Can we just spare a moment to thank the generations of spiders who have been diligently keeping this machine cockroach-free during the last several decades? If they hadn't been there, this would be... worse.
i remember my uncle computer workshop opened a very dusty and old computer from a client he wanted to fix but once my uncle opened it, he opened the pandora box, many cockroaches appeared, he killed it but he left the computer open after he leave its office for the weekend, and some cockroaches still remained in the computer case, and cockroach eggs hidden in the chassis, imagine what happened, it took 3 months worth of fumigation to get rid of them.
I scored two of these off our local computer store's 'free stuff' bench 20 years ago, along with the heavy 3 drive expansion unit and boxes and boxes of disks. One had a dead screen, the other a dead PSU. They had taken all the cards out of both for salvage. I got the cards on ebay and in my first ever vintage computer repair I managed to mix and match enough working parts to get one working machine. Honestly I'm a little afraid of it.. when I turn it on, esp with the expansion unit, my lights dim. :) Definitely a neat machine though.
I'd just call a priest for that machine, it's crazy that you are attempting to do anything with that. But you are you and you can do magic, looking forward to the next episode!
I once found plastics cups, plastic forks, food wraps in my University’s old MUMPS mini computer. Eventually the tail of the operator appeared… a rat was living inside the machine. Using the PSU as heating and terminal cables as a stairway/entrance. Explained the rat sightings on late nights.
Which Uni? MUMPS was one of the first database-oriented programming languages, developed at Massachusetts General Hospital where it was used to produce the world's first electronic health record system, MEDITECH.
@@douro20 It was University of Brasilia in Brazil. Somehow we got this mini computer in the 80s, few people knew how to code for it, but it ran for years controlling access to the lab. It died some time around 94.
Quite an adventure...i remember using one of those at Radio Shack, when I was a kid, they let me sit there for hours 'playing on them' .. probably to get more people seeing someone using it, draw them over from curiosity? Really brings back memories, bicycling there after school and spending a lot of hours just typing in programs from books and mags. What fun!
I used to go to the local Radio Shack and type programs into a Color Computer. I remember thinking you had to press the Shift key at the same time as the other key and often backspacing and trying again when it failed. Finally an employee explained that you first hold down the Shift key and then press the other key.
I had a TRS-80 when i was kid, and the TI 99/4A. A lot of fond memories of the "trash 80", especially using the cassette tapes. And ordering games through the mail from a B&W printed paper catalog, and having floppy discs arrive in plastic sandwich bags. Kids these days just don't know
Wohoo! A trash-80! Love those machines. My first computer was a TRS-80 model 1. Never could get the expansion interface as a child, because my family was poor. I have a couple now, including a functional model 3.
This was the first computer I owned (worked on mainframes). A real workhorse that I used way into the 1990s as a model railroad controller. Thank you very much for the trip down memory lane, I always enjoy your videos.
Same here, the first computer in my house, and it was actually quite good for the time as well. Especially considering what computers cost in those days. I loved getting the magazines in the mail. That really was awesome, it had it's own magazine.
It’s been a while, but I'm so glad to see that Adrian has finally reached 7k subscribers! Edit: This got outdated really quick. For those wondering what the joke's about, Adrian used to have 111k subs.
Nice! I learned how to program on a hand-me-down Model 4 in the mid-90s. -- holding down the orange button to boot into basic, and using "LLIST" (two Ls) to print ("save") my code to the daisy wheel printer. It's amazing to think that the cell phone I'm typing on is orders of magnitude more powerful than 90% of the computers I've ever used in my life... Thanks for the nostalgia, Adrian. ✌🏻
If you ever get far enough with this machine, you can repair the keyboard case by taking a silicone mold from the one good side and then casting epoxy with the cast in-situ.
Oh and I was going to say but forgot: Remember when you are testing that the 8" drive connector has a 24VDC pin. If that connector is not plugged into the drive, the switching PSU won't start up and you'll think the PSU is dead even though it isn't. That one had me stumped for some time. You don't have to have the 120VAC power connected to the drive, but the DC cable has to be. Or you could probably load the 24VDC rail with a big resistor or something to get the PSU to start up, but I've never tried that. Good luck, man. Again, let me know if you need any of the parts I have. Contact info in that other comment.
@@trs-80fanclub12 Hey man! Long time no see! :D I haven't tried it yet. I need to swap the logic boards over from the other drive. I really appreciate you sending it to me, but if you want it back since I am taking so long to get around to trying it, just say!
@@Lee_Adamson_OCF Lol No Way, Its a relic, Keep it or find a needy one that needs it. Otherwise its a extra brick for me. Still trying to focus on getting a shugart real 5 - 1/4 to work on a usb adaptor.
My neighbor has an TRS-80 brazilian clone called CP-500 with double 8" floppy drives, and once he brought it here to see if I could repair it for him, but I didn't had any experience with vintage machines, and I turned it on before taking it apart and looking at every board and circuitry, and then suddenly tantalum caps on both of the floppy drives popped, I turned it off immediately, was amazing seeing that, one day, that was the state-of-the-art technology
Wow, The TRS- 80 was sold in The Netherlands too, my (former) brother in law had one. And he did some nice things on it, sound, administration etc. I never understood the machine, I was used to mainframes (IBM, Siemens, Philips...) 😎 Besides that I never knew there even was a Model 2.
Adrian, so glad to see you do a SepTandy series. I haven't seen too many this year. Keep the repair videos coming I love them as I'm sure do many others. The un-boxing/Mail room stuff is cool, but the repair video's knock it out of the park. Keep up the good work and stay healthy!
Holy crap, what an absolute contraption! Way to go getting it apart, I can't wait to see the troubleshooting/reassembly process! Keep up the amazing work, Adrian.
When I started as a trainee in IT in '96, a lot of the Engineers had a "proper" tool kit with gas soldering irons, multimeters etc. One thing they did have (and I still have) was lonnnnng screwdrivers in PH2, TX15, 8mm, 5.5mm with a Magnetiser/Demagnetiser tool as there was still a lot of older terminals/PCs/NCR Towers that looked a lot like taking this TRS80 apart, and obviously put together with priorities of being able to survive a direct hit from a howitzer rather that user serviceability in mind!
Was watching this with a friend and one of his cats sat down and watched the video with rapt attention. Something about your videos caught and held her attention for a good few minutes.
If it hadn't been for the drive terminator pack I would have thought this was the one I rescued from the Goodwill bins years ago. Couldn't fix it and re-donated.
I used them when new and have kept three of them running. We bought a Techical Reference Manual for our Model IIs in 1982 which I still have. EXCELLENT source of nearly everything in these and the 1-3 drive disk expansion unit. They are 100% business machines!. They were "built up" from the baseplate thus your dissassembly was harder than it would have been had you the info on the sequence of assembly. Power supplies have Rifa caps that go bad. It may not boot without the disk terminator plug depending upon the era. Western Digital and CDC 8" drives. GREAT machines for the time. Heavy and big but our firm did a LOT of things even IBMers didn't know how to do. Enjoy it Adrian.
I just picked up one of these several months ago and am now starting to restore it. So far, the RIFA caps needs to be replaced and motor for the floppy drive seems to have worn bearings. I would love to see more videos on this machine; especially if you are working your magic to restore it!
Seeing that TRS-80 brings me back to when I first started to learn programming. We had a room on campus where they had lots of these. And I had to wait in line to do my homework. The one's we had were just like that one. but had two floppy drives. I really wanted one of these at my houjse. But my dad did purchase my commodore with the floppy drive and monitor. I sure wish I had that equipment right now. Also I have never seen one of those large floppy disks.
I still find it amazing how these things were built and who could figure that out. Just the power supply alone to me is a work of marvel and would have no clue what anything does nevermind adding in the rest of the computer lol
I was a lucky guy to have the TRS-80 Model II to learn programming at the university. All students in other universities around here, Lisbon/PT, were seen carrying stacks of punched cards, Fortran or Cobol, while I and my colleagues were the proud guys seen around the city with 8" floppies among our books. I learned programming with PASCAL and also used the macro assembler of the TRS-80 to make programs for the Intel MCS-85 development kits for embedded systems. Transfering binaries between the TRS-80 II and the MCS-85 was done using one of the serial ports.
I remember when my Ham Radio club got a TRS-80 (Model I, now) for experimentation, and always thought it funny that it never gave a "SYNTAX ERROR," but rather said, "WHAT?" for almost all infractions. One of the things we did was to have it display the poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" in staggered stanzas, followed by some POKEd snow at the end. 15360-16383 was where I lived when the Model III came out. It was not FORTRAN, needed no cards, but it was still a lot of fun. Good job with this one! I remember seeing one at a local Radio Shack as their business flagship computer. Later, I would hear the "TRS-80 Voice Synthesizer Demonstration Program" in that same store a few years later. Wonderful device. The DMP-400 still sounded like a machine gun, though.
I found a Tandy model 3 put out for the trash about 10 years ago and I plugged it in and it worked. I sold it on eBay and shipped it to someone in FL. got like 300 dollars out of it. Guy was so happy with it he said it was museum quality.
This cost $3500 when new... Most of that was probably assembly costs. Focus on design for manufacture has advanced immensely in the past 40 years, but rarely gets mentioned - until you come across stuff like this.
To be fair, putting it together was probably a pretty straightforward process... that just had to be done in exactly the right order using the company's own specialized tools. It's just fixing it afterwards that takes forever, and it's not like they had any more incentive to make that simple than manufacturers do now.
In 1980, $6 - $8/hr would be about right for a line worker. It did not take hundreds of man-hours to build these. The components were eye-wateringly expensive compared to now; just 64k of memory alone would be $500 or so in 1980. The major gains in manufacturing efficiency since then are orders of magnitude higher for the compounds than for the labor.
Still, the design is unnecessarily clunky. You can tell nobody spent any extra effort optimizing the chassis. It probably evolved into what it is now, from a series of prototypes that were just good enough to keep using.
@@nickwallette6201 You've put it perfectly. I was obviously exaggerating about 3500 being spent on assembly, rather the point I was trying to make was that other than for tiny specialist production runs, you just wouldn't see construction like that these days. By the time they got to the model3, they knew they would be making it in significant quantities.
I had one of these. My father saved it from the trash at a school he worked for. I actually had two, but one had a dead chip. I used it to connect to BBS's using a 300 baud acoustic coupler, and later a 2400 baud modem. I loved this machine, but my parents made me get rid of it wen we moved to a smaller apartment. It made such wonderful clunky clacky noises.
The private school I went to had one of these donated. It was sitting at the back of the lab, separate from our Apple //e's. It had an external bay with three floppy drives, and an external hard drive on top. Our computer instructor allowed me to try it out . I hit the TRSDOS manuals, and learned how to boot the machine. I tried formatting the hard drive, but was stymied by a bad sector. It was the first hard drive that I'd ever encountered , in the mid 1980's. In operation, these guys were intended to work with video terminals hung off of them. Tandy/Radio Shack made terminals for this (serial ports) that looked like a Model I.
In the late 80s/early 90s my local Radio Shack had one of these running in the office with Xenix on it. The registers up front were dumb terminals and they had an okidata printer for receipts. They were using some DEC terminals up front.
I was just given one of these that was on its way to the trash pile that had been in storage along with the disk expansion system with two drives installed and a DMP-400 printer (and a Compaq Portable). I believe I have the original manuals, there is a handful of disks, and the units were in storage with proper dust covers. I'm expecting them to be in good shape. It's all loaded into my poor Honda Accord at the moment. I wouldn't have room for a passenger if I wanted one LOL! I know little to nothing about these machines, but I am excited to have one in my collection now!
It's a weird feeling to watch your intro and realize I used almost every computer featured in it when they were relatively new. My grade school had PETs. We had various model trash 80s in high school.
Brings back a lot of memories. I've torn a Model 2 or two down this far on occasion in my distant younger years. I'm lucky I didn't manage to shock the sense out of myself.
His little apple watch is way more powerful than all of his huge retro computers in this room combined. It is hard to believe how the technology is going forward so fast 😄
WOW. I hung around a RS Computer Centre when I grew up and I remember hearing the model II drives but I never imagined they were assembled like a combination labyrinth & adventure game. Awesome job AB
Good lord. I assumed when the video started that the 'computer' was part of the keyboard, as in so many other units, with this strange monitor/disk combination... wow did this video take a turn. Interesting they really went with a mini-computer route with all of those cards instead of a motherboard. That 8 inch drive and the motor...incredible.
That was interesting! It also makes me feel much bolder about my planned restoration of "ATTIC COMPUTER", a computer that was in, well, my attic (in Arizona, where attics typically reach 140 or more degrees F in the summer) for... well, probably about twenty years. It's a super filthy Apple II plus (I think) clone, with slight water staining. I thought that was bad, but at least it isn't full of pine needles, leaves, dead bugs, spider webs, spider eggs... yikes. I look forward to part 2 of this spider-infested Tandy restoration (I hope it eventually works)!
For reassembly, I stack a bunch of socket extensions like you did, and then tape the screw into the socket until I get it started, then pull off and remove the tape and then finish.
I used to do A LOT of work on these. The backplane is a take-off of the S-100 bus. It's only 80 pins and the boards had a taper on them. We used to build 10Megabyte and 411Megabyte disc drives for them.
Where does he get those wonderful toys? (I love the DataVac. Used one at an old job.) I have a Zenith Data Systems 8-Inch Floppy Drive that I salvaged from a recycle bin. I powered it up once, it roared and made my lights dim. It also weighs around 75lbs. Makes a great doorstop.
I just dove into a Model II. I recapped the PS that I managed to swap out without disassembling the whole thing. It was not easy. Now I have to troubleshoot it further. It's a rather painful system to get into. Looking forward to your further Model II videos.
I once had one between 1982 and 1984 with a 5 1/4 disk drive and 10GB hard drive. I was running a BBS system with 4 outside lines on it. It worked flawlessly and ran 24/7 for several months. Then I had sold it to a friend and he continued to work with it for another year. What happened to it after that I don't know, probably taken to a container park. When I see this now, I regret it, but yes, a man can't keep everything in his life ;-)
I had one of these in the early 90's. I never did get it to work. But now I know why, It had no expansion boards in it, not even the CPU board. LOL. Great vid. Lots of fun still to come with this computer.
I know this computer has "Fix me for punishment" written all over it but dang I hope to see this thing looking beautiful again. Killer stuff as usual Adrian!
I'd love to own an 8" floppy drive, but they're so rare it's hard to find them, never mind have the money to buy one, especially as there's certain western militaries still using them in some installations to maintain very old equipment... :P
I used to have a wang standalone single disc drive, it was as big as the whole computer Adrian is working on, I still have like 10 blank church fan floppies too.
My first job out of school was for a school district who wanted to build an interest test for students to direct them to occupations that would interest them. It took me a about a month to code, and the TRSDOS that came with this was barely up to the job (since it provided indexed files). I had plenty of experience with the TRS-80, and this was a whole different animal. It was much faster, and much more reliable.
Brings back memories of going into Radio Shack and playing with these computers, I think I played on a Model II, for sure the Model I 4K. I've never saw the inside of one, so very interesting thank you for opening one up and showing the insides. The spider webs and dead bugs is a perfect for a Halloween theme too... well, it seems you were a little scared 😁 LOL.
So in the late 70s and early 80s i worked as a young software and hardware engineer and I owned one of those model II computers in Australia. I burned an new character generator EPROM for it and amended the build in Microsoft basic to have graphics commands the same as the model I and III also I had a board in there with a Motorola 68000 16 bit processor and ran a version of Unix on it. As a heads-up I seem to remember the CRT unit had a bug or something and the horizontal oscillator frequency could run away and the CRT would emit a high pitched sound and if not switched off immediately would self-destruct. Since I would experiment with the circuitry and assembly language programs this happened several times with mine. I sold it in 1983 and switched to IBM compatible computers. i have however, fond memories off the machine.
Now you need the combination disk drive pedestal and desk unit! I nearly got given one of these in the mid-90s, but the bloke threw it away before I got a chance to get it off him. I was so annoyed. I've heard that rebuilding them is a very involved process, but the upside of that is that when it's all finished you get a much bigger sense of achievement :-) The weirdest thing I ever found inside a computer I was rebuilding was an octagonal glass ashtray. I still have it somewhere in case I have guests and they want to smoke in the kitchen.
I think you picked the wrong machine to skip the service manual on, but makes for entertaining viewing! The Model II has always been a bit of a mysterious machine for me. Really looking forward to Part 2!
I used one of these professionally in the early 80’s both with TRSDOS and CP/M. Lovely machine. Felt like a “real” computer back then. Still have it in a closet. A bit afraid to turn it on. Think I’ll see how you fare before I try it.
Brings back memories. The early or most disk drives were Shugart and were reliable not so much on the Texas Peripherals drives and yes you used a terminator unless you had an expansion bay (drives).
Regarding getting screws back in when you don't have a magnetic tip, I take the magnets out of old hard drives and either stick it to the side of the tool or break a piece off and stick it in the tip. Instant magnetic tool.
Can we just spare a moment to thank the generations of spiders who have been diligently keeping this machine cockroach-free during the last several decades? If they hadn't been there, this would be... worse.
Couldn't agree more! Long Live Spooder Friends!
F to respect spiders.
Spiders for the win. They keep the stink away
i remember my uncle computer workshop opened a very dusty and old computer from a client he wanted to fix but once my uncle opened it, he opened the pandora box, many cockroaches appeared, he killed it but he left the computer open after he leave its office for the weekend, and some cockroaches still remained in the computer case, and cockroach eggs hidden in the chassis, imagine what happened, it took 3 months worth of fumigation to get rid of them.
@@Crixer234 jfc
I scored two of these off our local computer store's 'free stuff' bench 20 years ago, along with the heavy 3 drive expansion unit and boxes and boxes of disks. One had a dead screen, the other a dead PSU. They had taken all the cards out of both for salvage. I got the cards on ebay and in my first ever vintage computer repair I managed to mix and match enough working parts to get one working machine. Honestly I'm a little afraid of it.. when I turn it on, esp with the expansion unit, my lights dim. :) Definitely a neat machine though.
I think you need a sub-station just for it… 🤣
Salvage=making a pittance off of cutting boards up for GoLd.... Stupid STUPID!
@@jonathan_herr Yeah. :( I'm hopeful though that they just went out as spares for other machines or something.
I will bid 400 quatloos for that towel!
Love it... Brings me home
I'd just call a priest for that machine, it's crazy that you are attempting to do anything with that. But you are you and you can do magic, looking forward to the next episode!
I was thinking of holy water when I saw all those dead things in there
Go watch some shango066's old TV resurrection
videos.. 😁
IKR. Give it the Last Rites and be done with it :)
I once found plastics cups, plastic forks, food wraps in my University’s old MUMPS mini computer. Eventually the tail of the operator appeared… a rat was living inside the machine. Using the PSU as heating and terminal cables as a stairway/entrance. Explained the rat sightings on late nights.
...and that Rat went on to be a CTO at Oracle.
(Thanks, I'm here all week!)
Computers these days still have mice...
Which Uni? MUMPS was one of the first database-oriented programming languages, developed at Massachusetts General Hospital where it was used to produce the world's first electronic health record system, MEDITECH.
@@douro20 It was University of Brasilia in Brazil. Somehow we got this mini computer in the 80s, few people knew how to code for it, but it ran for years controlling access to the lab. It died some time around 94.
@@Nebulorumfoi doado à UnB? Ou foi comprado pelo governo?
Radio Shack: "Warning No user servicable parts inside this unit"
Adrian: "Hold my beer"
*Adrian: hold my boards* lol
Hold my Haribo
No magnetic sockets, use a small piece of paper towel to hold the screw🙂 put it between the sockets and the head of the screw.
Love this series!!
I was gonna say use a little blue-tack.
@@thedungeondelver Masking tape is what I'd use, but anything to wedge or stick the screw into the socket is fine!
Get a rare earth magnet. Stick it to the side of the socket extension.
Ah...The good old Trash 80. This was a great unit back in the 80's. Lots of great memories for me.
Quite an adventure...i remember using one of those at Radio Shack, when I was a kid, they let me sit there for hours 'playing on them' .. probably to get more people seeing someone using it, draw them over from curiosity? Really brings back memories, bicycling there after school and spending a lot of hours just typing in programs from books and mags. What fun!
I used to go to the local Radio Shack and type programs into a Color Computer. I remember thinking you had to press the Shift key at the same time as the other key and often backspacing and trying again when it failed. Finally an employee explained that you first hold down the Shift key and then press the other key.
I had a TRS-80 when i was kid, and the TI 99/4A. A lot of fond memories of the "trash 80", especially using the cassette tapes. And ordering games through the mail from a B&W printed paper catalog, and having floppy discs arrive in plastic sandwich bags.
Kids these days just don't know
Wohoo! A trash-80! Love those machines. My first computer was a TRS-80 model 1. Never could get the expansion interface as a child, because my family was poor. I have a couple now, including a functional model 3.
This was the first computer I owned (worked on mainframes). A real workhorse that I used way into the 1990s as a model railroad controller.
Thank you very much for the trip down memory lane, I always enjoy your videos.
Not surprised. There was a restaurant I worked at in the 90's that used one of these in their office for record keeping, even in the 90's!
Did you use an early version of the C/MRI?
@@johnblair8146 Yes I did as a matter of fact
Same here, the first computer in my house, and it was actually quite good for the time as well. Especially considering what computers cost in those days.
I loved getting the magazines in the mail. That really was awesome, it had it's own magazine.
despite the crazy design, what a nice machine this is, looking forward to see more of this series
It’s been a while, but I'm so glad to see that Adrian has finally reached 7k subscribers!
Edit: This got outdated really quick. For those wondering what the joke's about, Adrian used to have 111k subs.
I see what you did there........ :P
Can't wait for when 512K or maybe even 640K.
Don't worry about putting it back together. Just watch this clip, maybe backwards. Loved it!
Oh yes, the old remove screws until it comes apart ploy.
Been there, done that.
Thanks for keeping computer history alive 👍.
Adrian's 70s towel really found a friend this time!
I was waiting for the engine hoist to come out for the 8" drive. Especially after the socket set came out! 😛🔨🔧
WOW, that take me back. My Father had several as he'd program the TRS-80 for his job.
I live for these uploads, 20min+ are always the best.
Viewing from Australia!
Nice! I learned how to program on a hand-me-down Model 4 in the mid-90s. -- holding down the orange button to boot into basic, and using "LLIST" (two Ls) to print ("save") my code to the daisy wheel printer.
It's amazing to think that the cell phone I'm typing on is orders of magnitude more powerful than 90% of the computers I've ever used in my life... Thanks for the nostalgia, Adrian. ✌🏻
A daisy wheel printer printed nice, but we kept it in a case when it was printing due to noise.
“No user serviceable parts inside.” And we designed it that way!
No worries, there's a Radio Shack less than 5 miles away--if you have a DeLorean.
@@davefarquhar8230 88mph away
@@davefarquhar8230 there's one literally 5 minutes away. "Authorized retailer" in the back half of a furniture store.
You should have saved this video for Halloween, as a ThRaSh-80 disassembly is the most Halloween one can get in vintage computer refurbishment.
Trash 80 i can't believe how much time has gone by
If you ever get far enough with this machine, you can repair the keyboard case by taking a silicone mold from the one good side and then casting epoxy with the cast in-situ.
Oh and I was going to say but forgot: Remember when you are testing that the 8" drive connector has a 24VDC pin. If that connector is not plugged into the drive, the switching PSU won't start up and you'll think the PSU is dead even though it isn't. That one had me stumped for some time. You don't have to have the 120VAC power connected to the drive, but the DC cable has to be.
Or you could probably load the 24VDC rail with a big resistor or something to get the PSU to start up, but I've never tried that.
Good luck, man. Again, let me know if you need any of the parts I have. Contact info in that other comment.
Comment so Adrian sees this
Hey Bud!, Did you ever get that 8 inch going (The NOS one I think it was) I have another, and just curious!
@@trs-80fanclub12 Hey man! Long time no see! :D
I haven't tried it yet. I need to swap the logic boards over from the other drive.
I really appreciate you sending it to me, but if you want it back since I am taking so long to get around to trying it, just say!
@@Lee_Adamson_OCF Lol No Way, Its a relic, Keep it or find a needy one that needs it. Otherwise its a extra brick for me. Still trying to focus on getting a shugart real 5 - 1/4 to work on a usb adaptor.
The model II, model 12 and Model 16 (also the 6000?) are the most interesting Tandy platform to me.
My neighbor has an TRS-80 brazilian clone called CP-500 with double 8" floppy drives, and once he brought it here to see if I could repair it for him, but I didn't had any experience with vintage machines, and I turned it on before taking it apart and looking at every board and circuitry, and then suddenly tantalum caps on both of the floppy drives popped, I turned it off immediately, was amazing seeing that, one day, that was the state-of-the-art technology
Wow, The TRS- 80 was sold in The Netherlands too, my (former) brother in law had one. And he did some nice things on it, sound, administration etc.
I never understood the machine, I was used to mainframes (IBM, Siemens, Philips...) 😎
Besides that I never knew there even was a Model 2.
Adrian, so glad to see you do a SepTandy series. I haven't seen too many this year. Keep the repair videos coming I love them as I'm sure do many others. The un-boxing/Mail room stuff is cool, but the repair video's knock it out of the park. Keep up the good work and stay healthy!
Holy crap, what an absolute contraption! Way to go getting it apart, I can't wait to see the troubleshooting/reassembly process! Keep up the amazing work, Adrian.
When I started as a trainee in IT in '96, a lot of the Engineers had a "proper" tool kit with gas soldering irons, multimeters etc. One thing they did have (and I still have) was lonnnnng screwdrivers in PH2, TX15, 8mm, 5.5mm with a Magnetiser/Demagnetiser tool as there was still a lot of older terminals/PCs/NCR Towers that looked a lot like taking this TRS80 apart, and obviously put together with priorities of being able to survive a direct hit from a howitzer rather that user serviceability in mind!
I was an adult before i ever knew 8" floppies existed and i was stunned they made them so big.
Wait until you see how big hard drives used to be back then...
@@graealex I have seen plenty of big hard drives from back in the day on this channel.
@@autobotjazz1972 Back then they even came in washing machine size.
Was watching this with a friend and one of his cats sat down and watched the video with rapt attention. Something about your videos caught and held her attention for a good few minutes.
If it hadn't been for the drive terminator pack I would have thought this was the one I rescued from the Goodwill bins years ago. Couldn't fix it and re-donated.
I used them when new and have kept three of them running. We bought a Techical Reference Manual for our Model IIs in 1982 which I still have. EXCELLENT source of nearly everything in these and the 1-3 drive disk expansion unit. They are 100% business machines!. They were "built up" from the baseplate thus your dissassembly was harder than it would have been had you the info on the sequence of assembly. Power supplies have Rifa caps that go bad. It may not boot without the disk terminator plug depending upon the era. Western Digital and CDC 8" drives. GREAT machines for the time. Heavy and big but our firm did a LOT of things even IBMers didn't know how to do. Enjoy it Adrian.
I just picked one up today (found in an old pharmacy), opened it up, it looked good, powered up and it asked for a boot diskette !!!!!! Score!
I just picked up one of these several months ago and am now starting to restore it. So far, the RIFA caps needs to be replaced and motor for the floppy drive seems to have worn bearings. I would love to see more videos on this machine; especially if you are working your magic to restore it!
Seeing that TRS-80 brings me back to when I first started to learn programming. We had a room on campus where they had lots of these. And I had to wait in line to do my homework. The one's we had were just like that one. but had two floppy drives. I really wanted one of these at my houjse. But my dad did purchase my commodore with the floppy drive and monitor. I sure wish I had that equipment right now. Also I have never seen one of those large floppy disks.
So glad you got it working! What an odyssey!
I still find it amazing how these things were built and who could figure that out. Just the power supply alone to me is a work of marvel and would have no clue what anything does nevermind adding in the rest of the computer lol
I was a lucky guy to have the TRS-80 Model II to learn programming at the university. All students in other universities around here, Lisbon/PT, were seen carrying stacks of punched cards, Fortran or Cobol, while I and my colleagues were the proud guys seen around the city with 8" floppies among our books. I learned programming with PASCAL and also used the macro assembler of the TRS-80 to make programs for the Intel MCS-85 development kits for embedded systems. Transfering binaries between the TRS-80 II and the MCS-85 was done using one of the serial ports.
Watching this while eating was a mistake, ahhh!
Can't wait for part 2 though. Can only imagine what it's going to look like after being deep cleaned.
Love the look of the chunky 70s and early 80s computer's
This is very brave of you, to disassemble that beast
I am officially a Grunkel P. Dunkle as of today! Super excited to get my license and recommendation!
I had a TRS-80 III with 2 8 inch Floppy disc had a blast playing with it back in the day.
This video series is going to be a lot of fun! Thank you for the great video.
What a nightmare to service this machine is! My hat off, Adrian. Your perseverance is admirable.
I remember when my Ham Radio club got a TRS-80 (Model I, now) for experimentation, and always thought it funny that it never gave a "SYNTAX ERROR," but rather said, "WHAT?" for almost all infractions. One of the things we did was to have it display the poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" in staggered stanzas, followed by some POKEd snow at the end. 15360-16383 was where I lived when the Model III came out. It was not FORTRAN, needed no cards, but it was still a lot of fun. Good job with this one! I remember seeing one at a local Radio Shack as their business flagship computer. Later, I would hear the "TRS-80 Voice Synthesizer Demonstration Program" in that same store a few years later. Wonderful device. The DMP-400 still sounded like a machine gun, though.
I found a Tandy model 3 put out for the trash about 10 years ago and I plugged it in and it worked. I sold it on eBay and shipped it to someone in FL. got like 300 dollars out of it. Guy was so happy with it he said it was museum quality.
We had these machines at our high school for the "Intro to Basic Programming" class. Took this class my senior year in 90-91
I don't miss cathode ray tubes, to many N.D.E's over the years. Looking forward to seeing it working. Thanks.
This cost $3500 when new... Most of that was probably assembly costs. Focus on design for manufacture has advanced immensely in the past 40 years, but rarely gets mentioned - until you come across stuff like this.
To be fair, putting it together was probably a pretty straightforward process... that just had to be done in exactly the right order using the company's own specialized tools. It's just fixing it afterwards that takes forever, and it's not like they had any more incentive to make that simple than manufacturers do now.
In 1980, $6 - $8/hr would be about right for a line worker. It did not take hundreds of man-hours to build these. The components were eye-wateringly expensive compared to now; just 64k of memory alone would be $500 or so in 1980. The major gains in manufacturing efficiency since then are orders of magnitude higher for the compounds than for the labor.
Still, the design is unnecessarily clunky. You can tell nobody spent any extra effort optimizing the chassis. It probably evolved into what it is now, from a series of prototypes that were just good enough to keep using.
@@nickwallette6201
You've put it perfectly. I was obviously exaggerating about 3500 being spent on assembly, rather the point I was trying to make was that other than for tiny specialist production runs, you just wouldn't see construction like that these days. By the time they got to the model3, they knew they would be making it in significant quantities.
@@BM-jy6cb lol, when you read youtube comments, nothing is ever obvious ;-)
Got to admire the bravery in tearing this beast down. Sheesh
I can’t wait to watch you put that all back together.
I feel like the old “Benny Hill” music would have gone well with a montage of the disassembly adventure…
*head slaps* :D
And when he opens it up, "Boris The Spider" by The Who starts to play. "Cree-py, craw-ly, cree-py, craw-ly..."
That music is called "Yakety Sax" by Boots Randolph, in case anyone wanted to know.
@@Zeem4 Yep, got the album. Thank my grandpa for that.
I had one of these. My father saved it from the trash at a school he worked for. I actually had two, but one had a dead chip. I used it to connect to BBS's using a 300 baud acoustic coupler, and later a 2400 baud modem. I loved this machine, but my parents made me get rid of it wen we moved to a smaller apartment. It made such wonderful clunky clacky noises.
The private school I went to had one of these donated. It was sitting at the back of the lab, separate from our Apple //e's. It had an external bay with three floppy drives, and an external hard drive on top. Our computer instructor allowed me to try it out . I hit the TRSDOS manuals, and learned how to boot the machine. I tried formatting the hard drive, but was stymied by a bad sector. It was the first hard drive that I'd ever encountered , in the mid 1980's. In operation, these guys were intended to work with video terminals hung off of them. Tandy/Radio Shack made terminals for this (serial ports) that looked like a Model I.
In the late 80s/early 90s my local Radio Shack had one of these running in the office with Xenix on it. The registers up front were dumb terminals and they had an okidata printer for receipts. They were using some DEC terminals up front.
I was just given one of these that was on its way to the trash pile that had been in storage along with the disk expansion system with two drives installed and a DMP-400 printer (and a Compaq Portable). I believe I have the original manuals, there is a handful of disks, and the units were in storage with proper dust covers. I'm expecting them to be in good shape. It's all loaded into my poor Honda Accord at the moment. I wouldn't have room for a passenger if I wanted one LOL! I know little to nothing about these machines, but I am excited to have one in my collection now!
It's a weird feeling to watch your intro and realize I used almost every computer featured in it when they were relatively new. My grade school had PETs. We had various model trash 80s in high school.
Brings back a lot of memories. I've torn a Model 2 or two down this far on occasion in my distant younger years. I'm lucky I didn't manage to shock the sense out of myself.
This would be such a great project for a full restoration. It's got everything: bugs, corrosion, and a need for new knowledge! Go for it, Adrian :-).
Yesss, I was eagerly waiting for your SepTandy video
His little apple watch is way more powerful than all of his huge retro computers in this room combined. It is hard to believe how the technology is going forward so fast 😄
WOW. I hung around a RS Computer Centre when I grew up and I remember hearing the model II drives but I never imagined they were assembled like a combination labyrinth & adventure game. Awesome job AB
Good lord. I assumed when the video started that the 'computer' was part of the keyboard, as in so many other units, with this strange monitor/disk combination... wow did this video take a turn. Interesting they really went with a mini-computer route with all of those cards instead of a motherboard. That 8 inch drive and the motor...incredible.
That was interesting! It also makes me feel much bolder about my planned restoration of "ATTIC COMPUTER", a computer that was in, well, my attic (in Arizona, where attics typically reach 140 or more degrees F in the summer) for... well, probably about twenty years. It's a super filthy Apple II plus (I think) clone, with slight water staining. I thought that was bad, but at least it isn't full of pine needles, leaves, dead bugs, spider webs, spider eggs... yikes.
I look forward to part 2 of this spider-infested Tandy restoration (I hope it eventually works)!
That's gonna be a really good series! Looking forward to it
A TRS-80….what a blast from the past! These were just about everywhere at one time!
For reassembly, I stack a bunch of socket extensions like you did, and then tape the screw into the socket until I get it started, then pull off and remove the tape and then finish.
Oh boy. You're being quite the adventurer there.
The dream of my childhood ... a CP/M machine. I didn't know this computer was developed as an adult's hardware puzzle...
The keyboard would look at home in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. 70's futurism. ;)
Every tinkerer needs to have Blu-Tak in their toolbox. That's how you put the screws back ;)
I used to do A LOT of work on these. The backplane is a take-off of the S-100 bus. It's only 80 pins and the boards had a taper on them. We used to build 10Megabyte and 411Megabyte disc drives for them.
Those machines were fantastic in their day. A real work horse for word processing.
Looking forward to seeing the next video on this computer
Where does he get those wonderful toys? (I love the DataVac. Used one at an old job.)
I have a Zenith Data Systems 8-Inch Floppy Drive that I salvaged from a recycle bin. I powered it up once, it roared and made my lights dim. It also weighs around 75lbs. Makes a great doorstop.
'DataVac' - sounds like the sort of machine thack sucks out all the ones and leaves just zeros ;)
I just dove into a Model II. I recapped the PS that I managed to swap out without disassembling the whole thing. It was not easy. Now I have to troubleshoot it further. It's a rather painful system to get into. Looking forward to your further Model II videos.
Device presentations and repairs are more exciting than mail videos or gummy bears.
I once had one between 1982 and 1984 with a 5 1/4 disk drive and 10GB hard drive. I was running a BBS system with 4 outside lines on it. It worked flawlessly and ran 24/7 for several months. Then I had sold it to a friend and he continued to work with it for another year. What happened to it after that I don't know, probably taken to a container park. When I see this now, I regret it, but yes, a man can't keep everything in his life ;-)
I had one of these in the early 90's. I never did get it to work. But now I know why, It had no expansion boards in it, not even the CPU board. LOL. Great vid. Lots of fun still to come with this computer.
I know this computer has "Fix me for punishment" written all over it but dang I hope to see this thing looking beautiful again. Killer stuff as usual Adrian!
I'd love to own an 8" floppy drive, but they're so rare it's hard to find them, never mind have the money to buy one, especially as there's certain western militaries still using them in some installations to maintain very old equipment... :P
I used to have a wang standalone single disc drive, it was as big as the whole computer Adrian is working on, I still have like 10 blank church fan floppies too.
I had an NEC APC that was an all in one like this, oddball MSDOS 2.11 machine with 2 8 inch disk drives. They held about a megabyte
I've some in my loft part of a trs80-II
Growing up I used to lust after these machines! I believe there was a version of CP/M that was available for them after-market, too.
absolute pure beauty
Yaass sep Tandy !
I remember that in the 80's a doctor's office my mother worked in had one for some of their data keeping. I think it also ran Xenix.
It certainly COULD run (Microsoft) Xenix. One of these was my first Unix computer.
My first job out of school was for a school district who wanted to build an interest test for students to direct them to occupations that would interest them. It took me a about a month to code, and the TRSDOS that came with this was barely up to the job (since it provided indexed files). I had plenty of experience with the TRS-80, and this was a whole different animal. It was much faster, and much more reliable.
Brings back memories of going into Radio Shack and playing with these computers, I think I played on a Model II, for sure the Model I 4K. I've never saw the inside of one, so very interesting thank you for opening one up and showing the insides. The spider webs and dead bugs is a perfect for a Halloween theme too... well, it seems you were a little scared 😁 LOL.
really enjoying the long floppy screwdriver
So in the late 70s and early 80s i worked as a young software and hardware engineer and I owned one of those model II computers in Australia. I burned an new character generator EPROM for it and amended the build in Microsoft basic to have graphics commands the same as the model I and III also I had a board in there with a Motorola 68000 16 bit processor and ran a version of Unix on it. As a heads-up I seem to remember the CRT unit had a bug or something and the horizontal oscillator frequency could run away and the CRT would emit a high pitched sound and if not switched off immediately would self-destruct. Since I would experiment with the circuitry and assembly language programs this happened several times with mine. I sold it in 1983 and switched to IBM compatible computers. i have however, fond memories off the machine.
Now you need the combination disk drive pedestal and desk unit!
I nearly got given one of these in the mid-90s, but the bloke threw it away before I got a chance to get it off him. I was so annoyed. I've heard that rebuilding them is a very involved process, but the upside of that is that when it's all finished you get a much bigger sense of achievement :-)
The weirdest thing I ever found inside a computer I was rebuilding was an octagonal glass ashtray. I still have it somewhere in case I have guests and they want to smoke in the kitchen.
Getting ahead of the Canada comments on that maple leaf. XD.
I think you picked the wrong machine to skip the service manual on, but makes for entertaining viewing! The Model II has always been a bit of a mysterious machine for me. Really looking forward to Part 2!
Sending you the TRS-80 basic programming manual I haz. Fun stuff as always Adrian. Thanks 👍
I used one of these professionally in the early 80’s both with TRSDOS and CP/M. Lovely machine. Felt like a “real” computer back then. Still have it in a closet. A bit afraid to turn it on. Think I’ll see how you fare before I try it.
Quite a Project!
Definitely a very interesting video to watch. Looking forward to part II.
Brings back memories. The early or most disk drives were Shugart and were reliable not so much on the Texas Peripherals drives and yes you used a terminator unless you had an expansion bay (drives).
Regarding getting screws back in when you don't have a magnetic tip, I take the magnets out of old hard drives and either stick it to the side of the tool or break a piece off and stick it in the tip. Instant magnetic tool.
Ah, the trash 80. So often found in, and returned to, the trash in the 90's. Good luck Adrian.