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Model II has arrived. Now what?

JonB

JonB

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
1,652
Location
South Herefordshire, UK
Hi all

I am now a member of the Model II owner's club. It arrived today in an enormous box.

So... it has TRS-DOS disks (two of them, not original), plus a bunch of Scripsit disks (one original, three backups). Also a few blank floppies.

I need to stabilise the thing. TRS-DOS boots erratically. I have tried to look for a TRS-DOS manual for the Model II online but I cannot find one. It says it is TRS-DOS Version 1.2, but i also seem to have a 2.0d boot disk too. Anyone got a link?

Meanwhile I have attempted a FORMAT :0 and it has formatted 76 tracks, reported 0 flawed tracks but on writing system tracks has gone into a seek loop (seems to be bouncing the head back and forth between track 0 and 79). I think it has failed, but it's not given up yet. Is this normal?

Any other things to look out for? What should I be doing with the hardware other than cleaning and checking connections? Are there any "gotchas" or common things to fix (or preventative maintenance)?

Cheers
JonB

Edit: Yes, it failed, and now the boot disc is failing to boot with DC error. Seems that cleaning the disk head solves it. So I think the disks are depositing dirt on the heads, or maybe the drive needs some sort of calibration. Any ideas?

Eit 2: Trying with a different boot disk (TRS-DOS 2.0d). It says 2 flawed tracks now. Crazy.. something odd is going on here!
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I found it eventually... :rolleyes:

http://www.vintagecomputer.net/fjkraan/comp/trs80m2/doc/TandyModel2DiskOperatingSystemReferenceManual.pdf

Now I am (attempting) formatting floppies. Takes a looooong time, and I am getting lots of bad tracks. Cannot do a backup of the boot disk with bad tracks, it seems.

Mine came from a chap in the UK, a well known purveyor of stuff for the BBC Micro. Sold as "genuinely untested" which is fair enough. He has a good reputation so I paid the reasonable asking price and here it is. Blow me but it booted up first time! Then started getting erratic. The blank disks seem to be in a bad way. none will format 100% so far. I am feeling a little vulnerable, having just one boot disk!

If you are having problems with yours, start a thread and describe them. I think we can help...!

Cheers
JonB
 
Jon, I'm curious. What version shows up on your boot screen? Do you see TRSDOS 2.0d?
 
pski said:
Jon, I'm wary about that nomenclature of TRSDOS 2.0d on your disk. AFAIK, there never was a "d". Only "a" for the fullsize 8in Shugarts in the Model II and "b" for the Tandon thin line drives in the Model 12/16/6000.
Click to expand...

According to Mike Yetsko (who is ex-Tandy and worked on the Model II line) in a post to comp.sys.tandy back in 2002:
With the 8" media, I seem to recall it was the physical hole that
determined if the drive thought it was double sided or not. So
you could insert single sided media in a double sided drive.

TRS-DOS 2.x only supported single sided media, and although there
were applications that did double-sided, the OS didn't.

TRS-DOS 2.0 originally was a 'slow' step rate for the Seagate, and
later the TPI drives. When the Model 16 came out with the double
sided Tandons, the heads were loaded all the time. The Tandon
drives also stopped rotating on a timeout. So, TRSDOS was patched
to change to the fastest step rate the drives could handle (which caused
the TPI drives to choke) and to wait for the drive to 'spin up' if it had
stopped.

There was a version of TRS-DOS called 2.0d that was a combination
of the patches. The slow step rate and the wait for spinup. The 'd' was
used for 'diags'. All the versions of the Model II diagnostics after the
Model 16 was announced and later went out on this version of
TRS-DOS if at all possible.

Tandy never 'officially' sent out 2.0d as a product, but a LOT of customers
were given it if they had both a Model II and a Model 16 or 12.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks guys

I am seeing 2.0d on boot up (TRSDOS version message). Is this a rare version then? My machine has one huuuuge Shugart 8" drive that spins constantly and is very noisy. Is 2.0d any good for it?
 
The single full-height Shugart 801 drive was a bit limiting. The 16 and later systems used two half-height 8" drives. It's also possible to modify a 5.25" or 3.5" drive to work with this machine. It's particularly easy if you have the later controller with pads for a 34-pin floppy header.

If the blank 8" disks that you're trying to use carry the Radio Shack brand, you might as well turn them into an art project--some batches of those were really awful. The other thing to do is to clean the heads on the drive.
 
JonB said:
Thanks guys

I am seeing 2.0d on boot up (TRSDOS version message). Is this a rare version then? My machine has one huuuuge Shugart 8" drive that spins constantly and is very noisy. Is 2.0d any good for it?
Click to expand...

Yes, according to Iowen's post you have a nice find there with 2.0d. I'd like an image of it sometime! :)

It's normal for the 8" Shugart to spin as long as the power is on. It's not a bedroom computer. :)
 
@pski - consider it done, once I manage to fit a PC-readable drive to it. Not a bedroom computer? I beg to differ (it is installed in a spare room - my study - which was a bedroom, once)... :D

@Chuck - Yes they are TANDY disks, and they keep fouling the heads. Would 3M DS/DD 8" disks be OK? There are some on eBay (expensive but worth it?).
 
Well, there you go. Generally speaking, I've had little problem with IBM, BASF, Dysan and 3M disks (off the top of my head). Steer clear of Wabash and "house brands", such as Wright Line, who often rebranded Wabash media, since it was often the cheapest.
 
Right then, consider them ordered. £30 for 10, ouch. The whole machine only cost £50.

Next up, CP/M. Given that I can get an image from the internet somewhere, what's the easiest way to get it onto am 8" floppy? Is there a way to transfer it in TRSDOS and image a disk, or will I have to try to hook up a 5.25" or 3.5" disk (or HxC floppy emulator!) and boot directly off the image? I should say that I did this on the Model 4, but that had 32 pin Shugart connectors that "just worked". The MII's drive looks more like 50 pins.

And finally... last night the L key packed in. How best to fix? I read somewhere it is capacitative.

Thanks
JonB
 
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