Retro PC thread

Garbage on the screen is either loose or bad RAM. You should try reseating it first and yes I am aware that TRS-80s used 4116 RAM which gets hot and isn't that reliable.

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What's the deal with old PCs, mice, keyboards, monitors, consoles, etc. having this grayish color?

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itt

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>a fucking train
Now that's some proper autism.

gray was the color of the 90s

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A screen full of 0s means the problem chip is #7 or #8. 4116 chips are easy to test because each chip supplies a single bit and the ASCII code for 0 is 48, which in binary is 1100000. So a stuck bit will result in the video RAM being filled with the value 48, producing a screen full of 0s.

Note that 4116 chips are also placed in blocks of three, each group of eight supplying 16k. So each block of three ads up to 48k of RAM and since the TRS-80s video RAM is in the first 16k, that's where to look.

ebay.com/itm/Radio-Shack-TRS-80-Model-III-Microcomputer-w-Computer-Manuals/323319389635?hash=item4b47565dc3:g:Sf8AAOSwxuhbAiOi

This one though the seller obviously is barely literate.

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Yup. Diagnosed with assburgers and everything. It's both a blessing and a curse, to be honest.
I don't have any new pics about konputahs to post, so have this LD box set of Aliens I got recently.

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There was a guy on VCFED who had a Model 3 that would boot up into BASIC but it kept corrupting any program he typed. Bad RAM apparently, but in a different location. It's a bit harder to figure out the bad chip when it's not in the first 16k and thus where the video buffer is located.

>No, most likely it's actually broken and the seller does not want to say that.
He outright said it's not working but he didn't give any specifics. Does it not power on? Does it produce a screen fufl of garbage? What exactly does "not workin (sic)" mean?

I'd give them a break if they also charged slightly more reasonable prices.

Is this for all computers or just IBM PCs?

Any computer obviously.

IBM PC Jr only pops

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That thing's newer than 93. It looks more like 95 or so.

youtube.com/watch?v=CG0ABstKl4Q

>0:19

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That set tends to rot.

Duh, don't you know?

Old=Automatically worth a lot of money. I saw it on Storage Wars.

Do what?

He got it from someone who said it was thrown in a ditch. Literally who would do such a thing?

Where he says there's no good software and it's all office crud. That's not fair.

Isaac Asimov had a Model II that Radio Shack gave him for a promotional effort, although he never really liked it that much.

Dumb people were like oh is just some old useless shit.

youtube.com/watch?v=wgKWV8C3e7M

Why does it get weird black lines when you're playing a game?

Contention between the video circuitry and the CPU as they can't both write to the video buffer at the same time.

>no cursor when you're in BASIC
That always kind of unnerves me. Probably because I grew up with Commodore and PC machines.

That's Tezza. He's a bit of a legend in the retro computer community and much cooler than LGR.

The Model I wasn't much of a computer. It earned the nickname Trash-80 for a reason.

>still using actual cassette recorder and floppies
>2018
You can use your PC to record cassette files and as for the floppies, HxC is your friend.

Would be more reliable anyway since the floppy controller in the Model I had issues reading the inner tracks on disks. But unless you have the double density upgrade, you're limited to 85k of storage.

what does Jow Forums think of Gateway 2000, before they dropped the 2000?
youtube.com/watch?v=00MYIFYfaVA

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It's another le generic PC clone. What else is there to say?

that was literally my childhood computer

>mom I posted it again

How would you upgrade it? Any specific components?

Everyone had a Presario 5000. Hell Im still using that keyboard RIGHT NOW

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I imagine you would have to swap out the WD1771 controller for a WD1791.

And you'd need a third party DOS with DD floppy support as he explains in the video--TRS-DOS didn't support anything but the standard single sided 85k format.

That was the PC of my childhood. Also,
>fucking ANALOG crt controls

From InfoWorld, August 1981

>FMG Corporation in Ft. Worth, Texas is in the process of converting CP/M to the Model III and is having difficulties. Company president Don French, the designer of the Model I, has reported having problems with the disk drive and interface. French also complains that Radio Shack is marketing the Model III as a business machine when existing software is inadequate. "Radio Shack stores will sell a Model III to anyone. It runs out of RAM before it gets going. 48k simply isn't enough. They have a medical package with nine disks. I think the Model III is a very poorly conceived system."

>Some industry watchers complain about Radio Shack's marketing techniques. "I went into a Radio Shack and told them I owned a hardware store that sells 8000 products and has 100 employees and they tried to sell me a cassette-based Model I system." explains French.

wait...Jow Forums has a BBS?

I would say overall the Apple II was better. It could have 64k, 80 column text, and the disk storage was very reliable.

wew look at this newfag

>"Radio Shack stores will sell a Model III to anyone. It runs out of RAM before it gets going. 48k simply isn't enough. They have a medical package with nine disks. I

>nine disks
>TRS-80 disks=180k
>180kx9=1.6MB

How the fucking fuck do you have an 8-bit software package that takes 1.6MB?

Beats me. Should add that you ought to only need five for this if you were using flip disks, but I guess they didn't because on the TRS-80 you'd have to punch a second index hole to be able to use them.

>locomotives aren't cool
I feel like mine is much more magnified.
Please move the telephone to the IBM where it has proper surface area and the train to it's spot.
It bothers me, thanks.

The Model II was a really great business machine for the time and solid as a rock, but the Model I family were home computers and not built to the same quality standards or possessing as sophisticated hardware.

Aiyy, imagine trying to do business stuff with this slow, flaky toy. It was ok for playing games in BASIC but not much else.

The Apple II and PET were both elegant machines in their own way and had innovative features, the Model I was not. It was just built by slapping together some off-the-shelf parts to create a machine that ran (sometimes) and that was about it.

Yeah the Apple II and Commodore drives didn't use the index hole so you could easily make flip disks, but TRS-80s used industry standard FM/MFM. Either you had to punch a second index hole opposite the main one or upgrade to double sided drives.

I love the sound the floppy disk drive makes. Kids these days are missing out on some good shit.

Data Error Reading Drive A
Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?

Sector Not Found Reading Drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?

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>using 35 year old diskettes in 2018
What did you expect

Hello, Captain Underage? This has been known to happen with brand new 1.44MB disks. Speaking from personal experience. 1.44MB disks were always unreliable garbage from day one.

Hello mr 16 year old boomer, I used several different floppy drives daily on several systems and only have ever had ancient floppies not read. Brand new stock I have always work fine.

Get Rekt

Um, sweetcakes, I'm 30. I was using the things in the 90s and they were trash brand new. I'm sorry if you are 15 and the oldest PC you ever used had Vista on it.

I have the greatest retro pc collection in history.
You don't even know WHO you're fuckin with boy

>I have the greatest retro pc collection in history.

t. I have some Pentium shitbox I got off of Craigslist because I saw LGR play Quake on it.

LGR collects common ass IBM's.
He's not on my level

NOS disks aren't always reliable because the binder and lubricant in the media can break down with time. This is true. However, 1.44MB disks were always notoriously bad. Only a dummy would deny this.

Yep.

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I'm also Taylor Swift and I fucked Jim Carrey three hours ago.

Not your image

No, it's not mine it was from a VCFED thread and it was a guy who done fucked up with transferring 360k disks using a 1.2MB drive.

Thanks to HxCs, one needn't ever worry about this sort of thing again.

Yeah, post in the vcfed thread, I'll link it for you so you cant claim you cant remember where it is.

vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?62545-Floppy-5-25-quot-Tandon-TM100-2-IBM-PX-XT-5160&styleid=3

I don't have an account on VCFED. If I did, I'd have pointed out that he should either either get an HxC or a Teac/Chinon 1.2MB drive which had "doubled" heads to eliminate that little problem with writing 360k disks.

>thread starts with some garbage ebay/craiglist price mocking posts
What a crappy way to start a thread. It's like this thrad have been made by that ebay-link spamming redditor who was polluting the /vr/'s old computer thread.
>However, 1.44MB disks were always notoriously bad.
>Speaking from personal experience. 1.44MB disks were always unreliable garbage from day one.
Just because you've only been exposed to crappy chink floppies doesn't make 3"1/2 HD floppies bad. Among the several drawers of floppies I own, only a few actually went bad, and they were from a post 2000 box. None of my late 80s/early 90s floppies went bad in the last few years.

I misread your first reply, I have aids

my amiga games still work.

Ebay seller/scammer detected.

vcfed.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-45352.html

The explanation? Easy.

8" disks: 3500 bits per inch
5.25" DD: 3500 bits per inch
5.25" HD: 8000 bits per inch
3.5" DD: 7500 bits per inch
3.5" HD: 17,000 bits per inch

IDK, I'm also 30 and I've never seen anything in stores except 1.44MB disks.

*shakes head*

TRS-80s use 2112 SRAMs for the video RAM which is the most likely culprit of a screen full of 0s. Apple IIs used the main system RAM for the video, the TRS-80 and PET did not, they had separate SRAMs.

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He's definitely not Tezza. He has a comfort zone and doesn't want to leave it.

>not liking "haha look at that funnay overinflated ebay price #3506" posts means being an ebay scammer
Ok keep trying to get your "epic facepalms" so you could post it on r/Jow Forums, like one of your fellow ebay link spammer said on the /vr/ thread.

Which one of the linked auctions in here was yours? Be honest.

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He's probably a guy trying to peddle a rare vintage Pentium Packard Bell PC for $400.

Are Windows XP Laptops old enough for retro gaming? (I.e. DOS games)

Japanese edition Apple II+. Bet you didn't know they sold them there.

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Passed up on this badboy yesterday. It was 35 bucks.

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>projecting that hard

Are you German?

Not really retro, but...

This was like 20 years ago, champ