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How many Model II owners here?

How many Model II owners here?

  • Yes, I have one.

    Votes: 22 55.0%

  • No, but I'd like to get one!

    Votes: 11 27.5%

  • Nope.

    Votes: 7 17.5%
  • Total voters
    40
Used to use the thing at work back in the early 80's. I'm running out of space and something else would have to go however.
 
I received a Model II from another forum member along with the disk cabinet after he fished it out of a country ditch. While I did spend the entire summer of 2009 dismantling, cleaning and rebuilding the machine and cabinet (which is still missing its drive retainer brackets) the machine runs fantastic. Over time I got a copy of CP/M, then got hold of TRSDOS and some software and binders of documentation and then by chance I came across an orphan 68K boardset, serial card and hard disk controller. Eventually I did get a copy of Xenix but:

-The controller refuses to format any drive I attach to it, even though the drive is confirmed healthy in an XT and any existing documentation says my configuration should work. All people would tell me was "it's dead".
-The 68K board refuses to work with my Xenix disks. I could never get straight answers beyond "Your ROM and PAL revisions are wrong" and even then, nobody wanted to go into detail.

I've since added an internal bracket to mount a Seagate ST225 plus found one of Tandy's acoustic couplers and briefly I had a chance to get one of Tandy's Line Printer III but passed it up because at the time I didn't have the space to store it, even if it all-around would of completed the machine.
At one point I was nearly finished on an adapter to attach traditional 5.25" floppy drives in the expansion cabinet but again, I asked questions and nobody answered them and the idea floated about until that fancy-schmancy PCB came around and people called it a miracle of science.

To be frank, the community has lead me to hate this machine. It's stuffed away in storage and I have no plans for it.
 
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NeXT said:
-The controller refuses to format any drive I attach to it, even though the drive is confirmed healthy in an XT and any existing documentation says my configuration should work. All people would tell me was "it's dead".
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Three issues here that I can think of. 1, not all hard drive controllers are compatible with all ROM versions available on the z80. Try replacing the ROM. The files are out there. 2 the board needs to be re calibrated. The procedure is documented in service manual. Try that. 3, the board is broken. It does happen.

NeXT said:
-The 68K board refuses to work with my Xenix disks. I could never get straight answers beyond "Your ROM and PAL revisions are wrong" and even then, nobody wanted to go into detail.
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OK, What more detail do you want? In order to run Xenix 3.x the 68 k board-set must be one of the newer ones with rectangular profile and an upgraded PAL. No one will publicly admit they know the PAL equations and no one has reverse engineered them. To determine if you have the PAL upgrade, pull your 68000 board and verify that the checksum on U36 is 3646D4. If U36 is not a PAL then you have the older style boards that won't run Xenix 3 at all.
 
NeXT said:
To be frank, the community has lead me to hate this machine. It's stuffed away in storage and I have no plans for it.
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Don't give up. I'm still a Model II newb but I think the current community here is fairly interactive and helpful at the current time. The fact is that there are very few experts on the Model II actively online these days. It does not help that the machines are temperamental as hell. It's almost an abusive relationship at times. :) But, the satisfaction of having your machine boot up and just work is a victory in and of itself.
 
I have had 2 Model IIs (kind of) for years. One of our local computer stores used to have this thing called a 'Free' bench, and people would leave stuff there to take. One day I arrived and found the two Model IIs as well as the triple disk expansion cabinet, and boxes and boxes of disks. Unfortunately they had been dropped there for a reason: the cards had all been removed. I eventually got cards and then discovered the screen in one was dead and the power supply was toast in the other. So I did some part swapping and finally got one good one. It boots TRSDOS et al no problem. But I find it kind of dinosaur-like and more than a bit scary when it dims my lights as it starts up. I rarely use it.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I suppose you're not counting Model 16s?
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I vote yes! I really love the Model 16. I think of it as a Model II v2.0. It fixed so many deficiencies in the Model II, like the power supply, CRT, etc. yet, t's still the same case with the easy access panel to the internals compared to the large 12/16B/6000 case with its very complicated case and internal layout. It's probably my favorite iteration of the Model II line.
 
I'm wondering how many owners of the Model II are on the forum? Please vote "yes" if you have one.
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I can add two more to the count,and nearly another in bits, I did get a very interested in these,and many other trs 80 machines quite some time ago, but they do take up some space! also large radio shack printer and stand came with one of them,
.....harry
 
NeXT said:
...
To be frank, the community has lead me to hate this machine. It's stuffed away in storage and I have no plans for it.
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Whee, sorry you had that experience. Anyway, if you were to ever want to transfer ownership to someone else, I for one would give it a good home.

One category not found in the poll is 'Used to own one or more' which would be me. I had an early II-upgraded-to-a-16 (ran the Xenix 1.3 just fine but not the 3.x), a 16B, a couple of 6000's, and a 12. Would I want to spend money on another one? Well, probably not, but it would be a fun machine to have another go at.
 
JonB said:
Never seen a 16 in the UK
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As I recall there was very little difference between a Model II and the first iteration of the 16 (other than the cosmetic changes in color and the two double-sided floppies). The primary internal differences were in the generation and jumpering of the FDC board and the cable harnesses for power and the floppies. But my 'II upgraded to a 16' had the single-sided full-width Shugart floppy drive in it, it didn't have the thinline Tandons. It also had two 12 meg 5.25 inch hard drives and the associated interface board. My 16B, one of the 6000's, and the 12 were dual-floppy systems, and one of the 6000's was an HD system. I packed two Rodime 70MB half-height drives in that 6000HD for a while (the second one was mounted as /usr), but at the last I had a much faster Maxtor XT1140 in it, and the two Rodimes went to my AT&T 3B1 that I had for a couple of years.
 
On the topic of the early model 16, I would love to get my hands on one locally, but they are pretty rare on the ground. I have most of two that were destroyed in shipping that I could probably cobble together into one unit.
 
kb2syd said:
On the topic of the early model 16, I would love to get my hands on one locally, but they are pretty rare on the ground. I have most of two that were destroyed in shipping that I could probably cobble together into one unit.
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I think one of the reasons for the rarity of the Model 16s is that the plastic that they used in the case construction must have some chemical difference to the case in the Model II and the Model 4s. It looks like a Model 4 case, but either that type of plastic can't handle the increased weight or that its a totally different plastic form and is very brittle. This means that shipping these units is a real "hit or miss" affair, with (from my own experience) about 50% of the time the machine arrives with a broken or shattered case, with many ending up in landfills because of the inability to repair the cases. There are YouTube videos of people receiving and unboxing Model 16s discovering broken cases. I've received one that was completely destroyed by an eBay seller. Its really hard to keep the few out there intact if they are to be shipped. I'm sure there are ways to do it, but I'm not sure the best approach here.

Myles
 
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