Floppies_only
Veteran Member
Terry,
Thanks for the noblise oblige. He hasn't answered my questions yet. I'm giving him until Monday night and I'll keep you appraised as the situation develops.
Sean
- VCF East - April 12 - 14, Infoage Museum, Wall NJ
- VCF South West - June 14 - 16, Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas at Dallas
- VCF West - Aug 2 - 3, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
- VCF Midwest - Sept 7 - 8 2024, Schaumburg, IL
- VCF SoCal - Mid February 2025, Location TBD, Sothern CA
-
Please review our updated Terms and Rules here
If you can find one, how much for IBM 5150?
- Thread starter Floppies_only
- Start date
Terry,
Thanks for the noblise oblige. He hasn't answered my questions yet. I'm giving him until Monday night and I'll keep you appraised as the situation develops.
Sean
Terry Yager
Veteran Member
Yah, well, contrary to others' opinions here, I think it's a good price for one these days, even if it's been driven off a cliff and burnt to the ground.
--T
--T
Floppies_only
Veteran Member
Terry,
That tells me that you are the better computer restorer than I. Really, I'm just an operator. Formula 409 application and putting options in is about my speed. Why don't you buy the XT from the guy, and I will keep looking for a PC that is closer and known to be working.
Hell, I don't even know that I am ever going to get around to writing my book as it is
I wonder how you will get the velcro tape off of the top of the machine?Sean
frozenfire75i
Banned
Restoreing the XT and PC line of comptuers is really easy, You just remove all the parts inside Floppys PSU MOBO ect and take the chassie and the cover to the bathtub/shower, get one of those green scurb pads and some soft scurb/cliff and go to town in the shower. Then spot clean what ever don't come of in the bath, goo gone for the sticky stuff, Paint brush for the boards and cards. The display and keyboard of course you can't give a bath ;-)
Terry,
That tells me that you are the better computer restorer than I. Really, I'm just an operator. Formula 409 application and putting options in is about my speed. Why don't you buy the XT from the guy, and I will keep looking for a PC that is closer and known to be working.
Hell, I don't even know that I am ever going to get around to writing my book as it is
Sean
Trixter
Veteran Member
Some judicious use of force is necessary; I took paint off of an IBM keyboard that way :-(
Terry Yager
Veteran Member
The good news is that the case is painted. There was a place on-line a couple of years back that supplied spray cans with the exact replacement color for the case, if all else fails.
--T
--T
DarthKur
Experienced Member
I was looking at that last night. I was going to ask the seller some questions as well. It's all moot since some re-seller bought it.
I was bidding on another one last night but got outbid by someone with deeper pockets yet again. :angry: And that one was actually connected to a CGA monitor and tested to boot up.
Anyways, I just checked out the seller in the above link other auctions and seen he had, what appeared to be the same auction going on. Since I didn't feel like losing out again by waiting on an email to be answered I called the number on there and talked to the owner in person. He says they have two and the second one is pretty much the same and they didn't bother to take separate pictures. He says it works, in that it powers up and makes the correct beep. I guess I'm going to find out since I just bought it and will drive out there this weekend. He told me to bring my CGA monitor so we'll get to hook it up and try it out right then and there. I sure hope it works. I seem to have a curse concerning these computers. I already have both a 5150 and a 5160, neither of which will work no matter what I do. Granted my technical abilities are EXTREMELY limited.
I tired "downgrading" my Tandy 1000TL this morning to work as an 8088 so I can finally play my Atarisoft "booter" games. I was able to configure the Tandy to where it would actually boot them and work for the most part but of coarse not correctly. Jungle Hunt still would not go past the initial board. Dig Dug and Galaxian played but would not work correctly with the joysticks. The T1000 has joystick ports built in that utilizes the proprietary Tandy controllers. The character/ship would always want to move to the right and would go in the other directions with any reliability. And yes, I adjusted the trim dials to no avail. I even put in a joystick card to use a normal PC compatible controller but it wouldn't respond with that at all.
I assume it's because these games were programed with the IBM PC specifically in mind and without the precise paths the program expects to access there's no way to accurately play them. Hopefully this weekend will change my abysmal luck with vintage IBM's.
I think you press F4 after the startup beep to set 4.77 Mhz speed on Tandy 1000s, correct?
Jungle Hunt still would not go past the initial board. Dig Dug and Galaxian played but would not work correctly with the joysticks. The T1000 has joystick ports built in that utilizes the proprietary Tandy controllers. The character/ship would always want to move to the right and would go in the other directions with any reliability. And yes, I adjusted the trim dials to no avail. I even put in a joystick card to use a normal PC compatible controller but it wouldn't respond with that at all.
Dig Dug won't work right with the joystick on my 386 either. It's bad programming, not a problem with the computer.
Trixter
Veteran Member
The T1000 has joystick ports built in that utilizes the proprietary Tandy controllers. The character/ship would always want to move to the right and would go in the other directions with any reliability. And yes, I adjusted the trim dials to no avail. I even put in a joystick card to use a normal PC compatible controller but it wouldn't respond with that at all.
The Tandy controllers aren't really proprietary; their cable plug is. But they work like any other analog joystick.
While the games were indeed programmed for a 4.77Mhz machine, it sounds like verification of whether or not the joysticks are working properly is the first step to troubleshoot. Give me an hour and I'll whip up a joystick calibration program that works in text mode. Back in a bit...
Trixter
Veteran Member
Ran out of time tonight, but I tightened up my joystick routines and will work on this tomorrow night.
One of the problems of calibrating old sloppy joysticks is that they occasionally "pop" near the edges -- meaning, one out of every 100 or so values read is off the chart if the stick is in an extreme position. Luckily, I have an old crappy stick that consistently reproduces this problem, so I'll test with that. I also have a digital gamepad hooked up on port B so I can make sure that works too.
One of the problems of calibrating old sloppy joysticks is that they occasionally "pop" near the edges -- meaning, one out of every 100 or so values read is off the chart if the stick is in an extreme position. Luckily, I have an old crappy stick that consistently reproduces this problem, so I'll test with that. I also have a digital gamepad hooked up on port B so I can make sure that works too.
DarthKur
Experienced Member
It set mine by utilizing the "setuptl" program that is on the Supplemental Programs disk that was one of three floppies that were packaged with these computers when new. I downloaded all three from a site.
Both of the Tandy controllers I tried the games with work perfectly on the CoCo 2 they are normally attached to. The other PC controller I've never used before so I'm completely uncertain about that one.
I very much would appreciate a calibration program to use.
Found one on here, JOY2. The graphics look a bit screwy in CGA, but it works.
http://www.computercraft.com/docs/prog.shtml
Last edited:
DarthKur
Experienced Member
I found that there's also CALJOY22.ZIP and STKVGA31.ZIP. Plus a mouse/trackball tester, TMTX.EXE, as well.
Thanks for the link.
I passed over CALJOY22 because it only appears to run in VGA mode, and wouldn't work on the Tandy.
I also tried Galaxian with a joystick, and it works perfectly fine. The game also has a calibration screen, I noticed.
Trixter
Veteran Member
I'm still going to finish mine, just because I think it would be educational. Mine already has code to support all three polling methods used by games (8253 timer-based, loop-based, and BIOS). Mine will also work on any display adapter.
Should have it finished tonight.
Great Hierophant
Veteran Member
The IBM Diagnostics Disks for the PC/XT have a joystick testing program, but they may very well not work in a Tandy 1000 computer.
I have found that gameport joysticks tend to be "jittery" at the extremes of one end of an axis.
I have found that gameport joysticks tend to be "jittery" at the extremes of one end of an axis.
I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work, but unless someone tries it on a Tandy, we won't know.
They are. Try this joystick draw program I got from a book. The stick is so wobbly (even when you're not moving it) that it's impossible to draw anything but random squiggles.
10 SCREEN 1:COLOR 1,1:CLS:KEY OFF
20 PSET(STICK(0),STICK(1))
30 X=STICK(0)
40 Y=STICK(1)
50 LINE -(X,Y)
60 GOTO 30
Trixter
Veteran Member
Okay, I've finished my joystick calibration program. I think most people will find it useful; I tried to make it the best utility of its kind. Link, program, source code, and video are here: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/joycalib
DarthKur
Experienced Member
Thanks for that Trixter. I dl'ed the program watched the video. It really looks like a nice program. I am looking forward to trying this out.
Trixter
Veteran Member
Hope it's useful for you; let me know if you run into problems.