natevw
Member
Hello, I am trying to get the disks working in a Model 3 which I bought from a friend as a child, and recently brought home from my parent's house.
As a kid, I never had disks for it until a kind soul mailed me one all the way from Australia! Much to my disappointment at the time, I couldn't get it to work and soon gave up. Now that I have a little more patience, a little more dexterity, a little more electronics knowlege and a little more budget I would like to get to the bottom of this! [Though some emphasis is deserved on the "a little" on all preceding accounts ;-]
I had ordered some X1 capacitors and so tonight I opened up the case to replace them and try refurbish the floppies, but noted the following:
- there is a single power supply, labeled "Compaq Computer Corp, Copyright 1987" with some very aftermarket looking cabling
- I pulled a floppy drive out, thinking I would try moving things along the rails like I had seen in a YouTube video. But nothing seemed readily accessible and so I figured I should do some more homework (at least re-watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p2GkL9fjV8) before fussing with them.
- Powering the computer on with the drive re-connected to power, I did notice that neither of the 50Hz/60Hz markings seemed to stand still under a newer incandescent bulb.
I have a Model 100/200 floppy that I threw onto an (otherwise-unrelated) order of Model 100 parts from arcadeshopper. When I put that in, the machine fails to boot at all — the disks spin for a while, then turn off, still blank screen. If I leave the door open I do get a "Diskette?" message. When hitting Break+Reset to boot into ROM BASIC, `OUT 244,1` turns the LED on for the bottom drive. Both spin (?). `OUT 244,2` turns the LED on for the top drive. Again, both spin. No other noises, i.e. besides the spinning there's no clicks or clatters like e.g. our Apple /// used to do.
I need to dig around and see if I can find the TRS-DOS disk in some boxes, but it didn't work ten years ago and I'm not hopeful it will again. How might I proceed in troubleshooting? Do I risk damaging disks by trying them? Are the drives relatively robust if I open them up and try clean/move the mechanisms manually?
As far as making disks, is the process in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM_eW7h07ew pretty foolproof if I pick up any random [update: 360K as stated in video] 5.25" drive off eBay and chuck it in an old Windows XP machine? I don't want to be troubleshooting the Model 3 drives if the disk itself isn't "known good".
As a kid, I never had disks for it until a kind soul mailed me one all the way from Australia! Much to my disappointment at the time, I couldn't get it to work and soon gave up. Now that I have a little more patience, a little more dexterity, a little more electronics knowlege and a little more budget I would like to get to the bottom of this! [Though some emphasis is deserved on the "a little" on all preceding accounts ;-]
I had ordered some X1 capacitors and so tonight I opened up the case to replace them and try refurbish the floppies, but noted the following:
- there is a single power supply, labeled "Compaq Computer Corp, Copyright 1987" with some very aftermarket looking cabling
- I pulled a floppy drive out, thinking I would try moving things along the rails like I had seen in a YouTube video. But nothing seemed readily accessible and so I figured I should do some more homework (at least re-watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p2GkL9fjV8) before fussing with them.
- Powering the computer on with the drive re-connected to power, I did notice that neither of the 50Hz/60Hz markings seemed to stand still under a newer incandescent bulb.
I have a Model 100/200 floppy that I threw onto an (otherwise-unrelated) order of Model 100 parts from arcadeshopper. When I put that in, the machine fails to boot at all — the disks spin for a while, then turn off, still blank screen. If I leave the door open I do get a "Diskette?" message. When hitting Break+Reset to boot into ROM BASIC, `OUT 244,1` turns the LED on for the bottom drive. Both spin (?). `OUT 244,2` turns the LED on for the top drive. Again, both spin. No other noises, i.e. besides the spinning there's no clicks or clatters like e.g. our Apple /// used to do.
I need to dig around and see if I can find the TRS-DOS disk in some boxes, but it didn't work ten years ago and I'm not hopeful it will again. How might I proceed in troubleshooting? Do I risk damaging disks by trying them? Are the drives relatively robust if I open them up and try clean/move the mechanisms manually?
As far as making disks, is the process in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM_eW7h07ew pretty foolproof if I pick up any random [update: 360K as stated in video] 5.25" drive off eBay and chuck it in an old Windows XP machine? I don't want to be troubleshooting the Model 3 drives if the disk itself isn't "known good".