karld@chinet.UUCP (03/11/87)
Yes, Yes, Yes! There are still a few of us Model IV people out here... Include myself personally as well as my company, I/we have been involved in the TRS-80 business for quite a while... Let me summarize responses to some of the postings I have seen regarding the Tandy line recently: 1) Hard disks: You can add hard disks of virtually any capacity to the Model IV (20M is the practical, but not the final, limit). The real limit is that the system cannot handle more than 8 heads on a drive. Cylinders are limited to 512 on the RADIO SHACK drivers, which puts a crimp in my style, I recommend the PowerSoft drivers which permit partitioning based on cylinder offset -- thus no one PARTITION can be more than 512 cylinders. We can still obtain a few R/S-style hard disks at a very reasonable price, the 5M units sell for about $350, add a couple of hundred if you want a 20M instead (you then need the drivers as well, and Power Soft changed their prices recently and failed to notify us, so I will have to check on the latest price for the drivers). Note that these drives (indeed, all of them) include the controller which you need to make the unit work with the Model IV, as well as a case, power supply, cable, etc.. 2) Software (shareware, public domain) We have an enormous archive (about 4M online, and much more on floppys) of Model III & IV software. It is available for transfer any time of the day or night, just dial (312) 566-8911 at 300,1200 or 2400 baud. The system understands XMODEM protocol (both CRC & checksum implementations). This machine is a Model IV with 20M hard disk, and is one of our company BBS systems -- free public access to all who apply. Eventually this will be cross-connected with our Unix box, and you will have to go through the UNIX machine to get to it (ie: log in as "eracs"). Some examples of the softeware available include the ERACS host system (a complete host/bbs package), an excellent terminal emulator (DTERM II), and quite a bit more. 3) Help, hints, parts, upgrades, or whatever: Call or send us mail if you have any specific questions regarding the Model III/IV line of Tandy equipment. We can most certainly help you out and/or answer your questions. PLEASE, PLEASE -- if you do write back, USE THE ROUTING BELOW, NOT THE SOURCE OF THIS ARTICLE. Our machine does not currently receive Netnews, and the system I call to read netnews just took a major power hit... Thanks! -- Karl Denninger UUCP : ...ihnp4!ddsw1!karl Macro Computer Solutions Dial : +1 (312) 566-8912 (300-2400) "Quality systems at a fair price" Voice: +1 (312) 566-8910 (24 hrs)