IBM 5100 Portable Computer, APL/BASIC

[alexandrufloca]

Wow, i wish to get a 5100 myself, in Europe impossible to find

[Bass]

Bass,

Saw this post. Have you gotten any further? A few months ago a dug in deep and was able to fix two of mine. Perhaps I can help? Let me know what error you are seeing, if it's different than what you posted.

Voidtstar,

Nice demo. Next time I get mine out i will try it.

I have a 5100 BASIC/APL and a 5110 BASIC/APL working for now. I had to get down to the component level to fix them but it took me a while. It was time to take a break but I will continue on with the other two next time around. I also have one or two 5120's that are basically like a 5110 but in an all-in-one form factor (not shown here).

IBM51xxssm.jpg

Never thought I'd see this thread revived again after three years but unfortunately I have not been able to make any progress since then. Since you brought it up, I figured it would be worth checking to see if it still works since I have moved a lot in the past few years and haven't turned the machine on in a while. First I got this gobbledyguck:

2021-12-04 14.56.12.jpg (2.22 MiB) Viewed 2998 times

Then after opening it up and finding one of the cards was lose, I see I now have the same diagnostic error as 3 years ago, ABCDEFGHI 12 07 (for BASIC) and 24 07 (for APL).

[alexandrufloca]

is anyone willing to trade or sell a ibm 5100?

[Palatino]

I have a 5100 but not the sort you're looking for - BTC, not IBM. It'd save you a few thousand though!

[alexandrufloca]

I have a 5100 but not the sort you're looking for - BTC, not IBM. It'd save you a few thousand though!

yes... i am not looking for the keyboard i have some ibm 3278 to trade and some micro switch keyboards

[voidstar]

Is there any IBM 5100 or related discord? Would be nice to contact others with working 5100/5110's, or try to get a sense of just how many are still out there (or if anyone has insight to how many IBM even produced).

I've been wondering if anyone has contacts at the Smithsonian, and see if they would be willing to open up the original 1973 SCAMP prototype. I'm curious how the PALM processor of that original compares with what was released in the 5100.

I'm sure some ROS code and I/O stuff was updated between 1973-1975, and some aspects more "ruggedized" for the production 5100 - but the 1973 prototype was live-demo'd, so it did DO something. My understanding is the PALM processor was essentially identical between the 5100 and 5110 - I'd like to know how similar it was to the 1973 model, to argue that the 5100 technically could have been available that early ('73).

[__red__]

It may be checking the VCF discord.

[voidstar]

Awesome, next year will be the SCAMPs 50th anniversary - maybe a good opportunity for the Smithsonian to do some public PR about it.