A friend of mine's dad who was an engineer back in the day had a model 3 and I thought it was the coolest looking computer and now all these years later I still think it's a pretty nice looking machine.
Thanks! I agree, great looking machine. I had been after a TRS-80 model 3 for many years, but most of the ones I found were in bad shape (the case paint wears off easily) and all the nice units were out of the local area and I didn't want to have something like this shipped hoping it would arrive it in one piece. As for your high score, indeed, it's still there, however I will try and knock it off or at least down the list at some point ;-)
my father brought this home as our first computer when i was a child. He was always fooling around with it. He was an electronics engineer which also meant computers at that time. That was before there were any degrees dealing with just computers. He programmed a little math game for me to help me with my math on it. this is so nostalgic for me.
Thank you for sharing your story about the TRS-80 Model 3 being your first computer. So cool! Mine was the Commodore 64. I'm happy my video brought back some nostalgic happy memories for you!
Same here. These machines were just a little bit before my time. My family's first computer had proper graphics and sound (TI99-4/a) so whenever I stumbled across a TRS-80 somewhere I more or less dismissed it since it wasn't really a games machine and as a kid, that's all I really was interested in. Neat to see some software pushing the limits of character mode. Also neat that they auto-booted from disk all the way back then. Would be interested in hearing the sound from the cassette you mentioned.
@@retrobitstv The TI99-4/a is better than a VIC-20, but not as good as a Commodore 64, but I'm sure you already know that LOL. I really tried liking the TI99-4/a when I had one a few years ago (didn't own one BITD) and growing up as a Apple II and C64 kid, I always giggled at friends that had them. I do however appreciate them for what they are now as an adult. As for the TRS-80 model 3 and sound out of the cassette player, I've got that sorted now and will be showing that off in October at some point, so stay tuned.
Lots of computers back in the day had versions of BASIC branded with their company name which was pretty cool. I really like how the game Zork was branded Tandy as well.
A Model III was my first computer. First time I ever used one was a computer class during the summer I signed up for. The school had a bunch of them networked together. Liked it so much that I badgered my parents into getting me one. Unfortunately I didn't have any drives for it and relied upon a cassette player. Mine started out as a 16K but a friend who also had a Model III installed a Model 4 upgrade kit in his so we swapped boards (with memory size badge) so I was maxed out at 48K. Which would have been great if it would have had a disk drive. Wish I still had that thing but when I got my Tandy 1000 EX with that glorious color screen I lost all interest in it and sold it.
Thank you for watching my video and sharing your story with the Tandy TRS-80 Model III computer. The Tandy 1000 EX is a pretty nice all in one model for sure! Having color is nice, however there is something special about the black and white screen on a model III.
This was the second computer I ever used after the Model 1. I first learned about them from a sixteen-page insert in an issue of Action Comics where Superman worked with two students who were known as the TRS-80 Computer Whiz Kids. Smartest marketing I’ve ever seen to this day. Later that summer at 4H camp I finally got to try BASIC on the Model 1. It was great. Awesome memories.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing your story about TRS-80 computers from back in the day. It would be really cool to find a copy of the Action Comics insert you mentioned.
Great video. I really wanted a Model III back when I was in middle school, but they were super expensive. My parents ended up buying me a TRS-80 Color Computer with 4K RAM instead. I learned how to program in BASIC and grew up to be a software engineer.
Thank you for sharing your computer story. Very cool it let you to be a software engineer. It seems that most of us who grew up during the golden age of computers are now working in some sort of technology / IT careers. Pretty cool time to be alive back then.
Thanks for showing this off, Sean! Seeing those shiny/glossy badges brings back memories! Used this ini high school where our lab room used this as the file server for more TRS-80s, presumably via the RS network controller. I def remember our teach calling TRS-80 DOS "Triss Doss". Honestly, I don't know if that was correct/common or not!
You're welcome Dave! Did the Model 3 computers in your high school lab have the giant external 10 MB hard drives? I saw one recently and they reminded me of giant suitcases LOL. As for TRS-80 DOS being called "Triss Doss", I've heard people call it that too. I have no idea since I grew up being a Commodore 64 and Apple II computer kid, like you ;-)
@@geekwithsocialskills We just had floppies...and just the one machine with dual floppies. All the other machines took turns reading the Model IIII's floppy by using the Radio Shack network controller.
Glad you enjoyed the Matrix demo hack. As mentioned in the video, after seeing the new Matrix trailer, I was inspired and felt it was a good fit for the TRS-80 Model 3 :-)
@@geekwithsocialskills Triss DOS is specifically how the manual wants you to pronounce it, if you can believe it. I, for one, am sticking with pronouncing each letter THANKYOUVERYMUCH
My first ever computer program was written on this machine in BASIC. It was a very slow but still functional Space Invaders. Those far off school days eh...
It's funny that you mention Space Invaders because I've actually been wanting to find a port of it for the TRS-80 model 3 as I feel it would be a period correct game for the machine. Maybe I'll find your version on the internet? That would be so cool! Thank you for watching my video and commenting. Much appreciated!
I wasn't familiar with the game Outhouse, so after you mentioned it, I searched for it. It does look interesting, so I'll give it a try. Thank you for the heads up on it and for watching/commenting on my video. For those following along, here's a link about the game Outhouse for the TRS-80 Model 1 and Model 3 that I found: www.trs-80.org/outhouse/
Great SepTandy video! I wonder what office productivity software was available for this computer when it was in it's prime? I'd be surprised if VisiCalc didn't come out for it.
Thank you! I'm having a blast doing SepTandy videos! As for VisiCalc, it was indeed released for the Model 3 on January 30, 1981. I do have a disk copy of VisiCalc, but I didn't think it would be fun to showcase in my video. "Hey everybody, look, a spreadsheet" LOL!
Your Matrix demo will run slightly faster if you use integer variables. You can either suffix each variable with % or use DEFINT to declare them as integers. That 2MHz CPU needs all the help it can get. :)
Cool, thanks for the tips. I'll update my Matrix demo code. As for the CPU speed, it's actually 2.03 MHz, but agreed, it needs all the help it can get ;-)
What sort of things did you do on the TRS-80 model 3 in your computer science class? Thanks for watching my video and commenting by the way. Much appreciated!
@@geekwithsocialskills Oh man. You are asking me to dig way back in my RAM. As I recall, we used Turbo Pascal to create our programs for the class assignments. One program I was especially proud of was a Star Trek-like game I wrote whose most fun part was the transporter, using the primitive graphics we had available on that machine. The most memorable part of our class was the teacher. He was a retired Army computer scientist who worked on some of the descendants of the ENIAC in 1960s and 1970s Cold War Europe and Turkey. His stories really lit a fire in some of us to pursue CS or IT in later life.
hi i have a trs80 model 3...when powered on nothing shows on screen...its been sitting in attic for 35yrs...any idea what i should look at?...the red floppy drive light turns on
Have you tried adjusting the brightness knob? It's on the front left underside. Sometimes those get adjusted when moving the computer around. As for detailed troubleshooting, check out this website which has the Model III Technical Reference Manual and also Model III Service Manual. Both are a wealth of useful information: www.trs-80.com/wordpress/repairs/
Welcome to the TRS-80 club! Yes, the Maxtrix code could be saved to floppy disk or cassette tape. The code is small, so it's not hard to enter it in and would only take a few minutes to type it out on your machine.
You can install a GoTek drive in both the Model 3 and 4, however there is also something called a FreHD which is a SD card hard drive solution. A friend of mine is currently building me one, so at some point I'll have that for my model 3 which will be really nice.
Just tried the Matrix Code on my Model III. It stops typing on line 125. Do you know any reason that may be? I literally cannot type any further because it won't let me. Any help would be very appreciated
That's really strange. I've never seen that happen. How much memory does your Model 3 have? It's only 9 lines of code. Are you pressing enter after each line of code?
Awesome! I fixed up my TRS-80 Model 3. One of the improvements I highly recommend is replacing drive 0 with a Gotek with the FlashFloppy firmware loaded: ua-cam.com/video/DmFtIaYe6pY/v-deo.html
I just watched your video. Thanks for the link to it! I also subscribed to your channel. I ened up getting a FreHD, so now I have an SD card solution, however I'll probably add a GoTek as well.
Back in the day that was my dream computer.
A friend of mine's dad who was an engineer back in the day had a model 3 and I thought it was the coolest looking computer and now all these years later I still think it's a pretty nice looking machine.
I thought about buying it for BASIC!
@@jackilynpyzocha662 Programming in BASIC was a lot of fun back in the day and it's still a lot of fun even in 2024 🙂
Such a great looking machine. It was fun to see my high score is still on the list for 13 Ghosts!
Thanks! I agree, great looking machine. I had been after a TRS-80 model 3 for many years, but most of the ones I found were in bad shape (the case paint wears off easily) and all the nice units were out of the local area and I didn't want to have something like this shipped hoping it would arrive it in one piece. As for your high score, indeed, it's still there, however I will try and knock it off or at least down the list at some point ;-)
my father brought this home as our first computer when i was a child. He was always fooling around with it. He was an electronics engineer which also meant computers at that time. That was before there were any degrees dealing with just computers. He programmed a little math game for me to help me with my math on it. this is so nostalgic for me.
Thank you for sharing your story about the TRS-80 Model 3 being your first computer. So cool! Mine was the Commodore 64. I'm happy my video brought back some nostalgic happy memories for you!
Nice! Never realized how capable these systems were.
Thanks! Z80 processor running at 2.03 MHz with 48KB of RAM. It's the future!
Same here. These machines were just a little bit before my time. My family's first computer had proper graphics and sound (TI99-4/a) so whenever I stumbled across a TRS-80 somewhere I more or less dismissed it since it wasn't really a games machine and as a kid, that's all I really was interested in. Neat to see some software pushing the limits of character mode. Also neat that they auto-booted from disk all the way back then. Would be interested in hearing the sound from the cassette you mentioned.
@@retrobitstv The TI99-4/a is better than a VIC-20, but not as good as a Commodore 64, but I'm sure you already know that LOL. I really tried liking the TI99-4/a when I had one a few years ago (didn't own one BITD) and growing up as a Apple II and C64 kid, I always giggled at friends that had them. I do however appreciate them for what they are now as an adult. As for the TRS-80 model 3 and sound out of the cassette player, I've got that sorted now and will be showing that off in October at some point, so stay tuned.
A Tandy version of BASIC, great!
Lots of computers back in the day had versions of BASIC branded with their company name which was pretty cool. I really like how the game Zork was branded Tandy as well.
A Model III was my first computer. First time I ever used one was a computer class during the summer I signed up for. The school had a bunch of them networked together. Liked it so much that I badgered my parents into getting me one. Unfortunately I didn't have any drives for it and relied upon a cassette player. Mine started out as a 16K but a friend who also had a Model III installed a Model 4 upgrade kit in his so we swapped boards (with memory size badge) so I was maxed out at 48K. Which would have been great if it would have had a disk drive. Wish I still had that thing but when I got my Tandy 1000 EX with that glorious color screen I lost all interest in it and sold it.
Thank you for watching my video and sharing your story with the Tandy TRS-80 Model III computer. The Tandy 1000 EX is a pretty nice all in one model for sure! Having color is nice, however there is something special about the black and white screen on a model III.
This was the second computer I ever used after the Model 1. I first learned about them from a sixteen-page insert in an issue of Action Comics where Superman worked with two students who were known as the TRS-80 Computer Whiz Kids. Smartest marketing I’ve ever seen to this day. Later that summer at 4H camp I finally got to try BASIC on the Model 1. It was great. Awesome memories.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing your story about TRS-80 computers from back in the day. It would be really cool to find a copy of the Action Comics insert you mentioned.
@@geekwithsocialskills I could swear I actually have it. I’ll look.
That would be so awesome if you still had it!
Great video. I really wanted a Model III back when I was in middle school, but they were super expensive. My parents ended up buying me a TRS-80 Color Computer with 4K RAM instead. I learned how to program in BASIC and grew up to be a software engineer.
Thank you for sharing your computer story. Very cool it let you to be a software engineer. It seems that most of us who grew up during the golden age of computers are now working in some sort of technology / IT careers. Pretty cool time to be alive back then.
Thanks for showing this off, Sean! Seeing those shiny/glossy badges brings back memories!
Used this ini high school where our lab room used this as the file server for more TRS-80s, presumably via the RS network controller.
I def remember our teach calling TRS-80 DOS "Triss Doss". Honestly, I don't know if that was correct/common or not!
You're welcome Dave! Did the Model 3 computers in your high school lab have the giant external 10 MB hard drives? I saw one recently and they reminded me of giant suitcases LOL. As for TRS-80 DOS being called "Triss Doss", I've heard people call it that too. I have no idea since I grew up being a Commodore 64 and Apple II computer kid, like you ;-)
@@geekwithsocialskills We just had floppies...and just the one machine with dual floppies. All the other machines took turns reading the Model IIII's floppy by using the Radio Shack network controller.
@@geekwithsocialskills Oh, and nice matrix demo hack!
Glad you enjoyed the Matrix demo hack. As mentioned in the video, after seeing the new Matrix trailer, I was inspired and felt it was a good fit for the TRS-80 Model 3 :-)
@@geekwithsocialskills Triss DOS is specifically how the manual wants you to pronounce it, if you can believe it. I, for one, am sticking with pronouncing each letter THANKYOUVERYMUCH
Hey! I’m still second on the 13 Ghosts high scores!
Hah! Indeed. I'll need to work on bumping you down the high score table in the future :-p
My first ever computer program was written on this machine in BASIC. It was a very slow but still functional Space Invaders. Those far off school days eh...
It's funny that you mention Space Invaders because I've actually been wanting to find a port of it for the TRS-80 model 3 as I feel it would be a period correct game for the machine. Maybe I'll find your version on the internet? That would be so cool! Thank you for watching my video and commenting. Much appreciated!
Back in the day my favorite game was "Outhouse".
I wasn't familiar with the game Outhouse, so after you mentioned it, I searched for it. It does look interesting, so I'll give it a try. Thank you for the heads up on it and for watching/commenting on my video. For those following along, here's a link about the game Outhouse for the TRS-80 Model 1 and Model 3 that I found: www.trs-80.org/outhouse/
Great SepTandy video! I wonder what office productivity software was available for this computer when it was in it's prime? I'd be surprised if VisiCalc didn't come out for it.
Thank you! I'm having a blast doing SepTandy videos! As for VisiCalc, it was indeed released for the Model 3 on January 30, 1981. I do have a disk copy of VisiCalc, but I didn't think it would be fun to showcase in my video. "Hey everybody, look, a spreadsheet" LOL!
@@geekwithsocialskills True, lol!
One of my favorite from the era.
Had a chance to buy one for $40 and passed it up :’((
I'm enjoying the TRS-80 Model 3 for sure. I never owned one back in the day. As for passing on a $40 unit, as Homer Simpson would say: Doh!
Your Matrix demo will run slightly faster if you use integer variables. You can either suffix each variable with % or use DEFINT to declare them as integers. That 2MHz CPU needs all the help it can get. :)
Cool, thanks for the tips. I'll update my Matrix demo code. As for the CPU speed, it's actually 2.03 MHz, but agreed, it needs all the help it can get ;-)
Ah! High school computer science class!
What sort of things did you do on the TRS-80 model 3 in your computer science class? Thanks for watching my video and commenting by the way. Much appreciated!
@@geekwithsocialskills Oh man. You are asking me to dig way back in my RAM. As I recall, we used Turbo Pascal to create our programs for the class assignments. One program I was especially proud of was a Star Trek-like game I wrote whose most fun part was the transporter, using the primitive graphics we had available on that machine. The most memorable part of our class was the teacher. He was a retired Army computer scientist who worked on some of the descendants of the ENIAC in 1960s and 1970s Cold War Europe and Turkey. His stories really lit a fire in some of us to pursue CS or IT in later life.
@@corvus00 thank you for doing a RAM dump for me :-)
hi i have a trs80 model 3...when powered on nothing shows on screen...its been sitting in attic for 35yrs...any idea what i should look at?...the red floppy drive light turns on
Have you tried adjusting the brightness knob? It's on the front left underside. Sometimes those get adjusted when moving the computer around. As for detailed troubleshooting, check out this website which has the Model III Technical Reference Manual and also Model III Service Manual. Both are a wealth of useful information: www.trs-80.com/wordpress/repairs/
Is there a way to save the Matrix code to a floppy disk? I'm new to TRS 80
Welcome to the TRS-80 club! Yes, the Maxtrix code could be saved to floppy disk or cassette tape. The code is small, so it's not hard to enter it in and would only take a few minutes to type it out on your machine.
Is there a SD solution for disk images for the Model 3 and 4?
You can install a GoTek drive in both the Model 3 and 4, however there is also something called a FreHD which is a SD card hard drive solution. A friend of mine is currently building me one, so at some point I'll have that for my model 3 which will be really nice.
Just tried the Matrix Code on my Model III. It stops typing on line 125. Do you know any reason that may be? I literally cannot type any further because it won't let me. Any help would be very appreciated
Confirm your line 125 is this code: 125 IF B>0 AND X
Wait, are you saying your machine is locking up when you type in the code?
@@geekwithsocialskills not locking up, it just won't let me type any further
That's really strange. I've never seen that happen. How much memory does your Model 3 have? It's only 9 lines of code. Are you pressing enter after each line of code?
Awesome! I fixed up my TRS-80 Model 3. One of the improvements I highly recommend is replacing drive 0 with a Gotek with the FlashFloppy firmware loaded:
ua-cam.com/video/DmFtIaYe6pY/v-deo.html
I just watched your video. Thanks for the link to it! I also subscribed to your channel. I ened up getting a FreHD, so now I have an SD card solution, however I'll probably add a GoTek as well.