[HN Gopher] Bus Sniffing the IBM 5150
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       Bus Sniffing the IBM 5150
        
       Author : ingve
       Score  : 72 points
       Date   : 2023-10-06 10:54 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (martypc.blogspot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (martypc.blogspot.com)
        
       | tempodox wrote:
       | If you want to see what a 5150 looks like:
       | 
       | https://history-computer.com/ibm-pc-5150-guide/
        
       | effnorwood wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | ubermonkey wrote:
       | I read "IBM 5150" and I swear I can _hear_ the keyboard.
        
         | glhaynes wrote:
         | Did anyone call them by their numbers back in the day? I grew
         | up the child of an IBMer and only recall hearing "PC", "XT",
         | "AT". There were some big IBM machines and displays that would
         | be referred to by numbers ("3090", "8514") but I never heard
         | that for the PC system units.
        
           | neilv wrote:
           | Sometime after the PC/XT came out, I started calling the
           | other "original IBM PC" to distinguish it.
           | 
           | Around then, and for awhile, people said "IBM PC", "IBM
           | PC/XT", "IBM PC/AT", "IBM-compatible PC", "286 PC", "386",
           | and things like that.
           | 
           | People didn't ordinarily say "5150", and that wasn't the
           | prominent branding on the chassis.
           | 
           | Much later, when "PC" was even more diluted, I started saying
           | "5150" to mean the original.
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | 5150 I occasionally heard (though something like "original
           | PC" was more common) to disambiguate reference to the
           | specific model from the general class once the XT, AT, PCjr,
           | etc., made the term ambiguous even when prefixed with "IBM";
           | don't recall the other model numbers for system units being
           | used.
        
           | michaelhoffman wrote:
           | I don't think so, but in 2023 "PC" can refer to a whole bunch
           | of different things, and "5150" is precisely clear about what
           | it refers to.
        
           | ubermonkey wrote:
           | No, we just called them PCs or XTs or -- rarely! they were
           | expensive! -- ATs.
           | 
           | BTW 3090 was a mainframe, IIRC.
        
             | benley wrote:
             | I was about to be like "surely you mean the S/390 series"
             | but nope, you are correct! Apparently 3090 came in between
             | the S/370 and S/390 series:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3090
        
             | glhaynes wrote:
             | I remember! My dad had an extra 3090 metal badge (maybe
             | 2-3x the size of the ones on PCs) that we had glued over
             | our XT's badge for a while lol
        
           | NikkiA wrote:
           | No, they were always just 'a pc', even XT (5160) vs PC (5150)
           | was never really pointed out
        
         | KMag wrote:
         | ... and Van Halen's "5150" in the background?
        
           | ubermonkey wrote:
           | Heh, no. The PC was intro'd before the album. ;)
        
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       (page generated 2023-10-06 23:01 UTC)