TRS-80 Floppy Drive

From: Al Hartman <alhartman_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sun Feb 23 17:11:00 2003

> From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin_at_xenosoft.com>
> Reply-To: cctalk_at_classiccmp.org
>
> On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Al Hartman wrote:
> > I always preferred Tandon TM-100 drives. They
> > needed a lot less service and maintenance than
> > the SA400's did.
> > And I always liked having the extra 5 tracks.
>
> I agree
> I really like those drives. The pins that hinge the
> doors don't hold up well to the abuse of a college
> lab (unless you catch the culprits and break their
> fingers), but without that abuse, they hold up very
> well.

Oh Man! I forgot ALL about that...

I found it wasn't the pins themselves, it was the
plastic hinges in the doors.

A friend used to keep the broken ones after we'd
replace them (I worked for a company that serviced
these drives.. Cleaned, re-aligned, repaired.
refurbished them...), and refurbish them for his
personal drives with metal hinges.

> > Boy, those were the days...
>
> They sure were. (except for some of the politics
> :-)

I must have somewhere all sorts of patched OS'es for
my old Model I. DoubleDOS, TrsDOS, NewDOS 2.1,
NewDOS/80, LDOS, VTOS, DosPLUS, the list goes on and
on...

I used NewDOS/80 for most things, followed by
Multi-DOS.

I have here a Percom flippy drive. It was a Wangtek
mechanism (I think) that had write protect, and sector
hole sensors on both sides of the drive, so you could
write to both sides of a disk without punching holes.

I got rather good at that, and used to sell home-made
kits for people to punch their own disks. As well as
installing Electric Pencil Lowercase Mods into Model I
Keyboards.

Micros back then were more like cars. You could
customize them heavily. Only now with all these
case-mods and cooling options are we getting back into
what used to be fun about being a Computer Hobbyist.

All things come around in a circle I guess...

My Model I was stolen from my apt twice, and I
recovered it twice because it was instantly
recognizable as mine. A local Model I guru knew my
machine and when it came in to him for service by the
kid who bought it out of the trunk of a car, he called
me and the police.

The kid complained he was out his $100.00 and wanted
it back from me. But, I felt... You buy stolen
equipment, you take your chances...

I didn't press charges when I got the machine back
though.

The first time it was stolen, the guy realized that
nobody would buy it from him, it was so custom.. So he
tried to ransom it back to me.

I said sure...

His ransom payment was me, and 5 friends with baseball
bats.

The police were stunned that I recovered the system
twice.

Those REALLY were the days...

*sigh!*

Regards,
Al

P.S.: though not booted in several years, my Model I
(which just turned 24 yo) is sitting a foot away from
me on a desk. I should hook it all up and give it a
boot for old times sake.
Received on Sun Feb 23 2003 - 17:11:00 GMT