IBM portable personal computer

[Thegrimfew2]

Hey I'm posting here as I have been a veiwer on LTT for a while. My mother told me about a "compact luggable" is what she called it. In truth it is a 1985 or 1986 IBM portable personal computer. I'm wondering first off if LTT would be interested in looking at it? And second I plan to use a raspberry pi monitor and hopefully a full computer-ish(?) inside. I hope I can get advice and maybe a few recommendations on how to proceed. Thank you all, Thegrimfew2

 

[kelvinhall05]

Nononono *don't* rip that thing apart and shove a computer inside it, much less a shitty Raspberry Pi.

 

 

 

Restore it and either sell it or donate it to a museum or someone who cares about vintage computers. LTT will use it once and forget about it, and that's if they wanted it at all.

[SenKa]

That is a somewhat later PPC than mine, I have the original 5155 model. Happy to see more, regardless!

 

Does it still work?

[Thegrimfew2]

On 11/27/2019 at 12:10 PM, SenKa said:

That is a somewhat later PPC than mine, I have the original 5155 model. Happy to see more, regardless!

 

Does it still work?

I don't believe so I pulled it out of storage on the 25th or 26th of Nov. and it hasn't been touched since early 90's is what I'm told. Also I haven't turned it on since I peaked inside and I don't know much about what the condition inside should be given the fact it was in my garage and misc. storage areas for close to 30 years now. Also I was told it was never cleaned.

[SenKa]

11 hours ago, Thegrimfew2 said:

I don't believe so I pulled it out of storage on the 25th or 26th of Nov. and it hasn't been touched since early 90's is what I'm told. Also I haven't turned it on since I peaked inside and I don't know much about what the condition inside should be given the fact it was in my garage and misc. storage areas for close to 30 years now. Also I was told it was never cleaned.

Well, plug it in and turn it on to see what it does.

 

If it shows any signs of life, you'd be better off selling it off. Theyre worth a pretty good amount of money.

[Thegrimfew2]

I booted it up. The screen works and all but I don't know what I'm doing. Also I looked on eBay at past spellings of this model and ~98% of them all have extra add-in cards. Also I like the case and all but I'd rather have a modern-ish gaming computer in it. I'm looking at what boards and things will work and if the price is way higher than I like then I will probably sell but I would rather build in it than sell it.

[Ben17]

2 hours ago, Thegrimfew2 said:

I booted it up. The screen works and all but I don't know what I'm doing. Also I looked on eBay at past spellings of this model and ~98% of them all have extra add-in cards. Also I like the case and all but I'd rather have a moder

Dont rip it apart 

[Thegrimfew2]

On 12/2/2019 at 3:32 AM, Ben17 said:

Dont rip it apart 

Why not? I looked on eBay and it's going for $300+ with the higher card counts but I only have the printer card and video out put. But I think I'm going to build inside the case. Built a profile on PC parts picker that I think would be cool to put inside. It's up to my mother though because it her computer and was my grandfathers computer first. So I'll have to ask them first. I'll give you all the link to the profile in my next post.

[Ben17]

1 hour ago, Thegrimfew2 said:

Why not? I looked on eBay and it's going for $300+ with the higher card counts but I only have the printer card and video out put. But I think I'm going to build inside the case. Built a profile on PC parts picker that I think would be cool to put inside. It's up to my mother though because it her computer and was my grandfathers computer first. So I'll have to ask them first. I'll give you all the link to the profile in my next post.

That's my personal recommendation but it's your choice though I'm not going to tell you what to do

[Thegrimfew2]

7 hours ago, Ben17 said:

That's my personal recommendation but it's your choice though I'm not going to tell you what to do

Fair enough I still have to thing about it though. Ill keep updates running

 

[Thegrimfew2]

Here is the link as promised

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/thegrimfew2/saved/#view=f8yJbv

[Ben17]

7 hours ago, Thegrimfew2 said:

Fair enough I still have to thing about it though. Ill keep updates running

 

Its hard to get those pcs these days that why I was saying that

Can't seem to access the pcpartpicker link though?

[Thegrimfew2]

13 hours ago, Ben17 said:

Its hard to get those pcs these days that why I was saying that

Can't seem to access the pcpartpicker link though?

Off I got the link to work on my phone which isn't signed into my PC parts picker account. Did you try to copy it or select it and open?

 

[Ben17]

8 hours ago, Thegrimfew2 said:

Off I got the link to work on my phone which isn't signed into my PC parts picker account. Did you try to copy it or select it and open?

 

got it to work now now not sure what was happening before?

dont throw away the internal components that are in it though

[Thegrimfew2]

On 12/5/2019 at 3:27 AM, Ben17 said:

got it to work now now not sure what was happening before?

dont throw away the internal components that are in it though

Oh of course not. Its terrible practice to toss tech hardware with out knowledge of it being broken.

[Thegrimfew2]

So any thoughts on my parts list? @Ben17 @SenKa and others? I don't have the money to make this yet but I'm working on it.

 

[Ben17]

On 12/16/2019 at 12:50 AM, Thegrimfew2 said:

So any thoughts on my parts list? @Ben17 @SenKa and others? I don't have the money to make this yet but I'm working on it.

 

It looks good to me though i'm not the best at parts lists

do u get a prompt something like this on it if you boot it up? 

[Thegrimfew2]

2 hours ago, Ben17 said:

It looks good to me though i'm not the best at parts lists

do u get a prompt something like this on it if you boot it up? 

I don't know if you mean for the DOS system or windows. If windows I don't have the system as of now (also I can't read the code in the image). If you mean for DOS I'm about the boot it up and check. I honestly have no idea right now. I'll update when I'm done.

[Ben17]

19 hours ago, Thegrimfew2 said:

I don't know if you mean for the DOS system or windows. If windows I don't have the system as of now (also I can't read the code in the image). If you mean for DOS I'm about the boot it up and check. I honestly have no idea right now. I'll update when I'm done.

It's just a screenshot of command prompt in full screen that what they used to use to run those computers I think...though sometimes you need a bootable floppy disc with DOS/ the os on it. Let me know how it goes

Hope u have a nice Christmas btw

[Thegrimfew2]

23 hours ago, Ben17 said:

It's just a screenshot of command prompt in full screen that what they used to use to run those computers I think...though sometimes you need a bootable floppy disc with DOS/ the os on it. Let me know how it goes

Hope u have a nice Christmas btw

I've got the computer booted now it's got a few lines of DOS CMD style-ish code inputs and outputs. If you have the time I would appreciate it If you could give me a direct message it would be much appreciated. Anyways hope your Christmas is good as well!