when I saw Joe's video

-Alex

[joeqsmith]

I haven't used XP for some time but sounds like you can handle the RAWWRITE image.  That's what we will go with. 

Have you checked into if we are violating any laws by replicating the OS?  If we have permission to provide them to the public domain, that is what I would like to do.

[Stray Electron]

My old BYAD CPM card running in my IBM PC. 

https://youtu.be/SbYcjrezJHs

  I bought a used IBM PC in about 1987 that had a Baby Blue CPM card in it.  IIRC the card had an 8085 CPU and 64k of RAM on it. It came with the CPM disk and some accounting application for it but I wasn't into CPM so I took the card out and gave it way :-(  The original owner was a very large retirement home in downtown Orlando and they never used it for DOS, they only used that one application under CPM.

  I still have piles of old IBM PC cards including quite few that are still NIB. One of those is a NIB National Instruments GPIB card but in a box from IBM and with an IBM marked manual. The card that came with it is a standard 8 bit NI GPIB card. I also have the same complete package but from National instruments.

  About a month ago in the scrap pile in a local surplus store I found a still NIB expansion card for the IBM PC that had been laying around for about the last 35 years so some of that stuff is still out. But I'll be d*** if I can remember what kind of card it was or who made. About two weeks ago I found two slightly used S-100 prototyping boards and a no-name 8 bit ISA memory expansion board full of socketed 4164 ICs in the same surplus store.

  I have several 8 bit ISA prototyping boards with wire wrap sockets on them and made by MUPAC and and also a new 8 bit prototyping board still in the sealed package and originally sold by Jamco. 

[Stray Electron]

I still have an IBM PC/AT with a two digit serial number (or is it three digit).   Picked it up from Computerland 1 second after they were allowed to sell them...

  Back in about 1991 I was helping to replace to the mixed bag of old odds and ends PCs and install new 386 computers at Martin Marietta Electronic and Missiles Systems in Orlando. We went into the office of one of the VPs there and he had the first style 64k IBM PC (with the cassette port) with nothing but an IBM 3270 IRMA card in it. The only thing that he'd ever used the computer for was to send and receive E-mails and the serial number on the computer was 000241. He was still using two floppy drives (full height) and a monochrome monitor and was running DOS 2.1.


   I couldn't afford an IBM when the PCs first came out so I bought a Sanyo  MBC-550 "MS-DOS compatible" (wink-wink!) computer. What mistake that turned out to be! I beat on that for about 3 years but when I finished school and started working and had some money, the first thing that I bought was an IBM PC. I then upgraded it by replacing the Intel CPU with an NEC V-20. Sadly I sold it some years later. But about 15 years ago I found another original IBM PC system in a surplus store. I hadn't seen one in a long time and I thought I might never see another one in-the-wild and that I should grab it. So I did and sure enough it was the last one that I've seen outside of a collection or E-Greed.  It's still sitting in the corner of my living room and was still running the last time that I tried it. I've added an AST 6 pack card, a 20 Mb HardCard and some kind of monochrome graphics card but it's still has the original IBM monochrome monitor, full height floppy drives and the IBM keyboard (84 key?) without the cursor keys. And I've added an old ALPS dot matrix printer, that's an upgrade from the Tokyo Electric Company daisy wheel printer that I used to have with it. That thing sounded like a machine gun when you printed with it! I later found an original IBM Graphics Printer and one of these days I'll get around to adding it to the system.

[NoPizzaTonite]

I haven't used XP for some time but sounds like you can handle the RAWWRITE image.  That's what we will go with. 

Have you checked into if we are violating any laws by replicating the OS?  If we have permission to provide them to the public domain, that is what I would like to do.

Hi Joe - so I would surmise it would not be an issue for me having the files that came with the BYAD since BYAD Inc has been out of business for some time and the software supports the BYAD board (which I legally own) - I don't know if you can even use the BYAD software with any other board - I couldn't speak as to the legalities of putting it in the public domain.

The reason I no longer have the files is the floppy was in the documentation binder and I have no clue whatever happened to it over the years. I'm just now dusting this card off.

(note today's date underneath card)


-Alex

[joeqsmith]

I would image it was licensed by DR or Intel.   Doing a quick search:   http://www.faqs.org/faqs/CPM-faq/     

I have released data like this in the past.  Granted, it's not always been the easiest to obtain authorization.   

[joeqsmith]

Also, if you know of a program like Rawrite that will run under Windows 10 and supports the USB floppy drives, that would be perfect.    Otherwise, I have to drag out one of my old PCs to try and get an image file made.   

****
Scratch that.   It doesn't look I can use a 5 inch drive on the USB.   

[joeqsmith]

..
I have several 8 bit ISA prototyping boards with wire wrap sockets on them and made by MUPAC and and also a new 8 bit prototyping board still in the sealed package and originally sold by Jamco.

I designed and built a few cards for PCs using WW.  Here are the last two 8-bit boards.   

This was the last board I ever designed for the PC, starting at about 8:15.   

 

Part II shows the board in operation running a home made CPU.

[NoPizzaTonite]

Also, if you know of a program like Rawrite that will run under Windows 10 and supports the USB floppy drives, that would be perfect.    Otherwise, I have to drag out one of my old PCs to try and get an image file made.   

****
Scratch that.   It doesn't look I can use a 5 inch drive on the USB.

Yeah - I was going to write that I don't know of a 64bit software for USB floppies - WinImage would have been my first thought but it only supports 1.44Mb USB floppies - and even if it did support 5.25, I don't know if it would be able to read a CP/M diskette anyway (no real thing as a standard CP/M format)



Well hey.... next time you break out one of your legacy PC's to play with - remember this post   - I don't want to cause too much disruption - it's not like a pressing thing - I just found the card, looked at my PC's and decided to rekindle the past a little

[NoPizzaTonite]

Since I seem to have hijacked this thread a bit (sorry folks) - here's my contribution

Tiny Turbo Accelerator for PC/XT

[Stray Electron]

..
I have several 8 bit ISA prototyping boards with wire wrap sockets on them and made by MUPAC and and also a new 8 bit prototyping board still in the sealed package and originally sold by Jamco.

I designed and built a few cards for PCs using WW.  Here are the last two 8-bit boards.

  I was a field engineer for a large computer company for a couple of years and I did a LOT of WW back in the day and I still have all of the tools including a couple of electric WW guns and several rolls of WW wire. But I HATED the stuff! First it was too easy to make a mistake and connect to the wrong posts. Second, when you tried to wrap them, the wires would often break right at the point that the insulation began and you'd have to replace the entire wire. And I found that even when the end of the wire was bare and that I had metal to metal contact with the post, it still wouldn't make good electrical contact. I resorted to soldering all of the posts after I added the wire to them but that made repairs and circuit modifications almost impossible; and frequently the insulation on the wire would melt or shrink back and expose the conductor and that lead to shorts to the other pins. 

  WW was a slow, tedious, torturous process.  I salute you for actually building something and making it work with that process.

[joeqsmith]

Also, if you know of a program like Rawrite that will run under Windows 10 and supports the USB floppy drives, that would be perfect.    Otherwise, I have to drag out one of my old PCs to try and get an image file made.   

****
Scratch that.   It doesn't look I can use a 5 inch drive on the USB.

Yeah - I was going to write that I don't know of a 64bit software for USB floppies - WinImage would have been my first thought but it only supports 1.44Mb USB floppies - and even if it did support 5.25, I don't know if it would be able to read a CP/M diskette anyway (no real thing as a standard CP/M format)



Well hey.... next time you break out one of your legacy PC's to play with - remember this post   - I don't want to cause too much disruption - it's not like a pressing thing - I just found the card, looked at my PC's and decided to rekindle the past a little

No problem as you did say you would cover my time and I am sure you know while I can be bought, my rates are not cheap.   

Of course, dragging out the old Pentium, the boot drive is dead with the typical hunt noise.  Nothing I can't handle but the price just went up.   

[joeqsmith]

A moment of silence for my 1997, 4.3GB drive.   May you rest in peace.   

https://manualzz.com/doc/1378630/maxtor-86480d8-specifications

[joeqsmith]

  I was a field engineer for a large computer company for a couple of years and I did a LOT of WW back in the day and I still have all of the tools including a couple of electric WW guns and several rolls of WW wire. But I HATED the stuff! First it was too easy to make a mistake and connect to the wrong posts. Second, when you tried to wrap them, the wires would often break right at the point that the insulation began and you'd have to replace the entire wire. And I found that even when the end of the wire was bare and that I had metal to metal contact with the post, it still wouldn't make good electrical contact. I resorted to soldering all of the posts after I added the wire to them but that made repairs and circuit modifications almost impossible; and frequently the insulation on the wire would melt or shrink back and expose the conductor and that lead to shorts to the other pins. 

  WW was a slow, tedious, torturous process.  I salute you for actually building something and making it work with that process.

These boards were done by hand.  Hand strip and cut each wire and hand wrap.   I used to use a gun that was fully automatic using Slit-Wrap.  A friend of mine had worked on some WW boards that were put into space.    The last board I ever WW was a transient generator I designed to test multi-meters.  I used all old tech, including the 6801.  Was it really as bad as I remembered....  Yes, it was!  lol.   

[NoPizzaTonite]

No problem as you did say you would cover my time and I am sure you know while I can be bought, my rates are not cheap.   

Of course, dragging out the old Pentium, the boot drive is dead with the typical hunt noise.  Nothing I can't handle but the price just went up.

I would find personal pleasure in covering the cost of your time, especially since you obviously now will have a boot drive replacement on your hands!

I would also be happy to mail you a pretty identical replacement to the poor drive you just lost (same vintage model year I believe) if you like (not kidding)

-Alex

[joeqsmith]

Do you have a do not exceed amount you want to stick with?