I was given a TRS-80 Model 100 decades ago, and worked fine until very recently. I'd power it up every few months from AAs just to see if it still worked. Well, as of last week, it no longer powers up. I've used fresh batteries, cleaned the battery contacts, no luck.

My first instinct was to throw it in the trash as part of a big housecleaning project. But I realize there may be hobbyists here who may want to try and dissect and revive it? If you're interested, please send me a DM.

I'll crosspost this to a few subreddits that do retro mods as well.

i picked up a complete boxed fd502 so i figured it was worth finally getting a coco in my collection but ive had nothing but trouble trying to get things loaded on it

the unit i picked up was badged 32k but the internal bodging seems to have been for a 64k mod and its got a composite mod installed, some poke i read about told me its got color basic 1.0 and it boots to extended basic 1.1, i ran a rom to ram test on it and the 64k seems to pass

now onto the issue, when i try load from pc audio it will usually find the name of the program then promptly give me an io error, sometimes it wont even find the name before the error and on one program it never actualy give me an error but it also never finishes loading.

issues with the floppy drive are another complication, its got an os-9 formatted disk which launches to a screen of garbage characters and all the others give me various sn errors when i try launch them so im inclined to think it was used with a coco3 by its prior owner with resulting incompatibilities, not too sure i can actually do anything with the disks it came with as a result but i had planned on testing it with tapes before giving up on the disks

Hi y’all, so I just got this TRS to finally read floppy drives, and when I try to get it to read documents I run into two problems.

1. There are random characters all over and lines of code.
2. It moves too quick to read

Is there any commands/things I should use to load it?

Thankyou :)

It's just so wonderful to have one of these in my collection as the model 100 series of computers are some of my favorites.

After being told that even a “parts” machine could possibly be fixed, I decided to make this post. Things of note:

1. c60 is damaged
2. Gives bars displayed below (possible ram error?)
3. Damaged Demultiplexer (pin 5 missing)

any ideas?

edit: fixed dumb mistake

https://preview.redd.it/zb1rhsa047mc1.jpg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2693b641c6585fb34fb90a22e027c41450290ef

Another day, another error. After finally getting my disk controller cards to boot into disk extended basic, I get IO errors whenever I type in DIR, and the drive activity light doesn’t turn on. This happens on both of my controllers and both of my disk drives. This either means I’m doing something wrong (likely) or the CoCo has problems (also likely). any ideas?

EDIT: THIS POST IS IRRELEVANT DUE TO NEW INFO FOUND ON MY OTHER POST HERE

I got my first TRS-80 recently, but, as they usually do, these came with issues. First, video issues. the screen is black and white and nearly incomprehensible. It was better before, but I probably messed with the RF modulator too much. The second issue, which is more important to me, is the problems with disk controller cards. Whenever I insert one (I have 2), the computer won’t boot and gives the strange text checkerboard pattern. As a side note, the color does occasionally come back.

EDIT: video returned to color by literally smacking the RF modulator, just intense static now

EDIT 2: fixed by covering the pins listed by pez34 below.

EDIT 3: spoke too soon, unreliable right now until actual non-tape solution is found.

EDIT 4: reliability fixed, different error.

With controller card after “fixing” the RF modulator

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Normal boot

Boot with controller card

After all these years, are there still people that avoid hitting shift backspace because it will wipe out the line?

Or is it just me?

So my mode 3 has a bad top floppy drive (read and write is iffy at best) and I want to put a gotek in there, but I’m noob about gotek so I came here for safe advice. What gotek would I use And what is entailed in its setup

I will appreciate any help you can give. I actually want to make this my daily driver for typing hence the addition of a gotek.

Thank you.

I have a TRS80 M3 whose CRT doesn't work. I know of an M4 with a fried main board. Would the CRT from the M4 work inside the M3?

Second to last of the first batch.

Quick Printer II, modem I. Was originally a Level 1 but was upgraded to Level 2. Everything works, except the modem which I cannot test as I do not have the cable for it.

Several manuals, bits of software, and a binder full of issues of the TRS-80 magazine.

Even a shopping bag hat.

I last had my TRS-80 on in 2018. At that time, when I turned it on with the expansion interface plugged in, it would show the screen of garbage text, but pressing reset didn't get rid of it. I looked online and found that the fix to this was the rub an eraser on the card edge where the ribbon cable connects. This worked. But it was only partially reliable and wouldn't always work still.
Now, here, 6 years later and I have it on again. This issue is back. I haven't tried the eraser trick again as I don't have access to such an eraser right now. Is there any better, and more permanent fix for this?
Also, every time I turn the computer on, the signal on the monitor is out of sync and I need to adjust the vertical and horizontal holds. This is a very strange annoyance.

Non-buffered expansion interface.
TRS-80 is a very early one, serial number 3499.
I will post an image of the set-up on Saturday.

[Note, I do not have anything against the color computers. My relatives do.]
About 12 years ago my grandfather had his old TRS-80 model 1 out. He was showing it to me and telling me about all the TRS-80 computers he once had. (1, 3, 4P, and 100 all at once back in the 1980s). Later that day I was researching TRS-80s online and learning about all the different models. The next day, I was with him again and we were discussing mainly the models he had, as well as the Model 2. Then, I brought up the color computer. He and my father both looked at me as if I had cursed the family. My grandfather said "Those weren't real TRS-80s. They were dumb toys with no meaningful computing ability."

I like the way the case on the original color computer looks, myself.

Hello, I just recently picked up a Model 1 after years of looking for a good condition Trs-80 but it seems to have a several problems I'm going to have to fix. The main one being when a key is pressed the digit is doubled or tripled on a single press. Now I'm quite sure I'm missing the obvious as I've never had the opportunity to work on TRS80's but is that a frequent thing to happen to Model 1's that I've missed? Additionally, I believe the expansion unit is producing a slight buzzing sound, having never used one of these I'd assume that isn't natural? Any help is appreciated.

eBay's auction 325960526971 is a seemingly mint condition Orchestra 90 (for the Model III and 4) and an issue (Volume III Number 7 from July 1985) of the "Color Chronicle" newsletter with the Orchestra 90 as its cover story.

But of special note is the (unfortunately unredacted) address label on the newsletter showing that the subscriber was none other than CoCo legend Steve Bjork, author of many classics including outstanding official ports of Zaxxon, Rampage, Pitfall II, Arkanoid, etc., well-loved clones like Popcorn, Clowns & Balloons, Z '89, etc, and original creations like Audio Spectrum Analyzer, Color Computer Artist, and many more.

Bjork's April 10, 2023 death at age 65 was only made widely known to the CoCo community in December 2023.

I don't know whether this item has popped up on eBay because his death has resulted in his stuff being sold off, or whether the timing is instead a coincidence. But either way it's a poignant reminder of his passing.

Thanks for your hard work, well-applied creative and technical talents, and the great experiences and memories they gave me and countless others, Steve.

Come by the CoPiCo booth at the Vintage Computer Festival SoCal, February 17-18 in Orange, CA. More info at VCFSoCal.com

We're working on a WiFi cart for the Tandy Color Computer based on the Raspberry Pi Pico W, and we'd like to show off what we've got working so far on our (currently breadboarded) prototype. Please come connect with us if you're interested in keeping up with development or becoming an early alpha tester later this year!

Customer oriented employee made it fun. They insisted it was "an investment" but that's understatement. It was legit the ultimate programming skills training computer. What drew you to the TRS80?

I just found a link to a chip called REX, which seems to be able to load different roms on a Model 100; and also increase its memory? As I have a 8K model I was wondering if that was the case or I am stuck with 8K.

Also I saw that there is a CPM model too... Assuming that you cannot have both the REX and REX-CPM at the same time, so it is either one or the other?

I found a place that sell the new REX chip as the old ones seems to be sold out; but I am having hard time to understand what the chip actually does, as there are no videos online at all

Trying to figure out the best way to upload software on it... I am also considering the ROM chip to install inside, so don't even need to worry about loading files since it has onboard memory to save data I believe.

But I would rather have an original experience and not worry when I carry it around, to need another computer running the floppy disk emulator; so I thought maybe a phone playing tape audio would work? I own a spectrum and I do that easily, using just a phone that play tapes audio files.

Is this possible on the model 100? Is there a schematics about how to make the cable? Thanks

Hi all, I have a TRS-80 Model 1 that I've been working on for a few months. It came with an Expansion Interface that happily contained a Radio Shack branded RS-232 card, model 26-1145. I got a WiFi modem hooked up to it last night and tried to use its regular DTE rate of 9600 baud, but despite trying a few different terminal programs and handshaking options it drops characters pretty badly at that rate. I stepped down to 2400 baud and it was better but still not great. Other machines in my arsenal (Apple IIgs, etc) work okay at 9600.

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I'm fairly new to the TRS-80 family so I don't know whether this is a matter of needing hardware handshaking (i.e. DTR/CTS pins, etc), better terminal software, or whether this is just a limitation of the hardware. I'd appreciate any guidance from anyone with experience using their TRS-80 as a terminal.

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Thanks!