Due to space problems in my apartment I had until recently this IBM 5251 terminal in storage. But now with the pandemic and so I have had more time to clean and test this beast.
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With regards to the Beam Spring keyboard, nothing to say that hasn't been said here before about a 5251. This spanish unit is in great great condition except for the contamination shield and some lightly yellowed keys, I didn't even disassemble it and I plan to keep it 100% original.
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For this photoshoot I only did very light cleaning, It seems that this machine didn't see too much use in its day, as it doesn't have any evidence of heat damage inside. Maybe it was a late replacement for another unit and was quickly decomissioned. All the dirt inside come from the infamous "sticky foam" that IBM used apparently inside everything it shipped in the 70's and early 80's, that has disintegrated and covers everything inside.
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The only broken thing is a cable tie that holds in place a couple of HUGE capacitors. Very bad design for this component, as otherwise is really built like a tank... 40Kg for the unit plus 6Kg for the keyboard. I barely can move it around the house.
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More internals...
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Cleaner interior after some vacuuming...
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Everything looked ok, so I simply plugged it and switched it on, taking of course some precautions.
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It apparently works ok, I had nothing to plug it to but it has a "test" mode that shows some patterns on the screen and allows to test the keyboard, that works flawlessly. It displays the scancode of the last pressed key on the screen.
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Some short videos showing startup and testing, (quickly taken with an Iphone, do not expect "Chyros" quality content).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWKLZQn6tfM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFxcmSzPK34
Some more images.
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That's all for this gallery, it works and is good enough not no need any restoration, but i'm preparing something special for it in another post coming soon
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