Projects

IBM Personal Computer 5150 - April 5, 2025

I purchased this machine as a set from the original owner. It was sold to me in non working condition, but the issue ended up being a shorted tantalum capacitor on the logic board that was preventing the machine from starting up. After replacing that capacitor, the machine came to life and worked perfectly. I went in and replaced the rest of the original tantalum capacitors as preventative maintenance (they tend to explode when they fail, so best to replace the 40 year old parts). The machine now has an XTIDE bios card that also has hard drive emulation on a CF card, so the system can remain looking original from the front, but have fast and reliable flash storage hidden in the back. I also installed a serial card, so the system can run as a serial terminal for my HP 9000 series server. It is quite a fun machine with the color monitor! Updated 11/06/2025