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Opportunity to buy Model III

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Bungo Pony

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I've been wanting a Model III forever, and I have the opportunity to get one for $100. It's a 48K with two floppy drives. The only problems are that the system disk apparently doesn't work (or the floppy drive doesn't), and the enter key on the number pad is busted off.

Should I go for it?

I'm guessing I can get system disks from Ira Goldklang's website.

Also, is there a way to make my own floppies from images? I have tons of DS-DD 5 1/4" floppies laying around.
 
There are a number of ways to create your own floppies for the Model III, but I suggest starting with a known good DOS disk so you can eliminate the "Did I properly create the floppy or is there a problem with the drive?" question.

My personal favorite is LDOS. Ira is great about providing those floppies. And he usually ships fast. Just be sure to leave a donation! :)
 
The floppy drives in those are usually standard Tandon single sided drives. You can attach a more common "360K" PC drive to it, and with the right cable you can attach those drives to any PC with a real FDC header. And as I recall, ImageDisk and Teledisk can read/write TRS-80 Model III disk images using any PC with an appropriate drive.
 
I think Teledisk can handle any type of image. I recently did some floppy disk work for a medical firm in Philly that was using some 1980s radiation equipment. They needed new floppies to calibrate their machines and they certainly weren't DOS disks. :) They turned out to be iRMX 86 disks. Teledisk had no trouble with images and Anadisk made direct copies of those floppies as well. And, I did all of this on my DOS tweener. Chuck(G) certainly knows his sh*t. Kudos, Chuck.
 
I've got lots of old XT stuff kicking around, so I'm guessing I could easily replace the drive if necessary, and it sounds like making the floppies shouldn't be an issue.

Still, nobody here has pushed me to buy it. I shall ask again.... Should I go for it ;)

My birthday is on Saturday :D

He's also got a nice Kaypro II for $100, but I have no interest in playing with CP/M.
 
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I've just worked to get one up and running after intermittent disk drive failures.

Check to see if disk drive is working with the motherboard. Boot to Cass and type:

OUT 244,1

The disk light should come on, the disk should spin up, then spin down.

I would second getting disks from a good source like Ira. I would also get at least two copies of a boot disk in case one gets clobbered. I had one disk with Super Utility and that's helped tremendously with realigning the tracking on one of my drives. (recent post on Tandon woes.)
 
If it is in nice shape otherwise, and you've "wanted one forever", then go for it! They are a lot of fun and you'll always get sound help around here if you have issues. Happy Birthday!
 
Dammit! He's offering me both the TRS-80 Model III and the Kaypro II for $125. Shall I splurge for an extra paperweight? :D
 
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I'd grab them both and on sell the Kaypro to KP fans.

That's one nice looking Model III. I'd pay $100 for it, even if it needs some work with the disk drives.

Ian.
 
Hey, if you go for it, I'd be glad to trade some dough for the Kaypro. I have a thing for anything Z80!
Thanks and Happy Birthday, too!
Rich
 
About the disks, drop me a note and I'd be glad to send you some LDOS and TRSDOS stuff on fresh disks. Let me know if I can help...with your new potential addiction. :p
-Rich
 
He found some problems with the Kaypro, so he dropped the price AGAIN! $100 for both. I told him we've got a deal. All I have to do now is work out a time to go get them :)
 
Well done. These are both classic machines and you shouldn't have too much trouble making disks for them :)

Tez
 
If the Model III has been sitting for a long time, the most likely issue with the drives is going to be the lubricant on the rails that the head travels on. I repaired a similar system this past summer that had been sitting since 1986. The lubricant had the consistency of hard wax and had to be removed completely. You're also going to want to replace the X caps on the power supplies (there are likely two - one for the computer and one for the floppy drives). They're easy to replace though.

Check out the videos at the bottom of the page: http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/repairs/

g.
 
Bungo Pony said:
He found some problems with the Kaypro, so he dropped the price AGAIN! $100 for both. I told him we've got a deal. All I have to do now is work out a time to go get them :)
Click to expand...

You lucky bee! Would love both of those especially at that price!
 
Yeah, I've seen numerous posts about the caps in the power supply. I'm no stranger to a soldering iron :)
 
I had some problems with mine when I got it- the drives were both bad (despite them spinning up with the OUT commands in BASIC).

I discovered ou can tell on mine if the drive is good because when you boot up without holding BREAK it'll ask "Diskette?" on the screen.

I ended up putting two 3.5" disk drives in the lower slot and a single Tandon in the top, configured as drives 0 1 and 2. Works like a charm and I can use my old laptop to write the disks instead of having to find a machine with a 5.25" drive in.
Writing software onto disk and making it work was considerably easier than having to replace the power supplies and the floppy drive controller chip!

You got yourself a good deal there, hope you get to enjoy them.

--Phil
 
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