1985 PCs Limited Turbo PC
SHARE |
|
1985 PCs Limited Turbo PC |
by Bill Degnan - 06/24/2023 17:25 |
 The 1985 PC’S LIMITED Turbo PC. Click image for larger view.
 ARC produced the first Turbo PC motherboard. Click image for larger view.
 Newest chip dates are 25th week of 1985, making this an early model. Click image for larger view.
This machine was donated to Kennett Classic as unoperational. I replaced the power supply with an original IBM XT supply and replaced the hard drive controller card with a similar clone card. I temporarily replaced the bad Mitsubishi disk drive so I could access the hard drive to revert the OS from IBM DOS 3.3 to MS DOS 3.1. Someone had attempted a disk doubler, but failed to get it working correctly. A THESYS RAM / serial card was installed, but I am unsure if this card was added later or came originally with the system. The diskette drive controller card is branded "PC'S LIMITED" There is no known operations / hardware guide for this motherboard, but similar board's documentation is enough to assist with diagnosis of problems. More Photos NEXT: System often boots up to an error message: ARC Turbo Board X Turbo System Error # 04 Sometimes the system boots without error, and additional system info is displayed to indicate turbo mode is active. One simply hits enter to bypass the message. System reports a full 640K RAM. I believe the Turbo mode is not active when the error appears, which I assume means the system operates at only 4.77 Mhz. So the next thing is to fix the Turbo issue. Also - The display when first powered on displays in red, it will need service. Reply |
|
Resources:
Popular Topics and FAQs
Past Issues:
Before we switched over to a blog format, past page archives here:
Vintage Computer Festival East 3.0 June 2006
Commodore B Series Prototypes July 2006
VOLSCAN - The first desktop computer with a GUI? Oct 2006
ROBOTS! - Will Robots Take Over? Nov 2006
Magnavox Mystery - a Computer, or? Jan 2007
The 1973 Williams Paddle Ball Arcade Computer Game Feb 2007
The Sperry UNIVAC 1219 Military Computer May 2007
VCF East 2007 - PET 30th Anniversary June/July 2007
The Electronic Brain August 2007
Community Memory and The People's Computer Company October 2007
Charles Babbage's Calculating Machine December 2007
Vintage Computing - A 1983 Perspective February 2008
Laptops and Portables May 2008
From Giant Brains to Hobby Computers - 1957 to 1977 August 2008
Historic Computer Magazines November 2008
World's Smallest Electronic Brain - Simon (1950) December 2008 - Feb 2009
Free Program Listings Spring 2009
Computer Music Summer 2009
Popular Electronics Jan/Feb 1975 - Altair 8800 Fall 2009
Early Microcomputer Mass Storage Summer 2010
grumman c 8573 asa79
This image was selected at random from the archive. Click image for more photos and files from this set.