Need a disk to use a model 4?

[vic user]

Hi;

I just won a model 4 on ebay, and I do not think the computer will have any disks with it.

I was poking around the net trying to find some info about the model 4, and I read that if you do not have a boot disk, the model 4 will boot up like a model 3.

Is this true, and does this mean that I will have a computer that at least boots up with some form of BASIC?

I don't care about anything else right now, but I sure would like to turn on the machine and at the very least, fool around with BASIC on it.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Chris

 

[Terry Yager]

Re: Need a disk to use a model 4?

Hi;

I just won a model 4 on ebay, and I do not think the computer will have any disks with it.

Congratulations, hope you enjoy owning/using your "new" toy.

I was poking around the net trying to find some info about the model 4, and I read that if you do not have a boot disk, the model 4 will boot up like a model 3.

Did ya happen to find Ira Goldklang's TRS-80 page? It's probably the best TRS-80 resource on the net (Complete with links to all the other relevant sites):

http://www.trs-80.com/

I don't remember if Ira has bootdisk images available or not, but he does maintain an extensive software library (over 1000 programs available for download).

Is this true, and does this mean that I will have a computer that at least boots up with some form of BASIC?

Yes, the Model IV does have Model III roms installed, and will run BASIC from firmware, but I don't remember if you have to hit a certain key combination or not to put it into Model III mode (I think you do, but I don't remember which). Caveat: If what you have is a Model IV-P, (portable), it won't have Model III ROMS, but it can still run Model III software by loading the Model III rom-image from disk.

I don't care about anything else right now, but I sure would like to turn on the machine and at the very least, fool around with BASIC on it.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Chris

Yes, unless it's a 4-P, you should be able to run BASIC on it.

--T

 

[vic user]

Thanks Terry!

I always wanted one of those, ever since gawking at them in Radio Shack catalogues, when I was a kid.

Plus, the only computer sotre near my house was a Radio Shack back then, so ddi lots of staring at them at the store too.

I only paid 20.00 CDN too, and it I get to pick it up in Ottawa, so no shipping!

I will check out the sites. thanks!

I did find a place that had tons of TRS manuals, scanned in pdf format.

I will check the other topics here in the TRS area, and see if anyone mentions how to get BASIC from the model 3 ROM installed on the model 4.

maybe i just have to hit that orange key when it prompts me to pop a disk in

Chris

 

[vic user]

There were some interesting replies from Erik's 'model I woes' topic, related to getting to BASIC without a boot disk.

Chris

 

[Terry Yager]

There were some interesting replies from Erik's 'model I woes' topic, related to getting to BASIC without a boot disk.

Chris

Oh, ok...so you hold down the Break key and switch it on to go into BASIC? That sounds about right I thought there was a key/key combo to hit at boot time. Oh yeah, be sure and check out Tim Mann's page, too. It's almost as good as Ira's. See the link in the "woes" thread.

--T

 

[vic user]

Well, I just got the little darling home.

I think the guy was sad to see it go for so little money, as he commented that a few people e-mailed him after the auction ended, and asked if they could offer more, tsk tsk.!

Yep, holding down the break key while booting up bypasses the diskette seek, prompting for a cassette.

I hit 'n' and then it prompted me for the memory size

If i type '65535' the computer totally freaks out, so I now type in '64511' and no worries.

i then get model III BASIC !!!

man, i can't wait to get some model 4 system disks for this thing. CP/M would be sweet too!

one thing you have to love about BASIC, is that it does not take long to be able to use a machine you are not familiar with, if it has BASIC installed. Thank you BASIC makers!

and on a side note, by daughter found out what the orange key does

Chris

 

[Terry Yager]

Well, I just got the little darling home.

I think the guy was sad to see it go for so little money, as he commented that a few people e-mailed him after the auction ended, and asked if they could offer more, tsk tsk.!

Yep, holding down the break key while booting up bypasses the diskette seek, prompting for a cassette.

What it's asking for is the speed of the cassette interface. The original Model I only ran at 300 baud, but the Model III and up could run at 300 or 1500 baud.

I hit 'n' and then it prompted me for the memory size

If i type '65535' the computer totally freaks out, so I now type in '64511' and no worries.

IIRC, if you just hit ENTER here, it defaults to the max mem size.

i then get model III BASIC !!!

man, i can't wait to get some model 4 system disks for this thing. CP/M would be sweet too!

Montezuma Micro for the Model 4 is the very best CP/M 2.2 distribution ever, for any machine!

one thing you have to love about BASIC, is that it does not take long to be able to use a machine you are not familiar with, if it has BASIC installed. Thank you BASIC makers!

and on a side note, by daughter found out what the orange key does

Chris

So, what does the orange key do? (I forget...)

--T

 

[vic user]

Thanks again for the info Terry.

The orange key is a reset, which is great, so I don't have to keep turning the machine on and off.

I think getting a system disk is the best way to go, since then I can save porgrams, and getting a cassette player for this thing would be more expensive I think, than getting some system disks.

Right now, I only do a tiny bit of programming on the model IV, as I don't want to leave the machine running all the time, and don't want to have to retype long programs when I turn it on again

Chris

 

[Terry Yager]

Thanks again for the info Terry.

The orange key is a reset, which is great, so I don't have to keep turning the machine on and off.

I think getting a system disk is the best way to go, since then I can save porgrams, and getting a cassette player for this thing would be more expensive I think, than getting some system disks.

Getting a system disk is as simple as downloading the image and writing it out to a floppy. Cheap (or free) cassette players are not hard to come by either, it's the cable that you'll have trouble finding these days.

Right now, I only do a tiny bit of programming on the model IV, as I don't want to leave the machine running all the time, and don't want to have to retype long programs when I turn it on again

Chris

Yeah, you definately need some kind of mass storage. Do you have any kind of documentation? There's a way to save BASIC programs to disk without using TRSDOS, but I forget the exact commands, you'd have to look it up. (It's called disk BASIC, remember?)

--T

 

[Terry Yager]

Never mind, I just looked it up for ya. The BASIC "SAVE" command saves to disk. (The cassette command is "CSAVE"). SAVE works in Model I disk BASIC, Model III disk, and CoCo disk. Quoting from my TRS-80 Pocket Handbook:

FORMAT
SAVE "filename"
SAVE "filename",A (Don't forget the quotation marks, they're important).

EXAMPLES
SAVE "ACCOUNTS/BAS:1" save accounts payable

DESCRIPTION
SAVE saves a BASIC program from RAM to disk. If the "A" option is not used, the program is SAVEd in "compressed format". Compressed format uses special codes fro BASIC commands and binary data for line numbers; it is best for economical disk storage. If the "A" option is used, the program is SAVEd in ASCII format. ASCII format is required for subsequent use by the MERGE and APPEND (TRSDOS) commands. ASCII format also allows transfers of disk files for special applications, such as transferring files by data communications. ASCII files take up more disk storage than compressed format. The "filename" is a filespec for a BASIC program stored on disk; it conforms to the general requirements for filespecs - name, extension, password, and drive number.

RELATED COMMANDS
MERGE

Hope this is helpful to you. (See also the "LOAD" command).
[ad]
BTW, my book is for sale (or swap) if you're interested (or if anyone else is). It's the Radio Shack TRS-80 Pocket Handbook by William Barden, Jr. Second Edition, First Printing. Copyright C 1982 by Radio Shack. It covers all the BASIC commands for the following models of TRS-80s:

Model I level I
" " " II
" " Disk
" II
" III level I
" " " III
" " Disk
CoCo BASIC
CoCo Extended BASIC
CoCo Disk

The above quoted material is just one page, and every page covers a different BASIC command in the same manner. I don't know how many pages, they are not numbered, but the book is about 1/2" thick. It fits easily in a shirt pocket (about 5 1/2" x 2 1/2"), has a durable vynal cover and is wire-spiral bound. Oh, I just read in the preface, there are 255 commands, so at least that many pages, not counting the appendices. Radio Shack originally sold it for $6.95, so that sounds good to me if anyone wants to buy it (or whaddaya got to swap?). Figger a couple more buck$ for postage, (only weighs a couple of ounces).
[/ad]

--T

 

[vic user]

Hi Terry;

I found a great website, that contains many manuals in pdf format.

I have the link on my work computer, and if I remember, I will post it.

The problem for me I think about getting a disk image, is how would I actually go about getting it on a 5.25" TRS 80 formatted disk?

I mean I can save the file on my pc, but that is as far as I can take it, with my knowledge.

I have tons of blank 5.25" floppies, with different densities, kicking around though.

I wonder what kind of books or anything I have that would be worthy of a swap for you?

On a side note, I was looking at someone's site, and they had saved many cassette porgrams as wav. files! What a great idea for swapping files that way!

Chris

 

[Terry Yager]

Hi Terry;

I found a great website, that contains many manuals in pdf format.

I posted a link a while back in the "links" section of this board, with lots of schematics and documentation for TRS-80s.

I have the link on my work computer, and if I remember, I will post it.

I have a copy of The Wizzard's Castle written in BASIC, if yr interested in Text Adventure games. The version I have is in BBCBASIC for the Cambridge Z88, but it was originally written in M$BASIC and converted over to BBC. It shouldn't be hard to convert back, if yr so inclined. I cn email it to ya if ya want.

The problem for me I think about getting a disk image, is how would I actually go about getting it on a 5.25" TRS 80 formatted disk?

I mean I can save the file on my pc, but that is as far as I can take it, with my knowledge.

I have tons of blank 5.25" floppies, with different densities, kicking around though.

I take it you don't have any PCs with 360K drives? (I had to replace the HD drive in my '386 with a DD one to make CP/M disks from images. The HD drives don't format/write reliably to double density, but they read 'em ok).

I wonder what kind of books or anything I have that would be worthy of a swap for you?

These days, I'm mostly interested in CP/M books, books on 8080 & Z80 assembly language, hardware projects involving Z80s, & stuff along those lines.

On a side note, I was looking at someone's site, and they had saved many cassette porgrams as wav. files! What a great idea for swapping files that way!

Chris

Yes, I've heard of that before, using your soundcard to create cassette copies.

--T

 

[Terry Yager]

vic user,

Here's something you might want to have a look at on eBay. Just listed today...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4120424088&category=4193

--T

 

[vic user]

Darn it.

I can't find the link anymore, but at least I have all the pdf files on my HD.


I did find this on the net, so I will probably go down this route:

-----
$6.00 for first item, .50 for every additional

LS-DOS 06.03.01 System Disk
LS-DOS 6.3.1 was recently made available on the Internet by Misosys, but if you can't download it yourself and get it onto a Model 4 diskette, you can order it right here. The original LS-DOS 6.3. upgrade documentation is included. (This is not the full system documentation, just the changes made since TRSDOS 6.2.)


To order single-sided version, specify 4GR6301S $6.00
To order double-sided version, specify 4GR6301D $6.00

The Source Code for LS-DOS 06.03.01 is also available. Click here for more information

M.A.D. Software
P.O. Box 331323
Ft. Worth, Texas 76163-1323
-----

For sure Terry, send me the source code for that text adventure game. I enjoy text adventures, especially playing them with my daughter.

I am actually considering making her a proposal. I would like to pay her to type in programs for me. That way we all win. She gets some money, absorbs some porgramming knowledge, and I get to play games without having to type the stuff in

Hopefully this is not considered exploiting my daughter for child labour.

Chris

 

[Terry Yager]

Darn it.

I can't find the link anymore, but at least I have all the pdf files on my HD.

That's ok, I probably already have it anyways (buried somewhere in my bookmarks folder).

I did find this on the net, so I will probably go down this route:

-----
$6.00 for first item, .50 for every additional

LS-DOS 06.03.01 System Disk
LS-DOS 6.3.1 was recently made available on the Internet by Misosys, but if you can't download it yourself and get it onto a Model 4 diskette, you can order it right here. The original LS-DOS 6.3. upgrade documentation is included. (This is not the full system documentation, just the changes made since TRSDOS 6.2.)


To order single-sided version, specify 4GR6301S $6.00
To order double-sided version, specify 4GR6301D $6.00

The Source Code for LS-DOS 06.03.01 is also available. Click here for more information

M.A.D. Software
P.O. Box 331323
Ft. Worth, Texas 76163-1323
-----

That's kewl, I've heard of MAD Software before, but I forgot they sell LS-DOS disks. (I wonder if they are "original" disks, or just recent copies?)
[history lesson]
Originally, LS-DOS was a competitor with TRSDOS, till Tandy finally wised up and contracted with them for TRSDOS 6 (really LS-DOS re-named). By the time v.6.3 came out Tandy had given up the pretense that thier "official" DOS was thier product, and just sold it under the LS-DOS label.
[/lesson]

For sure Terry, send me the source code for that text adventure game. I enjoy text adventures, especially playing them with my daughter.

I am actually considering making her a proposal. I would like to pay her to type in programs for me. That way we all win. She gets some money, absorbs some porgramming knowledge, and I get to play games without having to type the stuff in

Hopefully this is not considered exploiting my daughter for child labour.

Chris

Ok, just pm me with your email, and I'll send it along. Hopefully, you'll soon build a PC to TRS-80 serial link-up cable and won't have to re-type all the BASIC progs you come across. (I'm sure the wiring for such a cable is available somewhere on the net, just don't know where exactly).

--T

 

[vic user]

well,. i did find a couple of 5.25" pc drives in my closet, and three old apple drives too.

still, i think i will just go an buy a disk from MAD software or whatever they are called.

my public e-mail addie is:

smile_soccer@yahoo.ca

don't shoot me, but after all these years it just donned on me why they have '80' after TRS, for their line of computers. man, i tell you i am swift!

chris

 

[vic user]

i managed to get LDOS 6.3.1 via a seller on ebay.

this is unusual for me, but i want to inform you about how good this seller is.

his user name is: computernews80
here is his site: http://www.cnpublishing.com/cn80.html

here are some things i like about the whole transaction:

1)
i wasn't sure if the item i wanted to purchase was the one needed for my model 4, and i contacted him, and he was very helpful, and was very specific about what i would receive, in that it was just the floppy with no manual or instructions

2)
he left feedback after receiving my payment!

3)
the floppy was extremely well packed, and also came sealed in a plastic bag with a printout of instructions on how to do some simple commands using the OS and also mentioned differences between 6.3.1 and the previous version

4)
also supplied me with a newsletter about trs80 stuff (DOS tips), and also gave me a product list of other trs80 stuff he has to sell

anyway, i enjoyed the way i was treated and the item was not expensive, and i am sure i will be buying from him again.

so, if there are any people out there that need some trs80 stuff, he has quite a bit to offer, and i had no problems with him.

hope this is not going against the spirit of this forum, by promoting someone's business, but i thought it would be nice to hear a positive once in a while, rather than another rant about a crappy seller.

chris

 

[Computer Collector]

Holy Smokes, I just read the first 1/5 of this thread and learned a lot. Ill need to read the rest later.
When I first found my model 4 (behind a dumpster, ready to be thrown out)
about 4 years ago, I picked it up and took it home to my old apartment. Because I didnt know about Ira yet, and had no disks, the thing literallly sat around in my shed and I never used it for 3 years! Finally I got stuff from Ira and its been cool since. I wish I knew about this "hold down the break key" thing then. Still, Im very happy to have learned this now, even. Now I can use my computer much more. I didnt want to wear out my boot disk, so I only use it on occation. But now that I learned this trick, and dont have to use my disk drive to start BASIC, Ill be able to use it much more!

 

[katey]

I'm using the trs80 model 3/4 emulator for dos by david keil the link is on ira's site. This allows you to map a 5.25 360k pc drive to a trs80 drive. With that you can write .dsk images to real trs80 disks. Works great for making disks for my 4p. Don't worry about having trs80 disks a pc DD disk reformats just fine to a trs80 disk under the emulator.

katey

 

[Computer Collector]

Oh, ok...so you hold down the Break key and switch it on to go into BASIC? That sounds about right I thought there was a key/key combo to hit at boot time. Oh yeah

I wonder if doing this, or something similar to my Tandy 1000 will do the same? As far as I know now, the Tandy 1000 is a useless door stopper without a boot disk.