Though one thought did come to mind - on the bottom of the IBM 5100 series there are “mounting holes”, presumably to secure/mount the system to a table. This could be for location like a sea vessel, maybe California earthquakes, or maybe forward army tents that want to quickly relocate (grab the desk and move without equipment sliding off). I don’t know if any of those use-cases were the actual intent.
But my point is - I think somewhere in my IBM 5110 papers, there is a full size poster that marks the exact spots of these mounting holes (like a template you put on the table for where to drill the holes).
But it’s hard to get the actual scale of the size to get the dimensions. I’ll see if I can find the physical poster. Or, I can “turn the IBM 5100” episode down and try to get actual photos (there are more mounting holes than the above template shows) [and for the 5110]. But they are bulky and I try not to turn them over (just risk of flexing case, etc).
I love the table, makes the rest of the display look so like like. The ‘dirty’ look makes the computer
render look so real, and must of taken a good bit of work, as well as the tiny details.
Ben.
Oh - maybe it’s an “easter egg” or intentional, but the last switch on the right might be in incorrect position. The model CRT display is showing as “normal” but the switch is in the Display Registers position.
And another minor-minor note: The 5100’s had a pull out “error code sheet” at the top center of the case (you see the end of it, as an angled thick-paper, angled at the edge so you can slide/pull it out easily). The 5110’s actually also have this (in the top half of the case of the 5110’s, it has the same metal slider rail to hold these same cards), but it seems by '78 or for the 5110’s they mostly just stopped printing that card – so in general, I don’t see a lot of 5110’s with that “cheat sheet” card. The sheet itself just lists most of the common error codes (BASIC error codes, tape drive error codes, printer error codes, system error codes, etc).
I guess one other minor note - often when the red “progress light” LED is illuminated, the screen is turned off. It’s a performance thing, like when operating the tape unit or when initially loading/running a BASIC program - the system gets a performance boost when the screen is turned off (in software). I’ll have to see if I can find a situation where the screen is on and the red LED both at the same time.
