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Just fired up my "new" TRS-80 Model 16

R

rambunxious

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Jun 26, 2016
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Location
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Recently acquired a large collection of old computers. Had a chance today to fire up a TRS-80 Model 16. Quick boot up. No issues. Also has the extra 12 Meg Disk System that seems to work.

Has a Pickles & Trout CP/M operating system, that I'm not familiar with. But it was fun learning some of the ins and outs as I tried not to wreck anything. Opening .txt files with the VEDIT software was about as advanced as I could get today.

Here are a couple pictures:

IMG_4385.jpg

IMG_4383.jpg

Any advice on where I could start if I wanted to write some simple input/output programs? Simple math, stuff like that.
 
Well, it depends. The CP/M systems that were made for this machine are a "combo" of CP/M-80 (2.2) and CP/M-68K. So, if you type the name of a program with a .COM extension, you're using CP/M-80 and the Z80 CPU. If you type the name of a program ending in .68K, you're running it under CP/M 68K and using the MC68000 CPU.

I/O for the 68000 is pretty much non-existent (IIRC) on this machine, because the Z80 does all the I/O servicing for the 68000. There are various languages available for the CP/M-80 side, but I've only seen assembly and C for the CP/M-68K side. Did DRI ever make a PL/I for the 68K?
 
Wow, what a find! From those screenshots it looks like you have a working 68K CP/M system, which is extremely rare these days. Do you have the floppy disks or is it booting from the HD only?
 
The "A0" would seem to indicate floppy.

Are Model 16s rare? I didn't think they were--just not collector's fodder because of the Model II base. I've got one.
 
Chuck(G) - Hmmm. Interesting. This stuff is all new to me. My general experience doesn't go back further than 286s, so definitely lots to learn here. How do you run the .68K programs? With the .COM programs I was just able to type VEDIT [enter] and it would start. But I when I try the same for .68K I just get "[filename]?".

I also found a program called ASM.COM, which I think it an assembler? When I try to run it, it tells me to pick a file to edit. But I want to create a new one.

Chomedome45 - Yup! Keyboard works great, no issues!

Pski - Boots straight from the harddrive. There are 3 drives that I've been able to access A,B,C. I do have a few boxes of 8 inch floppies in the basement I ought to have a look at, too, to see if there's anything on them.
 
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ASM.COM is the 8080 assembler (CPM-80). You'll also need LOAD.COM to create an executable. There are scads of texts out there on programming for CP/M.

I'll have to check on mine, but give M68 a go. It looks as if you may have the 68K C compiler there, somewhere, judging from the file names.
 
Chuck(G) said:
The "A0" would seem to indicate floppy.

Are Model 16s rare? I didn't think they were--just not collector's fodder because of the Model II base. I've got one.
Click to expand...

I was referring more to the Trisoft CP/M 68k of which I have yet to find a working copy. But, the 16A is probably the rarest of the big TRS-80s and most desirable, IMHO.

Here's the user guide for the 68k CP/M

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/trisoft/TriSoft_CPM68K_TRS-80_Users_Guide_1984.pdf
 
So what else did you get in this large collection of old computers? Being curious

I think to run .68K programs you do a LDM68 filename.68k or maybe m68 filename.68k has been a while since I tried it. And that is just a guess. Memory is vague getting forgetful!
 
pski said:
I was referring more to the Trisoft CP/M 68k of which I have yet to find a working copy. But, the 16A is probably the rarest of the big TRS-80s and most desirable, IMHO.

Here's the user guide for the 68k CP/M

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/trisoft/TriSoft_CPM68K_TRS-80_Users_Guide_1984.pdf
Click to expand...

I think I've got the P&T installed as well. My 16 has a lot of field mods to the boards--I've been told that these were made so that it could run Xenix, but I haven't verified it.

A little story regarding this system. At the time (about 1982) we were working on system with both 80186 and 80286 CPUs (pre release silicon) and were trying to lay plans to run Xenix on the 286. Our processor setup was very like the Model 16, in that the 80286 did no I/O, using the 80186 instead. At a meeting in Bellevue at Microsoft, we were given a listing of the Xenix I/O setup for the Model 16 as something to pattern our work on. It was useful, but Intel (who was doing the work on the 80286 Xenix kernel) took longer than expected.
 
Thanks for the user guide, PSKI.

Cool. I'll give that a try on the 68k programs.

I got two altair rev 0 8800s, a box of parts to build an 8800b, a sinclair ZX80, a 286, 386, 2 486s, and a few early pentiums. Plus all kinds of accessories. Some early modems, printers, monitors, scanners, etc.

NF6X said:
Please image that hard drive, rambunxious!
Click to expand...

What do you mean?
 
There should be a backup utility for CP/M 2.2 to hard-to-floppy wandering around. You might want to check the CPMUG library.

In any case, it should be pretty simple to write a utility to spit the HD data out a serial port for capture by a PC. The Model 16 hard disk interface is proprietary, IIRC, so there's no tap-in there.
 
NF6X said:
I mean, please extract a block-level image of the hard drive for pski to archive and share! I don't know if there's a handy software utility to do that on the Model 16. If it was my drive, I'd image it with my MFM Emulator.
Click to expand...

What NF6X is getting at, is that it is possible, rambunxious, that you may have the only running copy of Model 16 CP/M-68K left in existence on that hard drive. Although it would be interesting to see if you have the original install media in that stack of floppies.
 
Can't be true--I run CP/M 68K on my model 16 from floppies (don't have the hard disk). It works fine. Remember that the Model 16 floppies are DSDD = 1 MB. I even have the Xenix 3.0 development system images.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Can't be true--I run CP/M 68K on my model 16 from floppies (don't have the hard disk). It works fine. Remember that the Model 16 floppies are DSDD = 1 MB. I even have the Xenix 3.0 development system images.
Click to expand...

Great, Chuck! Then maybe we can persuade you to image those CP/M-68K floppies, please? :)
 
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