DOS Machine

I aquired a Packard Bell PB 500 at a garage sale along with an Epson Stylus Pro printer and all works. When I bring the computer up it says it need a disk. It takes the old style 5+" floppy.

1. Can you still buy these floppies anywhere?

2. Any one know of a manual anywhere?

3. I figure I can up my proficiency abit in DOS with this unit. Or am I wasting my time? :)

Staples or Radio Shack would be the best bet for 5.25" floppy diskettes.

Here's a manual for the Epson Stylus Pro, but I guess that was the easy one..

I think they quit making 5.25 floppies quite a few years ago. Maybe a 3.5 drive will work?
Does this machine happen to have two 5.25 drives in it? I haven't seen any of those in a long time. I remember the old floppy switcharoo necessary to run programs, pre-harddrive days.
Is there a Half-Price Books in Graham, TX? They have old used books, records, cd's. I think they have a web page up, they are a few of them in the Dallas area.
I really think it would be good as a museum piece, or a good learning machine, forcing you to use dos. You would be lucky if that machine had a 286 processor.

286? That model's not even an 8086!

Of course, I'm about to get elbows deep in a an IBM PC Jr, so I'm not that much better off-- I think it just has 64K....

But, Staples still sells 5.25" diskettes, at least.

EDIT: Whoop-- it has 128KB!

PB 500 Museum picture I'd say one 5.25 floppy and hdd sits under it and no place to put a 3.5 floppy. Wonder if it has the old 34 pin ribbon?

The insaides of this unit is dirt and dust free. What Train said was true in his post.

Markp62, only one drive as in the picture Train showed.

Thanks for the manual AlaricD. That'll help. By the way I picked up an IBM 11" monitor that works really well.

I appreciate the answers so far. This is great. :)

I checked with the Staples reference and they are out of stock. But Imation is the manufacturer. If anyone comes across any of these 5.25 Diskettes please let me know and with a phone number please if not any trouble. :)

Quote:

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Originally posted by Train
Wonder if it has the old 34 pin ribbon?

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Unless the PB500 were exceptionally proprietary, there shouldn't be a need to wonder-- the floppy cable has looked like this for quite some time (well, at first they only had card-edge connectors for the 5.25", the female pin connectors didn't come around until the 3.5" floppy)

https://discussions.virtualdr.com/im.../2002/10/1.jpg


I wonder why people take simple declarative statements and turn them into questions.

AlaricD, That is indeed the ribbon cable in this unit. Could not find a manual on this computer to download yet. :)

Packard Bell seems to be by NEC so chances are this machine might even be powered by the NEC V20 chip.

Considering that Packard Bell and NEC did not merge until 1996, and the V20's heyday was in the early 80's, there's no compelling reason to believe the V20 has a higher probability of appearing in this machine than the 8088.

Don't know if this is the right model, but it says "PB500" - can you see if any of the mentioned jumpers/pins look familiar: http://www.eckert.rwth-******.de/man.../txt/30230.txt

Holy .... an 8088 processor - it almost outdates my old Amiga...and running at a whooping 10 MHz...

I'll dig into the innards after soccer today. Looks like we are getting this into a pretty good perspective.

Thanks for the info Kallikru. It all helps.

Hi Zedy, We'll find out after a bit I guess, but so far it looks as thought this is a relic from the past that is in excellent shape.

For me this exercise is filling in a gap of knowledge for me. :)

If you really want both types of floppy drive, the Teac FD-505 is a combination 3.5"/5.25" floppy drive that fits in a single 5.25" half-height drive bay.

http://www.comp-air.com/vfrazee/nowo...s/fd-505_b.jpg

(Tip: When you go to connect your floppy drive ribbon cable to it, if you want the 3.5" to be drive A:, use the connector after the twist. If you want A: to be the 5.25", use the one before the twist).

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Here's a link to some 8088/V20 chip pics:

http://www.shvets.com/genna/CPUs/8088/index.html

Hi Vernon, That post of yours answers several more questions. One was how to transfer data from the present backwards in history a little bit. And I take with this set up on the floppy drives, I can download DOS info to a 3.5" diskette and then insert into the Teac and transfer to the 5.25" for use in the PB500.

I have seen the reverse work where you copy from a 5.25" to a 3.5" successfully.

Now to chase that link down. :)