What is so interesting, special, or unique??? You could buy your TRS-80 with drives, or you could buy it without drives. You could use it without drives, or you could add your own. With Radio Shack charging $500 per drive, while the aftermarket was ~$200 per drive, why would anybody NOT put in their own drives? Same thing with the 5150 PC.

So is this what you call friendship ... I'm deeply hurt by your attitude of forgetting the M3 and M4 without drives in my Lager I showed you (together with a DT2) ... or at least I would if I'd be a woman :) So is my theory. In fact, the M3 and M4 I have without drives are both 16k models, and thus even more supporting that theory. If one doesent have the money, he'll buyes the cheapest version possible (16k and no drives) just to enhance it later on. Or to give up after realizeing that computing isn't for him ... that's the way my two look like. almost like new. Jup, my M3 looks like the original owner did use it with a cassette drive for a short time (at least according to the marks on the keyboard) until he put the machine in the attic. Oh, then there's another way: as Salesman who was able to convince the original owner that a M3 is exactly what he needs to start with - maybe he gave him even a free cassette recorder ... Another alike thing is the Tandy DT2 - basicly a M4 with a cover where the disk drives go and a terminal software in ROM. it was ment as Terminal for the M2/M12. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 5.0 am 01./02. Mai 2004 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/

Vintage Computer Festival wrote: No additional comment necessary... :P -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818

--- Hans Franke <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de> wrote: I remember. Out of curiosity, is it command-set compatible with anything? Have the ROMs been backed up anywhere so that someone might be able to experiment with a real M4? -ethan (When I was in High School, our "computer lab" consisted of either an HP or Wang programmable calculator, an M3 and an M4. I got a grade in "computer math" by writing a simple database program to help the teacher track the stats of the wrestling team, and to calculate grade point averages for grade cards. Someday, I wouldn't mind locating an M4, but it would be nice to be able to use it as a dumb terminal - probably get more power-on hours that way).

More Tandys in the ACCRC? MINE, ALL MINE ...... :) -- VCF Europa 5.0 am 01./02. Mai 2004 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/

So, if I take the drives back out, and put in block-off plates where the drives went, then it would make it interesting again? (Not to worry - Eric has my 3's. But maybe I'll "restore" some of my 5150s back to 16K/no drive codition)

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote: No, because you did it retroactively. Maybe it would be a little interesting because you're Fred, but otherwise, no :) Indeed, then sell them on eBay for $500! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

On Mon, 30 Jun 2003, Witchy wrote: I didn't doubt that there were more out there in the world, just that the one I have is the only one I've ever seen. Someone, somewhere probably has a garage full of them for no good reason. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

On Tue, 1 Jul 2003, Mark Firestone wrote: As usual. :-) Nice start. I suspect you mean FORTRAN IV. FORTRAN II is another animal. I don't think it's available on RSTS/E, but I have it for OS/8, and it's probably not capable of compiling DUNGEON, no matter how you work with it. And yes, FORTRAN IV, as well as FORTRAN 77 are layered products. Sold by Mentec (well, FORTRAN 77 at least). So it's not possible to get them from anywhere on the net. Perhaps someone can provide you with binaries? I might be able to help with RSX binaries, which you might be able to run under RSTS/E, but this would mean some tricking around as well. And that's the way it will likely be for quite a while, unless someone can either convince Mentec to give it away, create some hobbyist license, or if someone could buy it off from Mentec. Very much a maybe... Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt(a)update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, Witchy wrote: ^^^^^^^^^^^ No such URL. How common is equipment that runs on 240V besides large appliances sold in the US? Not very much. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

Well, maybe keep in Mind that Witchy lives in Britain, and 240 is there (as for most other parts of the world) the standard voltage. High power (3 phases) is supposed to be 400 :) Now, for the question it's rather where did you buy the machine? Since the Printer is 240 I assume in Europe. In the late 70s a lot of machines got directly imported and the people used step down transformers to operate them - Often dealers even managed to sell these beasts to customers when the original PSU was switchable to 220 and so maxing the profit :) Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 5.0 am 01./02. Mai 2004 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/

It just seems odd that the machine itself was set for 110V whereas its printer is exclusively 240V: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/dmp100.jpg Of course, I'm only assuming it belonged to the machine because everything came from the same yard sale - Model 3 with plastic cover, DMP100 printer with plastic cover, cassette deck and a box of paper..... cheers -- adrian/witchy www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the online computer museum www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - monthly gothic shenanigans

the 32K, no disk systems were usually used in schools in a network 3 setup Does anyone have a spare model 4 disk controller floating around?

kurtk7(a)visi.com wrote: At least you have the pleasure of having driven up the price for the guy who won it. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2737531463&categ… They don't show up very often on ebay (not the computer part) and certainly the one that just sold was the most complete such system I've seen. In my own limited experience, you can probably get the system you want, but the highest leverage way I've found takes these two things: 1) put up a web page dedicated to the machine. a good one. one that shows you are serious about it and one that supplies a lot of interesting information. one that other people will find first when they do a web search. some day one of those people searching will be an owner of such a machine and they'll contact you. 2) patience. lots of it. I'm sure right now that feeling of needing to own one is overwhelming since you just got so close, but you must also realize that you spent the previous 20 years in bliss after having forgotten about the machine. It may take two or three years, but it does happen. The bees do eventually find the flowers. You can also go out and beat the bushes, do frequent google searches looking for other owners or people who mentioned owning one in an old usenet posting, haunt every goodwill/salvation army, hit lots of yard sales, etc, etc. The best approach is to do all of the above. I got the idea in my head to locate a wang 2200 four or so years ago. It was the machine I first learned to program. After two years of hitting nothing but dead ends and not seeing a single one on ebay or at any swap meet, I decided to put up a web site. Within 6 months I had one. A year later I had a second one. Oh, another cosmic side effect is that within a month of acquiring my first 2200, two showed up on ebay. Good luck finding that Imagination Machine.