Trs8bit

Hi everyone, and “Anyone who could use the

welcome to the march word ‘Bollocks’ as his
2014 edition of computer password on a live
TRS8BIT and the TV programme deserves my
start of our 8th respect”.
year!
Yet again, another I had an email from Malcom
bumper edition. So a Ramey mentioning details of
big ‘thank you’ to Peter Bartlett’s ‘MISE’
all of you who have project. I think it’s truly
sent in contributions! brilliant - check it out at
However, I regret that first http://home.comcast.net/
I’ll start off with a sad ~bartlett.p/MISE/
bit of news. It has just
been announced that Ian
Mcnought-Davis has died. Once again, with so many
‘Mac’ as he was known to articles, I’ve used page 2
most people in the UK as a contents listing.
presented the BBC Sunday Marc Brumlik sent me an
morning ‘Micro’ show in the email detailing much of the
early experience he acquired
1980’s. while working for Radio
Shack, repairing Model 1’s.
I read a Mav has contributed 4
wonderful brilliant articles ranging
tribute of from the FreHD, M3’s and to
him from Dr Who!
one of his Larry Kraemer shows us the
colleagues. secret of updating M1 ROMS.
Kevin Parker send us the
first, of what I hope will
It sums MAC up beautifully: be many, article featuring
the ‘Heavyweight’ (Models
2,12 & 16 etc) Tandys.
In this is Laurie Shields comes across
sue of
TRS8BI the ‘last’ version of the
T ZEN editor Assembler, ZEN85
The st V6.2 (unless, of course,
art
8th ye of our you have a later version
ar
Yet an
tucked away, in which case,
o
Bumper ther
Issue!
I’d love to hear from
you!!) And finally, Gazza
Full d
eta
walks us through making
are on ils image and .DSK files
page 2

Well, that’s just about it

from me, I hope you find
this edition as
fascinating as I
do!

Bye for now

Dusty

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 1

 Contents
page 03 Diagnosing and repairs to model 1’s
Marc Brumlik shares his experience in fault
finding and repairing a M1. Most definitely an
article to keep handy!

page 08 HOW TO BUILD THE FreHD HARD DRIVE EMULATOR

Ian Mavric takes us on a step by step journey
on building the FreHD. Having completed
getting-on for 30 of these impressive bits of
kit, there’s probably no one with more
experience.

Page 13 Radio Shack Level II ROM UPGRADE to Version 1.3

Larry Kraemer shows us how to upgrade and
replace the ROMS on a Model 1, together with
just loads of technical data on the ROMS
available

Page 39 ASK MAV - ABOUT THE TRS-80 MODEL III

MICROCOMPUTER
with his encyclopaedic knowledge, Mav starts
his new series, answering you Model 3 hardware
questions

Page 42 ZEN85 V6.2

Laurie Shields contacted me to let me know he’d
found a later version of Zen on the internet.
Zen85 V6.2, as your no doubt aware, is
available from the downloads page. Part of
the .dsk file contains an ‘update’ file which,
I believe, is in Scripsit format. Just in case
you’ve a problem with that, I’ve converted it
to .doc for the newsletter.

Page 51 MOUNTING FreHD IN A MODEL I DISK DRIVE CASE

Ian Mavric shows just how neat the FreHD looks
in an old ‘Dragon’ twin disk drive!

Page 55 Business Time with Kev

Kevin Parker start his series of article
featuring the ‘heavyweight’ 8 inch disk drive
Tandys

Page 59 PLAY THE DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURE ON YOUR

TRS-80 MODEL I / III
With 2013 being the 50th anniversary of Dr Who
I thought I'd write a little belatedly about an
adventure game based on the show

Page 61 Creating image and .DSK files

Gazza, shows us the way he creates these file
with a super, one step at a time article

Page 67 Emails to the editor - Have your say, or, like

this, come up with a little ‘gem’

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 2

 How to diagnose and repair a TRS-80
Model 1
Marc Brumlik

The following text is a set of notes I compiled in 1980

while working for Tandy Corporation (Radio Shack) as one of
their first computer repair technicians. I came across this
document in my archives, and felt compelled to post them.
The procedures may help you repair almost any problem with
the Model 1 at the component level.
Happy fixing! -- Marc Brumlik

(Schematics from the TRS-80 Technical Reference Handbook

would be helpful, and an oscilloscope)

ADDRESS LINES

The address lines are outputs from the Z-80 used to specify
memory locations. If any address line is not active (stuck
on one state), there will be 'garbage' (random characters)
on the screen at boot. To check the address lines, remove
the DIP Shunt at position Z3 and power-up the system. If the
screen fills with a pattern of “@9@9@9@9...”, then all the
address lines A0 – A9 are good. The remaining address lines
A10 – A15 can be checked for activity with a scope.

If the screen shows “@9@9” in some areas and garbage

characters in others, in a repeating pattern, the defective
address line can be found easily. For example, if the
pattern is alternately four characters of @9 and four of
garbage, then address line A2 is stuck because 2^2=4. If the
pattern is a full line of @9 (64 characters) followed by a
full line of garbage, then address line A5 is stuck because
2^5=64.

If an address line is found to be inactive, the cause us

usually the tri-state buffer responsible for that line. For
those without a schematic, these are:
A00 – A01 Z55
A02 – A03 Z22
A04 – A09 Z39
A10 – A15 Z38
If replacing the suspected buffer has no effect, cut the
foil trace at the input to each of the gates connected to
the output of the tri-state buffer for the bad address line,
one at a time, checking the output of the buffer each time
with a scope. When activity is seen, the offending chip has

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 3

been isolated – replace it and repair all the cuts. Don't
forget the keyboard, which is also driven by the address
buffers. Note that the ROM satellite board for Level II BASIC
could also be responsible for inactivity on address lines A11,
A12, and A13 even if the ribbon cable has been removed from
Z33.

ADDRESS DECODERS

When the address lines specify a memory location then the

address decoder then enables one memory area, for example ROM,
Video, or keyboard. Z21 and its support chips Z73, Z74, Z36
and Z37 use the high order address lines to decode the signals
ROMA*, ROMB*, RAM*, MEM*, VID*, and KYBD*. The outputs of Z21
break down the 32767 memory locations from the CPU into 4K
blocks (dec. 0 – 4095, 4096 – 8191, 8192 – 12207, 12208 –
16383, etc). If any of these signals is not present, there
will be garbage on the screen, @9@9's, or @S@S's on the screen
with Z3 in place.

DATA LINES

The Z-80 uses data lines both to read and write data at any
memory address. The control lines (RD*, WR*, IN*, and OUT*)
output from Z23, are used in conjunction with the data lines
to specify what is to be done with the data bus. Absence of
IN* or OUT* will cause cassette I/O to fail, while RD* and WR*
will cause garbage on the screen. Any data line without
activity will also cause garbage. Remove Z3 and look at the
display. An inactive data line will often cause a pattern on
the screen like @1@1 or Y9Y9 and the bad bit can easily be
found. Since the correct pattern is @9@9, the stuck bit can be
determined mathematically (similar to bad address lines above,
subtracting the binary of @ or 9 from that of the character
seen). The most common cause of a stuck data line is a bad
memory chip, the inputs of which are tied directly to the data
lines. Removing all memory chips and checking the pattern will
identify whether the problem is RAM or some other chip.

VIDEO DIVIDER CHAIN

Most of the time (unless video is in the process of being

updated), the VID* signal is inactive , and video ram is being
continuously addressed by the video divider chain. The divider
chain sequentially accesses all of video memory so that it can
be continuously displayed. It is derived from the system
clock, and addresses each memory location from beginning to
end in sync with the display monitor. Z65 and Z50 output the
signals C1 – C32, specifying each of the 64 character
positions in one line on the display. These are decoded to
video RAM address lines V0 – V5 when the VID* signal is HI.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 4

Z12 provides the signals L1 - L8. L1, L2, and L4 are used by
the character generator chip Z29 (RS1, RS2, RS3) to specify
one of the seven scan-lines of an alphanumeric character. L4
and L8 are used by Z8 to specify the top-, middle-, or bottom-
third of a graphics cell. L8 is also used to create the blank
scan lines between lines of alpha-characters (which are seven
lines tall, vs 12-line graphics characters). The signals R1,
R2, R4, and R8 from Z32 specify one of the 16 lines of
characters on the CRT. They are video address lines V6 – V9.
If any of the signals V6 – V9 are absent, the CRT will show a
smear of dots. If L1 – L8 are missing, the printed characters
will be properly located but illegible. Shorts between the
lines will produce characters shown in two locations at once.
Removing Z3 will show the bad video address lines similarly to
bad memory address lines (alternating patterns).

VIDEO RAM

Ram errors are the most common video problem. To isolate the
defective chip, first determine the ASCII code of that
character that should be shown and the character that appears
instead. For example, a blank screen (press CLEAR) is filled
with ASCII code 32's (the code for a “space”). If some
location shows a “$”, which is ASCII 36, subtract 36-32=4. The
location with the error is displaying character 36 instead of
character 32 because bit 2 is stuck on (2^2=4). Replace Z46.
Similarly, if pressing “B” on the keyboard displays “J” on the
screen: B=66, J=74, 74=66=8, and since 2^3=8, replace Z45.

SYSTEM RAM

A bad RAM chip can cause rapidly changing patterns on the

screen, garbage on the screen, or a blank screen. An
intermittent problem can cause the occasional program-line
change or disk reboot. If the system is not operating at all,
try substituting all eight chips with known good ones. Check
for the presence of CAS*, RAS*, and MUX. No one ram test will
find an error 100% of the time. Try various tests. Very
intermittent failures can be caused by the multiplexers Z35
and Z51 or the tri-state buffers Z67 and Z68.

TROUBLESHOOTING

GARBAGE ON THE SCREEN

Check for activity of address decoder outputs
(RAM*, MEM*, VID*, etc.)
Check control lines at Z23
Remove Z71 – Screen full of @S's suggests RAM errors
Remove Z3 – Screen full of @9's suggests ROM/address errors
Pattern of @9's is stuck A0-A9 address (check A10-A15 with
scope)

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 5

Check for clock at Z-80 pin 6
Check Z-80 reset lines (pins 16, 17, 18, 24, 26 should all be
high, pulses on pin 17)
Check CAS*, RAS*, MUX, and Z69 pin 5
Replace RAM with good set and downgrade to Level 1 BASIC
Try replacing Z35 and Z51, Z67 and Z68, Z-80 CPU, Z21

VIDEO
VIDEO JITTER
Check for output from Z66
Check each gate of Z5, Z6, Z57
Check for intermittent R20, R21
Check each output of video divider chain
NO VIDEO
Check power supply voltages (note that if the 12V line is out,
5V will be to.
Shorted RAM chip can bring down voltages
Check for output at Z30 pin 1. If present, check Z41 and Q1/
Q2. (Z41 could be
bad if cassette relay is shorted).
Check Z9 pin 8 for SHIFT. Check output of Z26, pin 8. Check
output of Z10 pin 13.
Check inputs RS1, RS2, and RS3 and from Z28.
OTHER
Wrong characters displayed (but recognized as correct by
computer) – Video RAM.
Parts of characters illegible or missing – Z29 or RS1, RS2,
RS3
No blank lines under alpha characters – DLY L8 inactive.
Video is a smear of dots – video address lines.

CASSETTE
No “CSAVE” -- Replace Z59
Intermittent “CLOAD” -- Check XRXIII, check Z24, replace Z44
No “CLOAD” -- Check output from Z4 pin 10, check Z24 pin 9
“after” XRXIII, check Z24 pin 8, replace Z44
Dim video during CLOAD – Check Z41, K1, or CR3 for short
Tape motor always on – Check Z41, CR9 and CR10 for short,
replace K1

HINTS

The input or output of any gate can be pulled low for

testing. Pulling signals low can simulate conditions for
testing logic. NEVER pull a gate high! If it is ever found
that a short has pulled a signal high, replace any chip whose
input or output was affected.

If a gate has active inputs and an inactive output, but

replacing it did not correct the problem, cut the foil traces
at the inputs to gates connected to that output. Check for
activity between each cut. If no trace cuts correct the

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 6

problem, scope the inputs to be certain that logic conditions
are being met.

If symptoms suggest a bad gate but there is activity on the

output of a suspect, use a scope to determine of that output
is correct for that gate's logical function. For example,
Z23's gate at pins 4, 5, 6:
put scope CH1 on pin 4, CH2 on pin 5, TRIGGER on pin 6
since the output is active when low, use NEG trigger
the scope will show the state of the inputs whenever the
output goes low
(use 2V / division both channels, 1 us timebase)
To check a tri-state buffer like Z76 gate at pins 4 and 5:
CH1 on input pin 4, CH2 on output ping 5, TRIGGER on enable
line pin 1
compare CH1 and CH2 for time lag or missed pulses

The Ne
TRS8BIxt issue of
T w
out ea ill be
March rly
2014.
Anychanc
in a c e you could
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ution send
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TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 7

 IN MAV'S WORKSHOP
by
IAN MAVRIC

HOW TO BUILD THE FreHD HARD DRIVE EMULATOR

It's coming up to a year since the FreHD was released to the
public, and it's been a great success. If you don't have one,
what is stopping you? Over 100 have been made and sold, and
most popular product by far being the inexpensive Kit B, which
comprises of a PCB, the two important chips (the PIC and GAL)
and the SD card socket and the battery socket. Most people
who can solder together an electronics project kit like you'd
find in Elektor magazine, will be fine with Kit B as all the
components are readily available from any electronics shop.
In fact if you do a lot of electronics like I do, you may
already have many of the resistors, capacitors, LEDs, and
headers on hand. Chances are, in this case, you may only need
to buy $10 of parts to complete a Kit B if you only need 4
chips, 2 crystals, and 2 transistors. This article will
explain how to build Kit B and test it and get it up and
running.

GATHER YOUR PARTS

On the CD which comes with your Kit B, in the root directory,
is a TXT file called BOM for wd1010_rel1 - USE THIS WHEN
BUILDING FreHD.TXT, which is a BOM (Bill of Materials ie. list
of the parts) needed to build your FreHD. Many people ask me
to email them this file while Kit B is in transit so they can
accumulate the parts so they are ready to build the moment
their product arrives.
Referring to the TXT file: U1, U2, J2 and the battery
connector are included with Kit B and don't need to be
ordered. D1 and D2 are LEDs, you can use any colour you like
but we prefer Red for D1 and Green for D2. Also, the FreHD
has a serial port which was incorporated for debugging the PIC
software, and it possible it could be utilised by the TRS-80
in the future, but at the time of writing it's just on there
for a future project. If you don't want the serial port you
can leave out U5 and C6, C7, C8, C10 and C11. Finally U3, the
BOM states it should be a 74HCT245, which is correct when
using the FreHD but if you are building FreHD to use on a
Model I via a hard drive adapter, you need to change U3 to a
74LS245.

The power connector is some source of questions to me, so I'll

try to explain it.. On version 3.01 PCBs there is a 2-pin

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 8

power connector, +5V and Gnd. They are clearly marked. Since
there are no more 3.01 boards, the current production run is
3.02 which has a new 4-pin power connector. I chose to make
it compatible with the power connector from a 3.5" floppy
drive. In this case the +5V in is next to the 50-in I/O bus
connector. Although there is a pin for the 12V line from the
floppy drive power connector, it doesn't go anywhere. The two
middle pins are Gnd.

WARM UP YOUR SOLDERING IRONS

These notes are from my building some 25 of the Kit C
(complete) FreHDs, this is the sequence I use:

1. Start by soldering down the SD-card socket. It's surface

mount, and you need good access to all its tiny tabs which can
be difficult if nearby components are already in place.
2. I proceed to soldering in all the resistors and small
capacitors (C1, C2, C3, C4, C9) and other low profile parts,
like the sockets for the ICs, and crystal Y2.
3. 10MHz crystal Y1 should be mounted with a crystal spacer or
just solder it slightly proud of the PCB so its metal canister
doesn't short on anything.
4. Q1 and U4 are then soldered in, their flat sides facing
R15.
5. Headers for J1 and J5 can be left out. The J1 header is a
PICkit 2/3 compatible programmer connection which can be used
to reprogram the PIC. Since most people use FUPDATE/CMD to
reprogram the PIC, only people who use a PICkit 2/3 may want
to install the J1 header. Similarly the J5 header is part of
the currently-unutilised serial port and can be left out.
6. Lastly I install the tall electrolytic capacitors C5 and
C12, and the two LEDs D1 and D2. The green one is D2, it's
installed closest to the battery.

TESTING YOUR HANDY WORK

Before installing the ICs a good idea is to connect your +5V
power source and check for +5V on the power pins of the ICs
and +3.3V on the power tab on the SD card socket.
The power pins are as follows:
U1: +5V on Pins 11 & 32 and Gnd on Pins 12 & 31
U2 and U3: +5V on Pin 20 and Gnd on Pin 10
U5: +5V on Pin 16 and Gnd on Pin 15
U6: +5V on Pin 16 and Gnd on Pin 8
U7: +5V on Pin 8 and Gnd on Pin 4
J2 (SD Card Socket): On Tab 4 observe +3.9V with no SD card
installed and +3.3V with the SD card inserted

We are nearly finished, so now is time to power-down and

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 9

insert all the ICs. Bear in mind that U2, U3, U6 and U5 all
face one way and U1 & U7 face the other - this is normal.
Before connecting the FreHD to a TRS-80, power it up without
an SD card inserted and observe the green LED flash once.
Insert your prepared SD card, and notice the green LED flash
once more. If you are using a small-capacity HP brand SD card
there may be a delay of 3 seconds before the green LED flashes
upon inserting. Most other SD cards flash the green LED in
less than 1 second.

Power everything down and connect it to your TRS-80. Power up

the FreHD, insert your prepared SD card, and power up your
TRS-80. The TRS-80 should operate normally. If it crashes or
won't start up examine your hard disk drive cable and make
sure it isn't plugged in around the wrong way. (Having it
plugged around the wrong way won't harm anything but it won't
work either.) Proceed to preparing your boot floppy disk if
you require one (TRS-80 Model I,III,4,4D) or copy the correct
auto-boot image file to your SD card (Model 4P).

PREPARING YOUR SD CARD

The SD card needs to be prepared before use. It will probably
be formatted in FAT and needs to be reformatted in FAT32.
Also while formatting it, give the card a volume name. Any
name will do, but I tend to name all mine TRS80HDD1,
TRS80HDD3, TRS80HDD4, or TRS80HDD4P to remind me which system
I'm intending to use it on. Next, referring to the CD
supplied with your Kit B, look for the image file to match
your system. Folder 'LS-DOS M4 Image' contains the LS-DOS
6.3.1 image for TRS-80 Model 4 system, and other image folders
are similarly named for other TRS-80s and supported DOSes. In
each instance the file name is hard4-0 and you need to copy
that to the SD card. This is the image file and co-
incidentally the same size as the TRS-80 hard drive it
emulates: 40Mb. The only exception to this is the CP/M 2.2
image which comprises of two 15Mb files called hard4-0 and
hard4-1 - make sure you copy both those files to your SD card
if you want to use CP/M.

PREPARING YOUR STARTUP DISKETTE - 4P OWNERS

CAN SKIP THIS SECTION
All TRS-80 Model I, III, 4 and 4D systems, in their standard
form, need a boot floppy to get the system up and running.
Radio Shack calls this a "Startup Disk" and back when they
sold their TRS-80 hard drives, explained how the Startup Disk
was generated in the manuals supplied with their hard disk
systems. You used this disk at the start of the day to boot
your hard disk system, then remove the disk and work off the
hard drive for the rest of the day.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 10

Model I: Looking through the supplied CD, you'll find for the
Model 1 there are three DMK diskette image files in the LDOS
M1 Image folder. One is for Model Is with No doubler, another
is for Model Is with a Tandy doubler, and the third is for
Model Is with a Percom doubler. Use a Catweasel to make the
boot disk you require and you are set.

Model III (LDOS): In the root directory of the supplied CD,

look for a file called FreHD RSHARD6 Setup.pdf In order to
make the required boot disk make sure you have a LDOS 5.3.1
master disk and a copy of RSHARD5/DCT and RSFORM5/CMD and just
follow the steps in the PDF, changing references RSHARD6 to
RSHARD5 and references to RSFORM6 to RSFORM5 and you will be
able to make your Startup disk.

Model III (Newdos/80 2.5): In the Newdos M3 Image folder look

for two DMK files disk3-0 and disk3-1, just use a Catweasel to
make the boot disk you require and you are set.

Model 4 (LS-DOS): In the root directory of the supplied CD,

look for a file called FreHD RSHARD6 Setup.pdf In order to
make the required boot disk make sure you have a LS-DOS 6.3.1
master disk and a copy of RSHARD6/DCT and RSFORM6/CMD and just
follow the steps in the PDF.

Model 4 (CP/M 2.2): In the CP/M image folder in the root

directory of the supplied CD, look for two DMK files disk4-0
and disk4-1, just use a Catweasel to make the boot disk you
require and you are set.

4P OWNERS - NO STARTUP DISK REQUIRED

The designers of the 4P put an undocumented hard drive boot
routine into the ROM of every 4P. Radio Shack didn't tell you
about it but every 4P has it. FreHD design/debugging team
exploits this feature by presenting a special 4P LS-DOS 6.3.1
image (in the LS-DOS 4P AUTO BOOT IMAGE folder) - just copy
that one to your SD card, power up your FreHD and power up
your 4P about 5 seconds later, it will automatically boot from
the FreHD.

The same applies to CP/M 2.2 on the 4P, just copy the hard4-0
and hard4-1 image files (15Mb each) from the CPM Image folder
to the SD card and start your 4P about 5 seconds after FreHD -
auto instant boot CP/M.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 11

 IN CONCLUSION
Kit B provides a way for most people with a technical
background to get fast, reliable mass storage for a very
modest price. In fact even the full Kit C at $A250 is price
competitive with similar solid-state storage systems for other
8-bit micro computer platforms, and around half the cost of a
restored TRS-80 MFM hard disk drive.

My offer on my web site still stands, anyone who buys Kit B

and can't get it working can send it to me and I will make it
work. So far only two people have had to send me their FreHDs
and I was able to diagnose and fix the problem in under 30
minutes, and return them a fully functional FreHD for a small
fee to cover my time, parts and return postage.

ianm@trs-80.com

Ian Mavric is an IT Specialist who also restores

and collects TRS-80's and classic cars. He live
with his wife and kids in Melbourne, Australia.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 12

 Radio Shack Level II ROM UPGRADE to
Version 1.3
Larry Kraemer
The Radio Shack Model 1's were shipped with a 3 Chip set of
ROMS. Those ROMS are Pin compatible with the Texas
Instrument TMS-2532JL-45 EPROMS. Some of the later Model
1's were shipped with a 2 Chip ROM set, as were some of the
"G" Version Boards. I have a "G" version board with a
3 Chip ROM set.

This is an interesting read on the TI vs Intel EPROMS.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/80532-13-what-diff-eprom-
eprom

SOURCE: Micro-80-Volume-01-Issue10

Tandy started shipping 2 chip ROM sets in their Model 1's.

Now that 2 chip ROM's are here, a few things have changed.
First of all, there are two different sets of ROM's.

Part Nos. 8043364 and 8043732 are for all except "G" boards
and these ROM's still need to be used in conjunction with
the XRX III loading modification.

Part Nos. 8044364 and 8044732 are for the "G" boards and do
not require the XRX III loading modification.

The checksums for these latter ROM's are:

ROM A B078
ROM B DA45
ROM C 4006

ROM A and ROM B are in the first chip (8K), ROM C is in the
second chip (4K).

My older Model 1 has a 3 Chip ROM set, and I wanted to

upgrade it to Version 1.3. The ROMS are numbered from
Right to Left as ROM3, ROM2, ROM1, with ROM1 being closest
to the Ribbon Cable.

I purchased some TMS-2532JL-45 EPROMS and erased them. When

the EPROM is ERASED it contains all ONES.
Pin 21 of the EPROM doesn't get inserted into the Socket.
Instead it's bent slightly and I wire wrapped
and soldered a wire from it to a Pull-up resistor I inserted
in the EPROM Board. (This copies what ROM3

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 13

has on Pin 21 for enable, except it's factory wiring for
ROM3).

There should be a command in your EPROM Programming Software

to make sure it is properly erased. I used an EP1
programmer from BP Microsystems to do my EPROM burning.

If my Model 1 would boot I could have used Tasmon to move

the ROM's HEX Code to 0x7000, and then write it to a disk
file by using some assembly code like this:

LD HL,0x0000 ;point at SOURCE

LD DE,0x7000 ;point at DESTINATION
LD BC,0x3FFF ;Number of bytes to move
DJNZ ;move 'em all
LD A,01 ;Breakpoint junk instruction
NOP

If you have a Model 1, Revision "G" with two ROM Chips, you
can read those into one file and then create one 8K file
and one 4K file. The TMS2564 EPROMS are Pin Compatible for
24 out of the 28 Pins. The TOP Four Pins won't be
inserted in the ROM Sockets. Power will be on Pin 24
instead of Pin 28. Check the Note. The Chip Select Pins
will have to be wired to the proper signals. Vpp Might also
need to be tied to a Pull-up Resistor using +5VDC.

thing
Up to som e ew w ith
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your Tandgy us all
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know

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 14

My Model 1 wouldn't power up, so I needed to find a
ROMIMAGE. I stumbled across these two sites.

http://www.vintagecomputer.net/fjkraan/comp/trs80/
http://www.vintagecomputer.net/fjkraan/comp/trs80/
trs80Archives_diskpacks/

These diskpacks have similar contents, and a ROMIMAGE

included in each.

Archive: softinno.zip
Length Date Time Name
--------- ---------- ----- ----
21324 1994-09-19 23:54 MODEL1.EXE
3074 1993-07-01 02:13 MODEL1.FNT
234 1996-05-07 20:08 MODEL1.SET
102400 1996-05-07 20:07 BOOT.DSK
102400 1996-05-07 20:06 MICRO.DSK
12288 1993-09-24 20:30 ROMIMAGE (Model 1 - Version
1.3)
--------- -------
241720 6 files

But, since I didn't know this ROMIMAGE was Version 1.3, I

used my previous information to VERIFY each BYTE that was
different than my Original ROMS.

That information is in the file roms.txt, but I needed the

data in HEX and addresses in HEX, so I inserted the Decimal
addresses and decimal data in LibreCalc (Linux) and
converted it to HEX Address & Data. Model1ROM-13.xls

It took me a while to verify the ROMIMAGE is the latest

Version 1.3 (identical to the image I burned in my Model 1).
The name is ROMIMAGE.HEX. It's the three (4K) ROM's CODE in
one BLOCK for Version 1.3 as one continuous HEX Byte file
from 0x0000 to 0x2FFF containing all three (4K) ROMS for
Radio Shack Model 1's.

ROM1 0x0000 to 0x0FFF (0 to 4095 = 4096 Bytes = 4K Each

EPROM)
ROM2 0x1000 to 0x1FFF
ROM3 0x2000 to 0x2FFF

I've tried using CP/M Version 2.2 to extract the three ROM
Images. I finally figured out how to use DDT to CROP the
ROMIMAGE file, so I could make three (4K) HEX images.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 15

Here is how I did it:

Ran CPM 2.2 in Linux, and copied the ROMIMAGE.HEX file to

CP/M's B: Drive. I also copied DDT.COM there.
I couldn't read the ROMIMAGE.HEX file with DDT, so I renamed
it to ROM with no extension. DDT was now satisfied.

Start of LOOP:
I executed DDT which gave me the - command prompt.

I did the following commands from DDT's prompt:

-f0100,7fff,00 ; Fill from 0x0100 to 0x7fff with
zero's, to make sure I know what is what!
-iROM ; I had to delete the .HEX so I
shortened file name to ROM - Input filename
-r0f00 ; read with offset of 0f00 to place at
1000 through 3fff for cropping into three files
-m1000,1fff,0100 ; move 4096 bytes to 0100 through end
of 4096 bytes for tpa and save
CNTL C ; EXIT DDT and save the block by using:
SAVE 16 ROM1.HEX

Repeat all above commands for 2000,2fff,0100 & save as

ROM2.HEX - go to LOOP:
Repeat all above commands for 3000,3fff,0100 & save as
ROM3.HEX - go to LOOP:

That should do it. I spot checked the first sixteen bytes

and the last 16 bytes, and they are correct.

Burn EPROMS & test in a Model 1.

Larry Kraemer
ldkraemer@gmail.com

Larry Kraemer is an ex-Military USAF

Officer, and a retired Electronics &
Instrumentation Technician, that has a
hobby of Amateur Radio (Advanced Class),
and Computers, with Computer Repair
experience.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 16

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TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 28
 The BEST in TRS-80s
Call The Right Stuff
Ask for Ian
The number is +61 416 184 893
That's The Right Stuff
And he's in Melbourne

http://ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/trs80/

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 29

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TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 38
 ASK MAV
ABOUT THE TRS-80 MODEL III MICROCOMPUTER
by Ian Mavric
1.
Q. I have a 16K cassette-based Model III, how do I upgrade it
to 48K?
A. On the motherboard, up in the top right hand corner you
will see 16 empty chip sockets. You need sixteen 4116 DRAM
chips. The first row is already populated with the first 16K
of memory, the 2nd row increases the memory to 32K, and the
third row maximises the memory to 48K.

2.
Q. I hear there was an entry-level 4K Level 1 Model III - do
you know much about it?
A. Yes it's very rare and did not sell many. It carried the
catalog number 26-1061, and did indeed have 4K Ram and an
improved version of Level 1 BASIC which had printing commands,
since the Model III motherboard has a printer port on it as
standard. Cassette baud rate was still 250 and the keyboard
also lacked key-rollover. Contemporary collections seem to
indicate that there are less than 50 left in existence. Just
like 4K Level 1 Model Is are rare, it's entirely plausible
that most were upgraded to 16K Model III BASIC or disk systems
not long after purchase as most people found Level 1 BASIC far
to restrictive to do anything serious.

Picture: early advert for the 4K Level 1 TRS-80 Model III

3.
Q. I have a 4K Level 1 Model III - how do I upgrade it to 16K
and Model III BASIC?
A. Don't do it - you have a rare and collectable machine.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 39

Ask around the internet forums or TRS-80 resellers for an
already upgraded system.

4.
Q. Is there a High Resolution Graphics board for the Model
III?
A. Yes, Tandy used to make one which carried the catalog
number 26-1125 which provided 640 x 200 pixel resolution. The
kit was expensive and so not many were sold. In Australia it
was $529 and had not much software support, so it was a hard-
sell. The board itself was a replacement for the rear RFI
shield on US Model IIIs, or a RFI shield with a circuit board
integrated into it which now fits over the motherboard. It
connects to the 50-way I/O bus, runs of 5V, and has pass-
through connectors for the monitor. There was very little
software support from Tandy (Dow Jones Market Analyser and
Business Graphics being two), though it did come with a very
handy version of Basic with good graphics commands. Also
80micro featured programs from time to time which utilised the
graphics board.

Photo: a high-resolution Model III

5.
Q. Tandy sold a Model III-to-4 upgrade kit but I never see
them for sale on eBay?
A. This is an interesting one. Yes Tandy did sell a Model
III-to-4 upgrade "kit". It was catalog number 26-1123 and
comprised of a Model 4 motherboard, keyboard, nameplate, 64K

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 40

badge, sound beeper module, and TRSDOS 6 disk and manual. At
over $1000 it was not popular but I do see upgraded systems
appear on eBay in the USA from time to time and had a close
look at one myself. I see that Tandy also replaces the
aluminium chassis which supports the motherboard because the
connectors for the keyboard, cassette and sound ports do not
line up properly with the Model III aluminium chassis.

Photo: an upgraded Model III-to-4

Although Tandy called it an upgrade kit, it was not something

which could be purchased over the counter. The hi-res board,
by contrast, could be purchased over the counter even though
Tandy recommended getting their technicians to fit it - it was
pretty complex. The upgrade kit required you to trade-in your
Model III parts and were only to be installed by technicians
to make sure they retained the old parts. Hence why there was
no over-the-counter upgrade kit purchasable, and why the kits
themselves never show up on the marketplace.

ianm@trs-80.com

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 41

 Laurie Shields contacted me to let me know he’d found a
later version of Zen on the internet. Zen85 V6.2, as your
no doubt aware, is available from the downloads page. Part
of the .dsk file contains an ‘update’ file which, I
believe, is in Scripsit format. Just in case you’ve a
problem with that, I’ve converted it to .doc for the
newsletter.

Z E N 8 5 Ver. 6.2
------------------
Introduction
------------

It is so long now since I started work on Zen85 that I've

lost track of some of the minor alterations, in most cases
simply making default entries to prompts meaningful.
Hopefully the more important changes are all documented
below and I suppose will eventually be incorporated into a
new complete manual.

One of the big demands on time was the creation of the CP/M
version that is now available making that operating system
just about bearable. Should you discover anything not
performing as expected please let me know, probably the
fault will be in the documentation rather than the software.

The biggest change since Zen84 is the inclusion of a two

pass labelling disassembler, at present only disassembling
from memory, and unfortunately taking up 2K of Ram. I hope
in the near future to put the assembler and disassembler
into separate overlays but for the time being the end of Zen
is way beyond the start of text in Scripsit and the in-
memory transfer from Scripsit to Zen is no longer available.

The other significant alterations are in response to

requests from a number of users some of which are given in
no particular order:

a. Charley Butler of TAS, who requested the relaxation of

the command syntax so that spaces are now allowed between
command letter and any numeric parameters.
b. David Jones, assembling 150K of source at a time for
Spectrum games, who wanted things a bit faster so Zen now
can assemble from disc in whole files rather than a line at
a time.
c. Leo Knaggs, who always outputs listing files to disc with
the 'F' option and he wanted the facility to change the

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 42

output to different listing files during assembly. He then
suggested the CHAIN pseudo-op to link files one to another
and following those two I decided that we may as well have
the facility to GET files from within another file, so that
went in.
d. Thanks to Peter Knaggs who over the last year has come up
with many suggestions and thought provoking ideas. A chance
remark of his, pointed the way to save a few hundred bytes
with no sacrifice on performance.
e. Thanks also to Geoff Smith who bullied me into doing
something about the pedestrian way in which the old Zen
'Z'apped lines of text, and whilst on the subject Geoff's
specialised Scripsit out-performs every other word processor
I've seen.
f. Robert Madge of Intelligent Software who insisted that
the Enterprise Zen should be equally happy with upper or
lower case text. Having done it on that machine it looked
so good that it had to go into the TRS80 version.

This latter point raised another complication of postfixes

for numerical quantities when in the hexadecimal default
mode. In other words as the letters "D" and "B" are
legitimate hex characters we cannot use them to indicate
decimal and binary numbers. To overcome this I have adopted
"T" for base Ten and "I" for bInary. If anyone has a better
suggestion let me know, or alternatively you can roll your
own in the region of 6BE8.

Summary of extra commands and facilities

----------------------------------------
Editor Commands
RX Read Unknown Reads any format disk file into End+1
upwards. Size of file remembered.
WX Write Unknown Writes unknown format file to disk.
These two commands permit editing of any format disk file
provided it can be fitted into available memory.

g Global move of text (old command letter 'c').

DU Duplicate source code. Prompts for Start, End and
Destination. Destination line number must be at
least two lines before/beyond block start/end
respectively.

Note: DU and g assume default numeric base 10 for the input

parameters.
R Read from disk now automatically recognises un-numbered
Edas files. To speed up the disc read process, Zen now only
checks for the availability of 256 bytes before each sector
read, rather than, as before, on the availability of room
for each byte as they were read from the buffer. This has

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 43

speeded up the read enormously but at the expense of not being
able to use some 200 bytes at the top of memory.

RES Resets the source file pointers to their initial

values. Note any source file in memory is ignored
and thereby killed.

2. Assembler Commands

The following have been added to the assembler:

BASE sets the assembler default number base to parameter
value, equivalent to RADIX on some American
assemblers.
DEFW & DW now take multiple parameters.
SHORT limits the listing of object code expansion to four
bytes, this is the default state for the assembler.
LONG allows full listing of object code, this was the old
default state before version 6.0.
IFNOT new conditional pseudo-op.
IFNOTEQ new conditional pseudo-op.
DEFD & DD new Define Data pseudo-op, takes two parameters, eg:
DEFD n,d where n = number of data bytes and, d =
value in range 0 to 255.
SLS for the missing undocumented shift (Shift Left Set).
PAGE simply forces a new page.

File handling pseudo-ops, each of these takes a "Filespec"

parameter:

FILE Closes the current listing file and outputs to

"Filespec" Pseudo-op is ignored if not outputting
with the 'F' option.
CHAIN Closes the current source file, any remaining text
being ignored and inputs from "Filespec". Pseudo-op
is ignored if not assembling from disc.
GET Closes the current source file but remembers
filename and line number. Input then taken from
"Filespec" until eof, whence the original file is
restored at the next line after the GET. Only one
level of Getfile is supported. As with the previous
pseudo-op this one is ignored if not assembling
from disc. The reserved words for use as labels are
now restricted to just register names, mathematical
operators and condition codes. This permits the use
of labels such as END: and LDIR: etc. A new maths
operator has been added # for xor, eg: ld
a,value#20h Obviously # is now included in the
reserved list and so the indicator for local labels
in Mac/Bas has had to be altered and is now the %
character.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 44

Assembler modes of operation

An extra mode of operation, namely of assembling whole files

direct from disc, rather than files in a line by line process,
has been added. This "lumps" rather than "lines" mode is
signalled by an asterisk "*" as the first character of input
to the 'Source>' prompt, examples:

Source>{enter} As before, assemble in memory file.

Source>SCRIP{enter) As before, assemble SCRIP from disc by
lines.
Source>*SCRIP{enter} Assemble SCRIP from disc as a whole
file, in effect no different from the
first example unless Scrip contains Get
statement(s) or finishes with a CHAIN
statement.
Source>=SCRIP{enter} As before, where SCRIP is a linking
file.
Source>*=SCRIP{enter} As above where SCRIP is a linking
file, but assembly is to be in lumps
rather than lines. In any of these
assembly modes, should Zen's symbol table
become full then Zen automatically makes a
1000 byte increase and starts at the
beginning again. To indicate this action
Zen displays a "*" on the video
irrespective of output mode. The cross
reference listing from REF is now sorted
in the same fashion as the Sorted Symbol
Table.

3. Extended Debugger

A single stepping simulator has been added to the debugger.

This operates by copying the user-instruction into an internal
buffer and trapping the machine state after the instruction
has been executed. Thus single stepping of both Rom and Ram
with full control at the keyboard is possible. Where
subroutines are required to be executed without delay their
addresses can be preset. This extended debugger handles all
of the legal Z80 op-codes and most of the illegal codes
including the half register IX and IY ones. Whilst the
simulator is operating the user-register state is displayed
after each instruction together with the disassembly of the
next instruction at the PC address. Optionally a 'window' on
any 64 byte block of memory can also be shown in both hex and
ASCII.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 45

 LOOKING FOR FAST,
INEXPENSIVE, UNLIMITED MASS
STORAGE FOR YOUR TRS-80
MODEL I/III/4/4P/4D?
The amazing

"FreHD"

-Emulates a TRS-80 hard drive, but faster than any hard drive!
-Works with your favourite DOS (LS-DOS, LDOS, CP/M, Newdos/80 2.5)
-Uses SD card for storage medium
-Bonus free Real Time Clock function!
-Designed in Belgium and proudly built and shipped from Australia
-Kit form or fully assembled

Order yours today:

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TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 46

Commands:
c Call address. This command accepts the following
parameters:

0 clears all stored addresses.

1 to FFFFh stored as call address for execution in real time.
Default display all stored addresses.
DE Toggles the extended debugger on/off. When enabled the
debugger defaults to hexadecimal number base and the Z>
prompt is changed to Z?w. Without any parameter cancels
the window mode, otherwise Parameter is stored as address
of 64 byte window display block.
R Run simulator. If the extended debugger is enabled via
the 'DE' command then 'R' will start the simulator
in the 'Run' mode with the keyboard scanned after every
user-instruction. Simulation starts at the supplied
parameter address or if none supplied then at the default
user PC address. The space-bar freezes the action and the
'X' key returns to command mode.
S Single Step. Similar to above but after each user-
instruction is executed action is frozen awaiting a key-
press. Any other key than 'X' continues the simulation
otherwise control returns to Zen's command mode.
Note: Whilst the simulator is active any Calls in any user
program to 002B will be pre-empted by Zen's own keyboard
scan even if 002B is set to be called using 'c002BH'. To
overcome this difficulty use 0049H instead and set that
address to be called with 'c0049H'. Zen monitors the user
stack during simulation and will force an abort if it
goes above its initial value. This allows subroutines to
be stepped without the need to set a breakpoint.

Try the following command sequence:

Z>DE{enter}10Z?R33{enter}Whatever was in the A register should
eventually be displayed on the video and control return
on completion.

4. Disassembler

As mentioned above, Zen is now equipped with a comprehensive

two pass labelling disassembler capable of handling code moved
in memory from its executing address. The disassembler can be
used in two modes, the first is a clean quick unscrambling of
the next eight instructions to the video and the second is a
more comprehensive disassembly of a defined block of memory
with up to 64 separately identified data areas. The data areas
produce simple DB statements. The output from the
disassembler can be either to Zen's own source file buffer
which naturally grows during the process, or to any of the
listing devices. The command syntax is as follows:

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 47

u Unscramble. Either from the byte following the last
unscramble or from the parameter address. Output is to
the video only.
DA Disassemble. Prompts are given for start, stop and
execution addresses. The latter address is relevant
should the code to be disassembled be in a different
place in memory from that which it normally executes.
Zen assumes the start address for the execution one if a
default entry is made. Likewise should defaults
entries be made for the first two values then these are
left unchanged from the previous disassembly. After
settling these values Zen prompts for the start and stop
addresses for any data areas. Defaulting on entry
terminates the definition of these areas and Zen requires
the output option. Output options "V", "E" and "F" are as
described for assembler output. The default option
directs the source file to Zen's own text buffer. During
the first pass all referred addresses are stored in Zen's
symbol table area that could run out of room and generate
a "Full" error message.

Note. All numeric input to the assembler prompts is treated

by Zen as being hexadecimal, there is no need to postfix
with "H". If you intend decimal input then use the "T"
postfix for base Ten.

5. Miscellaneous

I think all of the foregoing and the rest applies equally well
to Zen4/Cmd 3.0 and the CP/M version of Zen. I've added
default file extensions to Zen for most of the file orientated
procedures. Zen applies these default extensions without
regard to the possibility of correctly named files already
existing without extensions. If you don't like this situation
then simply replace the bytes from 569C to 56AE with 0D's.
Assuming you don't then the extensions used are as follows:

/ZEN Applies to all source file Write, Read, RI and RL

operations.
/LNK Applies to linking files.
/LST Applies to listing files created with the "F" option.
/CMD Applies to output "D" option, and RD and WD. Zen does
not apply default extensions to other disk I/O such as RX, WX
and kill. One small point to mention, always, when using Re-
entry for debugging, do it with CALL REENTRY and also check
the actual address with the 'r' command in Zen. Printer status
is now stored as Bit 7 of 5534. During the page display, now
modified to displaying a grahics line, the 'Y' key is

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 48

recognised to toggle the page display on/off. The unallocated
space in the last sector after the end-of-file in all disk
writes is now filled with zeros. This permits Zen to be used
for editing Basic programs, JCL files etc that do not contain
their own internal end-of-file marker. We have not been
supplied with any details regarding accessing the directory
under Model 1 Dosplus. Consequently this customising defaults
to the TRS 2.3 mode. This will generate a directory in single
density if on track 17 but is unlikely to work in other
configurations.

Address of pointers in Zen

Zen85 v 6.0 Zen4 v 3.1

SOFP 86FB 62FB

EOFP 86FD 62FD
PSTAT 5534 (Bit 7) 3335
REENTRY 5705 352D
LIMIT 5634 3423
STACK 552C 332C
IMAGE 56E9 3511
MBASE 5629 3418
PAGENO 562C 341B
TBUFF 5400 3200

6. General notes

Zen only uses the Rom single character scan at 2BH for all
keyboard input. With Newdos80 and Dosplus this routine is
treated as a valid device for 'Chained' input and consequently
Zen can be operated via chain-files with both these systems.

Newdos80 actually allows the user to decide whether the single

key routine is 'chain-able' as well as the line-input routine.
Unfortunately the authors of LDOS and TrsDos 6.x have decided,
in their wisdom, that their chain file system cannot support
the single character input device and therefore whilst chain
files can be used to simply activate Zen they cannot provide
any input. Since it is by the use of these single key commands
that Zen provides the desirable facilities for scrolling
through and editing the text it is unlikely that the input
routines in Zen will be re-written simply to support these
illogical implementations of chain files.
For Newdos80 users there is the facility (/./5Y) in their
chain files to drop one level of Doscall whilst within a
chaining. This means that using the 'DO' command in Zen will
permit a chain file to be activated at any time so as to
provide a standard sequence of keyboard input. In its
simplest form imagine creating a program called Scripsit/Cmd

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 49

where the source files are in three parts, Scrip1/Zen,
Sctip2/Zen and Scrip3/Zen. After modifying any or all of
these files then a standard sequence of commands would be
used such as (spaces added after prompts for clarity):

Z> A<cr>
Source file> SCRIP1/ZEN, SCRIP2/ZEN, SCRIP3/ZEN<cr>
Option> D<cr>
Filespec> SCRIPSIT/CMD<cr>

Z> O<cr>
Dos ready SCRIPSIT/CMD<cr>

Whilst the entering of the list of source files can be

replaced by using a linking file the rest still has to be
entered every time unless a chain file can be triggered to
provide this input. This can be done under Newdos80 by using
Zen's 'DO' command to carry out a Dos command to start
chaining a file as follows:
DO DO SCRIP
or
Z>DO CHAIN SCRIP where the file SCRIP/JCL, written with Zen
of course, is:
/./5Y A SCRIP1/ZEN,SCRIP2/ZEN,SCRIP3/ZEN D SCRIPSIT/CMD O
SCRIPSIT

(Don Bannister uses this technique and calls the chainfile

DO/JCL, thus from Zen he keys DO DO DO, known as the Sinatra
option). A similar technique can be used in Newdos80 Basic
to activate a chain file to replace keyboard input in mid-
program via CMD"DO CHAINFIL" or even CMD"DO "+X$. Thus
allowing selective files to be activated by the logic
determining the value of X$

Happiness is a not
too-warm M1 Tandy!

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 50

 IN MAV'S WORKSHOP
by
IAN MAVRIC

PROJECT 1: MOUNTING FreHD IN A MODEL I DISK

DRIVE CASE
A few weeks ago I found on eBay a Dragon dual disk drive
unit. Dragon was a UK company which made a computer
compatible with the TRS-80 Colour Computer called the Dragon
32 and Dragon 64. Like all well supported computers there
was a dual disk drive unit available for the Dragon 32/64
and this is what I had found. Luckily it was only $20 and
just as well... both disk drives were damaged beyond repair.
What I had bought was a $20 case and power supply. Although
the original plan was to buy the Dragon dual drive to use
with a Model 1, it occurred to me that by installing a FreHD
inside it, and a single disk drive, one could considerably
cut down the number of power-outlets needed to run a Model 1
system.

Photo: Dragon Dual Disk Drive for Dragon 32 or 64 Computer -

it didn't work.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 51

In its standard form the Model 1, by virtue of its modular
design, can take an incredibly large number of power outlets
just to make it work... One for the monitor, one each for the
computer and Expansion Interface, one for each disk drive.
Then if you expand the system further with a speech
synthesiser, printer, modem and hard drive, one extra power
outlet for each device. You soon end up with daisy-chained
power-strips.

Hence my interest in dual disk drive boxes and any idea which
will cut down the number of power strips needed to get systems
up and running. Putting a FreHD inside a disk drive box and
powered by the same power supply seemed like a great idea.

Not long ago I made some Model 1 hard disk adaptor boards
which allowed connection of a TRS-80 hard disk drive or a
FreHD to a Model 1. These little devices have two resistors
and two transistors, and is
connected to the Expansion
Interface via a short cable.
With only four parts it is
powered by the Expansion
Interface. There is a lot of
electronic "traffic" on the
short connecting cable, but I
still planned to mount both
the FreHD and M1 HD adaptor
into the disk drive case for
a neater installation. How
long could I make the "short"
cable before it would run
into problems of signal
degradation and propagation
irregularities causing timing
dramas?

Photo: FreHD and M1 HD

adaptor mounted into the
Dragon drive case

I tried with a 90cm long

cable and it worked a treat.
I put an AM radio near the
FreHD and found there was
considerable electronic
noise, but in the tests I ran
I found no problems. I
didn't feel like testing with
any longer cable since 90cm
is probably more than anyone
would want to conceivably
use.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 52

After some time I decided upon a disk drive to mount in the
Dragon case, a 40 track double sided double density SA-455
from Shugart Associates. While dual drives are nice on a
Model 1, let's face it if you work off a FreHD or hard drive,
you only need one disk drive to boot the system, and for a
method of loading programs from diskette onto your FreHD. One
drive would be adequate.

As you can see from the photos I mounted the FreHD up front in
the case and the M1 HD adaptor right behind it joined by a
short 5cm long cable. I then made up a small power cable to
bring 5V from the disk drive power supply to the FreHD. The
data cables for the FreHD and the disk drive come out at the
same place, and were shortened to about 60cm.

Photo: FreHD mounted and the disk drive allows the system to
boot

As a side project for this one I also made a modification to

the Australian TRS-80 power supply brick. You see in most
countries the power supply for the Model 1 is a small black
unit which provides enough current to power either the Model 1
keyboard unit or the Expansion Interface, but not both. In
Australia though, Tandy Electronics contracted Furguson
Transformers to make the 240V power supply for the Model 1.
It's twice the size of the small black ones used in the USA
and UK, and fortuitously due to its over-engineered design has
plenty of current to drive both the Model 1 and Expansion

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 53

Interface. Al you need to do is open it up and install a
second power lead to the Expansion Interface. I've done this
several times over the years and always got a good result.
Thanks Furguson - the supply may be too big to fit in the EI
but otherwise is a great design.

So my nicely restored TRS-80 Model 1 system now has a green-

screen monitor with anti-glare panel, a M1 and EI powered from
one power supply, and a disk drive box with both a disk drive
and FreHD in it. With 48K Ram, lowercase modification, ALPS
keyboard, and megabytes of storage online thanks to FreHD, the
system only takes up 3 power outlets, and is both neat and
reliable, and isn't that what everyone wants from their Model
1 systems?

Photo: Neat little FreHD-based TRS-80 Model 1 system

Ian Mavric is an IT Specialist who also restores

and collects TRS-80's and classic cars. He live
with his wife and kids in Melbourne, Australia.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 54

 Business Time with Kev
Kevin Parker
Hi everyone!!! Let me say that it’s a great opportunity that
has come my way to write for Dusty’s TRS8BIT mag.
So the first order of business is probably a little bit
about me and how I came to be writing this column. Kevin
Parker is my name and like another columnist, Ian Mavric, I
live in Victoria (Australia) but I’m not a native of
Victoria. I actually grew up in South Australia and moved to
Victoria about eight or nine years ago. I live in a little
country town near the regional coastal city of Warrnambool
in the south west of Victoria. I’m not that far from some of
the greatest coastal scenery in the world such as The Great
Ocean Road and The Twelve Apostles for those who have toured
down under. Despite that I still have my day job in
Melbourne (the capital city of Victoria and about 250kms
away for our non-Australian readers) as the Senior Web
Analyst for an insurance company. I’ll talk a little bit
about work-life too in this inaugural article because my
work history has some bearing on where I’m at today as a
classic computer collector.

So the story goes, a little while ago I was approached to

write a column about the 8” TRS-80’s of which I have two but
I’ll save the machine details for later articles. I actually
have three 8” machines in my classic computer collection but
I’ll save the detail of #3 for later as well.

Now I actually only know two things about the 8” machines -

they have at least one 8” floppy drive and they're awfully
heavy. If you’ve ever tried to pick one up you’ll feel the
quality! So why am I writing this column then? When I was
initially approached I said no but then it occurred to me
that I’m actually going to try and get these machines up and
running and restored to their former glory so that journey
in itself is probably of interest to others. You might say
that this column will almost write itself as we go along.
So let me take you back (briefly) about 30+ years!

My tertiary qualifications are actually in Human Resource

Management and Business Management but interestingly I
actually found myself working in business facing IT and then
web related positions. It’s surprising (or maybe not to
some) how many people work in areas that are not necessarily
related to their tertiary education but that’s how things
work out some times - for me that outcome has not been a bad
thing at all.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 55

A previous employer (several employers ago now) decided that
to facilitate the entry of computers into the workplace
(that’s how far back I go) they would buy a few laptops and
lend them to staff to generate familiarity. 40 lines in
monochrome LCD brings back memories - it might have been
something like a Toshiba T1100 but the memory around that
detail is now quite vague.

Now, more out of curiosity at the time, I actually already had

my first computer, a TRS-80 Model 1 with an EI and two floppy
disk drives (which in hindsight knowing what I know today I
should not have sold of course), which I was dabbling with but
dabbling with the laptop got me truly hooked. That produced
the segue into more IT related employment positions primarily
working with IT as the business representative performing
roles more like a Business Analyst. Then, to cut a very long
story short, I found my way, through some natural progression
and some accidents of tenure, into the web area eventually
becoming the Web Services Manager for a statutory corporation
in South Australia.

I also run a small web hosting and development business on the

side so you can see that my life for many years has been
comprised of computer technology in various forms and ages
almost 24x7.

Despite the changes in fortune in my working life and

accelerating technological advances one thing has never
changed - my interest in old computer technology. Even with
taking the logical path forward for most computer users to
using PC’s, I’ve retained a very keen interest in classic
computer technology - someone has to preserve the history is
what I often say to those curious about my hobby.

My interests are more eclectic and I have quite a range of

classic computers in my collection but my two key areas of
interest are TRS-80’s and black, business to enterprise grade
IBMs (my current employer finds it most curious that I own
more AS/400’s than they do). From time to time I might mention
other machines I have or use (or even don’t use) in this
column because it’s all part of the history and the story and
we know for certain that while they did a dam good job given
the times, Radio Shack did not have a monopoly on good ideas,
solutions or what makes classic computers interesting.

For many years I was also a member of the South Australian

based AMUG (Adelaide Micro Users Group <http://www.trs-80.com/
wordpress/magazine-user-group/>) which was a club of like-
minded users back in those days using both TRS-80 and System-
80 machines (but interestingly I can’t recall anyone in the
club actually having a System-80). I can’t recall how many

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 56

years I was a member but I might try to work it out one day.
I think my name may have even appeared in an issue of the
club Newsletter when I wrote a very open, but constructive,
article about some aspects of how the club was being run or
not being run depending on your outlook at the time.
I also have very fond memories of accessing the Tan80
Connection BBS during those years which was run by Eric
Rasmussen, a member of AMUG, and if memory serves me correct
he was also the President for some time and a very good
President I seem to recall or at least a very good member.
In those times connecting to another computer got the very
big WOW factor but who would have thought then that
connectivity would become what it is today.
For the curious I found this listing from 1994

System TAN80 BBS

Sysop Erik Rasmussen
Phone (08) 326-1132 Multi-Line
FidoNet 3:800/822
Baud V.21 V.22 V.22bis V.23 V.32 V.32bis
Access Mem LVA
Hours 24 Hours
Computer IBM 386/33 Clone
DOS MS-DOS
BBSoftware Opus
Established Jun 1989 (4 Years 9 Months)
Info Supporting IBM-PC, Soundblaster
Tandy TRS-80 Models 1, 3 and 4
CP/M, CD-ROM online.
Contact point for Adelaide Micro Users Group.

(Source: http://slash.dotat.org/~newton/bbslist.txt)

I can say that in those days I had absolutely no awareness

that 8” machines even existed.

So where did the column name came from? Well the 8” TRS-80’s
primarily had a place in business back in those days. They
were probably over-engineered for home use and were awfully
expensive for those days. Their feature set was more focused
on business solutions so it seemed pertinent that my column
title should reflect that. Other names were canvassed but
not knowing the TRS8BIT audience too well at this stage,
references to eight inches and columns may not have been
well received!

Now despite being a little light hearted about it, I have

neither overstated nor understated the extent of my
knowledge about the 8” TRS-80 machines - I came into
possession of these machines more by accident (the story
about the rotary hoe will make an interesting paragraph or

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 57

two a bit later) and good fortune rather than a desire to
actually add them to my collection (but I’m most certainly not
unhappy about that) so anything I say in this column you can
definitely take as interesting but please don’t take it as
gospel. This is going to be more about the journey in getting
these machines up and running and other aspects of my
collecting life that kind of fit into and around that. If you
see anything that I’ve got wrong or misquoted or that needs
correcting or enhancement your feedback is very welcome - it
might make good fodder for the next article.

Kevin

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 58

 PLAY THE DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURE
ON YOUR TRS-
TRS-80 MODEL I / III
by Ian Mavric
With 2013 being the 50th anniversary of Dr Who I thought I'd
write a little belatedly about an adventure game based on the
show which appeared in Micro-80 magazine Volume 3, Issue 8,
July 1982, pages 21,31-34. It's a cassette or disk based game
which runs on a 16K cassette system or a 32K disk system.
Its a long and complex program, in 2 parts (an initialiser and
the main program) which I'd always meant to type in out of the
magazine but it always seemed daunting.

Fortuitously, Ira from www.trs-80.com was contacted by the

author of the program, Jim Smith, who gave permission to place
the game in the public domain and be made available for
download from Ira's site. You can find the download at:
http://www.trs-80.com/cgi-bin/down-ok-model1.pl?drwhoadv.zip

I emailed Australian Dr Who aficionado Aaron Brockbank about

how the game had been turned over to public domain, and he
immediately recognised the game from his time at Newcastle
University, where the original of this game ran on an old PDP-
11/70 and was written in DEC-BASIC. The similarities of DEC-
BASIC to TRS-80 Model II Basic enabled Aaron to "port" the
original game to the TRS-80 Model II in approximately 1981.
I'm trying to organise a program listing from Aaron for
posterity.

At around the same time I emailed Aaron I obtained a contact

email address for Jim Smith and sent some questions about his
version of the Dr Who Adventure, which I'm pleased to present
the answers here:

Ian: May I send you some questions to answer about the

program?

Jim: I wrote the game under Newdos/80, as a single program. To

get it published I had to make it fit into 16K, which is why
there is a data file.

The published version was written for the tape system. There
were instructions for modifying it for a DOS, which amounted
to replacing two lines (720 and 730) with:

720 OPEN"I",1,"DRWHO/DAT
730 INPUT#1,SP:INPUT#1,SD:INPUT#1,SO:INPUT#1,S1
:S1=LEFT$(S1,60)+CHR$(34)+MID$(S1,62,4)+CHR$(34)
+RIGHT$(S1,12):CLOSE1

which reads from a disk file rather than tape. A better solution would

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 59

be to merge the two programs back into one, but I don't have the means
to do that. :-)

I'd also recommend changing TL=20+RND(20) on line 760 to something like

TL=200+RND(20). :-) Otherwise it's ridiculously hard.

Ian: What is the objective of the game?

Jim: To collect the six parts of the key of time and bring them back to
the throne room on Gallifrey (which I misspelled as Galafry).

Ian: How did you get started on the project?

Jim: Someone at Newcastle University (I can't tell you who) had written
a Dr Who game which was floating around on their PDP 11/70 computer and
which I played, and that inspired me to write the program.

I nicked a couple of their ideas, but all the code and most of the
story are my invention.

Ian: What programming difficulties / limitations did you two find?

Jim: I wrote it on a 48K disk system. The magazine wanted a 16K

cassette version, and it was too big. So I had to compress it down.
That's why there's a data file. :-) The code itself is full of byte
saving tricks.
One element I was proud of at the time was the command decoding system.
My original version was far to slow, so I wrote a new version using a
binary search algorithm, and it flew. I was the cat who got the cream!

Ian: Thanks Jim.

To read the original article and see the program listing as

published, you can download the Micro-80 issue in question
from Terry Stewart's System 80 site: http://www.classic-
computers.org.nz/system-80/micro80/Micro-80-Volume-03-Issue-
08-(1982)opt.pdf

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 60

 Creating image and DSK files
Gazza
Transferring files to and from the TRS-80 line of computers and a Windows PC is
reasonably easy using the RS232 and if you own a FreHD, then the supplied utilities -
IMPORT2, EXPORT2 and DSK/DCT make life even easier. While DSK/DCT and
DISKCOPY/CMD will allow you to make working copies of most DSK files it will not
allow you to make copies of disks such as Percom's Microdos (single density) or
Newdos80/86/90.
What to do if you don't own a FreHD or if you want to email someone a copy of the above
mentioned disks or even make copies of your existing floppies so you can run them on an
emulator.
Most methods involve using an old MSDOS based PC with a 5.25" drive that can handle
single density or some piece of wiz-bang hardware, but most of us already have the tools to
do the job. Kim Watt's masterpiece, Super Utility, Matthew Reed's TRS32, TRSTOOLS, an
RS232 or a FreHD and a couple of blank floppies are all we need.

As it's impossible to cover all the possible combinations of software, operating systems and
hardware, in the following text I'll just describe the method I used to make both IMAGE and
DSK files from copies of my Newdos/80/86 hard drive boot disks using a TRS80 4P.

I've also used this method for making image files and working floppies from DSK files of
various disks including Multidos Models 1 and 3, Newdos80/86/90, Hardos, Dosplus
Models 1,3 and 4 and Rapidos and I have also used a System80 to make image and DSK
files of various Dick Smith's programmes such as WORP1, WORP9 etc that ran on the
Microdos/OS80 operating system.

The reader will need to alter the details to suit their own situation. This process is definitely
not PnP and the reader will need to have a working knowledge of the structure of the disks
they are going to copy.

An IMAGE file or what I call an IMAGE file is just a file that contains a complete image of
a floppy disk. It contains none of the header information that a DSK file has and as such may
not run on emulator.

Creating Newdos/86/90 image files using a 4P

I recently received a request for copies of some of my Model 3 Newdos/Hardos boot disks.
I could have run off some copies, stuck a stamp on them and entrusted them to Aussie Snail
Mail but as I had previously made images and DSK files of some of Dick Smith's MicroDos
programmes I thought I would try the same process on the 4P and then email the image files
with instructions on how to convert them into working floppies. Pleased to say that for once
all went according to plan.

The process involves extracting all the sectors from the original disk and then saving them to
an IMAGE file. That IMAGE file can then be emailed to another user and converted back to
a working floppy or converted to a DSK file that will run on an emulator. Of course the
reverse of all of this is also possible and a DSK file can be converted back to a floppy.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 61

The following instructions detail creating an image file from a Newdos86 system disk and
assume standard 40 track SSDD drives.

1) Run Super Utility and from the main menu select option 8 and set the configuration of
drive 0 to suit the disk being copied. In this case it was a 40 track Newdos disk.
Drive 0 - N3DR',40,17 - This will change depending on the type of DOS and configuration.
Set drive 1 to -
Drive 1 - T4D',42,01

You will notice that I have set drive 1 to 42 tracks. The standard single sided drives are not
large enough to hold a 40 track image file but we can work a swifty to get around the
problem. Most drives will step an extra 2 tracks and this will give us enough space to hold
the file. Thanks to Ray Whitehurst ( Audronic) for coming up with this trick.

Remove the Super Utility disk and insert the WRITE PROTECTED copy of the disk to be
copied into drive 0 and a blank floppy into drive 1.

2) From the main menu select

3 - Format
1 - Standard Format
Drive 1
This disk will be the IMAGE DISK and will hold the image file.

3) To stop Super Utility from saving part of the image file in last half of track 0 we create a
small file that will fill the remainder of track 0.
From the main menu select
7 - File Utilities
10 - Build File
File to Create - XYZ/FIL:1
Grans to Allocate - 2

Next we will build a file to hold the image.

10 - Build File
File to Create - xxxxxxxx/IMG:1
Grans to Allocate - 120

4) From the main menu select

1 - Zap Utilities
4 - Copy Sectors
Source - 0,0,0
Sector Count - 720
Destination - 1,2,0
Mount Prompts - N

If the gods are happy, xxxxxxxx/IMG:1 should now be an exact copy of the disk in drive 0
and should start at track 2, sector 0 of drive 1 and run for a contiguous 720 sectors.
It will not contain any of the header information that a DSK file has and as such may not run

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 62

on an emulator, but can be made to do so.

We can now boot LSDOS and transfer xxxxxxxx/IMG:1 to the PC via an RS232 or the
FreHD's SD card using EXPORT2 and then email the image file to the lucky recipient.
As I had a number of disks to convert I reused the IMAGE DISK by just renaming the image
file to whatever was appropriate.
Having received the image file via the magic of email the lucky recipient will want to
transfer it to floppy, which is explained in the next chapter.

SAVING THE DISK IMAGE TO FLOPPY

Firstly we need to make a disk to hold the IMAGE file. As above we will need to make a 42
track disk.

1) Boot LSDOS 6.3.1 and format a disk in drive 1 with 42 tracks and the directory on track
one.
FORMAT :1 (D=1,C=42)
This will be the IMAGE disk.

2) Connect the 4/4P to the PC via the RS232, fire-up your favorite terminal programme and
transfer the image file to the IMAGE disk or if you own a FreHD, you can use IMPORT2 to
transfer the file to floppy. With any luck it should save at track 2, sector 0 and in the case of
a 40 track SSDD disk, run for a contiguous 720 sectors. If it doesn't then the command
MEMORY (A="A",B=2) should force DOS to save it at track 2, sector 0.

3) Run Super Utility and set the configuration to

Drive 0 - N3DR',40,17 - This will change depending on the type of DOS and configuration.
Drive 1 - T4D',42,01

4) Insert a blank disk into Drive 0 and from the main menu select
3 - Format
1 - Standard Format
Drive 0

5) When formatting has completed return to the main menu and select
1 - Zap Utilities
4 - Copy Sectors
Source - 1,2,0
Sector Count - 720
Destination - 0,0,0
Mount Prompts - N

6) When Super Utility has finished copying return to the main menu and select
5 - Repair Utilities
4 - Read Protect Directory
Drive 0

Super Utility will respond with

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 63

Cannot Locate Directory
Track,Sector Count

Enter 17,10 - This will change depending on the type of DOS and configuration.

Job done, the disk "should" now boot.

Creating a DSK file.

While an IMAGE file is OK for emailing and making a working floppy it may not run on an
emulator without a bit more work.
The following text will explain how I created a DSK file from an image of my NEWDOS80
system disk. Super Utility's configuration will need to be altered to suit other operating
systems and disk formats.

1) To make a DSK file we need TRSTOOLS to create 2 virtual floppies. Firstly a blank 40
track DSDD disk and as this will be used to hold the .IMG file we can call this the
IMAGEDISK and another floppy in the same size as the original floppy. In this case it was a
40 track SSDD 180k disk. Name it to suit. This disk will be mounted in drive 2 of TRS32.

2) Run TRS32, boot LSDOS, mount the IMAGEDISK in drive 1 and format it with the
following parameters -

FORMAT :1(DDEN,SIDES=2,C=40,D=1)

3) Exit TRS32 and use TRSTOOLS to copy the .IMG file to the IMAGEDISK. TRSTOOLS
hopefully will save the image file starting at track 2 sector 0.
Run TRS32. The dos command FREE :dn should show if it has been saved in the correct
place. If all is OK then go to 4)
If the file has not saved starting at track 2 sector 0 then we need to create a small file that
will fill the remainder of track 0.

From DOS enter the commands

FORMAT :1(DDEN,SIDES=2,C=40,D=1)
MEMORY (A="A",B=0)
CREATE XYZ/FIL:1(REC=30) - The size may change depending on the type of disk.
Run TRSTOOLS and copy the .IMG file to the IMAGEDISK.

4) Start TRS32 and make sure we have a copy of Super Utility in drive 0, the IMAGEDISK
in drive 1 and the blank 40 track SSDD floppy in drive 2.
Run Super Utility and set the configuration to
Drive 1 - T4D",40,01
Drive 2 - N3DR',40,17 - This will change depending on the type of DOS and configuration.

5) Return to the main menu and select

1 - Zap Utilities
4 - Copy Sectors
Source - 1,2,0

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 64

Sector Count - 720
Destination - 2,0,0
Mount Prompts - N

6) When Super Utility has finished copying return to the main menu and select
5 - Repair Utilities
4 - Read Protect Directory
Drive 2

Super Utility will respond with

Cannot Locate Directory
Track,Sector Count

Enter 17,10 - This may change depending on the type of DOS and configuration.

If all has gone to plan the disk in drive 2 should now be a valid DSK file that will, in the case
of a system disk, boot in drive 0 of TRS32.
The IMAGEDISK can be reused by deleting the old IMG file and copying any new file
using TRSTOOLS.

Creating a working floppy from a DSK file.

DSK/DCT supplied with the FreHD and DISKCOPY/CMD will allow you to make working
copies of most DSK files that will run on the original hardware. The process is incredibly
simple but for those occasional files that it can't handle we need another less simple
approach.
The process involves turning a DSK file into an image file that we can then download to the
computer either by the RS232 or the FreHD's IMPORT2 utility.
Having created the image file we can then use the process described above in "SAVING
THE DISK IMAGE TO FLOPPY" to make a floppy that will run on the original
computer.
The following procedure assumes that the DSK file that we are extracting the image from is
40 track SSDD. The settings will need to be changed to suit other formats.

1) Use TRSTOOLS to create blank 40 track DSDD disk to hold the .IMG file, we can call
this the IMAGEDISK. A 40 track DSDD disk will give us more than enough space to hold a
40 track SSDD image.

2) Start TRS32 and mount a disk with Super Utility in drive 0, the DSK virtual disk to be
copied, in this case it was a 40 track SSDD virtual disk, in drive 1 and the IMAGEDISK in
drive 2.
Run Super Utility and set the configuration of drive 1 to suit the format of the DSK disk. In
the case of an LSDOS SSDD DSK file we should have something like this
Drive 1 - T4D',40,20

Set drive 2 to suit the IMAGEDISK

Drive 2 - T4D",40,01

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 65

3) From the main menu select
3 - Format
1 - Standard Format
Drive 2

4) When formatting has completed return to the main menu and select
7 - File Utilities
10 - Build File
File to Create - XYZ/FIL:2
Grans to Allocate - 5

Next we will build a file to hold the image.

10 - Build File
File to Create - xxxxxxxx/IMG:2
Grans to Allocate - 120

5) From the main menu select

1 - Zap Utilities
4 - Copy Sectors
Source - 1,0,0
Sector Count - 720
Destination - 2,2,0
Mount Prompts - N

The file xxxxxxxx/IMG:2 should now be an exact copy of the disk in drive 1 and should
start at track 2, sector 0 and run for a contiguous 720 sectors.
We can now extract this file using TRSTOOLS, download it to the TRS80 and create a
working disk using the methods described above in "SAVING THE DISK IMAGE TO
FLOPPY"

All of the above may seem unnecessarily complicated, I wrote it and I'm not sure I
understand it, but it does work flawlessly or it has done so far.

Finally a big pat on the back to Kim Watt for Super Utility and Matthew Reed for TRS32
and TRSTOOLS.

--== o 0o ==--

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 66

 Emails to the Editor

Subject :- 64k and MISE

From: Malcom Ramey

To: dustym@fabsitesuk.com
Cc: Peter Bartlett

Dusty, I just finished reading the Dec/13 issue and I wanted

to says thanks to all you guys for your continued effort to
support the TRS-80 community.

A couple of notes that might be helpful:

Model I 64K upgrade:

Ira - TRS-80.com also has information on a 64k upgrade on his
web site. One difference that caught my eye was that the M1
needs a 128 cycle refresh and some of the chips are 256 cycle
refresh.
http://www.trs-80.com/cgi-bin/down-software-patch.pl?

Hardware_-_Upgrading_Model_I_to_64K_DRAM.zip

I think some clarification on type and speeds of chips would

be useful. For example I would like to know if the *KM4164B-15
*chip, which seems to fairly inexpensive (500/$85), would be a
good fit.

MISE - Model I System Expander:

I recently purchased a MISE board from Peter Bartlett. (

http://home.comcast.net/~bartlett.p/MISE/) While Ian and his
crew are getting a lot of attention for the well done FreHD
project (I have 2), we shouldn't overlook this little wonder.
Like the FreHD, you get HD support via inexpensive flash
memory (CF in the MISE) and RTC. But for a only $100 more, you
get VGA, Hires graphics support, Joy stick port and a LAN
which has DNS, SNTP along with FTP and TFTP servers. The
ability to move files to and from my M1 over the Lan well
lets just say the FreHD will only be used on my M4 now on.

While you could keep your M1 setup complete and just hide the
MISE off to the side for nostalgia reasons/vintage feel while
keeping the advantages of the MISE, you can also keep the
vintage feel and connect it directly to the keyboard and along
with the 64k keyboard upgrade.
You can have a very compact space saving system without the
expansion interface.

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 67

The 64k upgrade isn't required for the MISE to be used
connected directly to the KB, but the lack of 64K will
limited you to using the TFTP server instead of the FTP
server. Of course for those without an expansion interface,
it's even a better option.

I will cc Pete as I believe he will be able to answer the

question on the RAM compatibility. In addition, you will
have his email and maybe you can coax him into writing an
article about the MISE in the Mar/14 issue.

From the little I know about Pete in recent conversations,

he was a chip designer and is focused on the Model I. Once
you see the quality of the MISE and his custom drivers and
software he developed for it, you will appreciate his
efforts.

Pete has other interesting M1 projects that many would find

interesting too. As I too am looking forward to learning
more.
We'll have to leave the mystery with Pete to reveal when he
has time and motivation.

Malcom

TRS8BIT - volume 08 Issue 01 - March 2014 - page 68

In this iss
u e of
 The TRS-IDE versus the FreHD
by
Hans Rietveld

As owner of a TRS-80 Model 4P my love for old computers has been

completely revitalized. I want this computer to keep as much as
possible in his original condition but on the other hand, I do want
maximum ease of use and solve its shortcomings from past.

At the moment there is a unique opportunity to solve one of these

known shortcomings in two ways.

Unfortunately, the floppy disk system barely meets the modern

requirements for ease of use, due to the absence of a reliable hard disk
system. There are now two excellent solutions available, namely the
FreHD from the highly active duo Ian Mavric and Frederic Vecoven and
the TRS-IDE interface of the trio Matt ( FireBox ), Frank Galphin
( Chromedome45 ) and James Pearce. Sorry for all the names of the
people who have done a lot for these projects and I did not mention
here, I don’t know them.

With one of these two systems you can make your TRS-80 completely
up to date and useful for modern applications.

I bought a sets of the TRS-80 adapter and Ian was so kind to send me
a FreHD set to evaluate it to convince me of the qualities of this
interface. This set is going on tour in Europe for other users to test it
for a few weeks. Just ask Ian about it.

First something about the technical aspects. As I have available only a

Model 4P, I can only involve my findings on this model. For the other
models ( Model III and Model I ) the possibilities are about the same,
but mostly with an extra interface or only minor limitations.

The hardware consists of a board of about 10cm x 8 cm. The quality of

the print and the components is excellent. The interfaces in both cases
are available as a kit, loose components and as a readymade version.

The self-build of the interface, using a component package is for some

experienced hobbyist with some experience and a good soldering iron
and solder certainly feasible and cost saving properly.

I have three TRS-IDEs built without any problems and they worked
immediately and were completely interchangeable.

The manual and support for the FreHD is excellent and for the TRS -
IDE, less obvious and requires some detective work of the builder.

The result is a perfectly functioning modern disk system with a

capacity of about 26 megabytes. This is the maximum for the TRS -IDE
and intentionally limited to the FreHD (FreHD can actually be
configured for up to 65Mb, and standard images are around 42Mb -
Ian). This space can be divided into up to eight partitions. This is more
than enough, I think it fits all the available software for the TRS80 5 to
10 times over.

The hard disk can be used for LS-DOS 6; LDOS 5 and CP/M.

After this general information I would like to mention the advantages

and disadvantages of the two interfaces. The pro’s in green the
against in red..

The FreHD

Pro:

Very small PCB that is rather easy to build.

Really FAT32 file system, so that the images can be edited and saved
on an SD-Card, which can be modified on a PC. The images can be
managed and used with most popular emulators for building and
maintenance.
No need for modified drivers, just use the default TRS-80 drivers.
The software sees the FreHD as an ordinary TRS-80 hard drive.
Extremely useful support software for file transfer between the hard
disk image and the PC, TRS-80 and floppies .
A built-in clock chip for date and time with battery backup, which can
be fully integrated into the software.
By using different SD-cards you can easily switch between the various
operating systems.
If you use the modified TRS-80 boot-rom, you get a menu to select
one of the operating systems which exist on the SD card.
Automatically boot without a floppy in the drive once boot-rom
installed in TRS-80.
Very active development of supporting software

Against:

Data storage is only possible on a SD card. (No real hard disk or CF-
card supported)
Due to the technical expensive components and advanced file system
and the RTC is the FreHD considerably more expensive than the TRS-
IDE.
Think also about the transport from Australia and customs clearance
fees at customs.
Due to extra build in security checking the response and transfer time
is a little bit longer than the with the TRS-IDE controller.

The TRS-IDE

Pro:

The ability to use either an IDE hard disk, CF or SD makes the system
attractive
With a IDE hard drive is the system super fast.
With multiple partitions and smart boot floppies you have way to build
a powerful system that supports more operating systems on one
storing device.
Built-into a computer is certainly possible, but requires some ingenuity.
If you build it yourself, you have a real cheap hard disk for your TRS-
80.

Against:

Besides the small PCB with the controller there is need for a real IDE
hard disk, CF to IDE or SD to IDE adapter.
The system depends on modified drivers for every operating system,
so you are dependent of the good will of the developer.
The supporting software is minimal and you will need to make use of
utilities that are available in various libraries on the internet
Auto Boot is not available, but may be solved in the future by
modifying the existing software and the system rom.
The development of supporting software is at a low level or has
completely stopped.
The data on the CF or SD card can not be maintained on the PC, but
needs through floppies to happen.

Conclusion

Both interfaces do well where they are made for. They provide your
TRS-80 with an extremely powerful hard disk system. It makes
working with the elderly computers again a pleasure.

Are you going for a cheap solution then the TRS-IDE is a good choice.
If you want more comfort and support, and you are willing to pay a
reasonable, but justified price, then go for the FreHD.

A final point to consider is the availability and support in the future.

Both projects rely entirely on highly motivated volunteers, but for how
long they can and will continue to do so.

But whatever you chose, just do it, you won't regret it.

Hans

hans@rietveldcomputers.nl
 Business Time with Kev
Well firstly can I say thank you for all the positive comments I received
about my inaugural article. It’s greatly appreciated!
As I indicated in my first article, this would be more about the journey in
resurrecting two Model 16’s and that journey very much continues.
Unfortunately my Model 16’s are still mothballed – a few unfortunate
house moves has meant that stuff, in fact my entire collection of TRS-
80’s and others, has been stored away and not to be enjoyed. But all that
is changing as I write.

So with that in mind I had to cast my mind to what I might write about
for this issue of TRS8BIT and then I had an epiphany – as collectors we
often talk about our collections and rightly so, but at the moment I’m
totally consumed with the facilities I have for housing, managing and
enjoying my collect ion - and therein lay the answer – we don’t talk much
about where we do what we do.

For me I’ve just started moving into the new home for my collection after
many months of going through the sometimes onerous building cycle.
Please keep in mind that I didn’t purpose build a facility but a few things
occurred along the way that might be useful to others who are
considering renovations, building or improving your facilit ies. I hope
these pointers are useful to some of
you even though I might be stating
the obvious on occasions.

Now in the first instance I did not

build a standard shed – one of the
notable features is the height of the
shed. This served two purposes and
one was cosmetic to align with the
gutter line of the house (see below).

The other was to provide height in

storage which in turn increases my
workable floor space which even at
this stage of getting sorted out is
shaping up to be an issue. Now
surprisingly adding some more height
to the shed only added a few hundred
dollars to the cost. I have some
shelves that are 2.4m high, 2.4m long and 1.2m deep so having a shed
with 3.3m sides gives me plenty of space to move the big shelves in and
also store stuff up and on top.
Now before the building permit was issued the building surveyor signing
off on permits required us to put an angled bracket under the bottom of
the shed sides. Now with all due respect to any government readers that
we have, my immediate reaction was that this was the work of some
bureaucrat who had never seen a country town or even a blade of grass.
I was also a bit dark about the $400 it added to the build. Apparently this
was part of fire ratings because we live in a rural area. In the photos
below (outside the shed is the left photo and inside is the right photo)
you can see this structure – it bends down on the outside and up on the
inside.

But once done I noticed something. This provided a seal for the
corrugations on the outside of the shed (see the left photo). The idea was
that it should stop a fire finding its way into the building via the gaps at
the bottom of the corrugations on the sides of the shed. If you saw
where I lived you’d probably laugh at that notion. But what I have
noticed is that by doing this the shed is a lot cleaner, is easier to keep
clean, the temperature is more moderate and it’s a lot dryer. If I was to
build a shed again for this purpose I’d have this done even if I wasn’t
required to by the building regulators.

Now powering the shed was a bit of challenge given what I was intending
to do and the potential demands on the electricity supply. Planning
showed that we needed 25 double power points (I don’t want a lot of
extension cords and power boards running around cluttering the
workspace and catching fire) and 14 double fluros. I was deliberately
generous with lighting as I wanted no shadows and I didn’t want to have
to roll in additional lighting for any specific spot in the shed – with the
shiny sisalation on all sides and the roof, light saturation in the shed is
exceptionally good and I’m quite pleased with the outcome (with one
exception which I’ll explain later). I also specified double fluros because if
that was too much light you can always remove a tube but if you don’t
have enough light its expensive to retrofit more lights – and remarkably
double fluros are usually only a few dollars more than singles. The initial
plan by the electrician was to run two circuits in the shed i.e. one down
the left side and one down the right side. I wasn’t happy with this for
several reasons. One was that it meant that the total safe draw down
was about 20 amps. I’m one for over engineering things like this because
the last thing I wanted is power lines to the shed melting. After
discussions with the electrician we asked for four circuits in the shed
(excluding lights and overhead fans of course) – one for the rumpus
room at the front, one down the left side, one down the right side and
one exclusively for my work bench (also on the right side). This provided
for plenty of capacity allowing a drawdown of the full 32 amps (not that I
intended to do that but it gave adequate capacity if I had a lot of stuff
fired up at once). The reason I isolated the work bench was that
powering up old machines can be a bit risky and if something was going
to go all smoky with lot of sparks I didn’t want that taking out the whole
shed and house. The three power points over my work bench are on their
own circuit, RCD and circuit breaker to minimise any issues like this.

Now my workbench, where I rescue old machines, is probably worthy of

some discussion as well although I’ve had it a lot longer than the new
shed. With the exception of the rubber feet I purchased it was made
entirely out of salvaged material including a very large and very serious
1½” chipboard top I was given but I made a few improvements. I’ve
applied a sheet of thin plywood to the top – this gives a much nicer finish
to work on and move stuff around on and it’s much more forgiving if you
drop something. You can see it in the photo above (and my apologies for
the Commodore in the photo but it’s not allowed to live in or go to the
other side of the shed where the TRS-80’s are) but at one end I’ve fixed
a strip of timber. This gives me something to “push” the object against if
I need two hands free to work on it. The bench height is 1m and I’ll
discuss the significance of that a little later.
Now as to infrastructure, unfortunately I wasn’t able to snap some
photos before I started unpacking so please excuse the clutter in these
photos.

This next photo is looking at the bench work down the left side. You’ll
note that there are no exposed bolts fixing the posts to the floor, they
are concealed inside the post. This was done for four reasons – it’s
cosmetically pleasing, you don’t get those awkward moments where you
can’t quite fit something under a bench properly because bolts and
brackets are in the way, you can’t get something out without a fight
because its snagged on a bolt or bracket in the way, and it’s easier to
clean.

Now in some of the photos you’ll also notice a few small pallets sitting
under benches. I grabbed these a while ago when my wife was working
for a mobile phone repair company – they come under boxes of mobile
phone spares and are small and easy to handle keeping stuff up off the
floor and making thing tidier and easy to clean. In the photo above you’ll
also notice a row of slats under the bench – these are the slats from an
IKEA bed – again I want to keep storage tidy and easier to maintain.
(You may have noticed that I’m a self-confessed “scab” and if I see
anything that’s on its way to the dump I usually see a way I can put it to
use.) There’s a really small risk of flooding in most places (I don’t mean
just mine) so if that were to occur everything is off the floor as well. I’ve
also found that with stuff not sitting on the concrete and allowing air to
move around it there are less issues with insects living under boxes –
notwithstanding the edging placed around the bottom of the shed
corrugations crawly insects do still get in, and as I’ve found, like living
under my boxes. Here’s a larger view down the left side.
Now the noticeable feature in this photo is the shelves – you can see
here that I was able to take advantage of the additional height of the
shed – yes I need a small step ladder to reach the top shelves but that’s
for infrequently accessed stuff. Now an issue a little aside from this – the
bench tops are made from flooring material – the recommended spacing
of the underside supports is 450mm, however, we set them at 400mm (I
like over-engineered) – I can quite safely stand on the benches and I’m
about 135kg. It’s not quite so obvious here but the bench height is 1m –
the standard height for benches in your house may be around 900mm.
The reason I set it higher in the shed was because 1m is my standing
non-bent-over working height. If I’m working for long periods at 900mm
that’s going to play havoc with my aging back. Yes, this may be
problematic for height challenged visitors to my shed but as I’m going to
be the one most often in there it had to suit me. I have an idea how to
build small platforms for our smaller folk. But it’s the height of the
underside of the shelves that is significant here as you can see in the
next photo.
You’ll notice in the photo above that the back shelves are set higher than
the shelves running down the right side of the shed. The reason for this
is not TRS-80 related but it does help. While the Model 16’s are big
machines compared to their Model 4, 3 and 1 cousins I actually have
some other machines in my collection that have 19” RGB CRT monitors
(Apollo Workstations for those who may be interested). If anyone has
one of these you’ll understand this – they are very big (and extremely
heavy – they’re a serious bit of glass) and I wanted them to fit
comfortably under the shelves so I had plenty of working space around
them including in front of them.

For the observant you’ll also notice that the bench width in the photo at
the back is deeper – its 1m deep whereas the bench tops running down
the right and left side of the shed are narrower. Again this is to
accommodate the larger machines to ensure there is plenty of space
around them for working and peripherals such as printers, external drives
etc. There’s nothing worse than trying to use a machine where the front
or the keyboard is hanging over the edge.
For the interested here is a larger shot (below) of the work currently
underway. You also get a better shot of the floor here. The floor is
painted with Berger Jet Dry. There were two reasons for this – cosmetic
of course and naked concrete has lots of pits in it and these become dust
traps. Painting the floor has not only made the shed cleaner but also
easier to clean.

On the right you can see my work bench and above and to the left is a
fluro. This fluro is on its own switch. There were two reasons for this –
one as that I only needed to turn on a single light to go into the shed to
grab something rather than the whole 14. The other reason was to
provide light over the bench for working and that was a bit of a fail as it’s
behind me and too far back. In hindsight I should have had an additional
light or two installed directly over the bench as we knew where it was
going (lighting and power was done when the shed was empty). I can
still fix this but at a cost of course.

It’s a bit hard to see here but there are two whirly-gigs in the roof. While
the intent was good (temperature moderation) it’s proved problematic.
The issue to look out for here is what happens in a storm. Under normal
conditions they’re fine but in extreme weather I’ve found water on the
floor under them. In a highly electrified environment that is an issue for
me for which I have a plan to resolve but as yet it’s untested.

Well I hope there were some useful tips in this for readers and hopefully
by the next issue I’ll have the 16’s out on the bench.
Kevin
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-Emulates a TRS-80 hard drive, but faster than any hard drive!
-Works with your favourite DOS (LS-DOS, LDOS, CP/M, Newdos/80 2.5)
-Uses SD card for storage medium
-Bonus free Real Time Clock function!
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-Kit form or fully assembled

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 IN MAV'S WORKSHOP
by
IAN MAVRIC

MAKING A COMPOSITE VIDEO CABLE FOR THE TRS-80

MODEL I

Finding a TRS-80 Model I is not particularly hard - there are still good
numbers of them up for grabs on eBay, Gumtree, CraigsList etc. The
computer itself is compact and so easy to store until you wish to use it.
Oftentimes they show up for sale without the monitor or power supply.
Some time ago in TRS8Bit Volume 7, Issue 3, September 2013, pp. 23-
28, I wrote about how to build a power supply. This time I talk about
what you can do if the monitor is missing.

TRS-80 MODEL I MONITORS

The Model I monitor (or Video Display as it used to be called) was a

stripped out RCA television set with a B&W CRT, or a stripped out Sanyo
television set with either a B&W or green CRT. They were both bulky and
really only the Sanyo with the green CRT was really anything
approaching "good". If you can't find one for sale it's no biggie. A
simple cable can be made in about 15 minutes, and it connects to most
monitors with a composite input. Many people who collect computers
other than TRS-80s have suitable monitors on hand - this cable works
with the Apple IIe/IIc monitor, Commodore 1084S, as well as many
modern-day flat screen TVs which have a yellow RCA video input.

PARTS NEEDED

RCA cable such as an audio patch cable

5-Pin DIN connector eg. Jaycar part number PP0304

ASSEMBLY

Start by cutting one end off the RCA patch cable. Cut the insulation
away and you will find one wire runs through the core, and the other
forms the shielding. Tin the ends into two nice thin tips. The ground is
the external shielding on the cable, and the actual video signal travels
down the core strand. The purpose is to not leave excess solder on the
tips, otherwise they will not go into the holes in the 5-pin DIN connector.
The DIN connector comprises of four parts... the pin array (has the 5 pins
in it), the upper and lower clam halves, and the rubber plastic cover
shield. Before proceeding any further, put the cover shield down the RCA
patch cable. If you forget, it's impossible to put it on without undoing
the soldered connections you are about to make.

Looking at the pin array, the rear side is

where the solder connections are made.
They are numbered as so:

Using a multimeter, confirm that the core

strand connects to the centre-post on the
RCA plug. Solder the ground to pin 4 and the
video signal line to pin 5.

Assemble the two clam halves together, press

the cable into the retainer at the back of the
clamshell, move the black rubber plastic
cover shield over it. It's still a good idea to
test the cable before assembling the
clamshell etc., but I have made so many of
these cables now that I don't need to double
check.
Picture: TRS-80 Model I connected to an Atari RGB monitor

Connect it to your monochrome monitor or LCD TV with composite colour

input (normally a yellow RCA female connector) and you should be all
set.

Ian.

ianm@trs-80.com

Ian Mavric is an IT Specialist who also restores and

collects TRS-80's and classic cars. He live with his wife
and kids in Melbourne, Australia.
 HOW TO INSTALL 3.5" STANDARD IBM FLOPPY DRIVES IN A RADIO SHACK
MODEL III OR MODEL IV
Larry Kraemer
My goal is to get two 3.5” Standard IBM Style Floppy driv es working on my Model IV, without modify ing the actual 3.5” driv e.
I hav e decided that it would be acceptable to modify the existing Floppy Interf ace cable, or make a new one. Temporarily , I
hav e modif ied an old Edge Connector to 34 Pin DIN Adapter f or my initial testing. (Basically I just lifted the f ollowing Pin s on
the Adapter : 2, 10, 12, and soldered a 1K OHM Resistor from Pin 1 to Pin 2, making the perf ect Driv e 1 test adapter. Driv e 0
will require f urther modifications as shown later in a detailed image.)

The Radio Shack Model III & IV Floppy Disk Controller (FDC) has the f ollowing Signals routed to Connectors J1 (EXTERNAL)
and J4 (INTERNAL), each capable of supporting two INTERNAL and two EXTERNAL 5.25” Floppy's at 40 Track, 80 Track,
Single Density, Double Density, or Aerocomp FLIPPY Driv es (Allowing Storage on the Back Side of TRS-80 Model 1 & 3
Driv es) .

Image ref erenced abov e is from: http://pinouts.ru/Storage/5_12_f loppy _pinout.shtml

NOTES:

Some Driv es use External Terminator Resistors to PULLUP the signals to the + Power Supply Rail. If y ou are going to be
installing (Model 1) driv es that hav e the terminators installed, they must be remov ed f or use with the Model 3 or Model 4 as
the FDC already has the Pullup Resistors installed.

The 3.5" Standard IBM Style Floppy Drive uses Pin 2 - Reduced Write Current (/REDWC) from the controller to
the drive to control the Density. The Model III & IV do not support this functionality, and the Drive's electronics
are Pulled LOW via a 1K Resistor to Common (Pin 1) forcing LOW Density.
TRS-80 Model 1 Floppy Disk Contr oller Signals to Radio S hack Driv es

Pin No. Signal Name Description

1 Ground --
2 N/C Connector Clamp (Not used on TRS-80 Model 1 Floppy Disk Controller FDC)
3 Ground --
4 N/C Reserv ed (Not used on TRS-80 Model 1 Floppy Disk Controller FDC)
5 Ground --
6 N/C Reserv ed (Not used on TRS-80 Model 1 Floppy Disk Controller FDC)
7 Ground --
8<-- /Index NINDEX/SECTOR (0=Index)
9 Ground --
10--> /NDS1 0=Driv e Select 0 (Phy sical Driv e 1 = External)
11 Ground --
12--> /NDS2 0=Driv e Select 1 (Phy sical Driv e 2 = External)
13 Ground --
14--> /NDS3 0=Driv e Select 2 (Phy sical Driv e 3 = External)
15 Ground --
16--> /MOTEB 0=Motor Enable Driv e 1
17 Ground --
18--> /DIR 0=Direction Select
19 Ground --
20--> /Step 0=Head Step
21 Ground --
22--> /WDATA Write Data
23 Ground --
24--> /WGATE Floppy Write Enable, 0=Write Gate
25 Ground --
26<-- /TRK00 0=Track 00
27 Ground --
28<-- /WPT 0=Write Protect
29 Ground --
30<-- /RDATA Read Data
31 Ground --
32--> /NDS4 0=Driv e Select3 (Physical Drive 4 = External)
33 Ground --
34 N/C Connector Clamp (Not used on TRS-80 Model 1)

Pins 2, 4, 6, 34 SPARE in J5 Floppy Disk Bus

TRS-80 Model III Floppy Disk Contr oller Signals to Radio Shack Driv es

Pin No. Signal Name Description

1 Ground --
2 N/C Connector Clamp (Not used on TRS-80 Model III/IV Floppy Disk Controller FDC)
3 Ground --
4 N/C Reserv ed (Not used on TRS-80 Model III/IV Floppy Disk Controller FDC)
5 Ground --
6 N/C Reserv ed (Not used on TRS-80 Model III/IV Floppy Disk Controller FDC)
7 Ground --
8<-- /Index NINDEX/SECTOR (0=Index)
9 Ground --
10--> /NDS1 0=Driv e Select 0 (Phy sical Driv e 1 = Internal)
11 Ground --
12--> /NDS2 0=Driv e Select 1 (Phy sical Driv e 2 = Internal)
13 Ground --
14--> N/C (Not used on Model III FDC)
15 Ground --
16--> /MOTEB 0=Motor Enable Driv e 1
17 Ground --
18--> /DIR 0=Direction Select
19 Ground --
20--> /Step 0=Head Step
21 Ground --
22--> /WDATA Write Data
23 Ground --
24--> /WGATE Floppy Write Enable, 0=Write Gate
25 Ground --
26<-- /TRK00 0=Track 00
27 Ground --
28<-- /WPT 0=Write Protect
29 Ground --
30<-- /RDATA Read Data
31 Ground --
32--> /SDSEL1 TRS-80 Model III & IV Floppy Disk Controller this is Side Select for the Read Head
33 Ground --
34 N/C Connector Clamp (Not used on TRS-80 Model III/IV)
Pins 2, 4, 6, 14, 34 SPARE in J1 (EXTERNAL) & J4 (INTERNAL)

TRS-80 Model IV Floppy Disk Contr oller Signals to Radio S hack Driv es

Pin No. Signal Name Description

1 Ground --
2 N/C Connector Clamp (Not used on TRS-80 Model IV Floppy Disk Controller FDC)
3 Ground --
4 N/C Reserv ed (Not used on TRS-80 Model IV Floppy Disk Controller FDC)
5 Ground --
6 N/C Reserv ed (Not used on TRS-80 Model IV Floppy Disk Controller FDC)
7 Ground --
8<-- /Index NINDEX/SECTOR (0=Index)
9 Ground --
10--> /NDS1 0=Driv e Select 0 (Phy sical Driv e 1 = Internal)
11 Ground --
12--> /NDS2 0=Driv e Select 1 (Phy sical Driv e 2 = Internal)
13 Ground --
14 N/C (Not used on TRS-80 Model IV Floppy Disk Controller)
15 Ground --
16--> /MOTEB 0=Motor Enable Driv e 1
17 Ground --
18--> /DIR 0=Direction Select
19 Ground --
20--> /Step 0=Head Step
21 Ground --
22--> /WDATA Write Data
23 Ground --
24--> /WGATE Floppy Write Enable, 0=Write Gate
25 Ground --
26<-- /TRK00 0=Track 00
27 Ground --
28<-- /WPT 0=Write Protect
29 Ground --
30<-- /RDATA Read Data
31 Ground --
32--> /SDSEL1 TRS-80 Model III & IV Floppy Disk Controller this is Side Select for the Read Head
33 Ground --
34 N/C Connector Clamp (Not used on TRS-80 Model III/IV)
Pins 2, 4, 6, 14, 34 SPARE in J1 (EXTERNAL) & J4 (INTERNAL)

3.5" Standard IBM Style Floppy Driv e A Pin Out (On Tw isted Cable - IBM Style Driv es shipped Strapped
for Driv e 1)

Pin No. Signal Name Description

1 Ground --
2---> /REDWC Density Select 0=Low/1=High
3 Ground --
4 N/C Reserv ed
5 Ground --
6 N/C Reserv ed
7 Ground --
8<--- /Index 0=Index
9 Ground --
10--> /MOTEA 0=Motor Enable Driv e 0
11 Ground --
12--> /DRVSB Driv e Select 1
13 Ground --
14--> /DRVSA Driv e Select 0
15 Ground --
16--> /MOTEB 0=Motor Enable Driv e 1
17 Ground --
18--> /DIR 0=Direction Select
19 Ground --
20--> /Step 0=Head Step
21 Ground --
22--> /WDATE Write Data
23 Ground --
24--> /WGATE Floppy Write Enable, 0=Write Gate
25 Ground --
26<-- /TRK00 0=Track 00
27 Ground --
28<-- /WPT 0=Write Protect
29 Ground --
30<-- /RDATA Read Data
31 Ground --
32--> /SIDE1 0=Head Select
33 Ground --
34<-- /DSKCHG 1=Disk Change/0=Ready

Standard IBM Style Floppy Driv e A/B Tw ist Pinout

-- Controller Driv e A Driv e B Description

Wire 1-9 1-9 1-9 1-9 No Change
Wire 10 10 16 10 Motor Enable Driv e 0/1
Wire 11 11 15 11 Ground, No Change
Wire 12 12 14 12 Driv e Select 0/1
Wire 13 13 13 13 Ground, No Change
Wire 14 14 12 14 Driv e Select 0/1
Wire 15 15 11 15 Ground, No Change
Wire 16 16 10 16 Motor Enable Driv e 0/1
Wire 17-34 17-34 17-34 17-34 No Change

So, the conductors 10 through 16 are twisted f or IBM, but what y ou don't know is that pin 10, AND Pin 16 are ASSERTED
(HIGH) for the Motor ON signal. Y our older computer doesn't f ollow this IBM standard, so we need to do one small
modif ication to make the signals proper f or older computers.

Instead of twisting conductors 10 thru 16, just cut off the last connector and now twist just conductors 10 thru 12. Now rep lace
the connector accordingly . This keeps conductor 16 MOTOR ON f or ALL Driv es in the proper position. (Only Driv es 0 & 1 can
now be used......but if y ou route the conductor from Pin 10 to 14 (f or D2) or Pin 6 (for D3) those driv es can also be used,
assuming y our Driv e has the appropriate jumpers that can route the Driv es Electronics to the proper pin on the connector.) I
hope this is clear enough text to not be confusing. May be reading it a couple of times will help it sink in. There is a cha rt
below showing the same inf ormation.

AC TU AL WIRING CONVENTION THAT IBM USES by also duplicating the Signal on Pin 10 that Pin 16 has using a

Twist Cable.
6--> /DRVSD Driv e Select 3 **
8<--- /Index 0=Index
10--> /DRVSA Driv e Select 0 ***
12--> /DRVSB Driv e Select 1 ***
14--> /DRVSC Driv e Select 2 **
16--> /MOTEA & B 0=Motor Enable f or All Driv es

NOTES:
** - Some Model Driv es (TEAC FD-235HF) Hav e jumper positions f or Driv es 2 & 3 along with 0 & 1.
*** - Driv e Select Wiring will be determined f rom the Actual Drive and if it has jumpers or not. If no jumpers are on the Driv e,
then it's Def ault is to be Strapped f or Driv e 1. Otherwise wire the Proper Driv e Select from the Controller to the associate d Pin
shown f or the Drive, and set the Jumper f or that Driv e.

DRIVE PIN DRIVE STRAPPED FOR

0 10 D0
1 12 D1 DEFAULT (Jumper - connects the (D1) Pin 12 or (D0) Pin 10 Signals to the Driv es Electronics)
2 14 D2
3 06 D3

TYPIC AL INTERCONNECT WIRING

3.5" disk driv e

TRS-80 FDC Controller PC-AT Sty le Controller Based on TEAC FD235HF

Sig Name Sig Sig. Name Sig Name Sig Ground

Connector Clamp * # 02 0=Double/1=High Density ----->>-------------- REDWC 02 01
Spare * 04 N/C ->>- 04 03
Spare * 06 Driv e Select D -------------------->>--- ----------- Driv e Select 3 06 05
Index ** 08 Index --------------------------------<<---------- ---- Index 08 07
Select 0 10 Driv e Select A -------------------->>---------- ---- Driv e Select 0 10 09
Select 1 12 Driv e Select B -------------------->>---------- ---- Driv e Select 1 12 11
Spare * 14 Driv e Select C -------------------->>--- ----------- Driv e Select 2 14 13
Motor Enable 16 Motor Enable A&B --------------->>--------- ----- Motor Enable 6 15
Direction 18 Direction Select ------------------>>---------- ---- Direction Select 18 17
Step 20 Head Step ------------------------->>--- ----------- Head Step 20 19
Write Data 22 Write Data ------------------------->>--- ----------- Write Data 22 21
Write Gate 24 Write Gate ------------------------->>---------- --- Write Gate 24 23
Track 00 ** 26 Track 00 ----------------------------<<---------- --- Track 00 26 25
Write Protect ** 28 Write Protect ----------------------<<---------- --- Write Protect 28 27
Read Data ** 30 Read Data -------------------------<<---------- --- Read Data 30 29
Side Select 32 Side Select ------------------------>>--- ---------- Side Select 32 31
Connector Clamp * ## 34 Disk Change/Ready -------------<<--------- ---- DC/Ready 34 33

Notes:
Signals denoted in BLUE need to be modif ied for Drive 0 & Driv e 1 (Internal & External)
* - This Signal is not used on the Model III & IV
** - These Signals hav e Pullup Resistors Installed on the FDC f or Internal and External Connectors,
so driv es that hav e Terminator resistors installed need them remov ed.
# - This Signal needs to be Pulled LOW through a 1K Resistor f or Double Density (2D) versus High Density (HD).
## - This Signal doesn't need to be connected since it isn't used.

This Chart depicts what needs to be done to interconnect all the signals properly , but gets confusing about exactly what is
required. So, I'v e drawn out each interconnecting cable showing the exact wiring f or each driv e.
Floppy Disk Controller Pin Out for TRS-80 Model III & IV Drive 0 INTERNAL or EXTERNAL

T RS-80 Signals IBM Style Drive Signals

Pin No. Signal Name Description Pin No. Signal Name Description
X 1K Resistor to Common 2--> /REDWC Density Select 0=Low/1=High
4 N/C Reserved
6 /DRVSD Drive Select 3
8<-- /Index NINDEX/SECT OR (0=Index) --------------- 8<-- /Index 0=Index
10--> /NDS1 0=Drive Select 0 --------| 10--> /DRVSA Drive Select 0
12--> /NDS2 0=Drive Select 1 X | ---- 12--> /DRVSB Drive Select 1
14 N/C Not used on T RS-80 Model IV FDC X 14--> /DRVSC Drive Select 2
16--> /MOT EB 0=Motor Enable Drive 1 --------------- 16--> /MOT EA & B 0=Motor Enable Drives
18--> /DIR 0=Direction Select --------------- 18--> /DIR 0=Direction Select
20--> /Step 0=Head Step --------------- 20--> /Step 0=Head Step
22--> /WDAT A Write Data --------------- 22--> /WDAT E Write Data
24--> /WGATE Floppy Write Enable, 0=Write Gate ---------- 24--> /WGATE Floppy Write Enable, 0=Write Gate
26<-- /T RK00 0=T rack 00 --------------- 26<-- /T RK00 0=T rack 00
28<-- /WPT 0=Write Protect --------------- 28<-- /WPT 0=Write Protect
30<-- /RDATA Read Data --------------- 30<-- /RDATA Read Data
32--> /SDSEL1 Side Select for the Read Head -------------- 32--> /SIDE1 0=Head Select
X 34--> /DSKCHG 1=Disk Change/0=Ready

Pins 2, 4, 6, 14, 34 SPARE in J1 (EXT ERNAL) & J4 (INTERNAL)

X represents Circuit T race Cut

Floppy Disk Controller Pin Out for TRS-80 Model III & IV Drive 1 INTERNAL or EXTERNAL

T RS-80 Signals IBM Style Drive Signals

Pin No. Signal Name Description Pin No. Signal Name Description
X 1K Resistor to Common 2--> /REDWC Density Select 0=Low/1=High
4 N/C Reserved
6 /DRVSD Drive Select 3
8<-- /Index NINDEX/SECT OR (0=Index) --------------- 8<-- /Index 0=Index
10--> /NDS1 0=Drive Select 0 X 10--> /DRVSA Drive Select 0
12--> /NDS2 0=Drive Select 1 --------------- 12--> /DRVSB Drive Select 1
14 N/C Not used on T RS-80 Model IV FDC 14--> /DRVSC Drive Select 2
16--> /MOT E A & 0=Motor Enable Drive --------------- 16--> /MOT EA & B 0=Motor Enable Drives
18--> /DIR 0=Direction Select --------------- 18--> /DIR 0=Direction Select
20--> /Step 0=Head Step --------------- 20--> /Step 0=Head Step
22--> /WDAT A Write Data --------------- 22--> /WDAT E Write Data
24--> /WGATE Floppy Write Enable, 0=Write Gate ----------- 24--> /WGATE Floppy Write Enable, 0=Write Gate
26<-- /T RK00 0=T rack 00 --------------- 26<-- /T RK00 0=T rack 00
28<-- /WPT 0=Write Protect --------------- 28<-- /WPT 0=Write Protect
30<-- /RDATA Read Data --------------- 30<-- /RDATA Read Data
32--> /SDSEL1 Side Select for the Read Head --------------- 32--> /SIDE1 0=Head Select
X 34--> /DSKCHG 1=Disk Change/0=Ready

Pins 2, 4, 6, 14, 34 SPARE in J1 (EXT ERNAL) & J4 (INTERNAL)

X represents Circuit T race Cut

REF:
http://pinouts.ru/pin_Storage.shtml
http://pinouts.ru/Storage/InternalDisk_pinout.shtml
http://pinouts.ru/Storage/5_12_floppy_pinout.shtml
At this point the FDC to Drive hardware wiring setup should be complete. The FDC Signals to the 3.5” Driv e Connector are
wired correctly , but some driv es allow multiple jumper settings to route these signals to different pins or allow changing si gnal
states. If the STANDARD jumper settings for an IBM Sty le driv e are used, the 3.5” Driv e should f unction properly . There is a
possibility of using a 3.5” 720K Driv e, 3.5” 1.44K Driv e, 720K Diskettes, 1.44K Diskettes (with the Density Hole cov ered for
LOW Density), 40 Track configuration settings, or 80 Track Conf iguration Settings. I used Montezuma Micro CP/M v er 2.31,
and conf igured my EXTERNAL 3.5” Driv e f or 80 Tracks, 1 head, and Double Density in the CONFIG software. That gav e me
an 80 Track, SS, DD, 400K Formatted Floppy . (I lef t the Driv e size at 5.25” since a 3.5” driv e selection isn't av ailable an d a
3.5” driv e will f unction properly when connected.)

I hav e tested my wiring on three diff erent driv es. TEAC FD 235HF -117-U 720K Drive with a 720K Floppy , TEAC FD-235HF-
B291-U5 Driv e with a 720K Floppy , and a NEC FD1231H 1.44 Driv e with a HD f loppy with the Density Hole Cov ered to make
a 720K Floppy .

I also used Montezuma Micro CP/M v er 2.31, and configured my EXTERNAL 3.5” Driv es for 80 Tracks, 2 heads, and Double
Density in the CONFIG sof tware. That gav e me an 80 Track, DS, DD, 710K Formatted Floppy. (I lef t the Driv e size at 5.25”
since a 3.5” driv e selection isn't av ailable and a 3.5” driv e will f unction properly when connected.) PIP does copy the f ile s f rom
A: to C: or D: properly .

Using NEWDOS-80 (Model 3 v ersion) on my Model 4, I hav e set the PDRIVE according to the chart below and ev ery thing
works accordingly .

Driv e Driv e
Ty pe Size Density Sides SPT TI GRANS GPL

TD=A 5 Single Single 10 A 77 2

TD=B 8 Single Single 17 A or D 157 2
TD=C 5 Single Double 20 A 141 2
TD=D 8 Single Double 34 A or D 285 2
TD=E 5 Double Single 18 A 157 2
TD=F 8 Double Single 26 A or D 317 2
TD=G 5 Double Double 36 A 285 8
TD=H 8 Double Double 52 A or D 573 8

TD = Ty pe Drive
TI = Ty pe Interf ace (Standard or Apparat Disk Controller)
SPT = Sectors per Track
GPL = Grans per Lump
GRANS = Storage size on the f ormatted Floppy Disk

Pdriv e,0 ….............Shows the Disk Parameters f or the 10 drives stored in Memory.

Usage:
PDRIVE,SOURCE,DESTINATION,OPTIONS,,OPTIONS,OPTIONS,......,A

Y ou can change a driv es parameters, and read a new disk without a reboot. Use the f ollowing command ,A appended at the
end:
PDRIVE,0,3,SPT=20,TC=40,A
PDRIVE,0,3=1,A

PDRIVE,0,3,TD=A,SPT=10,TC=40,A
PDRIVE,0,3,TD=G,SPT=36,TC=80,A
(If you don't add the ,A y ou will need to reboot after changing the PDRIVE Parameters.) PDRIVE Parameters are
stored in RAM and will be RESET in the system on a reboot.

AMPRO Little Board Z80 CP/M Computer

The Ampro Little Board Computer supports f our Driv es. If y ou are using Driv es such as the Tandon 100-2 with the Ampro, the
manual states that the Terminator resistor (RP1 in Socket 2F) needs to be REMOVED in all Driv es except f or the last Driv e on
the Floppy Cable.

I am including a Photo of what Signals are associated with these PULLUP Resistors. Drive Pins 2, 4, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 and
32 are PULLED HIGH through a 150 OHM DIP Resistor. So, y ou should also be able to use a 3.5” Floppy Driv e with the
Ampro Computer.

I now hav e two TEAC FD-235 HF Driv es connected to my Ampro Little Board Z80 Computer working correctly.

ENJOY!
Larry Kraemer 09-08-2010
373 CR 250
Chaff ee, MO. 63740
ldkraemer@gmail.com
10-18-2010 - Updated 10-09-2012 f or Model 1 FDC Interf ace.
05-01-2014 – Updated address

Larry Kraemer is an ex-Military USAF Officer,

and a retired Electronics & Instrumentation
Technician, that has a hobby of Amateur Radio
(Advanced Class), and Computers, with Computer
Repair experience.
 IN MAV'S WORKSHOP
by
IAN MAVRIC

PROJECT 2: MOUNTING FreHD IN A TRS-80 HARD DRIVE CASE

Last time I talked about installing a FreHD and M1 HD adapter in to an

external disk drive case, along with a disk drive, to have a single unit
connected to the Model I computer. It was a neat elegant solution that
worked well, and also proved you could place the Model I hard disk
adapter some 90cm down the cable away from the EI. It worked per-
fectly.

This time, I'm going to explain how to install a FreHD into a TRS-80 Hard
drive enclosure. In 2013 I wrote a 4 part series on restoring, connecting,
formatting and using the Radio Shack hard drives. In 2013 at the same
time the FreHD team ironed out the last of it's few bugs and started mar-
keting the device. FreHD is sold as either a partially for fully populated
PCB, it's up the buyer to determine their casing and power supply re-
quirements. It didn't take me long to realise the Radio Shack hard drive
has all the requirements to power and house FreHD. Most Radio Shack
hard drives sold on eBay are in a poor state and beyond economical re-
pair, so retro-fitting a FreHD makes even more sense.

INSIDE THE RADIO SHACK PRIMARY HARD DRIVE

You open it up by undoing the three machine screws on the back, and
sliding the whole top forwards and up. What you are then looking at is a
hard disk controller on top of a steel cage assembly. Under it are the
MFM hard drive itself, and a power supply. As well as the outer case, we
will be re-using the pressed steel cage assembly and power supply, the
power key-switch/activity light/protect light assembly, and the internal
50-way cable.
Unplug everything you can see and undo the 4 machine screws which
hold down the steel cage. Lift it up about 10cm and disconnect the ca-
bles for AC and power distribution from the power supply. Remove the
cooling fan and the hard drive. Clip or unsolder the wires from the hard
drive and the Activity and Protect lights. Leave enough length on the
wires from the lights to reach the FreHD green and red LEDs. If you
need to recap the power supply, now is a good time to do it, refer to
TRS8Bit Vol 6, Issue 4, page 10.

The reason we remove the AC cooling fan is to replace it with an 80mm

12V DC cooling fan. This is important because the power supply is a
switching supply which won't work properly without a load on the 12V
and 5V outputs. The 12V powers the cooling fan and the 5V powers the
FreHD.

MOUNTING THE FreHD

You could mount FreHD anywhere inside the enclosure, and leave one SD
card in it with one image on it and what do you have? Basically a re-
placement that offers no more functionality than the original TRS -80 hard
drive. It will work fine. But since one of the nicer features of FreHD is
the ability to change SD cards for ones with other software and images
on them, it makes sense to mount the FreHD in a manner where the SD
card can be easily removed. Fortunately for us the air grille on the front
of the hard drive enclosure has sufficient room to slide an SD card
through, so if you mount FreHD close enough to the front, at the correct
height, inserting the SD card works quite well.

By removing the front plastic facia from the top cover, you can determine
where the best place for the FreHD is. Two holes will need to be drilled,
one next to the SD card socket and one next to the battery clip. Look
carefully - there is space with no electronic connections which you can
drill through. You place the leading edge of the SD card socket against
the plastic facia, and by using long screws with multiple nuts and wash-
ers, you can position the FreHD at the correct height so that the SD card
socket lines up with the bottom cooling vent on the plastic facia. This
part of the process took the longest amount of time, but once done cor-
rectly the SD card inserts and ejects without contacting the plastic of the
cooling vent.

WIRES AND POWER

The two LEDs on the front of the FreHD lend themselves to being con-
nected up front on the information panel of the hard drive, and even the
colours match. By removing the incandescent globes from the Activity
and Protect light sockets and replacing them with LEDs, then run some
wires to the FreHD LEDs. What I did was install 2-pin sockets where the
LEDs were on the FreHD, and ran wires up to the front panel. You could
also hard wire them to the FreHD.

For power, we have the convenient power loom left over from the old
hard drive application. One end plugs into the power supply, another
end into the hard drive, and the other end to the HDC. For our new ap-
plication the hard drive power connector goes to the 12V 80mm cooling
fan, and we make an adaptor to connect two wires of the HDC end (5V
and Gnd) to the FreHD. Use a multimeter to make sure you have the
correct wires and polarity.
Finally the large 50-way cable from inside the hard drive can be con-
nected directly to FreHD. Once completed, the steel chassis holding the
power supply and be put back in place and if you haven't already done
so, remove the HDC.

FINISHING OFF

You may notice that the front doesn't fit on properly without notching out
the base where the front screws which hold the FreHD to the chassis foul
the plastic facia. Cutting a couple of small notches underneath won't be
visible and will allow the lid to be re-fitted to the hard drive unit.

Oh and don't forget to put a CR-2032 battery in before closing your up-
graded TRS-80 hard drive.

Ian.

ianm@trs-80.com
 Larry Kraemer

If possible, run programs on the CP/M system to help get the necessary information for
building a new definition. The following files may be transferred by RS-232C if a Terminal
Program is available,
or by PIPMODEM.COM (PIPMODEM.DOC & PIPMODEM.ASM)

1. CPMADR.COM - Finds addresses used by the CP/M system.

2. DPB.COM - Finds Disk Parameter Block information.

DPB.BAS - Same, but runs under MBASIC. (Located in 22DISK.TXT)

3. PROBE.COM - Probes CP/M System and Drive for information.

Note: The previous four programs may not locate and
display accurate information for some CP/M systems.

4. SKEW.COM - Finds disk SKEW information.

5. Execute the following "STAT" commands on system in question.

Note: "Control P" will allow a hardcopy of the information.

STAT DEV: - Displays current DEVICE information.

STAT VAL: - Displays current STATUS information.
STAT USR: - Displays current USR information.
STAT A*.* $S - Displays detailed file information.
STAT DSK: - Gives some detailed disk information for logged drive.
STAT A: DSK: - Gives some detailed disk information for A:.
STAT B: DSK: - Gives some detailed disk information for B:.

If you have a functional CP/M system, you can use DDT to find the Disk Parameter Block
and the
information is stored there for each drive.

1. Log the drive you wish to locate the DPB data for. I will use A; for this example
2. Run DDT and enter the code below:
DDT
-f0100,0200,00
-A0100
0100 mvi c,1f
0102 call 5
0105 rst 7
0106 <Carriage Return>
-d0100
0100 0e1fcd0500FF
-g0100
*105
-x
The contents of register HL is the address of Drive A: DPB. If you display that address
(mine was F5E3) you will see F5E3: 2400040F0154007F00C00020000200.
RPT = 0024 = The number of 128 byte records per track.
BSH = 04 = The block shift count.
BLM = 0F = The block mask.
EXM = 01 = The extent mask.
DSM = 0054 = Disk storage maximum (the largest block number).
DRM = 007F = Directory maximum (the largest directory entry).
DAB = 000C= Directory Allocation Block AL0: = 00 & AL1: = 0C
CKS = 00020 = Directory check size.
OFF = 0002 = Track offset (number of reserved tracks).

SPT: Number of sectors per track. May differ from RPT if physical sectors are other than
128 bytes in size.

SSZ: Sector size code:

0 = 128 bytes per sector
1 = 256 bytes per sector
2 = 512 bytes per sector
3 = 1024 bytes per sector

NTK: Number of tracks (35, 40, 77, or 80). The number of tracks can be determined by
formatting a Floppy, or with Anadisk. Anadisk will also tell you the sector size and SKEW.

Quite frequently, the only information available when developing a definition for 22DISK is
a diskette with a few files and nothing more.

Here's a guide on what to do if you'd like to try working up a definition yourself:

1. Get a copy of Sydex's ANADISK. This utility will furnish far more information than
will any other program. A typical disk definition follows:

BEGIN AMP4 Ampro - DSDD 96 tpi 5.25"

DENSITY MFM,LOW
CYLINDERS 80 SIDES 2 SECTORS 5,1024 SKEW 2
SIDE1 0 17,18,19,20,21
SIDE2 1 17,18,19,20,21
ORDER SIDES
BSH 4 BLM 15 EXM 0 DSM 394 DRM 255 AL0 0F0H AL1 0 OFS 2
END
New 22DISK definitions require the following information:

DENSITY xx,xx
CYLINDERS x
SIDES xx
SECTORS x,xxxx
SKEW x
SIDE1 0 x,x1,x2,x3, , ,xn
SIDE2 x x,x1,x2,x3, , ,xn
ORDER x
BSH x
BLM x
EXM x
DSM x
DRM x
AL0 x
AL1 x
OFS x (or SOFS x)
COMPLEMENT (unlikely)

New LIBDSK definitions require the following information:

[title]
description = DESC The description of the format as shown by (for example) dskform–
help.
sidedness =TREATMENT How a double-sided disk is handled. This can either be alt
(sides alternate – used by most PC-hosted operating systems),
outback (use side 0 tracks 0-79, then side 1 tracks 79-0 – used
by 144FEAT CP/M disks), or outout (use side 0 tracks 0-79, then
side 1 tracks 0-79 – used by some Acorn formats). If the disk is
single-sided, this parameter can be omitted.
cylinders = COUNT Sets the number of cylinders (usually 40 or 80).
heads = COUNT Sets the number of heads (usually 1 or 2 for single- or double- sided).
sectors = COUNT Sets the number of sectors per track.
secbase = NUMBER Sets the first sector number on a track. Usually 1; some Acorn
formats use 0.
secsize = COUNT Sets the size of a sector in bytes. This should be a power of 2.
datarate = VALUE Sets the rate at which the disk should be accessed. This is: HD, DD,
SD or ED.
rwgap = VALUE Sets the read/write gap.
fmtgap = VALUE Sets the format gap.
fm = Y or N Sets the recording mode - Y for FM, N for MFM.
multitrack = Y or N Sets multitrack mode.
skipdeleted = Y or N Sets whether to skip deleted data.

The LIBDSK Data rate will be one of:

RATE_HD, /* Rate for High-density disc - 1.2Mb in 5.25" 96 tpi drive, or 1.44Mb in 3.5"
96 tpi drive */
RATE_DD, /* Rate for Double-density disc - 360k in 5.25" 48 tpi drive, or 720K in 3.5"
48 tpi drive */
RATE_SD, /* Rate for Double-density disc - 180k in 5.25" 48 tpi drive, or 360k in 3.5" 48
tpi drive */
RATE_ED /* Data rate for 2.8Mb 3.5" in 3.5" 96 tpi drive */

New CPMTOOLS definitions require the following information:

diskdef title
seclen xxx #= Sectors xx,1024
tracks xx #= (Cylinders * Sides) = 80*2 = 160
sectrk xx #= Sectors 5,xxx
blocksize xxxx #= (128*(BLM+1)) = 2048
maxdir xxx #= (DRM+1) = 256
skew x #= may be 1 thru 6, or so
boottrk x #= OFS = 2
os x.x #= 2.2, or 2, or 3
end

So, if you know the 22DISK parameters, you can easily fill in the details for LIBDSK &
CPMTOOLS. As an example, here is an AMPRO LITTLE BOARD DSDD 96 tpi 5.25"
Definition for all three software packages.

BEGIN AMP4 Ampro - DSDD 96 tpi 5.25"

DENSITY MFM,LOW
CYLINDERS 80 SIDES 2 SECTORS 5,1024 SKEW 2
SIDE1 0 17,18,19,20,21
SIDE2 1 17,18,19,20,21
ORDER SIDES
BSH 4 BLM 15 EXM 0 DSM 394 DRM 255 AL0 0F0H AL1 0 OFS 2
END

[amp4]
description = Ampro - DSDD 96 tpi 5.25"
sides=alt #=/* XXX Provisional depending on 22DISK Definition */
cylinders = 80 #= Cylinders = 80
heads = 2 #= Sides = 2
sectors = 5 #= Sectors 5,xxx
secbase = 17 #= First Sectors from (SIDE1 0 17)
secsize = 1024 #= Sectors xx,1024
datarate = DD #= Data Rate = SD, DD, HD, ED
rwgap = 12 #=/* XXX Provisional */
fmtgap = 23 #=/* XXX Provisional */
fm = N #= FM or MFM (Likely MFM)
multitrack = N #= Most likely N
skipdeleted = Y #= Most likely Y
 diskdef AMP4
seclen 1024 #= Sectors xx,1024
tracks 160 #= (Cylinders * Sides) = 80*2 = 160
sectrk 5 #= Sectors 5,xxx
blocksize 2048 #= (128*(BLM+1)) = 2048
maxdir 256 #= (DRM+1) = 256
skew 0 #= may be 1 thru 6, or so
boottrk 2 #= OFS = 2
os 2.2 #= 2.2, or 2, or 3
end

2. Run ANADISK on the diskette in SECTOR EDIT mode with the display set for
"HEX".
Note that the interleave (or SKEW) is given, as well as the number, size and addresses
of sectors. You now have data for: DENSITY, CYLINDERS, SIDES, SKEW SIDE1 and
SIDE2.

3. Locate the directory on the diskette. Almost invariably, it starts on the first sector of a
track. If for some reason it can't be found on the first sector of a track, try using the
SEARCH feature to find a "FILE" name that exists on the disk. The number of tracks or
sectors up the point where the directory begins will give the figure for OFS or SOFS. The
directory stands out because it shows file names every 32 bytes, or every other line on the
ANADISK display.

Directory was located at Cylinder 0, Side 0, Sector 2:

0000 00 32 32 44 49 53 4b 20 20 44 4f 43 00 00 00 80 .22DISK DOC....
0010 02 00 03 00 04 00 05 00 06 00 07 00 08 00 09 00 ................
0020 00 32 32 44 49 53 4b 20 20 44 4f 43 01 00 00 80 .22DISK DOC....
0030 0a 00 0b 00 0c 00 0d 00 0e 00 0f 00 10 00 11 00 ................
0040 00 32 32 44 49 53 4b 20 20 44 4f 43 02 00 00 80 .22DISK DOC....
0050 12 00 13 00 14 00 15 00 16 00 17 00 18 00 19 00 ................
0060 00 32 32 44 49 53 4b 20 20 44 4f 43 03 00 00 80 .22DISK DOC....
0070 1a 00 1b 00 1c 00 1d 00 1e 00 1f 00 20 00 21 00 ............ .!.
0080 00 32 32 44 49 53 4b 20 20 44 4f 43 04 00 00 08 .22DISK DOC....
0090 22 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 "...............
00a0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00b0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00c0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00d0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00e0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00f0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0100 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0110 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0120 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0130 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0140 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0150 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0160 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0170 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0180 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0190 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01a0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01b0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01c0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01d0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01e0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01f0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................

Fig 1

Directory continues on Cylinder 0, Side 0, Sector 3:

0000 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0010 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0020 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0030 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0040 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0050 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0060 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0070 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0080 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0090 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00a0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00b0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00c0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00d0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00e0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
00f0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0100 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0110 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0120 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0130 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0140 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0150 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0160 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0170 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0180 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
0190 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01a0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01b0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01c0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01d0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01e0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................
01f0 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 e5 ................

Fig 2

4. Examine the first directory entry. The second 16 bytes (the second line of the entry)
gives a list of allocation unit numbers (AUN) belonging to the file. The first one of these
will tell how many allocation units have been reserved to hold the directory. Thus, if the
first allocation byte is 02, two allocation units have been allocated to the directory. Another
thing to note is whether the allocation unit number appears to be an 8 bit or 16 bit quantity.
For example, if an entry has the following form:
 00 50 49 50 20 20 20 20 20 43 4F 4D 00 00 00 10 .PIP COM....
04 00 05 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

the allocation unit designators are 4, 5 and 6 and are 16 bit quantities. On the other
hand, the following item:
00 50 49 50 20 20 20 20 20 43 4F 4D 00 00 00 10 .PIP COM....
04 05 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

shows the same allocation units, but as 8 bit quantities. If 16 bit quantities are involved,
more than 255 allocation nits are defined for the diskette, if an 8 bit quantity, less than 256
units. This serves as a check for later computations. In any case, the first allocation number
of the first directory entry gives the number of bits to be set in AL0 and AL1.
Allocation Unit Number (AUN)
02 AL0 11000000B Al1 0
04 AL0 11110000B Al1 0

The following information shows a detailed breakdown of all the information in the the
first and second directory entries.
00 - Valid file (E5 for Erased File)
32 32 44 49 53 4b 20 20 44 4f 43 - File name 22DISK DOC (11 bytes)
00 - Extent (used for large files)
00 - S1 (Digital Research Reserved)
00 - S2 (Digital Research Reserved)
80 - Number of records in this extent
02 00 03 00 04 00 05 00 06 00 07 00 08 00 09 00 - allocation units

Note: 02 is the first AUN.

00 - (Continuation of above file)
32 32 44 49 53 4b 20 20 44 4f 43 - File name 22DISK DOC (11 bytes)
01 - Extent (used for large files)
00 - S1 (Digital Research Reserved)
00 - S2 (Digital Research Reserved)
80 - Number of records used
0a 00 0b 00 0c 00 0d 00 0e 00 0f 00 10 00 11 00 - allocation units

Note: Unused allocation units will be 00.

5. Starting with the first directory sector, advance the sector (and track, if necessary)
until you find the data belonging to the first file. Unused directory entries are almost always
filled out with a pattern of E5's. The number of sectors dedicated to the directory will give
an indication of both the number of directory entries and the allocation unit size.

First Program located at Cylinder 0, Side 1, Sector 2:

NOTE: (This was the 9th sector displayed, so 8 are reserved for directory)
0000 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 20 20 20 20 ............
0010 20 20 53 79 64 65 78 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d Sydex.........
0020 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d ................
0030 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 20 ...............
0040 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
0050 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
0060 20 20 20 20 20 32 32 44 49 53 4b 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 22DISK.....
0070 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 .
0080 20 20 20 20 20 41 20 43 50 2f 4d 2d 74 6f 2d 44 A CP/M-to-D
0090 4f 53 20 44 69 73 6b 65 74 74 65 20 49 6e 74 65 OS Diskette Inte
00a0 72 63 68 61 6e 67 65 20 55 74 69 6c 69 74 79 0d rchange Utility.
00b0 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d ................
00c0 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d ................
00d0 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 20 ...............
00e0 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
00f0 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
0100 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 53 79 64 Syd
0110 65 78 0d 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 ex..
0120 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
0130 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
0140 20 20 31 35 33 20 4e 6f 72 74 68 20 4d 75 72 70 153 North Murp
0150 68 79 20 41 76 65 2e 0d 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 hy Ave...
0160 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
0170 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
0180 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 53 75 6e 6e 79 76 61 6c 65 Sunnyvale
0190 2c 20 43 41 20 20 39 34 30 38 36 0d 0a 20 20 20 , CA 94086..
01a0 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
01b0 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
01c0 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 28 34 30 38 29 (408)
01d0 20 37 33 39 2d 34 38 36 36 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 739-4866.......
01e0 0a 0c 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a ................
01f0 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 0d 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 ........

Fig 3

Suppose that a our hypothetical diskette shows 8 sectors of 512 bytes allocated to the
directory. Since a directory entry is 32 bytes long, the number of directory entries possible
for this format is:

16 entries/sector X 8 sectors = 128 entries total

or
((Sector Size in Bytes/32) X Sectors to DIR) -1 = DRM

Thus, DRM is one less than this or 127. Since we know that these 8 sectors represent 2
allocation units or 4,096 bytes, the Allocation Unit Size (AUS) is:

4,096 / 2 = 2,048 bytes

or
((Sector Size in Bytes) X Sectors to DIR) / AUN = AUS
 Given this, we can use the following table to compute the values for BSH and BLM:

+------------+---------+----------+
| Unit Size | BSH | BLM |
+------------+---------+----------+
| 1,024 | 3 | 7 | +----------+
| 2,048 | 4 | 15 | ------+ This one |
| 4,096 | 5 | 31 | +----------+
| 8,192 | 6 | 63 |
| 16,384 | 7 | 127 |
+------------+---------+----------+

7. We still need a value for EXM and DSM. DSM is simply the total number of
allocation units on the diskette, not counting the system OFS area. Let's assume that our
diskette has an offset of 2 tracks and is single-sided with 40 cylinders with 8 sectors per
track. The value of DSM is then:

((40 cylinders X 1 side) - 2 tracks) X 8 sectors X 512 bytes) =

155,648 bytes / 2,048 = 76 Allocation units, total

To get EXM, we then use the following table:

+------------+-----------+-----------+
| Unit Size | DSM < 256 | DSM > 255 |
+------------+-----------+-----------+
| 1,024 | 0 | na |
| 2,048 | 1 | 0 |
| 4,096 | 3 | 1 |
| 8,192 | 7 | 3 |
| 16,384 | 15 | 7 |
+------------+-----------+-----------+

8. That's almost the complete picture, but for the SIDE1 and SIDE2 sector ordering. This
is the hardest to determine of any of the parameters. Find a readable text file on the diskette
and piece the text back together by observing how words break across sector boundaries.
After a bit, a pattern in the ordering will become apparent, such as:

1, 3, 5, 7, 2, 4, 6, 8

9. The ORDER value can be determined on double-sided diskettes by observing

whether file data appears to move from one track to the next on the same side
(CYLINDERS), or appears to go from one side to the other and then advance to the next
cylinder (SIDES).

10. COMPLEMENT is rare. Generally, if a diskette appears to be formatted with values

of 1A instead of E5, the data on the diskette is complemented.
 11. Last resort for information will require a memory dump from F200 hex through FFFF
to provide all the DBP information as hex bytes. It will be necessary to dig through 3584
(E00) bytes of data to locate the DPB information. Most systems follow the layout shown
below.

(Hex values starting in memory at Fxxx)

RPT: (word) total # of logical 128-byte sectors/track
BSH: (byte) data allocation block shift factor,
determined by data block allocation size
1k=3 2k=4 4k=5 8k=6 16k=7
BLM: (byte) data allocation block mask (2**[BSH-1])
1k=7 2k=15 4k=31 8k=63 16k=127
EXM: (byte) extent mask, determined by the data block
allocation size and the number of disk blocks
1k=0 2k=1 4k=3 8k=7 16k=15 if DSM < 256
1k=n 2k=0 4k=1 8k=3 16k=7 if DSM > 256
DSM: (word) disk size in blocks-1; determines the total
storage capacity of the disk size
DRM: (word) directory size-1; determines the total number
directory entries that can be stored on this
drive. DRM: = ((# dir entries) / 4) -1
AL0: (byte) alloc0 (1100 0000) 2 blocks/dir
(1000 0000) 1 block/dir
AL1: (byte) alloc1 (0000 0000)
Note that AL0: and AL1: are taken together
as a single sixteen-bit mask for the number
of blocks of directory allocation.
(1100 0000 0000 0000) 2 blocks/dir
(1000 0000 0000 0000) 1 block/dir
CKS: (word) directory check vector size
fixed media: CKS = 0
removable media: CKS = (DRM + 1)/4
OFF/SOFF: (word) # of reserved system tracks or sectors (offset)
at the beginning of the (logical) disk.
Usually the directory begins at the first
sector of the track defined by this number.

By formatting a disk the number of tracks can be determined, which will give the first
byte to look for. The SPT will be followed by 00 and the value for BSH and BLM will be
the third and fourth bytes.

BSH and BLM will be one of the following Hex values:

BSH 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7
BLM 7 or 0F or 1F or 3F or 7F

The above information should be fairly easily to locate.

http://home.comcast.net/~bartlett.p/MISE
 ASK MAV
ABOUT THE TRS-80 MODEL I MICROCOMPUTER
by Ian Mavric

1.
Q. How do I upgrade a Model I to a disk system?
A. The Model I is a modular system so you need to plug in additional
hardware to upgrade the machine to a disk system. Before you start you
need to make sure your keyboard unit is 16K and Level II Basic. You
can't add disks to a 4K or Level I system. You need an Expansion
Interface, which has the floppy disk controller inside it, and an external
disk drive. When buying these things from eBay, CraigsList etc., bear in
mind you need the interconnect cables from the keyboard to the
Expansion Interface, and the disk drive cable. Also remember the
Expansion Interface needs it's own power supply so make sure it comes
with one. The Expansion interface holds up to 32K extra memory, and
it's advisable to make sure you get one of these, or the additional 16K
chips to upgrade a 16K or 0K EI to 32K. You then need to choose a DOS,
see below.

Picture: a typical Model I disk system

2.
Q. Why are there so many DOSes, and which is the best?
A. When Radio Shack first released TRSDOS for the Model I it was full of
bugs. This drove other enterprising programmers to write new DOSes
which worked properly, and many more functions and fewer bugs.
Although Radio Shack did fix up TRSDOS by version 2.3, other more
powerful DOSes like Multidos, Newdos, and LDOS had a foothold. By the
1980s the ability to control a hard drive became a necessity, and the
main two DOSes for hard drive usage are Newdos/80 2.5 and LDOS 5.3.1
These therefore make the best choice for DOS for floppy disk and hard
disk based Model Is (this includes FreHD).

3.
Q. I have a 4K Level 1 Model I - how do I upgrade it to 16K and Level II
BASIC?
A. Although not as rare as the Level I Model III, the Level I Model I is
still pretty hard to find. If you find one I would keep it that way for
posterity. At the time of writing good numbers of 16K Level II Model Is
are still easily found for sale for reasonable prices. Ask around the
internet forums or TRS-80 resellers.

4.
Q. What is a double-density adapter and how do I install one?
A. In it's standard form a Model I diskette is single density and holds
about 89K of data per disk. Radio Shack designed the system to be able
to address up to 4 disk drives, and 356K of online storage was
considered good for 1978 - as capable as other similar systems of the
time. By 1980 disk drives became more sophisticated, diskettes more
reliable and double density operation was perfected, and implemented no
newer computers like the Model III. Companies made adapters which
installed inside the Expansion Interface which added the necessary
circuitry and double density FDC to allow the Model I to operate in double
density. Even Radio Shack eventually made their own doubler. The
main benefit of a doubler is to be able to store more programs on each
disk, and as new programs got bigger and more complex into the 1980s,
larger disk capacity was a desirable feature. A single density disk may
hold the DOS plus three 16K games, but a double density disk will
typically hold 10-12 games in addition to the DOS. To install a doubler
you open your EI and remove the FD1771 disk controller chip and install
it on the empty socket on the doubler. You then install the doubler into
the vacated FDC socket in the EI, and you are done.
Picture: a Percom double-density adapter

5.
Q. My Model I is mostly reliable but it crashes from time to time.
A. The Model I was not particularly reliable but people who bought it
init ially didn't know any difference, it was about as reliable as every other
machine on the market in its price range, and random re-boots was just
part of the life of using a Model I, so you saved and backed up your disks
regularly. The main culprits are underwhelming design, software bugs,
and solder covered edge connectors.

1. Underwhelming design of the Expansion Interface - you probably

noticed the Model I is a very robust design for a computer
motherboard in 1977. In fact can and will run for days without
 crashing. All this changes when you add an Expansion Interface.
Tandy cut a few corners design-wise and the asked the EI to live
under a very electrically noisy monitor. That cable connecting the EI
to the Model I carries a lot of information every millisecond which
requires very precise timing. When one of these goes pear shaped
the system crashes. Tandy's solution was the buffered EI cable, a
bulge between the M1 and EI, and it helps a bit but the system
needs to be treated very respectfully. Around December 1979
Tandy re-designed the Expansion Interface to make it more robust
internally and it worked quite well in this form. The buffer cable was
gone and the high-speed signals running back and forth between the
two units were reduced and replaced with a DDU inside the EI. This
is the EI to look for if you are buying one, but like I say to people,
the early buffer-box ones are just as reliable 35 down the track, all
other things being equal.

2. Software bugs - early versions of TRSDOS had bugs, and as

mentioned earlier, TRSDOS 2.3 was pretty reliable, but still has its bugs.
Most of the early versions of the alternative operating systems had bugs
as well, so make sure you use the most up-to-date versions. Also did
you know there was 4 versions of the Level II BASIC Rom (1.0, 1.1, 1.2
and 1.3) which fixed various problems which caused various crashes.
You can tell version 1.3 because it asks MEM SIZE? on boot up. All
previous versions ask MEMORY SIZE? and it can be hard to determine
which version you have.

3. Solder covered connectors - in the computer world, aside from

Tandy's, it's almost impossible to find edge connectors which are not gold
plated. Tandy, in an economy move which they stuck with right through
their computer producing years, decided it was acceptable to solder coat
the edge connectors. Solder, in contact with the metal teeth on the
headers of the cable, oxidises over time. (Gold, although expensive,
fixes this problem, which is why all computer manufacturers use it these
days). Oxide is easy to observe, the edge connectors no longer look
silvery-grey, but has black lines - that's the oxide. You need to rub this
away periodically with a pink pearl eraser. Although Tandy applied this
cheap production philosophy to all their computers, it's particularly dire
on the Model I with the traffic going between the M1 and EI, even if you
don't clean the others, it's important that these be cleaned regularly.
The best EI in the world will still crash if the edge connectors for the I/O
bus joining them become too oxidised.
Picture: Oxidised edge-connector

ianm@trs-80.com
 PLAY THE DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURE
ON YOUR TRS-80 MODEL I / III
by Ian Mavric

PART TWO - NEW TITLE GRAPHICS

Last issue I wrote about the Dr Who adventure, a program written in the
early 1980s by a gentleman named Jim Smith from Newcastle in
Australia. The program can be found on Ira's web site if you want to play
it, the download is at http://www.trs-80.com/cgi-bin/down-ok-
model1.pl?drwhoadv.zip

An interesting and fun game, I recommend anyone to try it out. Because

the game is large (it uses most of the memory on a 16K Model I) Jim
would have left out a proper title sequence of graphics. Since Dr Who
without the intro graphics just isn't the same, I decided to create my
own. Once, my son was playing around with BASIC set/reset graphics on
my Model I and wrote a simple routine which ran a straight line straight
up the middle of the screen and said "Hey Dad, what does this remind
you of?". I dunno? Pre-cooked spaghetti noodle? He then explained it
was like the start of Dr Who...

Typical of most teenagers he lost interest at this point and I remembered

how back in the day I'd spend a lot of time on the primitive TRS-80
128x48 graphics creating representations of things which I found mildly
amusing, even if no one else did. Thinking it's been a while since I'd
working with TRS-80 graphics to any extent, I set myself a goal to create
a proper intro to Jim's program, using only BASIC, and gave myself 5
hours to see what I could come up with. I'm quite pleased with the
results myself at the photos below show:
Animation in BASIC on the Model I leaves a bit to be desired even at the
best of time, but I still resisted the temptation to include fast assembly
language routines to make more realistic moving images. Even so, my
program came in at under 4Kb in size. I employed every string and
graphical manipulation I could think of that was fast enough to draw each
screen and animate elements where possible. After some time I came to
the conclusion that clouds of nondescript blobs of video feedback are
difficult to render and animate convincingly. So I chose two clouds and
animated them in a sequence which amused me. I used lots of artistic
licence and while I think the program does some justice to the original, if
William Hartnell were here he'd tsk tsk and comment about the dearth of
blobs... and in hind sight if he'd seen a Model I he'd probably say "You
call that a computer? It's no WOTAN"

PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUE

Those video display worksheets come in handy when designing graphics

displays (that's what they are for) because I'm not smart enough to do
screen co-ordinates in my head anymore. Tandy used to sell packs of
100 video display worksheets, unavailable to buy since the late 1980s.
Not to worry, each Level II Basic manual and Model III/4 Basic manual
has one in it - just photocopy it like I did.
Another thing to remember is that the coding in the Level II Basic
interpreter to PRINT@ is much more efficient than the coding of the SET/
RESET routine. In other words for the purposes of fast moving
animation, PRINTing the graphics characters to the screen is much faster
than SETing/RESETing the individual pixels. And in fact most Basic
language games which use animation use this technique rather than SET/
RESET. Chapter 12 of Basic Faster and Better & Other Mysteries book
expands greatly on ways to speed up animations and graphical
manipulations for those who wish to continue working with the TRS-80
graphics.
PROGRAM LISTING

10 REM dr who intro

11 CLS:CLEAR500

12 V1$=CHR$(170):V2$=CHR$(149)

20 REM line runs up the screen

22 FORL=992TO224STEP-64:PRINT@L,V1$;:GOSUB 1000:NEXT

30 REM line bends

36 FORL=990TO798STEP-64:PRINT@L,V2$," ";:GOSUB 1000:NEXT

37 FORL=798TO606STEP-64:PRINT@L,V1$," ";:GOSUB 1000:NEXT

38 FORL=543TO415STEP-64:PRINT@L,V2$," ";:GOSUB 1000:NEXT

39 FORL=351TO223STEP-64:PRINT@L,V1$," ";:GOSUB 1000:NEXT

40 REM splash screen

41 FORL=1TO70:READA,B:PRINT@A,CHR$(B);:NEXT

49 DATA 156,136,157,140,158,176,159,144,222,160,223,166,224,180

60 DATA
281,160,282,176,283,140,284,160,285,176,286,140,287,131,288,150,2
89,154,290,160,341,176,342,144,344,163,345,176,346,140,347,131,34
8,129,350,176,351,134,352,168,353,129,355,137,356,144

61 DATA
402,156,403,134,404,131,405,176,406,140,407,131,408,129,413,152,4
14,134,417,149,421,139,467,136,468,131,473,160,474,152,475,134,47
9,160,480,133,535,176,536,134,537,129,543,154

62 DATA
597,184,598,134,659,160,660,134,721,176,722,134,723,129,782,160,7
83,152,784,134,844,160,845,134,846,129,906,176,907,134,908,129,96
8,160,969,134

63 GOTO 71
70 CLS:CLEAR 500:REM upper cloud

71 C1$=CHR$(190)+STRING$(45,191)+CHR$(189):C2$=CHR$(174)
+STRING$(47,191)+CHR$(157):C3$=CHR$(139)+STRING$(45,143)
+CHR$(135):GOTO 91

80 PRINT@8,C1$:PRINT@71,C2$:PRINT@136,C3$:RETURN

90 REM lower cloud

91 C4$=CHR$(160)+CHR$(190)+STRING$(45,191)+STRING$(10,143)
+STRING$(5,131):C5$=CHR$(174)+STRING$(40,191):C6$=CHR$(175)
+STRING$(45,191)+STRING$(5,176):GOTO 100

95 PRINT

96 PRINT@833,C4$:PRINT@896,C5$:PRINT@961,C6$;:RETURN

100 FORT=1TO5:CLS:GOSUB 80:GOSUB96:NEXT

110 REM doctor who large

111 B=0

120 DATA
191,131,131,188,128,188,131,131,188,128,188,131,131,140,128,131,1
91,131,128,188,131,131,188,128,191,131,131,188

121 DATA
191,176,176,143,128,143,176,176,143,128,143,176,176,140,128,128,1
91,128,128,143,176,176,143,128,191,131,139,180

130 FORL=71TO98:READA:PRINT@338+B,CHR$(A);:B=B+1:NEXT

132 B=0:FORL=1TO28:READA:PRINT@402+B,CHR$(A);:B=B+1:NEXT

140 REM who

141 B$=CHR$(191)+CHR$(191)

145 DATA
0,66,130,196,134,70,8,74,138,204,142,78,16,20,84,148,212,86,88,26,9
0,154,218,94,158,32,34,224,226,100,164

149 FORL=1TO31:READA:PRINT@A+525,B$;:NEXT

150 REM flicker clouds

151 C$=" "

155
FORT=1TO5:PRINT@0,C$;C$;C$;:GOSUB80:GOSUB1000:PRINT@832,C$
;C$;C$;:GOSUB 96:GOSUB 1000:NEXT

160 REM smaller who

165 PRINT@320,C$;C$;C$;C$;C$;C$;C$;:PRINT@475,"DOCTOR";

170 DATA
535,165,600,169,537,154,538,160,602,169,539,154,541,181,605,149,5
42,176,543,186,607,170,545,150,546,131,547,169,609,165,610,176,61
1,154

171 FORL=1TO17:READA,B:PRINT@A,CHR$(B);:NEXT
175
FORT=1TO5:PRINT@0,C$;C$;C$;:GOSUB80:GOSUB1000:PRINT@832,C$
;C$;C$;:GOSUB96:GOSUB1000:NEXT

176 PRINT@460,C$;C$;C$;

180
FORT=1TO5:PRINT@0,C$;C$;C$;:GOSUB80:GOSUB1000:PRINT@832,C$
;C$;C$;:GOSUB96:GOSUB1000:NEXT

998 GOTO 998

999 STOP

1000 REM short pause

1005 FORP=1TO60:NEXT

1010 RETURN
 A COMPETITION, ANYONE?

Dusty and I like the idea of a competition to see who can design the best
Dr Who graphical re-creat ion of its iconic title sequence on a TRS-80
Model I/III, II/4/12/16/6000, or Coco 1-2-3. Chose any Dr Who title
sequence you like, and upload a video to Youtube and email your entry to
Dusty. Judging will be by Dee, in December, and the prize will be a
FreHD, delivered in January 2015. So you have 6 months to complete
and submit your masterpiece. Language and memory requirements are
open, as are hardware and memory requirements. Do you have a Hi-Res
Model 4 with 128K memory and can program in Z80 assembly language?
Then a killer Tom Baker intro would look incredible:

ianm@trs-80.com
 TESTING THE Z80 ADDRESS LINES
Larry Kraemer

With a Z80 address line tester, you can test all address lines on any logic
board that uses a Z80 chip.

When the Z80 receives instruction hex 00 (a NOP), it does nothing ex-
cept increment the program counter (PC) and reads the next instruction.
If the next instruction is also a NOP, the microprocessor is forced to
count through all 65,536 (2^16) possible addresses on its l6-bit address
bus.

If you then monitor the address bus lines with an oscilloscope, each ad-
dress line will display a square wave, with a period twice that of the next
lower address line. This gives you a predictable set of signals to trace.

TOOLS REQUIRED

1. Wire cutters
2. Soldering iron
3. Solder

PARTS REQUIRED

1. 40-pin wire wrap socket

2. Z80 Microprocessor
3. Jumper wire

PROCEDURE

Construction of test assembly:

1. Cut pins 7 through 10, and 12 through 15, on the bottom of the wire
wrap socket by about 1/4 inch. This will prevent them from making con-
tact with the pins in the socket of the pcb (see Figure 24-1).

2. Wire pins 7 through 10, and 12 through 15 to pin 29 (ground) to force

the hex 00 instruction on the data bus (see Figure 24-1).

3. Plug the Z80 into the wire wrap socket. Make sure that its notch
faces in the same direction as the notch on the wire wrap socket (see
Figure 24-1).
Operation of test assembly:

1. Remove the Z80 CPU from the board to be tested, and set it aside.
2. Install the test assembly (with a known good Z80) in the wire wrap
socket. Make sure that the notch faces in the same direction as that on
the other chips.
3. Apply power to the logic board.
4. Inspect the address lines for the wave forms listed in Table 24-1.
5. If you do not detect any pulses on the address lines, check for the fol-
lowing signals:

Pin 11 +5V
6 Phase 0 clock
18 HALT (should be high)
24 WAIT (should be high)
26 RESET (should be high)

If any of these inputs are held in an incorrect state, the microprocessor

will not work. Before continuing, correct any problems with these lines.

Figure 24-1 shows a top and a bottom view of the wire wrap socket.

Table 24-1
Expected Wave forms

Pin# NAME WAVE FORM

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 A11 xx second period square wave
2 A12 xx second period square wave
3 A13 xx second period square wave
4 A14 xx second period square wave
5 A15 xx second period square wave
6 *CLK
7 D4 Tied Low
8 D3 Tied Low
9 D5 Tied Low
10 D6 Tied Low
11 +5VDC
12 D2 Tied Low
13 D7 Tied Low
14 D0 Tied Low
15 D1 Tied Low
16 *INT
17 *NMI
18 *HALT
19 *MREQ
20 *IORQ
21 *RD
22 *WR
23 *BUSACK
24 *WAIT
25 *BUSRQ
26 *RESET
27 *M1
28 *RFSH
29 GND
30 A0 xx second period square wave
31 A1 xx second period square wave
32 A2 xx second period square wave
33 A3 xx second period square wave
34 A4 xx second period square wave
35 A5 xx second period square wave
36 A6 xx second period square wave
37 A7 xx second period square wave
38 A8 xx second period square wave
39 A9 xx second period square wave
40 A10 xx second period square wave

Fig 24-1
 The BEST in TRS-80s
Call The Right Stuff
Ask for Ian
The number is +61 416 184 893

That's The Right Stuff

And he's in Melbourne

http://ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/trs80/
In this iss
u e of
 Exchanging my model 4P keyboard.
Hans Reitveld

A year ago I purchased a model 4P which was in a very poor condition.

There was also an additional problem because, as it was a French M4P,
it came with an AZERTY keyboard layout.

If you are not familiar with this type of keyboard it is very different to
the usual QWERTY one and can be quite aukward to use if you're not
use to it.

After rebuilding the computer and adding all kind of options, such as
extra RAM, hard disk, extra floppy etc., I then had to solve the
keyboard problem.

Loading a U.S. Version of LS-DOS solved part of the problem. The keys
were at the right location now, but the key caps were showing the
wrong characters.

I was looking for a used keyboard for weeks without any luck so I
decided to use special keyboard stickers to do the job.
The result was better than I expected, see picture AZERTY1, but some
problems remained.
The punctuation characters were moved and the numeric keys on the
right part of the keyboard did not work.

At last Ian (Mav) came to the rescue with a nice QWERTY keyboard,
which he sold to me and after a few weeks waiting for the post, I
could, at last, get to work and start to exchange it.

After opening the computer and disconnecting the cable, there was a
problem! The old one had 20 wires and the new one only sixteen.

I first a mailed Ian, but he had never heard of this problem. So I

decided to open both keyboards and try to locate the wires and
find out what their function were. (see AZERTY3)

After following pin 1 up to 8 on both keyboards, both keyboards ended

up on the same rows of keys.

Now the wires 9 up to 16. On the QWERY keyboard they went to the
key columns, forming a matrix to detect each different key press.

On the AZERTY keyboard they went to the output of a set of two hex
buffer chips.
The input of each buffer went to the same column as the wires on the
the AZERTY keyboard.
On the keyboard, there are two more chip performing timing and
debounce logic. These chips are powered by the thick cable on wire 17
and 19. The Wires 18 and 20 are not connected.

By comparing the signals of both keyboards, I could see that the

signals and levels on both keyboards looked the same, so I then
decided to swap them.

It was not possible to use the 16 wire cable on the motherboard

without damaging the pins of the connector, therefore I used the 20
wire cable on the keyboard. I fitted the cable on the connector by
using the first 16 holes.

Restarting the computer and testing all the keys showed me that the
swap was very successful.

If you met this problem and want some help, please mail me.

Hans.

AZERTY 1
AZERTY 2

AZERTY 3
QWERTY 1
 LOOKING FOR FAST,
INEXPENSIVE, UNLIMITED MASS
STORAGE FOR YOUR TRS-80
MODEL I/III/4/4P/4D?
The amazing

"FreHD"

-Emulates a TRS-80 hard drive, but faster than any hard drive!
-Works with your favourite DOS (LS-DOS, LDOS, CP/M, Newdos/80 2.5)
-Uses SD card for storage medium
-Bonus free Real Time Clock function!
-Designed in Belgium and proudly built and shipped from Australia
-Kit form or fully assembled

Order yours today:

http://ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/trs80/emulator
£
 Revival of aTRS-80 Model II
Hans Reitveld

Init ial age related problem(s)

A month ago I purchased a Model II on an internet market site. It had

not been used for a number of years and had been stored in a garden
shed for some considerable time.
When I visited to the seller and took a look at the computer, it was cov-
ered in dust and, unfortunately, there was no software with it. The seller
told me that it was working OK and to proved it to me, he turned it on for
a short while. There was the message "Insert Disk" on the screen, so I
decided to buy the computer and took it home.

The first thing I did was to open the computer and clean everything that
I could reach. I put it on a table and turned it on. It ran fine for about
ten minutes and then a flash and some flames! The power supply was
burning. I quickly turned off the power and put out the flames. It seemed
that one of the filter capacitors was blown. I could reach the capacitor by
loosening the upper of three mounting nuts and bolts and placing a’
spacer’ between the PCB and the metal frame, which gave me just
enough room to replace the blown and a second capacitor.

I turned the computer on again and went searching on the internet for
an operating system. After a short time I noticed there was a burning
smell coming from the computer so I decided to start looking for the
source! It turned out to be the keyboard connecter, which was burning
hot. I turned the computer off and opened the keyboard connector and
found that three wires had melted together and were still smoking! I re-
placed the keyboard cable and connector, but, after that, the computer
would not power up. There was nothing, only the horrible sound of just
the fan running. No lights or any disk activity whatsoever. It seemed that
the power supply was down. No 5 volts anymore.

I could not find an obvious reason why, so I decided to take out the
power supply, a difficult and time consuming job as the video controller
and the power supply are build together on one support and you need to
take them out together. However, this allowed me to see the problem.
The power supply is protected against overloading by dumping part of
the current into a resistor, this in turn, reduces the load. If this situation
takes too long, the fuse is blown. After replacing the fuse and refitting
the power supply, I booted the computer again, but found that I now had
no keyboard access.

Opening the keyboard didn’t show any obvious problems only that the
keyboard plug was not fixed to the cover. This was quickly repaired with
some hot glue. I checked the signals with the ‘scope‘ and found that this
showed all the lines were dead. I noticed that the ‘busy’ was low, (forcing
this line high returns the keyboard activity). Tracing back the busy line
took me to a 74LS74. I replaced this chip but this didn't help.

The problem(s) were turning out to be more serious than I had first
hoped. I also found that the CTC controller on the CPU board was partly
gone, however, I managed to source a new one in Germany and with this
replaced, I was beginning to think that all the major problems had been
solved.

The software on the internet was very sparse, but I managed to find an
operating system, but only in an IMD format. I was lucky in that my HxC
floppy emulator could read this format. Now I needed to build a con-
verter to connect my emulator to the external floppy bus. This was not
an easy job, but I succeeded by using a small PCB with two connectors
and a lot of wire-wrap wire.
There was still a problem with the termination so I added the termina-
tion on the PCB with four jumpers to turn it on or off, depending on what
was connected on the bus.

I'm very happy with my Model II, but all the problems I have encoun-
tered were much more than I initially had expected.

Below is a picture off my 'new' Model II and the interface PCB.

If someone is interested in further details of my solutions, please contact
me.
Video display problem(s)

I noticed that every time I accessed the disk drive, the screen grew and
shrunk. This only happened when there is a ‘head-load’. When there is a
load, the screen shrunk and when the head is released the screen grew.

When I first encountered this video display problem, I put in a request on

the TRS-80 forum to see if anyone had come across this before.

I wondered if this is the normal state of affairs of the Model II or is it a

problem that requires me to look for a solution ? The drive is a Shugart,
full height, single sided 8” drive. The +12 Volt is very steady and is unaf-
fected during disk access. The +24 Volt is normal and only drops about
0.9 volt during head-load. The high tension cables are free and clean. If
I select an emulated disk on my HxC floppy emulator the display is
steady. The video-board is a 8709048 rev. C

After receiving some replies, I made the following conclusions.

I was quite confident that it was not the power supply, or the magnetic
field from the disk drive.
I monitored the output values of the power supply and I didn’t see any
unexpected changes.
I also placed a metal sheet between the disk drive and the monitor and
there was no change in the behaviour of the monitor.

I began to think that the solution was in the hardware of the video board.
There is a lot of logic to disable video changes during some hardware ac-
tions and it could be that causing problems in those circuits. After check-
ing this out, I came up with some interesting ideas.

I added some wires between the head-load solenoid and put in a switch,
allowing me to turn off the head-load temporarily. Then, after booting, I
did a disc access without the head-load activated and the screen shrunk
just the same, so that confirmed is was not the solenoid.

If I attach my floppy emulator to the extension port, select it as drive 0

and disable the internal floppy drive there is no shrinking. Therefore I
thought it was safe to assume that everything pointed to a software/
hardware problem. Making an educated guess, I assumed that during
disk access, the 6845 chip becomes unstable which was causing the
problem.

I then found a Tandy Technical Bulletin, Number 23, which related to a

missing trace on the video PCB. After making this repair, although the
shrinking doesn't disappear, some glitches on my screen are gone.

I have removed the extra card on my pc, but it didn’t make any differ-
ence. The explanation about dropping the voltage on the power supply
doesn't help to explain the source of the problem.
The monitor display is only connected to the device through the + 12
Volt which I have monitored during disc access, but this looked stable.

The only other likely possibility is the clock generator on the video card.
This is 5 volt logic and could suffer from power drops during disc access.
It would be difficult to measure this circuit and would need a bus ex-
tender making, in order to do that. If the voltage of the oscillator
changes, the frequency will change and this would affect both the hori-
zontal and vertical frequency which would change the screen format. I
decided to keep on searching.

Then an even better idea came to me. Powering the monitor, only, from
an external stabilised 12 volt power supply. There is a connector just
above the power supply where the 12 volt is fed to the monitor part. It
would be easy to connect an external power supply there. A second solu-
tion could be to drain the 12 volt from the 24 volt source by means of a
12 volt integrated regulator (7812).

I checked the specificat ion of the monitor and the 24 volt supply and I
monitored the 12 volt supply again and found that the lost during disk
access is maximal of 0.4 volt.

It seemed that my second solution was not possible. According to the

spec. the 24 volt can supply 1.7 amps and the 12 volt may not be left
open. There must be a resistor connected to the 12 volt, of about 22
ohms, to keep some current flowing. The monitor part needs 1.2 amps so
I’m afraid that there is
not enough power left for
the disk drive.

The first option with a

small 12 volt stabilised
power supply which fits in
the computer is the bet-
ter option. I quickly
sorted out a 12v supply
and as I suspected, the
internal power supply was
the source of the prob-
lems.

I easily modified the

connector on the video
board. This is the one
that is built together with
the power supply. After the modification the display is absolutely steady
during disk access AND all other actions, it is now a pleasure to look at
the screen.

However, a word of caution ...

If you wish to make this modification please be very careful. Remove the
mains supply cord and pay extra attention to very high voltage that re-
mains on the picture tube. Also, the neck of the picture tube is very frag-
ile, and is easily broken.

If you take a look at the picture, you see a connector is placed on the
top of the power supply. On this connector you can make the modifica-
tion. It has a black, orange, brown and purple wire.
You need an external regulated 12 volt power supply, which needs to be
fitted anywhere in the
computer case. I found one on Ebay, but I have not received it yet, so I
don't know if it is usable.
But the specs are good and the size is perfect. Take a look at the pic-
ture.

On the schematic you can see how I connected the wires, but again,
please pay special attention to the resistor of 22 ohm. This will get very
hot so find a safe place to mount it.

I hope you have a better Model II after this modification.

 Why an extra load
on the unused 12 volt
line?
The Model II supply
is a switching power
supply. To make that
work satisfactorily,
the load on all the
outputs must be bal-
anced. In the service
manual there is
shown a minimal load
value for each volt-
age mentioned. If
one of the loads is
too low, other volt-
ages could start drift-
ing up and down.
As the video system
is the only load on
the 12 volt, I had to
compensate this load
if I disconnected
the video system. The resistor gets very hot with a dissipation of about 8
watt, so it is advisable to mount it on a metal part of the frame.

The video board is a self supporting unit in the Model II and gets its only
ground by this connector, which I had to open. So I need a new ground
for the sync signals of the video board.

I forgot to mention the specs of the external supply I found on Ebay,

here they are.

AC 110V/220V ± 20%
47/63Hz
12V
2A
(L*W*H)86*58*38mm
Metal case

Universal AC input / full range

It's good quality & high performance
100% full load burn-in test
Protections: overload/ over voltage/ short circuit
Cooling by free air convection

This leaves me with one last irritating problem. The awful sound of the
fan (blower).
I have bought a new 220 volt fan but it seems that they all make this
awful noise. After my power supply modification, there is a now a new
option. As the 12 volt rail is now empty and loaded with only a dummy
load, there must be 12 volt fans of this size and with ceramic or sleeve
bearings.
The question was, that I was unsure if they supply enough air to cool the
system. This would be a very neat solution.

A new load for the 12 volt and no more noise anymore!

This could be a useful replacement blower.

[ http://azerty.nl/8-1088-97019/sharko...entilator.html ]

The finishing touch.

I found the perfect place for the power supply was just beside the floppy
drive. I attached it using two sided tape and a tie wrap. The result was,
as expected, no distortion of the video anymore.

It was easy to modify the drive select 0 and 1, by adding a switch on the
select jumpers. It is easier now to change the drive when using my HxC
emulator.

I could change the blower with the 12 volt version, without removing the
outer case.
Just by fixing the some spare screws to the bottom of the inside of the
computer case. The sound of the fan is now reduced by half. Some of the
sound is produced by the motor of the disk drive and another part is pro-
duced by the airflow and the vibrations of the case. Lowering the speed
of the fan by adding 3 diodes in the supply line makes the sound toler-
able.
Just take a look at the pictures for the details.
Some remarks about the fan.

To reduce the vibrations you can, according to the service manual do the
following.

Tighten the four nuts from the fan down and wait a while, then turn them
one by one, about 4 turns back, then turn them on with your fingers.
Optionally, you can mount small rubber o-rings on the screws. One be-
tween the fan and the bottom and a second one on the fan, beneath the
washer and the nut.
In order to reduce the speed, you can put some diodes in series with the
plus wire. A better idea is to place a speed regulator between the fan and
the power supply. They are easy to find on Ebay, eg. Zallman. It is pos-
sible to place the speed adjust control between the video controls on the
front.

For those who want to do some modification on the Model II without

building hardware, here are some old links for handy adapters.

For mixing 8", 5.25" and 3.5" drives in one system.

[ http://www.dbit.com/fdadap.html ]
 To generate the needed voltages for an 8" drive in a PC computer, by us-
ing the default power supply.
[ http://www.dbit.com/fddc.html ]

These have not seen or tested, this is just for information only.

Further reducing the fan noise and help with cooling.

Here, I’ve added a list of additional modifications I have carried out to fur-
ther reduce the noise of the fan.

I have added 2 rubber o-rings above and below the fan, two o-rings on
each bolt.
I have replaced the rubber feet at the corners of the case with thicker and
softer pads
The head spindle of the disk drive needed a few drops of oil.

I also managed to find a perfect fan speed regulator at

http://stores.ebay.com/chanouny01?_t...p2047675.12563
It is very easy to move the pot-
meter to the front of the case

De-solder the potmeter from the

PCB at points 1,2,3,4,5. If you
don’t need a switch to turn the
fan off and on, just bridge the
points 1 & 2 with a jumper.
Connect the middle and one of
the outer points of the potmeter
together and add a wire. Connect
this wire to point 4. Connect the
other point on the potmeter to
point 3 (gnd.).
 IN MAV'S FreHD WORKSHOP
Ian Mavric

HOW TO CONVERT TRS-80 MODEL 1 TO

FreHD AUTO BOOT
Over the next few editions of TRS8Bit I'm going to explain, step by step,
how to upgrade the TRS-80s internal ROM to the auto-boot EPROM. The
EPROM can be produced by downloading the BIN file from the downloads
page from my web site, or if you don't have your own EPROM program-
mer, I can burn and send you the EPROM for a small cost.

As a starting point I chose the Model I, and future instalments will follow
the TRS-80 line chronologically, so next time will be the Model III, then
the Model 4NGA in the issue after that, then the 4P and finally the Model
4GA/4D. For those people who don't want to wait for future editions, just
email me and I'll explain how to upgrade your Model III/4/4P/4D.

Without further ado, the Model I:

System requirements: 16K Level II Model I, with lowercase and attached

to a 32K Expansion Interface. You also need a FreHD.

Modification summary: The existing Level II ROMs and/or daughter-board

will be removed from the system, a programmed EPROM installed in Z33,
5 wires soldered to various points on the motherboard, and a toggle
switch installed on the case to change between standard Level II BASIC
and auto-boot FreHD. The modification is reversible because no trace
cuts are made. As usual with modifications, make sure you understand
each step because I can't be responsible for changed made to your com-
puter if things go wrong.

The following seven steps will upgrade your computer:

1. Check Z3 and make sure all 8 shunts are in place. If they aren't, in-
stall a switch block so all 8 shunts connect. (Typically Level II systems
with the daughterboard will have all shunts in place, and Level II systems
without a daughterboard will have 7 of the 8 shunts in place.)

2. On systems with the daughterboard, you need to locate 3 long wires

(out of 4 or 6) and note where they go. Call the orange wire A13, the
red wire A12 and the yellow wire A11. We need to refer back to these
points later on so mark them and then unsolder the 4 or 6 wires running
to the daughter board and remove the whole Level II Rom assembly.
Z33 and Z34 should now be empty.
3. On systems without the daughter board, just remove the two chips in
Z33 and 34. Referring to the picture below, make a note on your PCB
where the orange, red and yellow wires solder to, and mark them as A13,
A12 and A11 respectively.

4. Program your 27C256 and prepare it as follows. Bend out pins 20, 23,
26. Clip the pin portions from pins 1,2,27,28, leaving just the tabs left to
solder wires to.
Solder a purple wire joining pins 1 and 28, and leave a short 5cm length
of purple wire.
Solder a 5cm black wire to pin 20.
Solder a 20cm orange wire to Pin 26.
Solder a 10cm yellow wire to Pin 23.
Solder a 15cm red wire to Pin 2.
Solder a 30cm grey wire to Pin 27.

5. Insert the prepared 27C256 into Z33 with pins 1,2,27,28 overhanging
at the front of the IC. Make sure none of these pins contact anything, or
each other. Also confirm that pins 20, 23 and 26 of the Eprom don't go
into the holes in Z33's socket.
6. Solder wires to motherboard:
Black wire to a source of GND (thick rail directly below Z33/34)
Purple wire to a source of +5V (solder point directly above Z34 pin 24)
Referring to the notes you took earlier, solder the yellow A11, red A12,
and orange A13 wires to the points noted in step 2 or 3. Solder them on
the component side of the PCB, confirming you have the correct place
with a mult imeter.

7. The one wire (grey) you have left over is the A14 line from the Eprom,
and when high selects FreHD auto boot, and low selects regular Level II
Rom. Mount a toggle switch on your Model I case somewhere, and run
the grey wire to the centre pole. Wire the other two poles of the toggle
switch to the GND line and the +5V line and the modification is complete.

Power up and test the machine. You may need to turn down the voltage
at R5 and R10 (refer to TRS-80 Tech Ref manual 26-2103 page 60) be-
cause the single Eprom replaces high-power drawing devices (Z33 and 34
or the daughterboard assembly).

If problems crop up they will when you first power the machine up. First
power up the computer without the Expansion Interface connected and
run test routines to make sure the computer works properly. If the sys-
tem fails to start check all the wires, that there are no solder-bridges
shorting something out. It's possible if the Eprom had a bad burn then
they system will not run, so unsolder all wires and go back to the regular
Level II Rom set. Confirm the computer still runs and then go over the
instructions and burn a new Eprom if needed, and try again. I've up-
graded several machines this way and at least three other people have
successfully made the modificat ion as well.

I'd like to thank Dean Bear for all his hard work in coming up with this
solution for Model I owners.

Next time: Upgrading the Model III with FreHD auto-boot.

Ian Mavric
ianm@trs-80.com

Ian Mavric is an IT Specialist who also restores and

collects TRS-80's and classic cars. He live with his wife
and kids in Melbourne, Australia.
 Cartridge Drive or Stringy-Floppy
CW Hobbs

This article first appeared in INMC NEWS80 Edition No 3, FEB-APR81.

I was sent it because of my Aculab enthusiasm and although it was originally for
NASCOM systems I hope you find it of interest. The 25-300 was news to me!

This article describes the fun I had interfacing the 'Electronic R/W System
Model 25-300' to my Nascom 1. The peripheral itself, whilst certainly
electronic and a read/write system, is probably better described as a
cartridge/wafer drive, although I have seen it described in some
magazines as a 'Stringy-Floppy'. I feel that this is a misleading and
unnecessary name.

I order the unit by telephone from Breda, Holland on Wednesday morning

after having all my technical queries answered immediately in excellent
English and the unit arrived the next day by post. (I do live in Holland
though).

I received a deck and control board, and for further payment, a box of
wafers, which were of assorted lengths, from 5 to 50 feet, giving 20 to
200 second of recording time. These cartridges consist of an endless loop
of magnetic tape with an End Of Tape (EOT), which is also the Beginning
Of Tape (BOT) marked by a piece of reflective tape.

Unlike many pieces of kit, this drive came with very adequate
documentation but with no case or mounting brackets. Any capable
metalworker with nothing more than a small lathe, milling machine and a
borer could knock uo a suitable mounting in a few weeks! Anyway, I
hacked and puffed and blew and finally mounted it in such way which I
don't think it will expose me to public ridicule. I feel more confident on
the grounds of electronics and program design so I'll hastily move on!

The drive demands very modest +5V and +12V supplies and in return
offers the following interfaces on a small edge connector :-

Input Output
Start Motor EOT detected
Fast Speed on Motor Wafer is Write Protected
Enable Writing Serial Data from Wafer
Select Deck
Serial Data for Recording

The beauty of the 'Select Deck' input is that when it is held false,
everything in sight goes into high impedance state and consequently,
more than one deck may be connected together.
The hardware interface wins no prizes for complexity but is very
adequate. (A schematic from the original article is show at the end of this article ED).
There are LED's, which are necessary because once the wafer is inserted
into the drive, it is impossible to see whether there is a Write Protect tab
attached.

The 100K resistor pulling up to the UART serves not only to make the
pulses nicer but it is essential because when the deck is not selected the
Data Out line goes high impedance and picks up all sorts of rubbish. And
what does the Nascom do when it is idle? It picks up rubbish and displays
it at great speed on the screen making it impossible to type a command
in to select the deck again and stop the monitor picking up the rubbish!!
I must be honest and admit that the resistor was not part of the original
design.

After building a simple interface and a few test programs I felt ready to
fill my second 2708 socket with the 'Hobbs Un-copyrighted Cartridge
Operating System'. Surely a most impressive title. Here I tempered good
design techniques (I design computer systems all day as well) with the
knowledge that it all has to fit into 1K bytes plus whatever I could save
by taking 'Dump' and 'Load' out of Nasbug. The original 4 layer design
has reduced to 3 layers :-

A) Drive level interface with routines for

rewinding the wafer
erasing a wafer
pre-marking (sectoring ? ED) a wafer
finding a sector
reading a sector
writing a sector

B) File level interface which sits on top of the drive level interface and
offers routines for
create a file
erase a file
open a file
writing a sector to a file
reading a sector to a file
returning the status of the file

C) Operator level interface which sits on top of both the other levels and
which offers the following commands, augmenting those of Nasbug
i) Drive level commands
W3 rewind the wafer in drive 3 and initialise the PIO
V5 display the catalogue of file on the wafer in drive 5
P6 1234 initialise a new wafer in drive 6 as number 1234
 ii) File level commands
R5:PRINTFILE remove the file named 'PRINTFILE' from the
wafer in drive 5
A3:PRINTFILE 12 add a file named 'PRINTFILE' 12 sectors long
to the wafer in drive 3
L3:PROGFILE load the object code in file named 'PROGFILE' on
the wafer in drive 3
D1:PROGFILE 400 800 dump the contents of memory between
400H and 800H to the file named 'PROGFILE' on the wafer in
drive 1

So what does the tape actually look like when viewed under a magnetic
microscope, how are the sectors formatted, what does the directory look
like, how do I fit it into 1K bytes? Indeed, can I?

I refuse to answer here, but can offer some morals viz.

Make the hardware as simple as possible at first. Software is more

flexible and once you know the interface really well, it is easy to increase
the load on the hardware and decrease the hardware.

Separate the software functions into clearly defined layers, decide

whether subroutines will save registers or not, and start the design at the
top with the coding at the bottom.

When you have only 1K bytes of memory do not stick too rigidly to
the strict layering of design.
 IN MAV'S WORKSHOP

Ian Mavric

UNDERSTANDING THE MODEL 4 GATE-

ARRAY MOTHERBOARD
In the middle of 1983 Tandy released the Model 4 Microcomputer, one of
the finest 8-bit Z80-based computers of all time, and the rest was his-
tory. Tandy was onto a winner and for those who like to tinker with TRS-
80s, the Model 4 is the natural choice, and it sold in the hundreds of
thousands of units. Looking for ways to cut production costs and im-
prove reliability (that was not to say the Model 4 was unreliable) ad-
vances in electronics in the early 1980s led to an entirely new mother-
board for the Model 4 around mid-1984. Instead of a plain motherboard
with separate FDC and serial board, everything was combined into a sin-
gle motherboard, with a lower chip count due to combining arrays of TTL
logic chips into single chips called gate-arrays. We (and Radio Shack, for
that matter), call these Gate-Array motherboards, hereafter known as
M4GA boards.

A LOOK AT THE M4GA BOARD

We see it has a number of large 24, 28, or 40 pin chips which are logi-
cally laid out and while the board may look imposing, especially when re-
pairs are needed, if you know what each part does you can logically track
down problems fairly quickly.
U1: Z80A CPU - Needs to be a Z80A, I have seen boards which have a
plain Z80 which is not fast enough to run at 4MHz in Model 4 mode for
any length of time. If your computer won't start check for CLK signal on
Pin 6.

U4 (ROM B/C) and U29 (ROM A): Model III Basic and boot disk routine.
When we upgrade a M4GA to FreHD auto-boot, U4 is replaced with a pro-
grammed EPROM.

U5 8040542 Gate Array "4.2":

Address Decoder - if the computer won't get past a junk screen, and you
know the memory chips are all OK and that there is a CLK signal on Pin 6
of the Z80A, suspect this chip.

Y1 and U8 (Crystals): Y1 is for Model III mode (2.02MHz) and U9 is for

Model 4 mode (4MHz). I have seen systems where Model III mode
works but Model 4 mode doesn't - replace U8. If Y1 doesn't work then
the computer will not start at all.

U9 8040541 Gate Array "4.1":

Clock switchover chip controls which frequency is used in which mode. If

this chip doesn't work then the computer may run slow (2MHz) in Model
4 mode, or the system will just not start up.

U11 SC80756P: CRT Controller - controls the video sync on the screen -
if you have lost horizontal or vertical sync that can't be adjusted by the
controls on the Video PCB, then suspect this chip.

U16 HM6116P: Video RAM chip - if you see spelling errors on the screen
or characters is missing but the software otherwise works properly, sus-
pect this chip.

U17 8040543 Gate Array "4.3":

Video Gate Array - works in conjunction with U11, U16, and U19 to dis-
play information on the CRT. When this chip fails, nothing will be visible
on the CRT, even though the computer still runs and responds to com-
mands.

U19 8049007 Character Generator: forms all the letters, numbers, or

symbols you see on the screen. If the characters are malformed or miss-
ing dots, suspect this chip.

U64 WD8116: Baud Rate generator - if the serial port doesn't work or if
some of the baud rates work and others don't, suspect this chip. But
check other RS232 problems below on chips U82, U83 and U84 (below).

U75 WD1773 Floppy Disk Controller chip: industry standard double den-
sity floppy disk controller. If the computer works in cassette mode but
won't boot known good disks from known good disk drives (as tested on
another computer) then suspect this chip or U76.

U76 8040544 Gate Array "4.4":

Disk Drive Interface Oscillator -

critical t iming array to make
U75 work. If U75 is known
good (as tested on another
computer) but the disk drives
still don't work right, then sus-
pect this chip.
Y2 (Crystal): needed for floppy disk system (U75, U76) to work. If it
doesn't work then neither U75 nor U76 will do anything.

U82 8040545 Gate Array "4.5":

RS232 support gate array, controls the interface between the RS232 se-
rial port (U64, U84, U81, U99, U100) and the processor. If diagnostic
software reports no RS232 port installed, suspect this chip.

U84 TR1865PL: UART - Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter

which is the heart of the RS232 port. Easy to blow this chip by plugging
in poorly designed RS232 devices or any device which sends uncontrolled
voltages into the RS232 port.

THE LEGACY OF THE GATE-ARRAY MOTHERBOARD

The M4GA motherboard was such a good design that it allowed Radio
Shack, two years later, to take a great computer and install new modern
double-sided disk drives, add an extra key and a new nameplate, and
bingo the "Tandy TRS-80 Model 4D Microcomputer System" was born.
Yes, the 4D uses the M4GA motherboard. The 4D was on the market for
another four years making the M4GA motherboard one of the longest
production motherboards in any Tandy/TRS-80 series.

Next time: Understanding the Model 4P Gate-Array motherboard.

Ian Mavric

ianm@trs-80.com
 TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE FOR
"NO BOOT" PROBLEMS -- TRS-80 MODEL 4

Larry Kraemer

1. The very first thing to VERIFY is the Proper Voltages of the Power
Supply(s). The Radio Shack Model 4 shipped with one of two
manufacturer's Power Supplies, Astec & Tandy.
Both have three Output Voltages:
+5.00 VDC -- Must be within 3%.
-- Power Supply regulates from +5 VDC and +12.00 VDC, so
these must be correct.
+12.00 VDC -- 5%
-12.00 VDC -- +25%, -8.3%

The Model 3 and Model 4 also have a -5.0 VDC Supply, either behind the
Motherboard (Model 3) or located on the Motherboard (Model 4 - Q5).
This is generated from the -12 VDC Supply, with a 7905
Voltage Regulator, and is ONLY used with 4116B RAM Chips (16 x 1).

If your Motherboard has MCM6665BP15 or Tandy #8040665 RAM Chips

and the (Exx) Jumpers have been set correctly, the -5 VDC is not used.

2. Verify Jumpers for 16K or 64K RAM IC's -- These are located
immediately above the RAM IC's.

16K (NO RAM IC's in Sockets U85-U92, 16 x 1 4116B RAM in Sockets

U77-U84)
E5-E6 Jumpered
E1-E2 Jumpered
E12-E13 Jumpered

SHUNT at U72 has Pins 6-15,

7-14, 8-13 & 9-12 Jumpered
in U72
64K (64 x 1 MCM6665BP15 RAM IC's in Sockets U77-U84)
E5-E4 Jumpered
E3-E2 Jumpered
E12-E11 Jumpered
SHUNT at U72 has Pins 6-15, 7-14, 8-13 & 9-12 Jumpered in U72

128K (64 x 1 MCM6665BP15 RAM IC's in Sockets U77-U84 & UU86-U92)

E5-E4 Jumpered
E3-E2 Jumpered
E12-E11 Jumpered
REMOVE SHUNT at U72 and insert Tandy #8075468 PAL CHIP

3. Power up the Model 4, with the Break Key Held Depressed.

You should see "cass??" on the Display. If you see nothing but repeating
characters, it suggests that the Z-80 is OK, and that video RAM (and
character display, etc.) are fine. It just didn't boot properly.

While this doesn't rule out a defective: CPU, Buffer, Video Controller,
RAM, Video RAM, or something fiddling with an Address or Data Line, it is
a good sign to have Garbage Characters or repeating Characters on the
Display. The Computer is at least trying to boot.
My Motherboard says 1982 and has the following numbers -- 8709296
Rev C 1700219
It is a Non-Gate Array Motherboard.

Check CPU (Power, GND, CLK, & Control Signals that are INPUTS to CPU:
/WAIT, /INT, /NMI, /RESET)

These Signals are Active LOW, and must NOT BE STUCK LOW, for Z80 to
boot properly.
RESET is the ONLY one you can easily manually activate, by the RESET
Pushbutton.
If you have any of the INPUT Control Signals (/WAIT, /INT, /NMI, /
RESET) that are STUCK LOW all the time, that problem has to be tracked
down, and repaired.
Don't forget that most of these Control Signals are created by using
PULLUP Resistors that are bussed, in a SIP Package.

Pin 1 is COMMON to all other Pins and from the Common Pin to any other
Pin is 4.7K OHMS
(RP2). +5.00 VDC is applied to Pin #1, and all other Pins of the SIP are
PULLED UP to +5.00 VDC.
Logic Chips at different locations take a Pin on the SIP to GND to produce
the Active LOW Signals.

A bad Solder Joint, a defective Resistor internal to the SIP, or some

Logic IC can create a condition where the Control Signal is ALWAYS LOW
(or not being PULLED UP to +5 VDC because of a bad connection.)

I happened to have /INT LOW all the time.

1. /WAIT Pin 24 Toggles

2. /INT Pin 16 LOW ALL THE TIME
3. /NMI Pin 17 Toggles
4. /RESET Pin 26 Toggles
5. /BUSREQ Pin 25 Appears to be High all the time
So, I started with the Circuit that generates /INT.
It appears that U61 (7405) has a LOW on Pin 5 and also a LOW on Pin 6.
I've removed the CPU and have the same Signal levels. The IC U62
(74LS02) has a HIGH on Pins 8 & 9 which should produce a LOW on Pin
10.

Now, it's time to replace IC U61.

After removing U61 (SN7405), and locating a 14 Pin Socket, I soldered in

the socket, and inserted a new SN7405. After replacing the Motherboard
in the case, I applied Power. I still had a LOW on the /INT (Pin 16) of the
CPU. I thought that's impossible. But, as I searched further in the
Schematics I located a SIP of PULLUP Resistors. This package is labeled
RP2, is immediately above the CPU Socket, and has +5VDC applied to Pin
1, with Pins 2 thru 8 being 4.7K PULLUP Resistors.
I've got the /INT Signal on the Z80 (Pin 16) working properly now. I had
the problem narrowed down to the SIP Resistor RP2, but couldn't believe
that it OHMED out at 4.7K, but didn't pull Pin 16 of the CPU "HIGH".

This morning I removed the Motherboard, and un-soldered only Pin 3 on

the SIP RP2 and re-soldered it. After replacing the Motherboard I still
didn't have a "HIGH" on /INT (Pin 16).
It was being held LOW by U61 (Pin 6). As it turned out, the New Old
Stock SN7405
I had inserted was defective. Luckily, I had another SN7405, and I
replaced the defective one. So, now /INT is "HIGH" for the Z80.

TIP:
When unplugging or plugging in the flimsy ribbon cables on top of
the Motherboard, use an ordinary wooden lead pencil placed
under the sharp bent. Then grip the flimsy cable with your
fingers and easily remove or replace it. Be careful as these flimsy
cables are fragile.

My Clock Signal now looks like a normal clock signal. All Address Bus
signals look normal too. All CPU Control Signals are now in the correct
state:

Pin 16 ___ /INT = HIGH

Pin 17 ___/NMI = HIGH
Pin 24 ___/WAIT = HIGH
Pin 25 ___/BUSREQ = HIGH
Pin 26 ___/RESET = TOGGLES "LOW" on RESET PUSHBUTTON

5. In addition to checking the CPU, it's a good idea to check the two SIP
Resistors RP1
(820 OHM) & RP2 (4.7K) in two different ways. Check each one with an
O'Scope while the
CPU is inserted in the CPU Socket, and with the CPU Removed from the
socket. That way you can get a good check on the Signals that control
the CPU. You may even want to remove an IC, then insert a IC Socket
and insert a new Chip. That will allow you to Toggle the Control Signal
that will end up being the INPUT Control Signal for the CPU. U61 or U62
would be a good example of an IC that may need to be inserted into a IC
Socket so the /INT or /WAIT Signals
could be VERIFIED. In the table below you can write in the actual OHM
value for each Pin and circle the pulse state as HIGH or LOW.

10 Pin SIP (820 OHM)__________8 Pin SIP (4.7K)

01 Common Pin tied to +5VDC__1 Common Pin tied to +5VDC
02 820 _______ HIGH/LOW_____2 4.7K ________ HIGH/LOW
03 820 _______ HIGH/LOW_____3 4.7K ________ HIGH/LOW
04 820 _______ HIGH/LOW_____4 4.7K ________ HIGH/LOW
05 820 _______ HIGH/LOW_____5 4.7K ________ HIGH/LOW
06 820 _______ HIGH/LOW_____6 4.7K ________ HIGH/LOW
07 820 _______ HIGH/LOW_____7 4.7K ________ HIGH/LOW
08 820 _______ HIGH/LOW_____8 4.7K ________ HIGH/LOW
09 820 _______ HIGH/LOW
10 820 _______ HIGH/LOW

6. At this point you need to verify each Address Line to make sure none
(A0-A15) are STUCK LOW or HIGH. To do this I use an old Z80 CPU, and
Bend the DATA Line Pins out so they won't go into the 40 Pin Socket. I
solder a Jumper wire from D0 THRU D7 and solder it to GND. Now, the
CPU is strapped to always get a 0x00 (NOP) on it's DATA Bus. The CPU
will increment the Program Counter, and Increment the Address Lines to
the next address. This way you can use your O'Scope to look at each
Address Line, making sure they are all toggling, and aren't STUCK HIGH
or LOW. You can even check the BUFFER IC's, Checking the INPUT side
versus the OUTPUT Side of the Buffer. You can also remove IC like
ROMS, Video Controller, Video RAM, and Buffers, to help Isolate the
Address Line problems, assuming those IC's are in sockets.

I removed all my 128K of RAM and now my Model 4 has this on the Video
Display.
It appears to be 0x40 & 0x13 (19 Decimal is the same Graphic Character
in the Model 4 manual)

TEST Circuit that has DATA Strapped to 0x00 (NOP) to test just the Z80
CPU.
Another Z80 Circuit that shows Circuit Details about RESET Button.

It might also be wise to keep in mind that you can also break out the
Clock Signal (CLK) and create a clock signal that you can manually toggle
to single step through the Address Lines.
A Pushbutton, fed with +5 VDC can be connected to a 74HC14, and fed
to the CLK Input of the CPU. If you do this, the RESET signal must be
HELD LOW longer than about 6 Clock signals to reliably reset the CPU, or
you will get odd results. So, just HOLD the RESET Pushbutton
DEPRESSED (Line LOW) and give the CPU 6 or 8 CLK Signal Inputs from
your CLK Pushbutton. The CPU should be correctly RESET. Now you are
just 65536 CLK pulses from verifying all the Address Lines.

You can now single step through all Address Lines, and check or chase
signals across the motherboard looking for problems.

Since I had trouble with the RP2 SIP 4.7K Resistor, I saw the RP1 SIP,
slightly left and a bit lower than the Z80 CPU. I was wondering if any of
those PULLUP resistors were not soldered good causing the same type of
problem. So, I used my O'Scope to look at each pin. All the Signals
were High. I just by chance stuck my O'Scope probe back on RP2, and
looked at ALL the Pins. When I got to Pin 5, I had a CRAZY looking
Signal for /WAIT. That feeds Pin 12 of a 74LS08 that goes from Pin 11 to
the CPU /WAIT CPU (Pin 24) Input. At that point I powered down, and
removed the CPU. Now, I had a CLEAN Signal on Wait.
I replaced the Z80 with a New Old Stock Z80B I had ordered years ago.
It finally works again.

Shorted IC's or SHORTED conditions on the Motherboard can be located

by building yourself a milliohm adapter for your Multimeter, or by
purchasing the LEAKSEAKER 89 from:

http://eds-inc.com/product/leakseeker-89/
http://users.tpg.com.au/pschamb/lom.html

There is a good video on how to use the LeakSeeker 89 at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=BUyEe8G50D4

If you build yourself the milliohm adapter, it will work the same way as
the LeakSeeker. OHMING from a point on an Address Line to another pad
will give you a changing (decreasing) milliohm value as you approach the
SHORT.

There are several URL's of inexpensive SHORT BEEPERS, and SHORT

DETECTORS to locate the SHORTED Device on a Circuit Trace.

http://www.electroniq.net/testers/el...t-diagram.html
http://edn.com/design/test-and-measu...acer-technique
http://electronics.stackexchange.com...ocation-on-pcb

7. Data Line problems will likely require an In Circuit Emulator (ICE) to

be able to troubleshoot why the DATA is incorrect. It can also be used to
READ and VERIFY the ROMS, as well as step through startup code. I've
got one ordered, but it isn't here yet.

Hope this helps someone.

Thanks.

Larry

Larry Kraemer is an ex-Military USAF Officer,

and a retired Electronics & Instrumentation
Technician, that has a hobby of Amateur Radio
(Advanced Class), and Computers, with Computer
Repair experience.
http://www.electroniq.net/testers/electric-continuity-tester-circuit-
diagram.html

A continuity tester for checking electrical connections, and ca-

bles can be designed using this circuit diagram.

This continuity tester produces a beep when there is a short, and does
not emit any sound when the circuit is interrupted, or when the resis-
tance along the circuit exceeds 1ohm. To prevent failure of sensitive
components, and for a long battery life, the tester injects a weak signal
in the circuit being tested.

When testing circuits, there are few times when Semiconductors, Transis-
tors, IC''s, will be tested as well as resistive devices. Furthermore, it is
possible that some parts will not withstand the excessive current and / or
voltage that testers inject into the circuit. For this reason a good tester
will test the PN junctions with low impedance (diodes, transistors) and
resistant. The tester must be sensitive enough to work with a weak sig-
nal.

Due to the large amplificat ion of the operational amplifier 741, current
and voltage for the test signal will be limited to 200 uA and 2 mV. The
difference in voltage between the inverting input (pin 2) and non-
inverting (pin 3) of the 741 is amplified considerably. Voltage falls out on
R2 ensure that operational amplifier become negative once the inverting
input has a greater potential than the non-inverting input. Non-inverting
potential entry can be increased by adjusting P1, so that the non-
inverting input is more positive than the inverting input. The Oscillator
N1 will generate a buzzer sound. Voltage falls to R2 is the result of a
good contact between terminals tester.

Frequency and volume can be adjusted with the potentiometer P2.

A value less than 1 ohm or a good contact point or a short circuit. To cali-
brate the continuity tester to follow the following procedure:
Put a resistance of 1 ohm (5 or 10%) between terminals, and adjust P1
so that the buzzer just about to start sounding. Remove 1 ohm resis-
tance, and creates a short circuit between the terminals. Adjust potenti-
ometer P2 for the proper volume. When the tester terminals are opened
(or short circuit is removed), buzzer should stop sounding.

Circuit Diagram:
http://edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4328211/Quickly-find-pc
-board-shorts-with-low-cost-tracer-technique

A predominant failure mechanism for production pc boards is shorted

traces. Finding hidden shorts is often time-consuming and frustrating.
Typical techniques of cutting traces, lifting pads, and "blowing" shorts
are, at best, questionable because they may affect the reliability of the
circuit, and the ever-decreasing geometries and lower voltage ICs make
these practices tricky and risky. High-end, four-wire DMMs (digital
multimeters) or ohmmeters, which can accurately measure the small
resistance values, are expensive and sometimes not available on a
designer's bench.

An inexpensive alternative approach for finding short circuits, using the

concepts of four-wire DMMs and ohmmeters is simple and requires only
the tools you already have on your bench and a basic understanding of
Ohm's Law. This approach uses the principal that all conductors have
resistance properties, and a distinct voltage drop exists between the
various nodes in the shorted circuit. This approach systematically
locates the nodes with lowest impendence between them and isolates
the fault to two nodes.

Most digital buses have at least 1Ω over the length of the run, but a
trace impedance of only 200 mΩ still has a 2-mV drop with 10-mA
current applied. Most lab-grade handheld DMMs can easily resolve to 1
mV. Because you are looking for relative values, the absolute accuracy
of the instrument isn't critical. However, the current must be constant
to achieve repeatable results, and you must isolate its current source
from the ground of the circuit under test.

A 1.5V battery in series with a 1.5-kΩ resistor is an adequate current

source for this purpose. The battery provides the isolation and relatively
constant voltage; select the resistor to source around 10 mA. (For lower
impedance traces, such as power-supply lines, or in situations in which
the DMM lacks millivo lt resolution, use a higher current.) An optional
clamping diode, with a cathode connected to the battery's negative
terminal and an anode connected to the resistor's free end, provides
protection for low-voltage logic circuits. If you use the diode, you may
also need to add a power switch to keep the battery from depleting
when the circuit is not in use.

A node can be any accessible part of the circuit path under test, such as
a via, a pad, or a test point (Figure 1). Note the current path: When
current is flowing between two nodes, a minute voltage drop occurs
across the two nodes. When the current doesn't flow between two
nodes, there is no voltage drop across those nodes.
To find the short in this example, put one DMM probe on any node on
Trace A and the other on any node on Trace B, and note the voltage
drop. In this example, if you had started with the positive probe on Node
1 and the negative probe on Node 5 and moved the negative probe to
Node 6, you would note a slight voltage drop. Next, you move the probe
to Node 7 and note that the voltage drop is equivalent to the voltage
drop at Node 6. From this test, you can deduce that the short must exist
between nodes 5 and 6 because no current flows from Node 6 to Node 7.
Then, move the positive probe to Node 2 and note a small voltage drop.
Continue down the line to Node 3 and note another small drop. Next,
probe Node 4 and note there is no voltage drop. You can now deduce
that the short must be between nodes 2 and 3 and nodes 5 and 6.

Redrawing Figure 1 with the equivalent circuit in Figure 2 makes clear

how this technique works. You are now looking at a simple series
network of resistors and looking for voltage drops across any resistor
that has current flowing through it. When a node is outside the current
path, no voltage drop occurs. By understanding the relationship of each
of the vias and their position in the current path, you can systematically
isolate the short by looking for lower voltage (current flowing) or higher
voltage (current not flowing). When current is flowing, the short is
farther from the current source. If no current is flowing, then the short is
closer to the current source. This two-valued logic makes it simple to
isolate the problem. The beauty of this technique is that it doesn't matter
to which two nodes the current source is connected, as long as one side
of the current source is connected to any node on Trace A and the other
side of the current source is connected to any node on Trace B.

In this example, the short is between two node pairs, and you can isolate
the short only to those pairs. A little knowledge of the board layout and
common sense now come into play. You need to know only where the
two traces are adjacent between nodes 5 and 6 and nodes 2 and 3, and
you have found the most likely place for the short. If it is underneath a
component, you have to remove the component; removing the
component often removes the short. If the short is on an internal layer,
you may have to do some selective cutting and jumping to isolate the
short from the traces, but at least you minimize the number of cuts on
the board.
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=30&doc_id=1284424

Determining the exact physical location of a short circuit in a printed

circuit board can be fiendishly difficult. The millivo lt measurement
method described can help.

A few weeks ago I was asked to look at a telecom PCB fresh out of
production with a small problem--the inventory EEPROM would not load
the card revision information, and a new EEPROM did not solve the
problem. I hunted up a card extender, blew off the dust, plugged it into
one of our test racks, and set the system control card to repeatedly
query the EPROM. I suspected the problem was one of the glue logic
devices controlling the EEPROM, but rather than recommend a shotgun
replacement of all the glue logic I decided to take a closer look first.

Good thing, shot-gunning would not have worked.

First clue – the scope showed the EEPROM serial data pin was stuck at a
logic high (Vdd power supply) voltage in spite of the control and clock
signals to the EPROM looking normal. Since the EPROM had already been
replaced, was there a short from this pin to Vdd?

Yes, the EEPROM output did measure about 0.1 ohms to Vdd on a DVM.
This 0.1 ohms is the normal reading of the probe wires, which sets the
low-resistance measurement limit of a DVM, so obviously there was a
‘dead short’ (approaching 0 ohms) somewhere along the length of the
trace that was connecting the output pin to a few other logic device
inputs and tri-state outputs. Maybe one of them was shorted to Vdd
inside a logic device?

Unlikely, since a defective device input or output when shorted to Vdd or

ground usually has a least a few ohms of measured resistance. But just
to make sure, I lifted all the IC pins that connected to the trace, including
the new EPROM output. This is very easy to do with surface mount
devices, wick the solder off and pry the pin off the pad slightly with sharp
tweezers while hot under the soldering iron. Careful, don’t overheat and
lift the copper pad off the board!

With all the pins lifted off the trace I could still measure a dead short
between the trace to Vdd. This exonerated all the attached devices, the
short was hidden on the pcb somewhere along the branching run of that
trace. Visual inspection under a microscope showed nothing obvious.
Perhaps it was a solder bridge lurking where an external portion of the
trace ran underneath an IC package.Or perhaps was invisible inside the
pcb.

The short could be anywhere along the branches of the trace, and the
limitations of the DVM in ohmmeter mode made it useless for resolving
below 100 milliohms. Now it was time to get out the heavy artillery. Not
a current probe, you cannot clamp a current probe around a pcb trace.
But with the following procedure the physical location of a dead short is
relatively easy to locate.

The trick is to apply a controlled current from a current-limited lab power

supply through the short, in this case between the shorted trace and
Vdd, and look where the current is going. The current flow will be
directly through the short and the path leading to that short, but will not
flow along any other path of the isolated trace (all logic device pins still
lifted off their pads). Of course we cannot actually see where the current
flows, but we can measure the result of the current flow to get that
information.

The copper trace is not a perfect conductor, it has many milliohms of

resistance depending on its thickness, width, and length. Forcing 1 amp
through the short will produce 1 millivolt drop for every milliohm of trace
resistance (Ohm’s Law from Electronics 101). Even the cheapest modern
DVM from the hardware store can resolve down to 0.1 millivo lt, plenty
good enough for this. The current level should be adjusted for as low as
possible to still get meaningful voltage readings, too much current can
burn open a very thin trace. On the other hand, if trying to locate a
short that is between the power planes, 2 or 3 amps may be needed due
to the much lower resistance of power planes.

Even when traces are buried on internal layers, measurement points are
where the trace is brought to outer layers through vias. It helps if you
know (from the pcb design artwork) or can deduce the internal paths of
the trace layout.

Inject the current – find convenient places to solder wires to the shorted
trace and Vdd. It doesn’t really matter where the current starts, it will
eventually end up at the short. A good place to solder a wire to Vdd is at
one end of a decoupling capacitor. Solder a second Vdd wire to another
point nearby. Another wire soldered to a via or component of the
shorted trace, and you’re in business.

Preset a lab power supply to about 0.4 volts open circuit, then short the
power supply output and set the current limit to 200 mA. You can always
increase the current later if needed. 0.4 volts is a safe starting point in
the event that you overlooked a device and did not lift its pin from the
trace; 0.4 volts will not bias input clamp diodes into conduction should
the short suddenly disappear. Then connect the power supply to the
trace and one of the Vdd test wires soldered onto the pcb.
Set the DVM to the millivolt range and connect one probe to the other
Vdd wire, this avoids measuring voltage dropped along the Vdd wire from
the supply. Touch the other DVM probe to the wire that is soldered to
the trace. You will read several millivolts, this is the voltage dropped
along the trace as the current flows to the short.

Now move the trace probe to the next access point (via or IC pad) and
note the measured voltage drop. If the drop reduces, you have moved
the probe closer to the short. If the drop does not change, there is no
current flowing along the branch whose two points you have just
measured.

Figure 1 below depicts a typical pcb trace routing, portions of the trace
can be on inner or external layers, vias bring inner layer trace portions to
the external layers for connection to surface mounted device pads. For
clarity most devices are not shown. Wires to the current-limited lab
power supply and DVM can be soldered to either vias or components that
are connected to the shorted trace and Vdd.
Figure 1: Typical trace route and via measurement points

With one DVM probe connected to Vdd through the connected wire, move
the other probe around to the vias of the shorted trace. Note the voltage
readings at each measurement point.

Starting at the resistor 60 mV is measured where the supply wire is

attached. Via A measures 50 mV. Thus 10 mV is dropped along the
trace between the resistor and via A, indicat ing that current is flowing
through this portion of the trace on its way to the short.

Via B measures 30 mV. If the trace is already on a surface layer and via
B is not part of the trace, pin 1 of the IC is a good point to measure
instead. Hmm, the trace runs underneath the IC on it’s way to via C.
Could there be a solder bridge between the trace and where it runs
between the IC pins? Via C measures the same 30 mV as via B or IC pin
1, obviously no voltage is dropped along this portion. Thus no current
flows here, so no short under the IC.

Via D is 10 mV (getting closer!), but via E is even lower at 2 mV. The

current must be flowing to via E. The 10 mV at via D happens because
the trace forms a resistive voltage divider at the junction between the
branch to via D and the section between via B and via E. The same
effect causes vias B and C to measure 30 mV.

Via F is the same 2 mV as via E. No current is flowing along the trace

between via E and via F, so the short is not at or beyond via F.

That leaves via E as the prime suspect. The current is draining into via E
and no farther.

In my case, I had the luxury of an X-ray machine to see what might be

lurking inside the pcb. Figure 2 below confirms the culprit --deep inside
the pcb there is a small conductive particle touching the copper barrel of
the via and shorting it to the internal Vdd plane layer near the upper
center of the image. The thick object running to the left is a wire that I
soldered to the via to confirm it was the location of the short prior to
making the X-ray image. The cure was to use a small drill bit in a pin vise
to drill out the via barrel and jumper the trace connections around the via
using AWG 30 Kynar insulated wire.

Even without an X-ray machine, knowing the physical location of the

short and probable cause enables one can drill out vias or cut external
layer traces to isolate the short.
Figure 2: X-ray image of a pcb
internal short. A small
conductive particle upper center
protrudes from an internal plane
layer and contacts the barrel of
the via at center. The wide
object running to the left is a
wire that was soldered to the via
for final confirmation of the short
location prior to making this
X-ray image. (Courtesy of
ICBS / EO Networks Division)

Glen Chenier is a design

consultant based in Allen TX.
 Business Time with Kev
Well it’s sometimes a sad fact that unpacking my rather voluminous
computer collect ion has at times become a little overwhelming but the
majestic heavyweights of the TRS-80 world, the Model 16’s, have
percolated to the surface and been reunited with their keyboards.

For those who viewed the photos in my last article showing my new
facility for housing, running and enjoying my wonderful collection,
imagine that now looking like the back room in a charity shop just after
the collection truck has been unloaded (my apologies to any charity shop
workers and operators who may be reading this - you all do a very
wonderful job). I suppose metaphorically speaking a bomb has hit the
place. But that's an essential part of getting it all unpacked, placed
properly and being accessible for later pleasures. But this should be a
lesson to all of us - when we moved from Adelaide (South Australia) to
Melbourne (Victoria) we (the removalists) brought 84 cubic metres with
us – my wife says 45 of that was my old computer stuff but I can’t argue
with her for two reasons – one is she’s my wife and the other is she’s
right despite that.

So despite it all being

packed away I continued to
collect more stuff (my wife
said I had enough but she
can’t be right about
everything). My estimates
of being operational by
October 2014 are in a
bucket again and I think
quite a few more months
are required. Somehow I
think Moore’s Law kind of
applies in principle to
classic computer collecting.

Now just to refresh

memories I have two Model
16’s (that’s kind of correct but I'll expand more in my next article). I’m
going to talk a little bit about the second one I acquired first – this won’t
be a long article because I’m still not in a position to fire this thing up.
This one has not been fired up since I got it so there’s no telling what
shape it might be in internally. There’s another very good reason to look
inside first before the power goes on apart from any pre-emptive strikes
on the power supply caps.
This particular machine came from a bakery in Maitland on the Yorke
Peninsula of South Australia (see the map for our non-Australian readers
and I seem to recall it was Fenwick’s Bakery [but don’t quote me on that]
for any South Australian readers) so I’m thinking lots of flour and various
other types of powdery bakery dusty stuff that has possibly found its way
into all sorts of nooks and crannies and is ready to overheat something or
maybe even ignite!

Now for collectors it’s nice to know a little bit of the history of any
particular item so knowing that this machine came from a bakery in
Maitland is kind of a nice story to know and tell people. But it’s actually
extremely significant but I won’t expand on why until I introduce my
other Model 16 in the next issue because this little bit of trivia then
suddenly becomes hugely important, particularly given that the two
acquisitions were entirely independent of each other by way of time and
distance.

My second heavyweight acquisition was a Model 16b (Radio Shack Cat

No: 26-6004). A search of IRA Goldklang’s RS Cat Number Search shows
that to be a single disk Model 16b. From the photo below you can see
that this unit has an internal hard disk drive (referenced by the OS as
Drive 4). The 8” floppy on the right (referenced by the OS as Drive 0) is
of the Thinline type (think of it as like a half-height drive). The 8”
machines shipped with three types of floppy drives: the Push-button, the
Latch and the Thinline. They all served the same purpose of getting data
on and off discs but had some different configuration requirements that
were looked after in the operating system. The particular differences will
probably make an article for a later date. You might also see from the
photo below that the floppy drive has been stored with its storage and
shipping card in place – that’s how I got it and all bar a few minutes it’s
been like that the whole time so hopefully the floppy drive is still in good
order. As with most early TRS-80 hard drives I fully expect the hard drive
to be non-operational but sooner or later I’m going to have to find out for
certain.
So it looks like when this was originally shipped it had a lonely single 8”
floppy drive and at least 384KB of RAM being a Model 16b. The catalogue
price at the time was $4,999 (that would be US dollars). Today that
would be about $11,430 (a little t ip for collectors – if you have the
catalogue price of an item you can calculate its cost today [I used US
Dollars as that was the catalogue price used for this] using Wolfram
Alpha -http://www.wo lframalpha.com/input/?i=US%244999+%
281984+US+dollars%29 – or you can punch it straight into the search
line in Wolfram Alpha like this US$4999 (1984 US dollars) - of course
substitute your own dollars and year and I have not tested other
currencies). For this article I have assumed a purchase year of 1984. On
the back I found this little sticker.

Another search of Ira’s cat numbers for 26-4154 showed that this is a
“Model II/12/16/6000 - Accessory - 15 Meg Hard Disk Kit – Primary”. The
catalogue price at the time was $2,495 (today $5,703.51). These
machines did ship already fitted with a (15MB) hard disk drive if so
ordered as catalogue number 26-6006 at a price of $6,999 (today
$16,000) – I don’t know about you but in the early 1980’s that was quite
a frightening amount of money I suspect.

With a total investment in this machine at the time of $7,494 as opposed

to buying it outright with a HDD installed at $6,999 you’d might assume
that the fitting of a HDD for this machine was an afterthought. Of course
this is guesswork – maybe at the time Radio Shack couldn’t supply a 26-
6006 so they fitted a 26-6004 with a HDD for them or maybe this was
just the way they shipped a 26-6006 at the time in Australia - we most
probably will never know.

Externally the unit is quite clean, particularly compared to my other

Model 16. I did open the back to look inside the cage (see the photo
below) but ventured no further at this stage so there’s been no particular
investigation of the cards or other internals but it all looks relatively
standard. Yes that’s a big fan in the back and the cage is particularly
insulated to ensure air passes through the cage and not around it. The
two bars at the bottom of the fan door are cable strain stays. You can fit
these machines with additional floppy and hard disk drives (the ports for
doing that are accessed from inside the cage) and you fix the cables
under these bars to take any strain on the cables.

The back also supports a parallel port and two serial connections. The
serial connections, while being RS-232C ports, have some differences.
Serial A allows asynchronous and synchronous transmission while Serial
B only allows asynchronous transmission.
Three operating systems were on offer from Radio Shack at the time TRS
-XENIX, TRSDOS-II and TRSDOS 2.0b. If the hard drive on this particular
machine is still viable it will be interesting to see what is installed on it (if
anything) and what other software may be there too. Hopefully it might
tell me a bit more about the machine’s origins and use.

Floppy discs could store about 600KB for a single sided and 1.2MB for a
double sided disc. I do have several hundred 8” floppy discs and some of
them are tending to go the way of the early hard drives of course with
the surface looking like a cracked and parched desert – it’s a common
problem. Fortunately lots of stuff I have has been relatively well stored
so it may still be OK but that’s part of the fun in getting this back up and
running. Anything that is still in its shrink wrap is gold of course.
The monochrome screen displays 80 x 40 characters – green on black or
black on green (reversed). The machine can display the “full ASCII set”
of characters and 32 graphic characters.

For input/output processing the machine uses the ever faithful Z80A and
for computational processing uses the 68000.
Hard drive specs are as follows:
Cylinders per track 306
Tracks per unit 1,836
Tracks per platter 612
Sectors per track 34
Bytes per sector 256
Average latency 8.3msec
Rotational speed 3,600rpm
Recording density 9,625bpi
Storage unformatted 19MB
Track density 345tpi
Storage formatted (Primary drive) 15.5MB
Storage formatted (Secondary drive) 15.9MB*

* I suppose 400KB back in those days was a huge amount of space and
worthy of getting a mention in the specs even though it was less that the
space on a single sided floppy. You could fit a remarkable amount of stuff
in 400KB back in 1984.
Well I hope that was of interest to TRS8BIT readers. Next article I hope
to give the other Model 16 similar treatment and join some dots on the
history of these two gentle giants.
 ASK MAV
ABOUT THE TRS-80 MODEL 4P PORTABLE COMPUTER
by Ian Mavric

1.
Q. Compared to a present-day laptop, the 4P looks weird, was that as
portable as they could make a computer in 1983?
A. For a short period between 1981 and 1984, computer companies
produced what are termed "luggable" computers, and the 4P was one of
these. Others similar in design include the Osborne 1 and Executive,
Kaypro II-to-16 series, and the IBM Portable PC 5155. All feature small
CRT monitors, dual disk drives, full keyboards, and are mains operated.
They all approximate the size of a portable sewing machine, but to my
mind weigh slightly more. The 4P was one of the later ones and is a few
pounds lighter than Kaypros and the IBM. These 'portable' computers
could be lugged from site to site, and used anywhere AC power was
available. By 1985 LCD and battery technology had improved in
performance and decreased in price so much so that these luggable
computers were seen as obsolete and needlessly heavy. Once computers
like the TRS-80 Model 100 showed the way forward with a small,
lightweight LCD and battery-based notebook which could be used on
one's lap, development of luggables not so much slowed down but halted
completely. So did sales.

However I disagree about the perception that luggables were as weird as

people say they were. The 4P and its cousins were fully capable systems
running the same operating systems (TRSDOS and CP/M for the 4P, CP/M
for the Osborne and Kaypro, and MS-DOS for the IBM 5155) and had the
same performance and storage as a desktop computer. It would take
another decade for laptop/notebook computers to catch up with
desktops as far as performance goes.

Pictures: Kaypo (left) and Osbourne (right) are similar luggables to the
4P
The buying public made their preferences felt when Tandy released the
4P and the Model 100 at the same time. The 4P lasted only two years on
the market whereas the Model 100 and its successors (the Tandy 102
and 200) continued to sell well for 7 or 8 years. This despite the fact
that by the time you outfitted your Model 100 with a Disk-Video interface
and a monitor it cost more than a 4P and still had less power.

2.
Q. My 4P has yellowed so much it looks like aged cheese. Can I do
anything about it?
A. This happens with some white Tandy computers and not others. The
Model 4 is made of the same high-impact ABS plastic but Tandy went one
step further and painted the plastic case with textured white paint. This
paint doesn't go yellow but its possible for the base can go yellow, as the
base isn't painted, only the top.

Retr0brite ( http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/ ), which is a chemical

process which restores computer plastics back to their original colour. It
has been used successfully on other popular systems such as the C64
and Apple IIe. It has been used on the 4P with good success however
the quantities of chemicals required can be costly as the 4P case is
positively enormous compared to a Commodore 64.

People have also painted their 4Ps which has given them a pleasant
appearance, just remember these computers were off-white when new,
as opposed to "paper" white.

Picture: a yellowed Model 4P

3.
Q. What revisions of the 4P did they release?
A. The 4P came in two versions, the original and the gate array. The
original has the catalogue number 26-1080 on it and has a non-gate
array motherboard, traditional TRS-80 keyboard with up-down arrows on
the to the left of the A and Q keys, and the left-right arrows next to the
@ key. It also uses metal latches to hold the front cover on. On USDM
machines they have a B&W CRT, though the rest of the world got a green
CRT. The 2nd 4P has the catalogue number of 26-1080A and it has a re-
designed gate-array motherboard, the keyboard has a cluster of arrows,
and the front cover is held on with rubberised plastic latches. All of these
2nd generation 4Ps use green CRTs regardless of which country they
were sold in.

Pictures: 4P keyboards - early (top) and late (bottom)

As far as performance goes they are equivalent. If you play a lot of old
TRS-80 games then the arrow key arrangement on earlier systems
makes it slightly more friendly to use. Other than that they are more or
less the same computer to use.

4.
Q. I heard Tandy included a hard disk auto-boot routine in the 4P BIOS -
is this true?
A. When Tandy designed the 4P the team responsible for the BIOS
thought it would be neat to have the 4P auto-boot from a TRS-80 5Mb
hard disk drive without a hard disk start-up boot floppy. Previously all
TRS-80s required a boot floppy and so losing the boot floppy was
considered a good thing. However the method used required the hard
drive to be set up with a very specific set of hard drive parameters in
order for it to work, particularly in relation to the first partition of the
hard drive. Also, necessary patches to the hard disk operating system
were easy to flub, resulting in loss of information on drive. By the time
the 4P was ready for release, Tandy has discontinued the 5Mb hard drive
and was selling 10Mb, 12Mb and within a year, 15Mb hard drives, all of
which were basically incompatible with the 4Ps auto-boot method. A
decision at Tandy was to leave the routine undocumented.

Eventually news of the undocumented boot routine surfaced and some

clever people worked out how to set up the system so that it does indeed
boot from a hard drive. For those interested they should check TRS-Link
issue #3, TMQ Spring 1990 Volume IV.iii page 19, and Bits&Bytes Issue
100, pages 7-9. Naturally since a FreHD emulates a TRS-80 hard drive,
the patches used to turn a real TRS-80 hard drive into an auto-boot hard
drive can also be used with a FreHD - no internal 4P EPROM modificat ion
needed.

5.
Q. I'd like to add double-sided disk drives to my 4P - is it hard?
A. It's fairly easy modification to make as the FDC on the 4P
motherboard is already capable of addressing double sided disk drives.
What you need is a pair of drives, such as Teac FD55-BR, which are 360K
double-sided double-density black faced disk drives. (You find them in
Tandy 1000s.) Also, need a cable which has all the teeth in place. Tandy
uses a cable with teeth pulled for drive select, but using double sided
drives need all teeth in place. Next you need to set the drive number but
setting the drive-select jumper on each disk drive. DS0 will be the
booting drive and DS1 the data drive. Typically one installs the DS0
drive closest to the CRT. Finally you need to drill new holes in the sheet
metal assembly which holds the disk drives. The type of disk drive
chosen by Tandy has the drive mounted about 0.5cm more forward than
standard drives, so you need to drill new holes so the replacement drives
fit flush with the front bezel of the 4P.
Once completed, verify the systems works properly still with normal
single-sided operating systems, then read the manual of your favourite
operating system about how to format double sided bootable disks, are
you are set.

ianm@trs-80.com
 USEFUL PROGRAM FROM THE PAST... THAT
IS STILL USEFUL TODAY
PART 1: JOHN SCHEER'S MODEL 4 CRT SCREEN SAVER

Presented by Ian Mavric

This new series brings back great old programs from defunct magazines
from back in the day. Magazines like 80micro, Computer User, Computer
News 80, Micro-80 and 80-US had program listings for useful utilities.
Each issue I, or another regular TRS8Bit columnist, will present a pro-
gram that we used back in the day, and continue to use today.

Today I present: CRT Screen Saver program by John Scheer from

80micro, October 1987, pages 75-79.

In order to keep these old machines running we need to preserve our

CRTs and John Scheer provided a great screen saver program in October
1987 which did exactly that. While screen savers are commonplace
these days and in fact were commonly installed on PCs in 1987, one for a
TRS-80 was a novel idea. I've been using it for 30 years and have only
found a couple of programs which don't work with it (LeScript and Super-
Scripsit).

If your Model 4 or 4P is on for hours or days at a time like mine are, you
should really benefit from using this program to make sure your CRT
lasts as long as the rest of your TRS-80 does.

ianm@trs-80.com
 The BEST in TRS-80s
Call The Right Stuff
Ask for Ian
The number is +61 416 184 893

That's The Right Stuff

And he's in Melbourne

http://ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/trs80/
In this iss
u e of
 IN MAV'S WORKSHOP

by Ian Mavric

MODEL III GRAPHICS BOARD INTO A

MODEL 4

Some time ago I purchased a Model III off eBay which had the rare hi-
res graphics board installed. For those who are unaware, Tandy sold a hi
-res graphics board (Cat. No. 26-1125) which added 640x240 (153,600
pixels) hi-resolution graphics to the Model III1 . It was expensive and was
not initially supported by a lot of software. As time went on and Tandy
released the Model 4 and its version of the graphics board with the same
capabilit ies, more software came along, and the hi-res board became an
interesting and useful upgrade.

When my eBay Model III arrived it was smashed due to poor packing by
the seller and/or poor shipping by the carrier. The CRT and cabinet was
busted, but it turned out the rest of the machine was in pretty good
condition and the main guts of the machine looked pretty undamaged
and still worked. Pondering which way to move forward, I remembered
that Ira's www.trs-80.com site had details about how to make a Model III
graphics board work on the Model 42 , and this seemed like the perfect
opportunity to try out that project.

WHAT YOU NEED TO PERFORM THE UPGRADE

The hardware of the Model III hi-res board comprises of four parts: the hi
-res board assembly, a bus interconnect cable assembly, a video pass-
through cable, and a power cable (see picture). The upgrade only works
on Model 4 non-Gate Array systems. It won't work on Gate Array
systems due to differences in the video output section of the
motherboard. Check your Model 4 to see if it has a 2-pin power
connector hidden away near the power supply - most have them, it is
used to power network cards on Model 4 student workstations - but in
this case it will be used to power the hi-res board. If your Model 4
started out as a 16K diskless machine which has the two Model III-style
35-watt power supplies inside, then you will need to use the power cable
supplied with the hi-res board - it replaces the existing FDC power cable.
MODIFY THE MOTHERBOARD

U22 is a 74LS32 and needs to have pin 12 disconnected from the

motherboard and wires to pin 7. Getting at the pin is difficult so I just
unsoldered the chip, installed a socket and performed the modification on
a new chip. This way I can also go back to standard in the future if
needed.
MODIFY THE HI-RES BOARD

U25 on the hi-res board gets a 74LS02 piggybacked onto it - only the
power pins (7 and 14), and you then run three wires: Pin 8 to Pin 21 of
the 50-pin I/O bus; Pin 9 to Pin 25 of the 50-pin I/O bus; and Pin 10 to
Pin 11 of U8 (a PAL chip). Lastly you need to cut the trace which
connected U25 Pin 8 to U8 Pin 11. With only one trace cut, I can also
easily go back to standard if needed in the future by unsoldering the
piggybacked 74LS02 and restoring the trace cut.
RE-ASSEMBLE YOUR COMPUTER

If you removed your hi-res board from a Model III then just connect it up
in the same manner on your Model 4. If not, it's pretty easy to work
out...

Connect the bus interconnect cable assembly to the Model 4 motherboard

so that they "tail" hangs out the bottom of the computer (this is so
external devices like a hard drive or FreHD can be attached to the
computer), and the short female cable faces chips U73-76 on the
motherboard. Screw in the eight screws which hold the motherboard in
place, and plug in everything except the hi-res board. Test functioning of
the system - it should all work as it did before.

Now connect the hi-res board into the bus interconnect cable and mount
the whole aluminium chassis assembly in place where the previous RFI
shield was. Your Model 4, particularly if it was an international version,
may not have had an RFI shield fitted, if so examine the holes on the hi-
res board's aluminium chassis and the Model 4 electronics chassis and it's
pretty self explanatory where all six holes line up.
WIRE IT UP ALREADY!

On the back of the hi-res board you will see three connectors, a 2-pin
one, and two 6-pin ones. Plug the two-pin power cable into the 2-pin
connector. Motherboard video now runs via the hi-res board so the short
6-wire cable connects to the existing video output on the motherboard
and the right connector on the hi-res board. Finally the old video cable
which used to connect to the motherboard is connected to the middle
connector on the hi-res board, along with it's grounding strap (see
photo).
TESTING

Booting the system up it should run normally, and you can test it out
with hi-res programs. Fractals by Micro-Labs Inc3 . is a Model 4 program
which is one of my favourites, it boots quickly and will confirm the hi-res
board's operating status in a few minutes. Remember also to program in
hi-res BASIC, called "BASICG" you need copies of the special versions of
TRSDOS 1.3 from the 26-1125 kit and the TRSDOS 6.x disk from the 26-
1126 kit.

HISTORICALLY SPEAKING...

I wondered why Radio Shack itself went to the trouble of releasing a tech
bulletin about making the Model III hi-res board work on the Model 4...
surely anyone with a Model 4 would buy the new-design 26-1126 hi-res
board, as it was $100 cheaper than the Model III board. It made no
economic sense to Model 4 owners to buy a Model III board to install in a
Model 4. Then I remembered Radio Shack offered the 26-1123 Model III
-to-4 upgrade4 , which replaced the Model III motherboard with a Model 4
one. I can see a predicament where an owner of a hi-res Model III
wanted to upgrade to a Model 4 but re-use the hi-res board.
SOURCES OF HI-RES SOFTWARE

While not supported as extensively as the hi res graphics on the Apple ][,
IBM PC, or even the Coco, there is enough software to make interesting
use of the hi-res board if you know where to find it. The BASICG
language is similar to GW -BASIC on the IBM PC and Extended Colour
Basic on the Coco, with commands like LINE, CIRCLE and PAINT much
software can be easily modified to use on the Model III and 4. 80micro
regularly ran articles with hi-res software from the years 1985-87.

In a future article I may outline some of the better software for the hi-res
board and where to find it.

Ian Mavric

ianm@trs-80.com

References:
1. TRS-80 Catalogue RSC-9, September 1983, page 28.

2. http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/zaps-patches-pokes-tips/hardware/
#m3graphics

3. http://www.trs-80.org/model-4-grafyx-solution/

4. TRS-80 Catalogue RSC-9, September 1983, page 20.

Ian Mavric is an IT Specialist who also restores and

collects TRS-80's and classic cars. He live with his wife
and kids in Melbourne, Australia.
 The CoCo SDC Project
Full details from -
http://cocosdc.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/introduction.html

The CoCo SDC is a home-brew project for the TRS-80 Colour Computer
(CoCo). It has been in various stages of development since 2009. The
original plan was to provide floppy controller emulation which worked in
conjunction with the DriveWire server. That idea was eventually scrapped
in favour of a self-contained system using an SD card.

A number of high capacity storage solutions have previously been

developed for the CoCo, including a MicroSD card interface, a handful of
IDE and SCSI interfaces and the very popular DriveWire server. One
drawback of these offerings has been that they aren't compatible with
software that was written to interact directly with a floppy disk controller.
This isn't so much a problem if you are primarily using the CoCo for Basic
programming or running OS9 software. There are however a number of
titles (mostly commercial games) that fail to work with those other
systems.
The CoCo SDC aims to solve the compatibility problem by combining the
traditional "software hook" approach with a robust emulation of the
floppy controller in hardware. This dual mode implementation provides
excellent performance for the majority of software which "plays by the
rules" while adding a high degree of compatibility with those titles that
employ floppy-based copy protection schemes or simply choose to roll
their own floppy drivers.

An enhanced LBA access mode has also been incorporated into the
firmware, allowing the CoCo SDC to go beyond simply emulating floppy
disks and interface with virtual hard disk images as large as 2
gigabytes. Two separate disk images (floppy or hard disk) contained on
the same SD card may be "connected" simultaneously.

Also onboard is 128K of Flash memory which is divided into 8 banks of

16K. These 16K banks are both hardware and software selectable and
occupy the cartridge ROM space from $C000 to $FEFF.
One bank of the Flash memory is used to hold the SDC-DOS code which
is yet another patched version of Microsoft's Disk Extended Colour Basic
1.1. Included in SDC-DOS are additional commands to mount disk image
files on the SD card, program the Flash and execute ROM images
contained in the Flash. DriveWire disk support is also included in SDC-
DOS.

Features and Specifications

 Atmega 328P AVR micro controller @ 10Mhz

Custom 512 byte boot-loader allows firmware to be updated by the
CoCo
 128K In-System-Programmable Flash
 Accepts SD/SDHC cards formatted with FAT16 or FAT32 file system
 Emulates a Tandy Floppy Disk Controller
Future firmware planned to emulate Dragon DOS floppy controllers
 LBA access mode for virtual hard disk support
 Extensions to Disk Basic in SDC-DOS for disk image manipulation
 DriveWire disk protocol with auto-speed configuration for CoCo 1, 2
or 3
 "Disk Switch" button to support multi-disk programs
 PCB can be mounted in a Tandy FD-502 enclosure
 LOOKING FOR FAST,
INEXPENSIVE, UNLIMITED MASS
STORAGE FOR YOUR TRS-80
MODEL I/III/4/4P/4D?
The amazing

"FreHD"

-Emulates a TRS-80 hard drive, but faster than any hard drive!
-Works with your favourite DOS (LS-DOS, LDOS, CP/M, Newdos/80 2.5)
-Uses SD card for storage medium
-Bonus free Real Time Clock function!
-Designed in Belgium and proudly built and shipped from Australia
-Kit form or fully assembled

Order yours today:

http://ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/trs80/emulator
 IN MAV'S FreHD WORKSHOP
by Ian Mavric

HOW TO CONVERT TRS-80 MODEL III/4NGA TO

FreHD AUTO BOOT
Last issue I started with the biggie, installing the auto-boot EPROM to the
Model I. It involved lots of wires to be soldered, and a relatively
expensive EPROM (27C256). This time I discuss how to add the EPROM
to the Model III and 4NGA, which is positively a walk in the park. The
EPROM can be produced by downloading the BIN file from the downloads
page from my web site, or if you don't have your own EPROM
programmer, I can burn and send you the EPROM for a small cost.

Only one part is needed, a 2716 EPROM which holds a modified version
of the code which was originally in ROM C. Once installed you will lose
the ability to CSAVE tapes at 1500 baud, as the FreHD auto -boot coding
resides in the place the CSAVE routine used to like. Fred Vecoven - the
designer of the auto-boot EPROM and indeed the FreHD itself - figured
this was a fair trade-off. Not many people have the need to record 1500
baud tapes anymore. And I am in full agreement.

On the Model III:

System requirements: 48K Model III, disk or diskless system. You also
need a FreHD.

Modification summary: Remove old ROM C and install new EPROM.

1. Open your Model III the usual way and remove the RFI shield covering
the motherboard (if fitted). Locate U106 (it's in the lower right-hand
corner of the motherboard) and remove the chip already installed. Burn
the file http://ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/downloads/model3rom-
C2.bin to a 2716 EPROM and insert it into U106. Re-assemble computer
and make sure it runs properly before connecting FreHD.

On the Model 4:

System requirements: 64K Model 4, disk or diskless. You need to have a

Non-Gate Array motherboard. You also need a FreHD.

Modification summary: Determine which Rom version you have, remove

old ROM C, and install new EPROM.
1. Non-Gate Array motherboards came with two distinct ROM sets which
we call GEN1 (installed on 80% of Model 4s) and GEN2 (installed on the
other 20%). To determine which one you have, either download ROMID/
CMD (a program by Dean Bear) from my web site: http://
ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/downloads/romid.zip Run it on your
machine and it will tell you which ROM version you have. The other way
is to look at U68 and if it has Tandy code 8041364 on it then it's a GEN1
ROM set installed, and if U68 has 8048364 or 8048364A then you have
GEN2 installed. See picture:

Picture: U68 GEN1 ROM (top) and GEN2 ROM (bottom)

2. Burn the file http://ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/downloads/

model4rom-C.bin (GEN1) or http://ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/
downloads/model4romgen2-C.bin (GEN2) to a 2716 EPROM and insert it
into U70. Re-assemble computer and make sure it runs properly before
connecting FreHD.

SET UP YOUR SD CARD:

Auto-boot FreHD systems require a special image file (at this stage) and
fortunately we have put all the popular Model III/4 operating systems
into a single ZIP file you can download from: http://
ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/downloads/FreHD%20Self%20Boot%
20Start%20Files.zip LS-DOS 6.3.1, CP/M 2.2, LDOS 5.3.1 and
Newdos/80 V2.5 (obviously only the last two work on the Model III) and
a small file called frehd.rom which is the menu system.
CONCLUSION:

This modification gives you a reliable system which boots up quickly

without a floppy disk. As diskettes become more scarce and unreliable,
this system makes using the TRS-80 much more pleasurable since you
no long need to worry if your favourite boot disk will still work.

I'd like to mention Dean Bear for all his hard work on the ROMID/CMD
program as it makes checking ROM version without opening the TRS -80
quick and painless. Thanks buddy.

Next time: Upgrading the Model 4GA/4D with FreHD auto-boot.

Ian Mavric

ianm@trs-80.com
 ASK MAV
ABOUT THE TANDY TRS-80 MODEL 4D
MICROCOMPUTER
by Ian Mavric

1.

Q. What is a Model 4D? I've never heard of it...

A. In late 1985, in readiness for the 1986 Radio Shack Computer
Catalogue RSC-15 Tandy introduced the Model 4D as a face-lifted better-
value version of the Model 4 Gate Array computer. While I'm sure test
units were sent to countries like Australia, UK and France, Tandy decided
to only sell the 4D in the USA and Canada, and to let the stocks of Model
4s in other countries just sell out. Evidence of this is in the Australian
1986 Tandy Electronics catalog only featuring the Model 4 Gate Array and
the 1987 Computer and main catalogues in Australia has no Model 4 on
offer at all. I'm sure similar bad news was noted in countries other than
the USA and Canada. To summarise a 4D is pretty easy, its a Model 4
Gate Array with an extra key (backspace), dual double-sided twist latch
disk drives (actually 1/2 height drives with oversized face plates), and
new nameplate, and Model 4 Deskmate software thrown in for free.
Init ially it was thought that the D stood for double-sided disk drives but
Radio Shack was adamant it stood for Deskmate.

Deskmate was a simple and easy to use integrated suite of popular

applications at the time including word processing, data manager,
terminal program, spreadsheet etc. Tandy made Deskmate for various
other computers including the Tandy 1000 and 2000, and the Colour
Computer 2 and 3. It did it's job OK and probably helped with Tandy
1000 sales so Tandy figured the same would stimulate Model 4 sales.

2.

Q. Did Tandy advertise the computer? I don't recall any ads anywhere...
A. They must have figured the computer would sell itself because Tandy
invested virtually nothing in promoting the machine. I can think of only
one advert made for the 4D which appeared in magazines like 80micro
(so essentially preaching to the already converted masses):
During it's long life (that's not to say it sold in huge numbers) it never
dropped in price from $1199 and was still a regular feature in the 1990
catalog. People from 80micro speculated at the time that Tandy only did
a single production run and it took that many years to sell them all, or
that the profit margin per machine was so good that they didn't want to
reduce the price on a computer which was selling 50-100 units per
month. Conspiracy theorists speculated that Tandy wanted to keep a
computer which was historically related to their first computer on the
market due to the main competitor Apple still selling a computer (called
the IIgs) which was still related to their first successful computer - the
Apple ][. I don't really buy that explanation because while the Apple IIgs
was fairly current by 1990 (having a mouse, GUI, and 16-bit
architecture) the Model 4D was just hopelessly outdated in every aspect.

3.
Q. I own a Model 4 that works well, is there any point in buying a 4D?
A. Not really. The 4D's double-sided disk drives are handy but double
sided disk drives or 3.5in disk drives can be easily added to any Model 4.
The 4D runs at the same speed and has the same memory sizes (64K up
to 128K) as the Model 4. The green screen is quite nice to have if you
own an early Model 4 with the B&W screen but basically that's it.
4.
Q. Does the 4D have any problems one should be aware of?
A. It's actually a very well sorted machine and rarely gives any
problems. Early 4Ds had a membrane keyboard which felt dead to type
on and was difficult to repair so if that keyboard fails you more or less
throw it away and replace it with another one. Later keyboards were by
ALPS and as well as being much nicer to type on, you can also repair
individual key switches when they fail.

The disk drives are by Japanese manufacturer TEC and are type FB-503
and are not a bad unit, quiet and dependable with a direct -drive motor
no belts to wear out. But there is one problem which affects most drives
I have seen, which is the electrolytic capacitors tend to leak and cause
corrosion damage the logic board. The caps which cause most problems
are C14, C16, C17, and to a lesser extend C26 and C28. If your disk
drive fails unexpectedly check around these capacitors for unexplained
corrosion, and you may be able to replace them and replace damaged
PCB tracks. This problem doesn't seem to relate to how much or little
work the drive has done. I have seen drives with leaky capacitor which
have only done a few hours work in their life. Inspect yours today!

5.
Q. The screen is very sharp, how did they get such a clear picture?
A. Upon opening the 4D I noticed they used the Model 4P video board,
which is noted for it's very sharp picture. Time-wise this makes sense,
Tandy stopped making the 4P around the time they started making 4Ds
so probably had a large stock of 4P video board so just used them in the
new computer. All 4Ds come with a high-quality Phillips 12VCMP31
picture tube which was also used in the high-end business computers like
the Model 12, 16B and 6000. It's much sharper than the television grade
picture tube used in TRS-80 Model I/III/4 computers.

6. How do I install a hi-res graphics board?

The Radio Shack graphics board (cat. no. 26-1126) from the regular
Model 4 just fits plugged into it's own special connector the same way as
the earlier machine. However due to the differing refresh-rates of the
Model 4D and Model III, the Model III graphics board into Model 4
installat ion won't work, so don't try it. I have also used a Grafyx Solution
board from Micro-Labs and it works fine on the 4D.

Next time: I answer questions about the Tandy TRS-80 Model 2000.

ianm@trs-80.com
 Business Time with Kev

I my last article I introduced the second of my Model 16’s. Thank you for
all the positive comments as we (including me) re-discover these
majestic machines.
An issue aside, my unpacking woes have got worse as we removed the
remaining machines from the original storage area to move cars back in
there. Moving three AS/400’s into an already cramped and messy space
just doesn’t help but such is our lot in collect ing life.
Now before you get to some glorious photos of the first Model 16 I
acquired a little history is quite relevant here.
You might recall from my last article that the Model 16 featured came
from a bakery. Here’s what’s interesting, so did my first one but not the
same bakery. It came from a bakery in Mallala in South Australia. For
those who are motor racing enthusiasts this town might sound familiar
due to the presence of a very famous motor sport track.

Now for us Australians, Minlaton, where my other Model 16 came from,

and Mallala are not that far away from each other – about 151km (or just
down the road as we say).
I was talking to fellow columnist Ian Mavric about the significance of this
or even it was significant. Back in those days a Model 16 was very
expensive hardware and is it just a coincidence that two machines
surface that are both from bakeries. By the way they didn’t surface at the
same time – I can’t recall how far apart it was but I seem to recall it was
about two years. Ian seemed to think that back in those days some
states and Tandy stores were a little more entrepreneurial than others
and maybe it’s a case that someone saw a market in bakery software or
just technology of some type in bakeries – we may never know. The first
Model 16 I introduced is currently out for power supply repairs – we’re
hoping that the internal HDD is still viable on it and we may be able to
learn from its contents what the machine was actually used for. The
Model 16 that I’m featuring here did come with an external 15MB HDD
but like most of them, it is unserviceable.
Now there’s a little story to how I got his one. The one I featured in my
first article was an eBay acquisition. For the machine featured in this
article it was part of a trade. The owners of the bakery (at that stage it
hadn’t been operational for many, many years) were interested in a
rotary hoe I had for sale so we did a deal which included the Model 16.
From my perspective a very nice way to engineer a rescue because it was
very unloved where it was.
So here it is in all its glory – unfortunately the keyboard for this one has
not surfaced yet – like a lot of stuff it’s still in a box somewhere.

And another angle…

One of the immediate differences, when compared to the first machine I

wrote about, is that this one has two 8” floppy drives – these are the
Thinline type the same as the first machine. You’ll also notice that the
case is far more yellowed than the first machine.
The catalogue number of this machine is 26-4005. Now for those who
have jumped straight to Ira Goodling's catalogue number search you’ll
see this pop up as a “Model 12 - Computer - 2 Disk Drives” yet I’ve
constantly made mention of having two Model 16’s. To add to the
confusion, and for those who have already zoomed in on the front of the
machine, the front badge on the machine is for a Model 12.
Like the first Model 16, this one has a little upgrade sticker on the back. I
tried to take some photos of the sticker but unfortunately I couldn’t get
them to turn out that well. You can see the sticker above the Arcnet port
hole in the photo of the rear ports later in this article but unfortunately I
couldn’t get a “legible” shot. What it says is this:
“This unit contains Model 16 upgrade (Cat: No. 26-6010)”
Back to Ira’s catalogue number search and this pops up as a” Model II -
Upgrade - Model 16 Enhancement Option”
I grabbed this from Ira’s web site – thank you Ira. At $1,499USD in the
80’s I’d imagine that number was quite frightening. I’d also hazard a
guess and say that this machine is possibly quite rare, rarer than a
genuine 12 or 16, given the insertion of an upgrade kit.
At this stage I’m guessing from the upgrade stickers that the machine
has 128K of RAM and was not optioned out to 256K – it will be some time
before we know exactly. Unlike the first machine I introduced this one
appears to be a mess inside. I flipped the cage fan off and its quite dusty
inside – it did come from a bakery and referring back to how I got this
machine, the rotary hoe looked cleaner. You might recall the very clean
cage photos from the other machine – it appears to have led a charmed
life (that’s why I’m hoping the HDD is still viable). This machine has
some additional cards – I can’t be certain of their exact nature without
extracting them at this stage – are they an add-on or are they part of the
Model 16 upgrade?

In terms of rear ports this machine has the same ports. I have yet to
compare the configuration of these ports to see if they are exactly the
same as the Model 16b.
Well it sounds like there’s plenty of fodder for future articles as I work
towards getting these back up and running. As I write this article the first
machine featured is out getting one of the power supplies repaired. It
uses a Mode III power supply to run the drives and I opened the case
about a week or two ago and it had a popped cap on the Model II supply.
The main power supply appears to be quite tidy and intact.
For this machine, currently I’m describing it as a box of dust with some
electronics inside.
 IN MAV'S WORKSHOP

by Ian Mavric

UNDERSTANDING THE MODEL 4P

GATE-ARRAY MOTHERBOARD
(NOTE: no, it's not deja-vu, this article borrows a lot from last issue's
article on the M4GA motherboard, just updated for 4P applicat ion.)

When designing the Model 4 in late 1982/early 1983, Radio Shack took
notice of what other computer makers like Kaypro, Osborne and even
IBM were doing and decided that a relatively portable version of the
Model 4 was just what busy managers needed. The result was a 10kg
cream plastic box we know as the Model 4P. Looking for ways to cut
production costs and improve reliability (that was not to say the 4P was
unreliable) advances in electronics in the early 1980s led to an entirely
new motherboard for the 4P around mid-1984. Using everything learned
from the Model 4 Gate-Array motherboard, a new reduced chip count
board combined arrays of TTL logic chips into single chips called gate-
arrays. We (and Radio Shack, for that matter), call these Gate-Array
motherboards, hereafter known as M4PGA boards. You can tell one of
these straight away as the computer catalog number is 26-1080A.

A LOOK AT THE M4PGA BOARD

We see it has a number of large 24, 28, or 40 pin chips which are
logically laid out and while the board may look imposing, especially when
repairs are needed, if you know what each part does you can logically
track down problems fairly quickly.
U45: Z80A CPU - Needs to be a Z80A, I have seen boards which have a
plain Z80 which is not fast enough to run at 4MHz in Model 4 mode for
any length of time. If your computer won't start check for CLK signal on
Pin 6.

U69 (ROM): Boot functions, memory test, RS232 Boot. When we

upgrade a M4PGA to FreHD auto-boot, U69 is replaced with a
programmed EPROM.

U106 8040542 Gate Array "4.2":

Address Decoder - if the computer won't get past a junk screen, and you
know the memory chips are all OK and that there is a CLK signal on Pin 6
of the Z80A, suspect this chip.

Y1 and U146 (Crystals): Y1 is for Model III mode (2.02MHz) and U146 is
for Model 4 mode (4MHz). I have seen systems where Model III mode
works but Model 4 mode doesn't - replace U146. If Y1 doesn't work then
the computer will not start at all.

U148 8040541 Gate Array "4.1":

Clock switchover chip controls which frequency is used in which mode. If

this chip doesn't work then the computer may run slow (2MHz) in Model
4 mode, or the system will just not start up.
U42 8040045: CRT Controller - controls the video sync on the screen - if
you have lost horizontal or vertical sync that can't be adjusted by the
controls on the Video PCB, then suspect this chip.

U82 SRM2016C: Video RAM chip - if you see spelling errors on the screen
or characters is missing but the software otherwise works properly,
suspect this chip.

U102 8040543 Gate Array "4.3":

Video Gate Array - works in conjunction with U42, U82, and U103 to
display information on the CRT. When this chip fails, nothing will be
visible on the CRT, even though the computer still runs and responds to
commands.

U103 8049007 Character Generator: forms all the letters, numbers, or

symbols you see on the screen. If the characters are malformed or
missing dots, suspect this chip.

U73 WD8116: Baud Rate generator - if the serial port doesn't work or if
some of the baud rates work and others don't, suspect this chip. But
check other RS232 problems below on chips U31, U33 and U70 (below).

U17 WD1773 Floppy Disk Controller chip: industry standard double

density floppy disk controller. If the computer boot known good disks
from known good disk drives (as tested on another computer) then
suspect this chip or U18.

U18 8040544 Gate Array "4.4":

Disk Drive Interface Oscillator - critical timing array to make U17 work.
If U17 is known good (as tested on another computer) but the disk drives
still don't work right, then suspect this chip.

Y2 (Crystal): needed for floppy disk system (U17, U18) to work. If it

doesn't work then neither U17 nor U18 will do anything.

U31 8040545 Gate Array "4.5":

RS232 support gate array, controls the interface between the RS232
serial port (U70, U33, U11, U12, U13) and the processor. If diagnostic
software reports no RS232 port installed, suspect this chip.

U33 TR1865PL: UART - Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter

which is the heart of the RS232 port. Easy to blow this chip by plugging
in poorly designed RS232 devices or any device which sends uncontrolled
voltages into the RS232 port.

THE LEGACY OF THE GATE-ARRAY MOTHERBOARD

The M4PGA motherboard was a great improvement over the M4PNGA

board which had issues synchronising the Model 4 mode 80x24 display
(which was achieved with a trimmer capacitor which tended to drift off
over time). It was a pity that just as Radio Shack perfected the 4P
machine, and included a decent green screen CRT to make a really
professional looking machine, they decided to go in the direction portable
computing was taking with the Model 100 and quietly dropped the 4P
from production. It says something about the good design that many
M4PGAs come up for sale on places like eBay and almost always work
perfectly.

Ian Mavric

ianm@trs-80.com
£
 The BEST in TRS-80s
Call The Right Stuff
Ask for Ian
The number is +61 416 184 893

That's The Right Stuff

And he's in Melbourne

http://ianmav.customer.netspace.net.au/trs80/