Turbo-Torch

Gotcha. From the # of posts I see here vs the other brands (based on AA forums) I thought the TI had a huge fan base on par with Apple, Commodore and Tandy, on the other hand, they have multiple dedicated sites and AA is more of a secondary hangout. Poor planning doesn't help either but at least Chicago is a prime location. At Tandy Assembly, I made it there around noon on the first day and was already #94. And that was a bizarre location for the midwest.

Not trying to be mean here, but in that photo, there appears to be only 3 or 4 people in the 40ish age category. Was the TI used in ham radio during the early 80s, so more popular with the older crowd back then? I recently attended Tandy Assembly and it seemed to have a much more diverse age group. The majority in their 40s and 50s, but surprisingly quite a few in the 20 to 30 range.

I clean them with alcohol and then use a q-tip to lightly coat them with 3 in 1 oil. The cone assembly (plastic flower looking thing that mates up to the metal hub) is often the source of noise. There's a bearing on the cone shaft that you can oil but it's a bit involved to get the cone assembly out. I just swapped one out from a parts drive a few days ago because one of the plastic fingers broke off, so even those are getting brittle with age. Latch doors too, but someone has a file to 3D print them. I've also read that a squirt of WD-40 on the stepper motor bearings can quiet them down. Keep each side upright for a while to let it soak in. This is the factory manual for the Tandon drives. You may have Texas Peripheral drives which are nearly identical, but with some cost cutting involved. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/tandon/TM100-1_-2_OEM_Operating_and_Service_Manual_48TPI_1981.pdf

Someone got a killer deal. Close enough I could have even picked it up in person. I already have my original and a practically new backup I picked up on CL for $25...but at $70 I would have grabbed that one too. If anything, replace the x caps, clean/lube and align the drives on a scope and then detail it so it looks as nice as possible. List it on eBay describing what you did, a youtube video of it in action and include a few DOS disks; now you're looking at a $350+ machine. Seems 99% of them are listed AS IS because they don't have a DOS disk and that tanks the price. Diskette? is a good sign, and if a seller knows enough to boot to BASIC, that's even better. Still, most collectors know the drives most likely won't work and guaranteed non DOA Tandons will run at least $100 each.

People are praising the 5200 trackball controller for good reason...they are arcade quality. The internals are basically the same as used in Atari's arcade games using the mini trackball (Centipede and all the cocktail cabinets). When the 5200 trackball controllers were being sold on clearance back in the early 90s, many arcade collectors bought them to use the parts in their badly worn out arcade games. Shafts, bearings and ball are identical.

Tandy Assembly was awesome. I'm in northern Indiana so it was only about a 4 hour drive. I was the guy that asked about the ECS thinking it was a Tandy version I never heard of. Was the PT210 also yours? All the guest speakers were great. Not a boring moment and so cool hearing about all the inside corporate stories from back in the day. The location was....well different. I had second thoughts about going when I read the crime rate is 172% higher than the national average and only 5% of the US is considered safer. I did tour the town a bit and it didn't seem that bad, but still.... The hotel at $155 a night in that location was ridiculous. The staff and conference areas were very nice, but my room was mediocre. Paint peeling off the entire bathroom ceiling, back of toilet area cringy, no microwave and paper thin walls (can literally hear neighbors phone conversations and their coffee pot gurgling in the morning). Also right next to railroad tracks and the cheap windows allowed you to hear them all night. Then factor in crappy TV/cable and no free breakfast That place was on the level of a $60 per night budget hotel. I noticed many Illinois and Indiana plates in the parking lot. If they have it next year, I hope they choose a place like southern Indiana in late September or early October. Perfect place would be Columbus Indiana right off I65 on 46 (maybe 150 miles from this year's location). La Quinta there is phenomenal...reasonable rates, spotless rooms, fridge/microwave, huge TV, "happy hour" in the evening with free drinks and snacks, full free breakfast, etc. It's also minutes away from Brown County with endless restaurants and attractions. Imo, one of the most beautiful areas in the country.

Lol...do you seriously think he really has 3 in stock because it says he has 3 in stock? Does eBay send an agent out to each seller's home/business to make sure their stock matches what they enter in for every auction? They can have 10 items and enter that they have 100. The point is NOT to let eBay know they have NO stock left. If they keep that auction going, they keep the item number with views, watchers, etc. and it continues to come up with a "best match" when people search for that item. Personally, if I had a business selling on eBay, I would leave at least one item left in stock when I jacked up the price. That way if some dumb ass comes along and buys at that price, I'd be able to get my money from the moron. And it would still not be a scam in any sort of way. Years ago when people would sell a $30 item for $1 and $29 shipping, were you one of those people who were flabbergasted at the exorbitant shipping charges? Totally not getting that sellers found a loophole to sell an item at the going rate while skirting eBay fees?

It's not a scam, the seller does not expect to sell any at that price an no one would be stupid enough buy at that price. Google "placeholder listings". It also happens on Amazon and has been going on for many years. Hard to believe you've never heard of it.

No one has paid over $300 for that adapter. $334.85 is a number that guy uses on a bunch of his auctions and is most likely a place holder until he gets more in stock.

....and listed as Donkey Kong in the details.

I've seen that graphic since the early 80s and just learned last week it's actually a hat. I thought it was just some random topography. Good job pulling it off on the MC-10!

Sounds great! Order placed.

Used to dream of catalog # 26-1125...the Model III High Resolution kit which Radio Shack introduced in 1982. Never actually viewed one in action; only catalog pictures with the $370 price tag. At the time my Model III was 16K cassette based and the hires kit required a 48K disk based system. The entire upgrade back in the day would have been close to $1,700 after required installation. I've had an eBay search string set up for a few years and haven't been able to find one...they are quite rare. Last week at Tandy Assembly I managed to pick one for $20 bucks! Jay wanted $50, I offered $40 and he agreed. When I paid, he gave me $20 back...very cool guy. Installation is really goofy and I can see why Tandy wouldn't sell them without their techs installing it. It's actually a very large board mounted in a metal shield that replaces the original motherboard cover. A short 50 pin cable comes out the bottom which makes a tight turn and plugs into the outside 50 pin expansion port on the bottom of the computer. Then the cable continues a few inches outside computer and ends in a standard 50 pin female edge card connector with a male to male adapter so that you can still use an expansion peripheral such as a hard drive (or in my case a FreHD). The computer's motherboard also needs a mod where you cut an IC pin and then solder a jumper lead to a ground on another IC. After all that, you have to tweak the CRT video board to get a happy medium between new graphics mode and standard video mode. The entire kit really seems like a homebrew type of creation but the end results are amazing for 1982. My problem was I had no cable and had to make my own. Not a big deal until it came to the 50 pin male to male adapter. It has to reverse sides in order to keep the wiring configuration correct. After searching online for countless hours, they don't seem to exist. After digging through parts trying to get an idea, I noticed a Sega Master System Pro Wrestling cartridge...it has a 50 pin edge card with the correct pitch! Got out the dremel and did some soldering. Plugged FreHD into it and it gets along fine with the new graphics board. I'd like to find the real adapters so I can make a longer cable and daisy chain in a few more edge cards for more peripherals such as my Orchestra 90. There's a site where you can put in a url of a picture and it'll give you a gload binary of it to download. It does a decent job. The board supports 640X240 and has 32K on board memory, so I think it could actually do better. Last pic is the adapter...anyone know where I can buy something like that?

Didn't find any Tandy 2000 emblems, although one guy had well done repros for the I, III and 4 series. A little nudge on that bottom one and it would have fell off. I think I have a receipt from the guy selling those, if you want his contact info, shoot me a pm. Maybe he'd part with an emblem?

Their full page ad in the July 1981 issue of 80 Mircocomputing does list a complete system. The 1,914.00 price includes a 10 day full refund and 6 month warranty. Lower down, they do offer many components including bare boards for those who want to build their own systems. And yes there was one at Tandy Assembly! It's a very cool looking system. It's not exactly on the home made level, but doesn't appear mass produced either. Being made of steel with rough corners, exposed screws, off the shelf toggle switches, it seems more like a small company building them by hand in a small facility. I never did see anyone around that display so I wasn't able to ask questions. I'm guessing it needs a bit of work as many of the keys were depressed and not rebounding. This Lobo was one of my favorites. Seemed really fast and can also run CP/M. When powered on, there's a tiny yellow light for the worlf's eye!

Nice pics. Really cool seeing so much Tandy history in one location. Picked up a high res board for my Model III. Kicking back in the hotel room now.

I have a bunch of those old magazines and they were heavily advertised. I'm looking at an ad right now and the specs are very impressive. While the PMC-80 was an inferior knock off of the Model III, the LNW80 had incredible specs. 4 mhz, 80 column, high res b&w and color, more keys, compatible with the Model I Level II, etc. Even more impressive is the system with one drive and b&w monitor is listed at $1,914.00, which is about $250 less than the Model III. You would think they would have sold well, but I've never seen one in person either. I'm attending Tandy Assembly this weekend, it'll be cool if someone has one on display. I also see the Intertec Superbrain computer advertised a lot in those magazine. I want one just for the looks and name. Oddly those are fairly common on eBay and usually sell for under $200.

Anyone here attending Tandy Assembly in Ohio this weekend? Looks like it should be interesting and fun. Less than a 4 hour drive for me so I'll be there Saturday and Sunday.

If you're desperate to find an exact replacement belt for your CCR-82, this place lists it. http://www.smcelectronics.com/vcrbltsq.htm Poor website design. Use the FIND function in your browser to locate the ccr-82. I could use a new belt for my CTR-80A but their shipping charges are ridiculous and you don't find out until you're at the very end of the check out process. A single belt at $6.50 comes out to over $11 after shipping. Plan B is a variety pack of belts off eBay from China. You can get 60 belts for 99¢ shipped. If you can work a screwdriver, you can replace a belt in most tape decks. My 80A is very easy. Never had my 82 apart but I doubt it's difficult from looking at google images.

I bought one in the late 80s from Radio Shack in our local mall. It was some sort of corporate machine that had every option conceivable on it. Dual floppies with internal HD, high res board, extended memory, their best color monitor made for CAD work, lots of business software, modem, etc. I paid exactly $100 for the entire setup. I went through their catalog and added up everything and that system was well over $10,000 originally. I already had a 100EX at the time that I loved. I thought the 2000 was the deal of the century until I found out it ran next to no MSDOS software. It had some conversion utility that helped but nothing fun stood a chance of running on it. It was so close to being compatible it was frustrating. I eventually let my best friend borrow it so we could play Trade Wars on all the local BBSs and I never got it back. We're still best friends and I'm pretty sure it's stashed away in his parents' house with his original Apple IIe. I have some hope of maybe getting it back one day. I'm planning on going to Tandy Assembly and I'll keep an eye out for one of those emblems.

This thread reminded me I had one of these sitting on the shelf that I got for free a few years ago and haven't done anything with it since. This is the youtube video: It comes apart very easily, shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to remove the battery pack. He is correct that it won't work with a stock power supply when the internal batteries are removed. When I hooked it up to my bench supply, the printer worked fine. The battery pack appears to be 5 AA NiCads, so will be easy enough to make a new one. I have a total of 3 printers and pulled the battery packs out of 2 this evening. The one that works, I got to just in time and had no board damage. The other has some slight damage and doesn't work, but should be easy enough to repair. The 3rd unit is for parts and I haven't opened it yet. I would get the battery pack out asap. This is that WTF thing that bled all over the insides. Incredibly sticky and hard to get off your skin. This is my Sharp PC-1500. It currently has a 32K RAM expansion module with battery installed (impressive for the year) and I have another standard 8K module. Lots of extra pens, cassette cables, etc.

I have the Sharp version of this and found something interesting tonight. It would be a good idea to take the PC apart and remove the thick rubber strip stuck to one side of the case. I'm not sure what the purpose of it is, but mine turned to a gel that looks like coagulated blood and it got everywhere. It flowed around the housing sections and stuck them together like glue and covered certain areas of the circuit boards. It was really odd, a number of ICs were encased in it and one vertical strip of solder joints was also covered, yet areas around them were clean. It may may migrate to heat like the blob? Very sticky and took a long time to remove with q-tips and alcohol. I had video problems with extra pixels and keyboard issues which is why I took it apart. Video issues went away after cleaning...there's also a pot in there to adjust the contrast if you want. Keyboard worked great after cleaning all the gold contact pads (luckily the goo didn't make it there). There's also a YouTube video on how to disassemble the printer and remove the internal batteries which are probably already leaking and destroying things. That's on my to do list this week.

That makes sense. I didn't realize Class of '81 was that big.

Cool project, but what made it so heavy? Tiny PC board and power supply, no isolation transformer. I always thought they'd be light compared to the original machines.