Projects

IBM Portable Personal Computer 5155 - June 8, 2025

The term "portable" is definitely relative here, this thing is a beast of a hacked together machine, but it is incredibly well built. IBM essentially took a 5160 motherboard, CRT, two half height floppy drives, Model F keyboard, and a modified PSU and crammed them in a giant metal frame, covered by the same quality plastic found on other IBM machines of the era. This particular unit needed the typical tantalum capacitor replacements, but it works great after that work was done and the floppy drives were cleaned. I installed a XTIDE/CF hard drive emulation ISA card, as well as a serial card so I have flash storage and serial connectivity on the machine. It is a fun dinosaur, and definitely an important part of the portable PC's history. This one will definitely be in the collection for the long run. Updated 11/06/2025