IBM 5110

---

(Submitted June 16, 2008 21:17:16 by BobP)

My company bought the first 5110 that shipped west of the Mississippi and I programed (APL) it to program NC machines. Around 1990 I bought it from them for $33. (One dollar a KB plus a dollar profit) Soon after that I read an article on how the US govt. coded and decoded messages and realized that was what the APL language was probably designed for. It makes fortran look like a 4 function calculator.

---

(Submitted May 19, 2008 20:32:34 by Dick Ledoux)

Now I know that this will date me, but I was part of the IBM group that brought the 5100 to market. The hardware was developed in Rochester and the software by a 10 person team in Westlake Village CA. I had the responsibility of testing (QA) the software and then overseeing the development of the camera ready manuals at the IBM facility in Menlo Park(user and reference for both BASIC and APL). If anyone has a copy of these manuals, please let me know.

---

(Submitted February 19, 2008 12:15:56 by Steve Armstrong)

I spent a year working on one of these. I programmed an apartment management system for a fellow in BASIC. The model we had had 16K (5K of which was OS) I came within 59 bytes of using all memory on one of the programs -- I hadn't learned to modularize programs too well at that point.

---

(Submitted October 27, 2007 03:48:18 by (a href=mailto:alex.rosser.NOSPAM.at.gmail.com)Alex(/a))

APL was a most interesting language. Those who learnt it became quite addicted. Plusses - Very powerful and compact. Several pages of FORTRAN or COBOL or BASIC became only a few lines in APL. Minuses - Very steep initial learning curve. Special character set.

---

(Submitted October 16, 2007 12:08:21 by John V.)

These photos bring back memories for me, as well. When I was in high school my father company bought one. I learned BASIC programming on it. I seem to remember it even had a rocker switch that was used to select APL or BASIC.

---

(Submitted November 27, 2006 09:11:31 by Freshi)

WOW! I remember that monster! I learned some APL (A Programming Language) on the good old 5110. I can not remember having seen my teacher so excited as on the day the 5110 was delivered. We had some real good times together exploring the secret system-monitor (found accidently when pressed pressed some keys while turning on the machine).

*sigh* these must have been the good old days LOL

Btw. Nice site. I enjoyed looking at some ancient computers i have known myself!

Add additional information or comments to this page:

Please use these comments to add to or correct the contents of this page. If you are looking for information, software or hardware please consider posting on the Vintage Computer Forums. If you have something for sale please consider using the new Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace

Please be aware that the email address you post will be posted in the clear. Spam bots can and will pick it up and use it. Please protect your email address by obfuscating it (i.e. webmasterNOSPAM@vintage-computerNOSPAM.com) or use an address with a good spam filter. Also consider using the Vintage Computer Forums or the Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace as mentioned above.

Your Name:

Your email address:

What would you like to add:
Please enter "BLUE" in the field below as a Check String:

Powered by MakeBook v3.0.1