Cord Coslor wrote: snip Hi Larry & Cord: When first reading Larry's question, there wwas something in the back of my mind about "If the thing was supposed to boot from the hard disk -- you needed to hold down the CTRL (or maybe ALT) key to get it to read from the floppy? This stuff of 'automaticly' checking the floppy drive, iss 'new fangled software stuff'.

Chuck -- ----------------------------------------------------------- He, who will not reason, is a bigot; William Drumond, he, who cannot, is a fool; Scottish writer and he, who dares not, is a slave. (1585-1649) While he that does, is a free man! Joseph P. 1955- ----------------------------------------------------------- (be sure to correct the return address when using 'reply') Chuck Davis / Sutherlin Industries FAX # (804) 799-0940 1973 Reeves Mill Road E-Mail -- cad(a)gamewood.net Sutherlin, Virginia 24594 Voice # (804) 799-5803

On 18 Feb 98 at 12:40, Cord Coslor wrote: There were several trsdos boot disks that I tried. Versions 2.0 A and 4.2 and copies as well as CP/M 2.2. The error message was "boot error ht " OK, I hit the escape key ,I get the message "insert diskette " I insert a disk , the activity lite goes on ( the driver cone is always spinning ) and the message doesn't change. The activity lite stays on unless I hit the reset and it reverts to the first message after a short while. It's beginning to sound like it's an allignment problem to me. have As I've now learned . No, I didn't hook up the HDD s . There were 3 of them and no visible numbering as to order of placement. I'll have to get under the hood and see what I can see, and/or try the external floppy DD. I'll let you know

Thanks, larry As well as the CP/M it also has an Exenix Install set. Likely installed on one of the 5meg HDDs L. lwalkerN0spaM(a)interlog.com

Lawrence Walker wrote: On the bottom of each drive box, is a circular plate or a hole where it used to be. One of the drives should have a blue DIP terminating resistor pack. That would be the last drive in the chain. The first drive in the chain will be the one with the power switch.

If so, this is no mere Model 2, but a Model II with a Model 16 upgrade kit installed. I would cheerfully take this system off your hands to sit between my early Model II and my Tandy 6000HD. Note to all: As you visit the swap meets, ham fests, thrift stores and whatnot, I am trying to acquire a bunch of software packages for the Tandy 8" product line, especially the documentation. As Lawrence mentioned in his first message, there is remarkably little information on the Web about this product line, primarily because they were never as popular with hobbyists as the 1/3/4 or Color Computer lines -- they were designed, built and marketed as business machines, and when they were replaced by peecees years later, most business just tossed the machines and the software packages into the dumpsters.

These machines are truly dear to me -- while I may have started with a Model One (before it was called that), the Model II and its upgrades and successors are where I grew up. Xenix on the Model 16 is where my long relationship with Unix and its relatives began. And in my arrogant opinion, Scripsit 2.0 on the Model II is _still_ one of the best damned word processors ever if the object is to process words rather than make documents look pretty. -- Ward Griffiths

Lawrence Walker wrote: Those are 8.4MB drives. Not SCSI, not even ST-506. Those are 8" Shugart mechanisms in there, 4 heads by 256 cylinders. I forget how termination worked in those units (haven't seen one in action in at least 12 years). And yes, the write protect switch and the active light are illuminated when in use. The number of times I've wished I had a hardware write-protect switch on a PC... When the drives are in use and the active light is blinking, those drives make the friendliest little chirping noise. Quite a few were sold, which became a serious problem a couple of years later when most of them were dropping like flies. Tandy's parts contract with Shugart was one of the worst deals they ever made. At least the 5/12/15/35/70 MB drives were standard Tandon units and if need be could be replaced with other vendors' drives, assuming a slight change to connect the drive logic to the write-protect switch.

At 08:30 AM 2/25/98 -0600, you wrote: I don't know if they're SA-1000s or what but I have two 8" DDs out of a Tektronix piece of gear. I haven't had time to fool with them so i don't even know how many contacts there are in the connector but they use AC motors. Joe

motors. Well let's put it this way, I'm not using them for anything. :-) Joe

Lawrence Walker wrote: Great... that you got such a fine part. I've a TRS80 MII too but without a harddiskdrive. For other use I add an extern DSDD 8" diskdrive. The internal diskdrive is singlesided I believe it's a shugart 801. I got several errormessages during bootup every time I tried to do so which was every 2-4 months. My problem was the dispositioned head of the diskdrive. (1) --------------------\ ---------------+ ! !----! (2) +-----+__ 1_2_3_____...77+---------- !_____+------------------+__________ (3) -------------- /====\ There I trie to show the disk with head and the part against the head for the singlesided drive. If you put in the disk between part (1) and (3) must be place enough to insert the fleydisk into the drive. If there isn't enough place the disk will become contact with part (1) or (2) and you throw the head backwards. If you don't recocnise it and after some triese are able to get the fleyxdisk into the drive you change the correct position of the head against track zero. Normaly the head must find track oneduring bootup. If the system boots the diskdrive will reset the position of the head(s) and a indicator says now the head is in Track 0 position. The the stepper stepps backwards from track to track. Dispositioned head: (1) --------------------\ ---------------+ ! !----! (2) +-----+__ 1_2_3_____...77+---------- !_____+------------------+__________ (3) -------------- /====\ Here you see that the head can't stepp backwards during the poweron / reset time because during inserting the flexydisk I dispositioned the head. The distance between (1) and (3) was to small because part (1) fall down from the metallplate which make the headload. Now during boot I got a DC error. It's a nice mechanical problem in my case and maybe you have the same. Even the indicator for Track 0 maybee dusty or inoperable. Greetings Fritz Chwolka / collecting old computers just for fun. +-----------------------------------------------------+

At 10:55 AM 2/17/98 +0000, you wrote: Is that the same hard drive that's used for the model 4? I passed up two of them this weekend at a hamfest. I found one of them in the trash afterwards. I going to grab it but they took the front switch panel, fan and circuit board so I didn't bother. I know who has the second one if anyone is seriously interested in it. He also has a model four for sale. The stuff would be cheap but don't expect him to pack and ship it for nothing. Joe

;-) Clearing the snow from my glasses, I saw Lawrence Walker typed: Tho I doooo like Tandys, I haven't found any of their "business" marketed machines yet for my collection... but I may be close. Twas up at the local RS two days ago, and this is the guy that had the Tandy 2000 for sale last year -- for $900 plus monitor. Well, methinks that system got tossed (he said a lot of machines got tossed in the move to the new building 5-6 months ago... :-( ) but lo & behold on the upper shelf in the back room was an all-in-one with twin 8" drives! I asked: Is that thar a Model II? and Sir Store owner says: No, it's a Model 12. It may be finding it's way to my collection soon. Oh, anyone need a "brand-new" copy of Xenix (I think it's Xenix 286) -- he's still got a box of that up there, and methinks a little Tandy 2000 software as of yet. (He still has a 1000SX on display, too.) Gotta find out if he's got any software for that Mod12! ^^ Wow! An 8 foot floppy drive! That *must* be cool!!! ;^> [snip] Sorry, can't help out much on the ModII for now, but maybe soon... ;-)