IBM 5170 AT

View of system with cover off - cards from left to right - CGA board, 256k memory expansion board, unknown speen modem, Linksys network card, CD-ROM controller card, Joysitck card, Serial/Parallel card, Hard disk/Floppy controller.

Screenshot of WordPerfect 5.1 starting

A bit of personal stuff:

My IBM 5170 AT started it's life as as my Leading Edge Model D... well... not *really*. But through having the Model D, I got my 5170. After the Model D decided to up and die, I took it to a local guy named Ozzie that I met at a flea market in Ohio (well, not really local, about 20 minutes away) - he was also rebuilding my GoldStar (this was when I was first getting into computers) He told me that the LE was toast, and for the HardCards that were in it, he'd give me the 5170, along with an EGA card for it. When I got it home, I took off the cover, and found a whole colony of dust bunnies living inside. I sucked out all the dirt and dust with a shop vac (there was even an old wasp nest in it). It had a generic 286 motherboard, 2 MB RAM, 1.2MB floppy, parallel/serial card, and a 40 meg Tandon half-height 5.25" MFM hard drive. This computer lasted about a month until the on-board NiCd CMOS battery decided to explode (literally - it popped while I was using the computer). I didn't know what happened, finished what I was doing, and the next time I used it, it said that there was a configuration error, and when I tried to access the CMOS setup, I only got horizontal lines... *parts machine*... I gutted it, saved everything but the MoBo, and put the case in storgae, along with the floppy drive. I'm not sure what happened with the Tandon hard drive (how can someone lose a 5.25" hard drive??)... Anyways, over the past 5 years, I have been collecting original parts (or close to them) here and there. It was rebuilt by me and my girlfriend a few weeks ago (Nov. 2001).

A bit of technical stuff:

Processor Type: Intel 80286 (8 MHz)

Coprocessor: Intel 80287

RAM: 640k (512k on board / 256k on expansion board)

FDD: 1.2MB 5.25"

HDD: Seagate 80 MB MFM FH 5.25 HD in HD bay / Seagate 20 MB MFM HH 5.25 HD in "basement bay"

Display: IBM 5153 color CGA monitor

Modem: 1200bps (?) internal modem

Ports: Parallel, Serial, joystick (2), RJ-45 ethernet, modem, keyboard, CD-ROM, CGA video, Composite video

Expansion: Additional ISA RAM expansion cards (?)

Keyboard: AT style (obviously)

Date: 1984

Orig. Price: $6000-$9000, depending on configuration.

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