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Show us your Tandy Computers!

Pickers are screwing things up now. Can't even find mid-90's or early 2000's beige boxes at a yard sale or thrift store these days.

I've gotten a few finds (non-Tandy) by talking to the people running yard sales and mentioning I love old computers.
 
keenerb said:
Pickers are screwing things up now. Can't even find mid-90's or early 2000's beige boxes at a yard sale or thrift store these days.

I've gotten a few finds (non-Tandy) by talking to the people running yard sales and mentioning I love old computers.
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Agreed. Most of the old computers in my area end up in the local Bottle Depot (they do electronics and other recycling as well). Unfortunately, they don't allow anybody back there to sort through the stuff. Most of the GOOD stuff is long gone by now, but you still see beige boxes in the back that might hold some potential.

Not sure what things are like in the US, but we're pretty big on recycling programs in Canada. I conversed with my local retro group about it, but organizing "rescue" operations like this, even for the sake of preservation, takes a lot of time and commitment to sort through stuff, since the Bottle Depot staff likely don't know anything when it comes to computers, let alone what to look out for. There's a few people that do this kind of thing, and have made arrangements with their local recycling centres, but they often end up hoarding the stuff while it gets sorted. There's also privacy concerns, since those old machines likely still contain some data (I always yank the hard drives before I send newer stuff for recycling).
 
Patrick Bureau said:
can you tell me if your 1400 power supply has a (+) positive or (-) negative tip, I have been trying to get a replacement for my 1400 HD and I cannot find a proper psu for it.
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The LT has a negative tip 15V supply, but I believe the HD actually uses a positive tip 12V supply.
 
Latest acquisition;
1979 TRS-80 Model I, 16K Level II.
Monitor,
Expansion unit with 32K,
5.25" Disk Drive,
Quick Line Printer II,
CTR-80 Cassette.
Mint. With covers and manuals
SMIPuY0.jpg
 
Nice Model 1 mate :cool:

Im going to collect my CoCo 3 today, very exciting as I've never had a TRS-80 before. I asked dad for a CoCo 3 in early '87 but he bought us the 1000 EX instead (not that I'm complaining mind you).
 
dJOS said:
Nice Model 1 mate :cool:

Im going to collect my CoCo 3 today, very exciting as I've never had a TRS-80 before. I asked dad for a CoCo 3 in early '87 but he bought us the 1000 EX instead (not that I'm complaining mind you).
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Im an idiot, I miss read my mates note! :rolleyes:

Anyway, Im now the proud owner of a CoCo 3 Chassis ... does anyone have a motherboard theyd be willing to part with?

pY3tib2h.jpg


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blackepyon said:
At least it's got a backlight. I was a bit dissapointed when I found out that my 1100FD didn't come with one stock. Apparently, the 1100HD did though.
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Nope, 1110HD has an identical or almost identical screen, no backlight. I never seemed to mind though, I hauled mine all over the desert back in the gulf war and never had an issue using it indoors or outdoors. For sure the CGA monochrome looks worlds better than CGA color and I enjoyed quite a few games on it. Slow to update games with minimal scrolling fared best, Simcity was a favorite of mine.
 
Joining my collection after a very productive VCF Midwest are a TRS-80 3 and 4! The 3's in need of some attention with regards to the graphite contacts (nearly the entire ZXCVBNM row is intermittent or nonworking) but has already had all the work it needs in terms of cleaning and RIFAectomy done, while the 4's keyboard is intact but less work's been done on it. About to write some DOS disks later and do some further assessment.

iwLwyKm.jpg


bIgOJOE.jpg


I also got some replacement ROMs for my Model 100 that should hopefully make life easier with regards to serial exchanges.
 
MrArgent said:
Joining my collection after a very productive VCF Midwest are a TRS-80 3 and 4! The 3's in need of some attention with regards to the graphite contacts (nearly the entire ZXCVBNM row is intermittent or nonworking) but has already had all the work it needs in terms of cleaning and RIFAectomy done, while the 4's keyboard is intact but less work's been done on it. About to write some DOS disks later and do some further assessment.
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Sweet! The 1 and 2 look like funny TV sets, IMO, but I love the "work terminal" aesthetic of the III and 4. How much did they set ya back?
 
blackepyon said:
Sweet! The 1 and 2 look like funny TV sets, IMO, but I love the "work terminal" aesthetic of the III and 4. How much did they set ya back?
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The III (nearly pristine and mostly restored though i've had some sudden issues with disk boot and some keys are bogus - but not beyond Deoxit being seemingly enough to save) set me back $100, the 4 (uncertain shape at purchase time but had basically cleaned up nicely) was a trade across for one of my own machines. The III is the current focus of my efforts, and while the 4 is in good enough shape to boot diskettes i'm still seeing some bad sectors on formats I want to sort out.
 
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I haven't been on here in ages, I got stuck on the time waster called facebook.. But they banned me last week after making a new account in my real name.. So apparently now I'm some evil spammer.

Anyways.. Here's my model 1, ONE owner machine, that will be 40 years old in just over a month from now. And my model 4 I bought as doa and restored about 4 years ago.
 
I'm dropping this here with some trepidation because it's the first YouTube video I've ever made for public consumption and, man, it shows, but if anyone's interested...

Here's me showing off my 1000 EX and the bits I made to go inside it in utterly excessive and rambling detail.


I was inspired to make this because of the "SepTandy" event that's been mentioned in another thread. Jump to 27:30 if you want to skip the machine's secret origin story and my long-winded digression about what DMA is for and just see some prototype PCB boards.

And yes, that poor 1084D monitor is in sad shape. Not my fault, I swear.
 
Couple of (hopefully final) updates to the 1000 RL setup, including a newer-model CM-11, and a Microtech PCD-47B, which supplants the Iomega Jaz unit. For an 8086-class system with "limited" expandability, it's not lacking for much...



 
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