Category: Uncategorized

Dusty was kind enough to pass on the manual for Decision Master. Thank you Dusty!

Title: Decision Maker
Publisher: Syntonic Software Corporation
Year: 1981
Size: 114,458,177
Pages: 88

Brick Parrish, who is still looking to sell a Model 4 (See January 9th news item), sent over another manuals for scanning. Thank you, Brick!

Title: Modem I
Publisher: Tandy
Year: 1981
Size: 18,992,572
Pages: 15
Notes: [26-1172][v8749285-SP-281]

Brick Parrish, who is still looking to sell a Model (See January 9th news item), sent over two manuals for scanning. Thank you, Brick!

Title: DOSPlus v3.4-4.0 vA.2
Publisher: Micro-Systems Software
Year: 1982
Size: 523,279,115
Pages: 248

Title: Fortran
Publisher: Tandy
Year: 1981
Size: 664,512,098
Pages: 273
Notes: [M3][26-2200]

I have stumbled upon another disk format which TRSTools does not properly handle. I have tried to go through my old emails to find all the old reports, but many of them just sent disk images of which I no longer have records.

So … to those who use TRSTools and TRSREAD, please tread carefully on the following DOS image types:

• MultiDOS double sided disks. TRSTools/TRSREAD will sometimes insert the side 2 data in the middle of side 1 files. I confirmed this by batch reading each disk double sided and then again as single sided, extracting the files, and comparing them. VDISK (by Miguel Dutra) extraction resulted in 100% identical crc’s between those sets. TRSREAD had multiple differences, where the Double Sided disk read was corrupt.
• TRSDOS v2.3b disks.
• DosPlus 3.4A for the Model III.
• NEWDOS/80 images with damage on Track 1.
• TRSDOS v2.77D, particularly deleting files, as they may corrupt the image.
• TRSDOS 1.3 disks with extra data in a reserved area of the directory.

Right now, I have a slew of MultiDOS double sided disks (and CP/M double sided disks) where side 2 is inaccessible. The CP/M disks are entirely unusable; and that may be because they were made on a Model III with a Shuffleboard or because no tool exists to identify the geometry needed to mount them. The MultiDOS disks read (on a catweasel) as double-sided disks, but only Side 1 shows up in an emulator, and side 2 cannot be separately read as its own image.

Jeff Birt was kind enough to bid, and then scan, the missing Portable Disk Drive 2 Service Manual. Thank you Jeff!

Title: Portable Disk Drive 2 Service Manual
Publisher: Tandy
Year: 1987
Size: 84,173,485
Pages: 108
Notes: [26-3814]

Marcel Erz has reverse engineered the Model I ALPS keyboard PCB. He says

This project is a faithful reimplementation of the ALPS keyboard PCB of the iconic TRS-80 Model 1 computer. My revision, the E1, is designed to replicate the PCB design 1-to-1 of the original down to the traces. The entire project is available under the MIT license.

Visit the GITHub Page for gerber files, Bill of Materials (CSV and PDF formats), layers exported in PDF and SVG formats, and full schematics of the E1 replica which is 1:1 to the original G board.

A site visitor has a working Model 4 (or at least drive :0 does) for sale for $300 for local pickup. Unit does have a loose connection in the plug at the power supply that powers the CRT filament, although most of the time the connection is good as is. Probably an easy fix. Drive 1 works when in Drive 0 position, so perhaps there is an issue with the controller or cable for the :1 position.

Seller is located about 100 miles NW of San Antonio, TX a few miles off of I-10; and could meet in or around Kerrville, Texas if that’s better.

If this sounds good, please reach out directly to Brick Parrish at .

Shawn Sijnstra has updated his Infocom Executors … Model 1 and 3 to version 7 and Model 4 to version 17.

Full list of credits, features and issues as well as the source and compiled code are in the Gitlab page:

• Model 1
• Model 3
• Model 4

Lawrence Kesteloot has updated his TRS80TOOL to v2.6.0. Release Notes:

• Better handling of double-sided disks.
• Assembler:
  • Full expression support: All the operators in C, with their same precedence.
  • Assembles about 10 times faster.
  • Allow nv and v for po and pe flags.
  • Various compatibility improvements with zmac.
  • Breaking change: No longer permit % as binary prefix. Instead of writing %1010, use 1010b or 0b1010.
• Disassembler: Add –upper flag.

You can download it at Lawrence’s web site or by clicking here.