TRS-80 Model 1 resurrection

From: Pat Barron <pat_at_transarc.ibm.com>
Date: Wed Dec 6 11:22:56 2000

Well, I finally got around from getting my old TRS-80 out of my mom's
house this past weekend, and brought it home. The good news is that all
the pieces were actually there - the CPU, monitor, cassette recorder (no
disks on this machine....), and power supply, as well as a bunch of
software (including some I wrote myself, that I'd be really interested in
getting to see again). The bad news, is that it's spent the last 15 years
in a really poor environment - tons of dust, temperatures fluctuating
seasonally between mid-high 90's and below freezing, and completely
uncontrolled humidity (enough that the heads of the screws that secure the
CPU case have become rusty). The software cassettes, fortunately, were
stored in a more controlled envrionment.

I dare not even power it on yet, due to all the dust inside the case. I
know I'm going to have to open up the CPU and monitor cases and blow all
the dust out, and I'll need to clean cassette heads. Aside from that, are
there any other things I should do before I try to turn the machine on?
Any guesses as to how likely it is that the machine has survived at all?

Thanks,
--Pat.
Received on Wed Dec 06 2000 - 11:22:56 GMT