pcjs/devices/pc

layout	title	permalink	redirect_from
page	IBM PC Device Configurations	/devices/pc/	/configs/pc/

IBM PC Device Configurations

IBM PC Machines are built from a collection of devices, including:

• CPU (e.g., 8088, 80286, 80386)
• RAM
• ROMs
• ChipSets (e.g., 8259, 8253, 8237)
• Keyboards
• Video Adapters
• Floppy Drive Controllers
• Hard Drive Controllers
• Control Panels

Each of those devices can be configured in multiple ways, and some support external UI controls.

For example, the IBM PC Keyboard component supports different keyboard models (eg, 83-key, 84-key, 101-key), and each of those models can also be configured to have dedicated buttons for selected key combinations, or even entire keyboard layouts.

Complete machine configurations are constructed from those devices. A Machine Configuration is a single XML file that lists all the device components to be used. A Machine XML file can choose to configure every device itself, or it can include pre-configured device XML files, such as those provided above or elsewhere.

Here's an example of IBM 5150 XML:

<machine id="ibm5150" class="pc" border="1" pos="center" background="#FAEBD7">
    <name pos="center">IBM PC (Model 5150) with Monochrome Display</name>
    <computer id="pc-mda-64k" name="IBM PC" resume="1"/>
    <ram id="ramLow" addr="0x00000"/>
    <rom id="romBASIC" addr="0xf6000" size="0x8000" file="/devices/pc/rom/5150/basic/BASIC100.json"/>
    <rom id="romBIOS" addr="0xfe000" size="0x2000" file="/devices/pc/rom/5150/1981-04-24/PCBIOS-REV1.json"/>
    <video ref="/devices/pc/video/ibm/mda/ibm-mda.xml"/>
    <fdc ref="/disks/pc/compiled/samples.xml"/>
    <cpu id="cpu8088" model="8088" autostart="true" pos="left" padleft="8px" padbottom="8px">
        <control type="button" binding="run">Run</control>
        <control type="button" binding="reset">Reset</control>
    </cpu>
    <keyboard ref="/devices/pc/keyboard/us83-buttons-arrows.xml"/>
    <chipset id="chipset" model="5150" sw1="01000001" sw2="11111000"/>
</machine>

In this example, all the devices are fully configured within the machine XML file, except for the Video XML, Floppy Disk Controller (FDC) XML, and Keyboard XML.