Imagine all those computers that have managed to resist the passage of time, remaining stored in a forgotten warehouse, waiting to be rediscovered. Sometimes, someone with good instincts decides to catalog and publish these systems online for sale, allowing YouTube channels like Lazy Game Reviews to share a true marvel with their audience: an IBM 5170, the famous “IBM AT”, barely taken out of its box, installed, and powered on after 29 years.
How many magical things are gathering dust in a corner? How many irreplaceable pieces of technology are exposed to the elements, decaying? In most cases they don't have a happy ending, but there are exceptions like the story of the rescue of arcade machines that took place inside a ship. Then other factors arise, with budget and availability of parts at the forefront. Anyone can enjoy a “retro” device, but if you can't find a key part or the repair information has been lost, it's very difficult to stay active on the project.
A 1988 IBM 5170, Nearly 30 Years Later
What we have here today is a stroke of luck. Luck that had to be backed by $500, but luck after all. Clint Basinger from Lazy Game Reviews (the same one who explained the use of locks in old PCs) got in contact with the owner of a warehouse full of IBM computers, and in essence, bought a piece of history: an IBM 5170 from 1988.
Perhaps the number doesn't mean much to the younger visitors of this portal, but the 5170 was the first to carry the “AT” designation, later transformed into “AT compatible” by the rest of the manufacturers. Its launch on the market happened on August 14, 1984, and with a price tag of six thousand dollars, it was definitely aimed at the business world. The unit Clint received is what we call “NIB” or “NOS”, acronyms for “new-in-box” and “new-old-stock”.
Everything was there, including the security key, the heat-sealed manuals, the cardboard protection on the 5.25-inch drive… and the keyboard. Everyone here knows very well that I have a beautiful and expensive problem with mechanical keyboards, so let's say I share Clint's reaction when he took it out of the box. Finding an IBM Model M with a silver label, original black AT cable, and “zero keystrokes” is very, very rare.
According to the seller, IBM authorized the sale of the 5170 through intermediaries who customized the computer following client specifications, installing the operating system on the hard drive (which, by the way, requires manual initialization and low-level formatting), and secondary cards. In this case, the 5170 received an EGA card to connect to an IBM 5154 monitor, PC-DOS version 3.30, and nothing else for now. In the future he might add a memory expansion and a sound card, but the hardware is 29 years old (including the power supply and its capacitors), and it deserves respect.
