Found an old IBM 5150 manual that changed how I think about modern PCs

I was cleaning out a storage unit for a customer last Saturday and came across an original IBM 5150 technical reference manual from 1981. It listed the system price at $3,005 with full documentation. Made me realize how far we've come from having schematics and BIOS source code handed right to you. Anyone else ever find old tech documentation that surprised you with what they included back then?

3 comments

3 Comments

gracethomas19h ago

Half the book is just padding with those diagrams" - nah I gotta push back on that. Those diagrams are gold if you actually wanna understand how everything connects together instead of just getting the surface level stuff from a YouTube vid. Sure they're dense but that's the point, you can sit with them for an hour and really get it.

evan_davis20h ago

Is that the one with the full circuit diagrams? Wild.

rowan_reed6820h ago

Respectfully @evan_davis I gotta disagree a bit. The schematics in there are nice for sure but theyre pointless if you dont already know what youre looking at. Half the book is just padding with those diagrams. The actual explanations of how the circuits work are way too thin. Youre better off finding a good YouTube channel that walks through the same stuff step by step. Books like that just look impressive on a shelf more than anything.