Parent |
• | ROMS marked '5000026' and '5000027'. Photos at here. |
• | The 'Upgrading and Repairing PCs' book (Scott Mueller), and most other information sources, do not include this BIOS in their list of BIOS' for the IBM 5160. |
• | To date, I am only aware of one person with a set of 08/16/82 BIOS ROMs. |
• | The IBM 5160 was announced on March 1983. The date of both the 08/16/82 BIOS and 11/08/82 BIOS precede that date, with the latter being some 7 months prior to March 1983. So at least 7 months before 5160 announcement, IBM found reason to produce another revision of BIOS. |
• | An observation is that the model byte (A.K.A. model code, ID byte) in the 08/16/82 BIOS is FF, reflecting a 5150 (PC). Refer to here. |
• | Following are some possibilities that I can think of: POSSIBLILITY #1 • The 08/16/82 BIOS was not released to the public. • Some 08/16/82 BIOS equipped 5160's that IBM held on to internally, eventually made it into the public domain. POSSIBLILITY #2 • Although the 08/16/82 BIOS was replaced by the 11/08/82 BIOS at least 7 months prior to 5160 announcement, IBM did not consider the 08/16/82 BIOS to be 'unreleasable', and consequently, already-manufactured stocks of 08/16/82 BIOS ROM chips went out in some early batches of the 5160. |