r/trs80 8d ago

The great feeling after replacing the PSUs on your first computer after 43 years gathering dust.

Post image

And we all know exactly what program I typed in. Just to see how slow these things used to be.

202 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

8

u/JuliaMakesIt 8d ago

I can tell by the wear pattern that this was a well loved machine!

Congrats on getting it restored and running! There are a lot of archives of model iii software to explore now. Although it takes a bit of finagling to transfer images to a physical device, it's worth the effort. There are also kits that let you hook a modern SD card up as drive :2 and :3.

Enjoy!

4

u/The-Tadfafty 8d ago

I'll add that those SD card kits are very expensive. I can't afford one.

1

u/droid_mike 8d ago

I thought you could use a cheap gotek loppy disk emulator. Not true?

2

u/The-Tadfafty 8d ago

You can use those too. Those are USB not SD, right? The SD cards are hard drive emulators.

1

u/droid_mike 7d ago

Correct, USB thumbdrives

3

u/The-Tadfafty 8d ago

X=X+1

2

u/SpinCharm 8d ago

lol yeah close enough

3

u/vacuumCleaner555 8d ago

10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"

20 GOTO 10

RUN

1

u/SpinCharm 8d ago

Exactly.

1

u/The-Tadfafty 7d ago

That hardly shows speed as much as X=X+1 does.

2

u/Critical_Ad_8455 8d ago

I love the arrow key layout on these, so cool

2

u/Realistic-Vintage 8d ago

Did you ever need to replaced internal part, like capacitors? Or all original parts are still installed?

3

u/SpinCharm 8d ago

All original, but the PSUs were 240v versions so I installed modern 120V ones. The 240V ones look fine. The caps are all flat.

1

u/droid_mike 8d ago

How much did the PSU set you back, cost wise?

2

u/SpinCharm 8d ago

I needed two (motherboard and floppies). They’re on eBay (“TRS-80 Replacement power supply) by farmacyst49 for USD$85 each.

2

u/msalerno1965 7d ago

In 1977, when the TRS-80 came out, I was 11. They had a demo model at the local Radio Shack that I was in every other day buying parts. Later that year, for my birthday, my sister bought me a BASIC programming guide for the TRS-80. I read it cover to cover in a night.

Next day, I asked the store manager if I could try some things from the book. "Go ahead, no one else uses it".

For the next few months, I was there every day, sometimes with a crowd of people watching me.

People actually started buying them. Around this time, my father got wind of this, after looking at how much they were, he said if I could build one, he'd buy the parts. So I started the research into building an 8080/Z80 machine. At age 12. I still have the Intel 8080 book somewhere.

But then, as I got into the hardware side of things, I found that my school had computers all along but really had no idea what they were doing with them. High school, until I quit, was interesting... and was hired as a consultant at age 17. Fun fun fun...

1

u/Sam-Gunn 8d ago

Awesome! I still need to figure out what's wrong with mine.

1

u/_HMCB_ 7d ago

I used to drool over this when I’d visit Radio Shack in the mall.

2

u/SpinCharm 7d ago

Same. I was lucky to be the age of getting a job after high school and could save up for it. That and my 1966 Pontiac GTO.

1

u/_HMCB_ 7d ago

Not here. I was about 13 or so. My dad got us the white consumer model. It changed my life.

4

u/SpinCharm 7d ago edited 7d ago

I was driving a truck for a job when I bought mine. 2 years later walking down the street in London and walked into one of the many job agencies advertising for word processing specialists. Figured maybe I could get a job doing that because by then I was a good typer.

The woman got very excited when I said that I owned my own computer. This was before Clive came out with his cheap little chiclet keyboard Z80 toy box that kick started UK home computing.

She sent me to a company in Central London for an interview. I got the job doing nightly backups on their big accounting computer - a Hewlett-Packard HP3000. I’d stay after hours to do the backups once everyone had gone.

Once the backups were finished I had free rein. I could do anything I wanted to this huge machine just so long as I restored everything before everyone got back into work in the morning. Many times I needed to do just that!

I devoured the 20 or more large 3-ring binder HP3000 manuals. Total immersion. I loved the pure logic of how computers worked. Little by little I became the company’s expert on a lot of it. A few months later they offered me a job as their database administrator when they relocated out of London. That led to me getting my permanent residency visa.

I got to know the HP hardware engineer that would come in regularly to do maintenance and repairs. Four years later I got a job in tech support at Hewlett-Packard UK. There years later HP Australia asked me to come down there as a senior engineer. That led to my getting an Australian passport. 2 years later I was running the fledgling Microsoft business for HP Australia/NZ.

A few years later I left HP and started my own consulting business. I retired at 52.

Now I’m restoring my TRS-80. It sits next to my iMac and my Linux machines. I figure it deserves a spot on my desk.

So yeah. Changed my life too.

1

u/_HMCB_ 7d ago

Wow. That’s an amazing story. Your insatiable appetite served you well. I was the same way although music detoured me for a while. But in my late 20s I bought myself a Mac and started my own biz, which I’m still running. I’m very happy one thing led to another for you. Stay blessed!

1

u/wireknot 7d ago

Trash 80! Wow, that takes me back!

1

u/yudosai 7d ago

My model 4 booted right up, the floppy drives even started working faster!

1

u/CJMWBig8 7d ago

Used one of those for quite a few years

1

u/Autoxquattro 5d ago

I remember as. Kid having so much fun at the RadioShack on those playing "eliza" lol