Model I Woes...

[Rick Ethridge]

After two years in storage I installed and ran my TRS-80 system. All the electronics worked fine but one of my full-heigth floppy drives started giving errors and the other drive refused to operate at all. Both drives MUST be connected to the cable in order to boot. The first drive is a Texas Peripherals; the second a Tandon. How available would replacements, with cable, be? I tried connecting a pair of high-density drives but no boot. I believe part of the problem is that these drives run at 360 RPM rather than 300 RPM. I attempted to disconnect the speed-select line at the motor control board without success. A single drive system is like a one-armed paper hanger: difficult but not impossible! RLE

 

[Terry Yager]

New old stock drives come up on eBay frequently for $5. - 20.00 range. Used drives are even cheaper. Getting the cable may be a little harder, unless you make your own. The Model I doesn't use device select jumpers on thier drives. IIRC, the selects are all strapped, and the cable itself has the necessary pins in the connector removed to select one drive or the other. It isn't hard to make your own cable that way.

--T