TRS-80 Model II brought home: now what?

[kb2syd]

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.

Do tell. Do you know what jumpers to add, or is it pretty obvious?

 

[Chuck(G)]

If you're using a traditional 1.44M floppy (with no READY output), slip a simple header shunt over pins 21 and 22 of the J0 connector. (forces continuous READY). On J1, jumper pins 10 and 16 and set the floppy drive select to DS0. Connect the drive to the appropriate +5 supply (you can probably borrow that from the FDC board and connect using a "flat" 34-conductor cable. You're done--just use IMD or whatever you have to iwrite the images of TRSDOS and CP/M to 1.44M (DSHD) floppies on your PC.

It might also be possible to support two floppy drives set to DS1 (i..e. conventional PC setting) using a traditional floppy cable (one drive twisted) and jumpering instead of 10 and 16, 10 and 14 and 12 and 16 at J1. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks as if it should work for 2-drive support).

Set the FDC jumpers at LMN and PQR for 2 internal drive support. (There's a Tandy jumper handbook on the web).

I should probably post Teac floppy drive mods for READY/ and 360 RPM operation one of these days.