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What are you doing with YOUR TRS-80 Model 1/3/4/4D?

J

Jay Newirth

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2016
Messages
231
Location
Pikesville, Maryland
With TRS's out there ..... what are you doing with your unit? Are you actually using it to program? Are you just collecting them? In other words --- what are you doing with the TRS-80 Model 1/3/4/4d? And what is in your collection?

For me I have (3) Model 3's - one with an autoboot FreHD ---- (1) Model 4 (NGA) ---- (1) Model 4P ---- (1) Model 4D ---- and (2) Model 1's. All of these machines are working. I don't really do anything with them - one machine has Newdos/80 on it so I "re-wrote" a program that I submitted to H&E Computronics way back called CHAINER. It got published in the magazine and that felt cool. Other than that I guess I just like keeping machines that had an impact on me back in the day and every time I turn one of the units on --- the memories come back.

Over the years I have accumulated many machines in all kinds of conditions --- so I stripped them all down and have been selling the various parts to those in need ......... my 2nd bedroom has turned into a storage vault for all the stuff I have

Tell us your story
 
Jay

I have the M3 and the M4GA that I am trying to restore and well then I will use them through their RS232 ports to control my various Amateur Radio projects and to restore my old programming skills (assembler, BASIC, COBOL and FORTRAN). I am also using them to help teach my Grandson basic electronics. The TRS-80s were my first programming and electronics projects. My 1st Model 1 was so modified that it could have easily challenged Ian's super computer:cool:

Cheers

Ross
 
Ian I was talking about my original model 1 from 1980 something. I had the LNW80 expansion interface, lower case mod, 64K ram, 4 drives DSDD, unfortunately the Radio Shack HD was way to expensive for a US Army Staff Sergeant but it was hooked up to a UNIVAC mainframe so I guess you could say I also had tape and hard drive storage. I even had a card reader hooked up to it :cool:

Those were the days

Ross
 
I bought my first Model 4 (early model) on eBay and it arrived with a cracked case, bezel and broken CRT. The seller refunded my payment and told me to keep it. I have replaced the broken parts. Just need to clean and lube the floppy drives.

In the meantime, I bought a second Model 4 (Gate Array) that arrived in fine condition but soon the video board and power supply went bad. Found replacement parts and everything works now.

These were items I could never afford when I was a teenager in the early 80's but we had some Model IIIs in my school so I learned BASIC, then taught it to my 8th grade geometry teacher.

I am interested in finding compilers for them and writing a game or two. I'd also like to get one of those modem/wifi gadgets and check out some BBS's online.

But I still get satisfaction making these things work again. I don't think I could find a logic problem on the motherboard but I can solder and replace parts that have failed. I now have 2 working TRS-80 Model 4 computers!

Now it's time to fix the 3 TRS-80 Color computers on my bench :)

Thank you, Jay, for providing replacement parts.

-Paul (in Vermont)
 
I actually bought and assembled an LNW computer and interface .... took me weeks to do .... and of course when I powered it up .... NOTHING !!!! So I turned it over to an electronics genius and both he and I got it working after replacing a small amount of parts and "fixing" a lot of bad solder joints.

I then took this system to the hospital where I worked (as a pharmacist) and wrote a narcotic inventory control program which we ran on it and it worked out well.
 
Beginning in January of next year, my girl friend and I will be using our Model 1 computers in a challenge to see if we can use them for all the things people would have used them for when they were new. She has an advantage as she had the money to buy a fully kitted model 1 with an EI and disk drive. We will be using them for everything we can. Once she played with mine she had to get one herself.

To keep me interested in the challenge, she added a rule saying that if I want an EI (or somthing like it) I have to build it myself.

This should be fun...
 
The Directorate of Information Management (DOIM) even had a card punch machine on the UNIVAC that I could, with the right JCL, punch cards saving my UNIVAC COBOL programs. The General loved it as he could call me at 0200 in the morning to have a report run. He would call me or have the Duty NCO go wake me up, I would go to my office, run the deck through my reader, I would then run the program through the UNIVAC and he would have his report, on his desk, within 3 to 4 hours. He thought that was amazing and the DOIM staff hated me. As far as my LNW80 EI, yes the first time I tried to fire it up, it didn't work, took me about 3 months to resolve all of my blunders.
 
itsvince725 said:
Diskless 64k Model 4 that doesn't work. I've honestly lost interest in it but it's so fragile and expensive to ship that I haven't gotten rid of it either.
Click to expand...

Wish I'd been paying a bit more attention - my wife and I ended up making a last minute trip to Shamokin two weeks back. I could've dropped by and picked it up.

-Kevin
 
Right now, my Model 1 is occupying the dining room table. I had it up and running and was working with a friend to diagnose my EI board when my power supplies decided to crap out. I have the PCB from Ian to build a new supply, but I need to take the time to do so. I'm just hoping that when the supplies died, they didn't take my working EI or Model 1 with them....

My Model 4 NGA is in the basement; one of the two floppy drives works.

I want to get a FreHD for both; other financial priorities at the moment. Once I'm past those, Ian will be seeing an order from me.

I did use an emulator to re-key a disk sector editor I wrote back in the 80s in Assembly. I've need to track down some typos in some of the display code and make sure it's all working properly, then I'll likely post the source and binaries somewhere.

-Kevin
 
I have one Model 4 with 2 working floppies and a FreHD attached (and a SVD as well). Also has HRG. it gets used for old games, some playing with HRG, and is also set up as the console for my Linux server (using omniterm). The lack of certain keys (e.g. '|') makes that use somewhat "interesting", but it works and, more importantly, makes sure it gets started up on a regular basis (I can boot, load omniterm, and connect in under 20s which is way faster than booting up anything modern).

2 Model 1s. One a later L2 16K with EI & 2 floppies. Use of it is somewhat stalled by the fact it does not have lower-case, but LDOS is convinced it does . . . the other started life as a L1 4K and got upgraded over time to be L2 with 48K in the keyboard thanks to an Australian clone of the Holmes board. If I ever get my copy of "Close Assault" debugged (disassembling the image shows something that was definitely not handwritten assembly) it will be used to play/demo that (loaded from audio stream from cassette).

Picked up a CoCo2 recently - the final one with the character generator with lower case. Haven't done much with that yet.

PJH
 
Paul-VT said:
I bought my first Model 4 (early model) on eBay and it arrived with a cracked case, bezel and broken CRT. The seller refunded my payment and told me to keep it. I have replaced the broken parts. Just need to clean and lube the floppy drives.

In the meantime, I bought a second Model 4 (Gate Array) that arrived in fine condition but soon the video board and power supply went bad. Found replacement parts and everything works now.

These were items I could never afford when I was a teenager in the early 80's but we had some Model IIIs in my school so I learned BASIC, then taught it to my 8th grade geometry teacher.

I am interested in finding compilers for them and writing a game or two. I'd also like to get one of those modem/wifi gadgets and check out some BBS's online.

But I still get satisfaction making these things work again. I don't think I could find a logic problem on the motherboard but I can solder and replace parts that have failed. I now have 2 working TRS-80 Model 4 computers!

Now it's time to fix the 3 TRS-80 Color computers on my bench :)

Thank you, Jay, for providing replacement parts.

-Paul (in Vermont)
Click to expand...


Glad I was able to help you get them running again
 
My 128K model 4 sits in my hobby room. I fire it up at least once a month.

IMG_7142.jpg
 
I don't do much with my Model III. It has no floppy drives and only 4K - and I have many other more useful computers to... waste my time with.

But I have it sitting beside me on the floor and I occasionally turn it on to write a quick useless BASIC program - usually something like:
10 FORT=1TO65535:?CHR$(PEEK(T));:NEXTT

attachment.php
 
embpic said:
My 128K model 4 sits in my hobby room. I fire it up at least once a month.

View attachment 48391
Click to expand...

Ah, Ballblazer (I've always known it as Ballblaster), Donkey Kong, Choplifter - and what is the Mac game?

It looks like there is some kind of parasite on top of the Mac, feeding on its brains. You better do something about that.
 
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