IBM 5161 Expansion Unit. The first eGPU?

[bfrid3]

So this is an interesting piece of kit that I recently came across. The Expansion unit (Top) is build inside of an IBM pc chassis, but is mostly empty inside. It links to the host with a special card that is apparently very rare due to them being commonly discarded. Also the cable they use to attach is MASSIVE. After doing some preliminary research this seems to be a very rare item to have, never mind having it complete and functioning.. It was a very cool find and I currently have a CGA card, and a modem card installed in this alongside the hard disk controller and receiver card.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RedEvoPro]

Super Cool!

[ProjectBox153]

That is very nice. It sort of reminds me of my IBM PS/1 model 2011 with the separate 5.25" floppy unit. The unit has the same footprint of the PS/1 itself but only houses the floppy drive. There was also an expansion card unit available (the Adapter Card Unit) but they're very rare.

[Guest]

Cool. Does it work?

[bfrid3]

11 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Cool. Does it work?

it does! I was very happy when my 5150 booted up with this attached and actually showed the expansion cards.

[RollinLower]

that's one beefy af cable!

also, awesome little box. does it do anything other than just expansion?

[whm1974]

Does this unit have the Professional Graphics Adapter(PGA)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Graphics_Controller

But the Wiki Entry mentions that it was on three cards.

[bfrid3]

7 hours ago, RollinLower said:

that's one beefy af cable!

also, awesome little box. does it do anything other than just expansion?

It has a hard drive and a power supply built in, but it cannot operate without a host system

[bfrid3]

On 10/17/2020 at 1:17 PM, whm1974 said:

Does this unit have the Professional Graphics Adapter(PGA)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Graphics_Controller

But the Wiki Entry mentions that it was on three cards.

It does not. The main unit has a Hercules card in it and the expansion unit has an original CGA card in it. 

[whm1974]

I didn't even know that this Expansion Unit existed. The big downside I notice right away is that this make Users look really up to use the display...

[bfrid3]

3 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

I didn't even know that this Expansion Unit existed. The big downside I notice right away is that this make Users look really up to use the display...

Yes..... it is quite annoying to use. But it is a very satisfyingly tower of power to look at. 

[Commodus]

It's amusing to think that the tiniest controller chip in your phone is probably more powerful than this expansion. Tech has changed a lot in roughly 40 years!

[Bitter]

Clint from LGR has a woody and doesn't know why yet.

[bfrid3]

1 minute ago, Commodus said:

It's amusing to think that the tiniest controller chip in your phone is probably more powerful than this expansion. Tech has changed a lot in roughly 40 years!

For sure. I would eventually like to get my hands on a copy of Flight Simulator 1.0 and try running that on here. 

[bfrid3]

On 10/16/2020 at 10:21 PM, ProjectBox153 said:

That is very nice. It sort of reminds me of my IBM PS/1 model 2011 with the separate 5.25" floppy unit. The unit has the same footprint of the PS/1 itself but only houses the floppy drive. There was also an expansion card unit available (the Adapter Card Unit) but they're very rare.

Adapter Card Unit? I haven't heard of that.