revisiting a model III

[cchaven]

encouraged by messing with the Model II this past week, I decided to pull out a worn Model III that I've had for so long that I don't even recall where I got it. It's well worn, but not broken...the paint rubbed off of much of the plastic surrounding the keyboard from hands resting upon it. It has a mesh anti-glare screen affixed to the front of it and is a dual floppy 48k machine.

I didn't look for any of it's disks, as I wanted to see if it powered up. In the far reaches of my mind there was a thought that there was some kind of problem with it. I powered it up and got a drive light come on but nothing on the screen. I hit the reset button and was presented with more disk activity and "Diskette?" came up on the screen.

After a bit of thought I recalled how to boot into ROM Basic instead of the disks....I held down the BREAK key and hit reset and was presented with "Cass?". I typed "H" then ENTER in response to the query for memory size and was presented with the BASIC prompt.

It lived afterall!

 

[the wizard]

encouraged by messing with the Model II this past week, I decided to pull out a worn Model III that I've had for so long that I don't even recall where I got it. It's well worn, but not broken...the paint rubbed off of much of the plastic surrounding the keyboard from hands resting upon it. It has a mesh anti-glare screen affixed to the front of it and is a dual floppy 48k machine.

I didn't look for any of it's disks, as I wanted to see if it powered up. In the far reaches of my mind there was a thought that there was some kind of problem with it. I powered it up and got a drive light come on but nothing on the screen. I hit the reset button and was presented with more disk activity and "Diskette?" came up on the screen.

After a bit of thought I recalled how to boot into ROM Basic instead of the disks....I held down the BREAK key and hit reset and was presented with "Cass?". I typed "H" then ENTER in response to the query for memory size and was presented with the BASIC prompt.

It lived afterall!

Just powered up my model 3 today, I was very glad to see it still working,but the keyboard was extremely flaky if not respondent at all. is it possible to replace the model 3 keyboard with a model 4 with out changing mother boards.

 

[gonk23]

is it possible to replace the model 3 keyboard with a model 4 with out changing mother boards.

Yes, they are pin compatible ... and that's exactly what the Tandy repair centre did to our Model III back in the 80s when the keyboard failed.

Luckily I kept the original broken Model III keyboard, and was able to fix it a few years ago. They're usually repairable with a bit of patience, so I recommend you keep yours too.

 

[the wizard]

Yes, they are pin compatible ... and that's exactly what the Tandy repair centre did to our Model III back in the 80s when the keyboard failed.

Luckily I kept the original broken Model III keyboard, and was able to fix it a few years ago. They're usually repairable with a bit of patience, so I recommend you keep yours too.

Thanks for the info, I plan on changing out the key board and keeping the original to repair at a later date. I did use my model 4 to make fresh new backup's of the model 3 software I had before they become unusable.

 

[Jay Newirth]

If you want a replacement keyboard for the model 3 let me know .... I have (6) of them in my stockade.

Email me at jaynewirth@verizon.net if you are interested in one.

 

[cchaven]

It seems the only key not responding on mine was the 'n' key...all the others seemed to work fine.

It was the Model III that really got me started with computers. My high school had a computer lab with one disk-based Model III serving a bunch of diskless 16k Model III's.

 

[pski]

It was the Model III that really got me started with computers. My high school had a computer lab with one disk-based Model III serving a bunch of diskless 16k Model III's.

Do you remember if that was using a Network 3?

 

[cchaven]

Do you remember if that was using a Network 3?

No, I never knew anything about the setup other than they were Model III's and sometimes we'd load things from cassette, other times things would be loaded from the main machine. This was like 1981/82. It was an interesting setup though and was my first exposure to a 'real' computer. I had a Timex-Sinclair1000 at home.