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Nice looking 16B on eBay

'Yeah they can break easily. The plastic is too thin and fragile. And can easily fracture in shipping. When I sold my 6000 I did not ship it. The buyer came to get it. Ironically he is in North Carolina and I am in Florida. Same state this seller is in.

Well he had to come to my area on business!
 
It does look pretty nice on the outside, but it should be showing either the Xenix boot screen or the TRSDOS-II start screen if it was properly booting from the internal HD as it should on power up. It would also be showing a boot error message if there was an problem with the HD itself. A blank screen like this could be indicative of something as simple as a loose video card to something more serious like a bad z80.

And, yes, if someone here buys it, please, please do not have it shipped. These are becoming rarer over time. Most were trashed in the late 80s and 90s. The remaining few are dying a slow death via UPS and FedEx.

But if you do go and pick it up ;), please share your experience with the group here. We'd love to help you get it up and running!
 
I'm not usually one to say "I told you so", but....well, watch this and cry. It's the same one, the serial #s match.

 
Sad indeed. Hard to watch.

I was VERY (VERY!) interested in this unit and was prepared to travel to pick it up. Thanks exclusively to the guidance from those in the know here, I sent a request to the seller asking if he would permit a local pickup. He never replied, and despite my longing for a 16B, I held off. I am now convinced these have to be picked up.

Cary
 
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And the buyer will really get screwed because shipping to Germany must've been close to $200. Even if he disputes it and gets a refund he's still on the hook for the shipping...both ways!
 
The shipping cost to Germany was probably a lot more than $200. Back in the 1990s, USPS quoted me (several times) like $500 to send a 50 pound computer box to countries in Europe) on the slow boat. Not one of those eBay transactions were completed because the Buyers backed out after finding out how much the cost of shipping was going to be.

This is another case of the Buyer got screwed because of an uncaring Seller.

Time to see what eBay GSP (if the Buyer was lucky enough for this to be a GSP Shipment) says. The Seller is off the hook, because GSP takes the responsibility for safe delivery after they accept the package for shipment.

I don't believe that it is impossible to package these things for safe delivery, after all they were originally packaged and shipped by Radio Shack without the same kinds of shipping problems. This is more like a problem with Seller who don't know how to package for safe delivery OR just don't care.

I see poor packaging (box too small (inadequate dimensions for proper amount of insulating materials) and too lightweight (should have been a more expensive double strength box) for the item being shipped, and better insulating materials (used popped bubblewrap, a used comforter, and bits of foam rubber) are not adequate for protection of an item this big and heavy.

The way I see it, who does the Buyer complain to? GSP (if they were the freight forwarder), or eBay (for item not as advertised/poor packaging)? The way I see it, the damage was caused primarily by poor/inadequate packaging, compounded by rough handling (did you see the amount of damage (crushing/collapsing) to the outside of the box?
 
It would be an interesting epilog to this tragedy to learn how this got resolved financially. Regardless, the world is now less one 16B.

I too was stunned by the amount of damage.

While I agree that the seller did an unforgivable job with the packing, I have seen this happen many times before. Even when the buyer had supposedly pleaded to have it packed properly/professionally. As a buyer, you really have little control. While I am certain the original Tandy packaging was far more robust, I imagine new units were shipped with additional protections (pallets/containers). I also can't help but think that the materials used in these computers have weakened over the decades and they simply can't hold up to the rigors of travel.
 
In the years that I worked for Radio Shack and sold Model IIs, I never had a single one arrived damaged at the store. I seem to remember them coming in at least two separate boxes (more if the drive enclosure and extra drives with sold with it).

I never sold a single 16B, as that was after my time with RS. I left there at the end of Dec. 1981. I saw Model IIs taken apart, but never a 16B, so I can't comment on any differences in construction.
 
image.jpgI've seen worse. My shipping lesson from last year :(. I was the buyer.
 
Oh jeez....please tell me you had discarded the additional packaging for the photo, and that it was not just shipped naked in a box.
 
Avia said:
Oh jeez....please tell me you had discarded the additional packaging for the photo, and that it was not just shipped naked in a box.
Click to expand...

It was packed like you see with some shredded newspaper on top!
 
I don't have to blame the seller for all the damage.

The Model II has a metal frame to fix all the heavy parts and the outside can be removed from the computer by removing
a few screws and the computer can still be used.

With the Model 12 & 16 there is no frame inside the computer and all heavy parts are fixed to the plastic casing.
After 35 years the plastic has lost all his flexibility and can't carry the weight of the heavy parts.

As you can see all damage is done from the inside and not from the outside.

The only way to avoid this drama is to take the computer in parts and ship them in one or more boxes.
This, or pickup it yourself are, the only two safe ways to buy such a beautiful and rare machine.

I feel very sorry for the German buyer and please don't ship this rare machines !!! :(
 
These can be shipped if properly packed. I currently have the following that I received undamaged:

2x TRS80 Model 2
1x TRS80 Model 12
1x TRS80 model 16
1x TRS80 Model 16B

I did receive a TRS80 Model 12 in the same condition as the one in the YouTube video. The 8" floppy broke loose in shipping and smashed the CRT. It was ridiculous how bad it was packaged though.
 
Hans01 said:
...
The only way to avoid this drama is to take the computer in parts and ship them in one or more boxes.
This, or pickup it yourself are, the only two safe ways to buy such a beautiful and rare machine.
Click to expand...

The 12 pski shipped to me was done right, in pieces, with the CRT in a box by itself. Now, there were no drives in the lot, and those drives are a big part of the problem.

After seeing that 16B going at $538 ($538!!!!) I was wishing I had not gotten rid of the 6000, 16B's, and 12 that I had, since I could net several grand on the hardware I had at the time. But now I'm a bit glad that I did, because as fragile as these cases are getting I wouldn't want to have a buyer have this happen to them, nor would I want to shoulder the financial loss as the seller.

Heh, I am within a four-hour drive of where that 16B was, in NC, but a 16B just ain't worth $538 plus shipping to me. Been there and rode that pony. The last of the beasts I had was the 12, which I kept as my last LS-DOS machine until I gave it away late 2001, after making the copies of the disks for Tim Mann to image (I kept some copies; one of my DSDD LS-DOS 6.3.1A working system disks (cleaned of actual data) went to pski along with the LS-DOS 6.2 disk and he successfully imaged both of them).

They're fun, and I'm looking forward to getting hard disk booting working for the II/12 series, but I remember them as actual working main computers, not fun retrocomputing-hobby machines.
 
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