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TRS-80 Model II brought home: now what?

S

Soupwizard

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2008
Messages
206
Location
Vancouver, WA, USA
I have acquired a TRS-80 model II in pretty good shape, was used in an office so keyboard has wear, but the inside of the machine is pristine. Cards: CPU, older style floppy drive controller, 64k mem card, video/kb card. Shugart 8" floppy drive (w00t!). Came with TRS-DOS II master disk and copies, Scriptsit, and Visicalc. And a matching big daisy wheel printer (missing one of the toggle switch covers, but switch works fine. Anyone have a spare toggle cover?)

Everything I know about the model II I've learning from google searches in the last two days. What else should I know? Can anyone send me Pickles & Trout CP/M for it? (I actually met Mr. Pickles at an electronics surplus shop in Santa Barbara about 4 years ago).

I haven't fired it up yet, since I probably should disconnect the power, hook up a dead but spinning hd drive (to act as load on the switching supply), and run it a bit to see if any caps blow up. Or should I go ahead and proactively replace some caps?
 
Misery loves company.

I got a Model II a few months back, and I still haven't got it going.
Good luck - I hope yours is better than mine.
I've got a Model 4, and this Model II - I'm not impressed with Tandy stuff.

I think I've still got your email address - I'll send you some stuff.
 
Soupwizard said:
I have acquired a TRS-80 model II in pretty good shape, was used in an office so keyboard has wear, but the inside of the machine is pristine. Cards: CPU, older style floppy drive controller, 64k mem card, video/kb card. Shugart 8" floppy drive (w00t!). Came with TRS-DOS II master disk and copies, Scriptsit, and Visicalc. And a matching big daisy wheel printer (missing one of the toggle switch covers, but switch works fine. Anyone have a spare toggle cover?)

Everything I know about the model II I've learning from google searches in the last two days. What else should I know? Can anyone send me Pickles & Trout CP/M for it? (I actually met Mr. Pickles at an electronics surplus shop in Santa Barbara about 4 years ago).

I haven't fired it up yet, since I probably should disconnect the power, hook up a dead but spinning hd drive (to act as load on the switching supply), and run it a bit to see if any caps blow up. Or should I go ahead and proactively replace some caps?
Click to expand...

Check the felt tension pad on the Shugart and don't power it down with the floppy in the drive.
 
Soupwizard said:
I have acquired a TRS-80 model II in pretty good shape, was used in an office so keyboard has wear, but the inside of the machine is pristine. Cards: CPU, older style floppy drive controller, 64k mem card, video/kb card. Shugart 8" floppy drive (w00t!). Came with TRS-DOS II master disk and copies, Scriptsit, and Visicalc. And a matching big daisy wheel printer (missing one of the toggle switch covers, but switch works fine. Anyone have a spare toggle cover?)

Everything I know about the model II I've learning from google searches in the last two days. What else should I know? Can anyone send me Pickles & Trout CP/M for it? (I actually met Mr. Pickles at an electronics surplus shop in Santa Barbara about 4 years ago).

I haven't fired it up yet, since I probably should disconnect the power, hook up a dead but spinning hd drive (to act as load on the switching supply), and run it a bit to see if any caps blow up. Or should I go ahead and proactively replace some caps?
Click to expand...

I don't where to start. :)

The keyboards are almost always bad. The foam pieces used in each key have often deteriorated. They work for the first few keypresses... and then fail. Some people have devised ways to create new foam disks. I prefer to cannibalize surplus Sun Type 4 keyboards for their foam. New foam better but hard to get right. Cannibalization is easier and works without issue.

Original disks from Tandy are always bad. The disk drive scrapes off the coating and gums up the disk drive heads. Don't use them. Quallity of brand name blanks varies from brand to brand. I've had good success with Memorex and 3M NOS.

The Mod II has a lot of connections, and it tends to be electrically flakey. I've put a lot of effort into contact cleaning etc, and I'm stil not happy.

Hope you have success getting it going and have fun in the process!

Kevin
 
The models 12, 16, 16B and 6000 were Tandy's high-end business systems and were built on the Model II platform (all will boot Model II diskettes). I believe it's possible to field-upgrade the Model II to a 16 if you have the 68K CPU and memory cards (it's a tight fit).

The good thing about those--and the Model II was that they were very often on a Tandy service contract (you can check yours by looking to see if there's a service sticker on the bottom of the keyboard that gives an expiration date). If you're lucky enough to have one of those, you probably have one where all of the field change orders have been installed.

My keyboard works just fine and, as far as I know, has never had the foam pads changed.
 
The model II is a pretty damn rliable system I ahve found.
I got mine and the external disk box off another member here back in 2009 and he literally found it all in a ditch and by the looks of it, the system had been there a while.
Sure enough, it powered up and worked no problem.
 
I think my Model II's were not stored well over the years.

I have 5 model II's. All of the keyboards were toast and needed repair. None of the machine are particularly reliable.

By contrast, my two 6000s are in much better condition, and they are as reliable as a modern computer. The 6000 seems much better built to me. Both 6000 keyboards needed rebuilding though, and one of the keyboards had never been used.

Kevin
 
I like the Model II but it seems like they disintegrate right before your eyes as you use them. I never had trouble with any other model.
 
The truth is, these machines were worked to death in an office environment. Any that survived until today probably lived in a office for 10 years before finally being de-commissioned. Then they sat in a storeroom for another 10 years (just in case we need the old data). They're "trash" in the used-up sense, as much as a car with 200,000 miles on it.

The Model II was probably the top selling business micro from 1979-1983. There are tons of business applications for it, not much else. Today, these are more collectors' machines, you can't do as much with them that's "fun" other than fix them.
 
billdeg said:
you can't do as much with them that's "fun" other than fix them.
Click to expand...

I have news for you - it's not much "fun" trying to fix them.

"I like the Model II but it seems like they disintegrate right before your eyes as you use them. I never had trouble with any other model."

And that comment is the key. They were cheap, but they sure weren't made like the rest of them at the time.
The Model 4 is better, and was a business machine used in a lot of engineering offices, but not for long....
Design-wise: they aren't a Kaypro 10, an IBM 5150/5160, or anything else that was around, as far as I'm concerned.
The quality/design is just disappointing.
 
One of the reasons that I never was interested in the TRS-80 stuff was the quality of engineering.

The Model 2/12/16 has a lot of weaknesses. The first, is the case. Most manufacturers used structural foam--tooling is inexpensive and the result is very strong. Tandy used some sort of injection molding--I shudder to think of the tooling cost--and the result is weak. The card cage should have been rotated 90 degrees, so that the connectors are on the bottom--and a standard cage with guides and lifters would have been better. Put the fan on the rear of the case instead of the bottom (really bad decision there). A lot of space is wasted on the left side of the case--the PSU and video take up nearly 1/3 of the volume.

The card design, judging from the various revisions (does anyone have a schematic for the "late model" FDC (in both of its revisions)?

Compare the contemporaneous NEC APC for an example of a 1982 8" machine done right. Yes, it's 1982, not 1979, but by the time the Model 12 came out in 1983, it was obsolete. The APC had two 8" drives, an 8086 with very fine graphics--and color was available as an option.
 
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Lorne said:
I have news for you - it's not much "fun" trying to fix them.
Click to expand...
I've not had much trouble fixing them. I agree with Chuck that the "design" is sketchy at best. Do you have the technical manual with the repair and troubleshooting processes?
Kelly
 
kb2syd said:
I've not had much trouble fixing them. I agree with Chuck that the "design" is sketchy at best. Do you have the technical manual with the repair and troubleshooting processes?
Kelly
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I've got loads of docs.
The problem is that there's lots of trouble to shoot.
 
Where are you stuck? I'd make sure the drives work first using a PC and IMD or a catweasel.

Then it's kind of hit and miss. The floppy controller card is probably the flakiest in the bunch. I used to know a guy in Toronto that would fix the floppy boards but I lost touch with him several years ago. Same initials too. Kellydl was the handle he used on the comp.sys.tandy group.
 
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If you have the late-model floppy controller, it's really simple to get it working with a 3½" HD floppy drive. Basically, you populate the header pads at J1 and add a couple of wire jumpers on the back side. This does not destroy 8" functioning.

There are also ways to get certain Teac 3½" drives to spin at 360 RPM and provide a ready signal on pin 34, but neither is strictly necessary.
 
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