New LCD for Old TRS-80 Pocket Computer

[@WSS_the_OG]

For context, I am 52 years old. When I was a kid, these things hit the market, and you have no idea (or maybe you do) how badly I wanted one. It was extremely expensive at the time, and my parents laughed when I wanted one. You, in just one video, have fulfilled a childhood dream!

[@ОнуфрийНечепуренко]

in 1980 it cost $249, that is $930 in today's money 😱

[@myhandlehasbeenmishandled]

At 42 I'm still irked my parents didn't get me Commodore 64. Those jerks.

[@nekomasteryoutube3232]

And just to think that modern smart phones can do pretty much everything this little guy can do and so much more, heck some can, with adapters or docks, be a desktop replacement (ie use your smartphone like a PC with keyboard, mouse and monitor)

[@jj74qformerlyjailbreak3]

In the early 90s they also had these device's Personal Data Organizers that I felt the same way about.

[@darrenerickson1288]

I bought one used along with the plotter in high achool. I think I had a PC-2. Then someone stole it. But while I had it I wrote programs to draw four color plots of geometric shapes and spirograph style graphs.

[@vwestlife]

The BASIC program lines are not limited to the length of the display. I believe it has a maximum length of 80 characters per line, and will scroll side to side. If you use the PAUSE command instead of PRINT it will briefly display the text on the screen and then move on without waiting for you to press Enter. And it's funny you went to the trouble of manually typing in the value of Pi, when it has a dedicated π key. Also there's a hidden key: if you press Shift-Y it'll display a Yen symbol (¥).

[@galeng73]

You are correct. Oddly, I used one of these (and a MODEM) as a journalist. They spent way too long in that industry. One fairly remote printing company used that and a mainframe where we had to log in and upload our articles. It was ****ing painful, is what it was.

[@vwestlife]

@@galeng73 Maybe you're thinking of the TRS-80 Model 100 / Tandy 102? Those had a larger display, full-size keyboard, built-in modem, and were very popular with journalists.

[@galeng73]

@@vwestlife Maybe? I seem to recall it was an external modem however. (This was many years ago.)

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@galeng73 : Maybe your boss just decided he could do it "cheaper"/"better" himself.

[@dh2032]

@@galeng73 on the bigger boxes, TRS80 color, if you just keep typing and scroll the the line text, as I remember 254, minus you line number?

[@CathySiegert]

The display is glued and this bonding is breaking apart. The adhesive is based on uretanol. This adhesive removes moisture from the air and so the glue loose its bonding. At our museum we already switched over 2 displays from a sharp PC-1211 (which is basically the same model as yours shown in the video). I'm afraid of our other 3 Sharps, they have the old display and I hope the glue is still intakt bondig the glassplates together. Nice Job!

[@SianaGearz]

Do you think it's possible to edge seal the glass somehow to help the glue hold up longer over time?

[@root42]

I think there is a dude in the Philippines who fixes original GameBoy displays by re-glueing the plates. Amazing craft.

[@questionmark576]

Are you sure it's moisture? I have several of these, one my dad used since it was new, and in my experience it's UV light dependent. If kept in a case, or dark in a box, they last much much longer. Maybe the UV light makes the glue deteriorate more quickly, and then the moisture messes up the display?

[@SianaGearz]

@@questionmark576 I expect that the glue undergoes hydrolysis which is a water reaction catalysed by UV light and heat. All polymers are fundamentally susceptible to this reaction, some orders of magnitude more than others. Sometimes the reaction can be suppressed by scavenging additives.

[@CathySiegert]

@@questionmark576 Yes it is moisture. Our 2 Sharps with the old display looks as new in the "sealed" showcase. They power on normal and the display is still intact. The third one isn't in the sealed case and the display has already began to bleed. On the right and left corner were dark spots - so this one is the next candidate for display switching.....

[@finkelmana]

I literally have one of these with this problem. I had ordered the replacement LCD and thats been sitting next to it for months. This is the kick in the butt to finally do it.

[@Tuxy79]

This channel is a hidden gem.

[@superfox6264]

Ikr

[@sunnohh]

Thanks metal jesus, you rock

[@Tuxy79]

@@sunnohh haha took me a second

[@ThomasGrillo]

I had this model, back in the 80s. Very cool to see it being restored. I flipped the polarizer over to get light characters on black. :)

[@giacintoboccia9386]

The battery situation is easy to explain: the original 4 batteries where 4 mercury cells, so they had a lower rating, the whole thing is supposed to work at 5.4 V, not 6, so with modern batteries you either need a diode or three of them.

[@squirlmy]

Wein and a UK company, Analogue, make "mercury replacement" batteries that will work fairly well. I've heard of someone using "hearing aid batteries", but they discharged at a constant rate, they weren't made to turn off.

[@offperception]

The whole thing of sound is data was fairly common on 80's machines. I grew up with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and it worked the same way for storing and loading programs from tape. There was even a radio station in Poland that would broadcast a program for you to record on tape and run on your Spectrum.

[@dronenb]

Your enthusiasm for random tech is so refreshing. I'm absolutely here for it.

[@running11]

Iceland Calling, I bought one of these as child in the 1980s. I was out of my depth, but inspired by the BASIC programing and portable computing of this machine. Thanks for this!

[@kc8485]

This is so like the Sharp PC-1350 that I inherited from my dad 36 years ago. Still working perfectly witrh an externel contrast thumbwheel! Its powered by 2 No. CR2032 Lithium cells with a separate 16k "credit card" sized RamCard (with its own CR2032. My dad used it for "in the field" Life Assurance quotations so the Math accuracy would have been good enough! It got me through an engineering degree, with its external thermal paper Printer (which can power the unit with AA batteries). This unit also did the audio interface to a compact cassette tape and CMOS to TTL level conversions. CLOAD, CSAVE .... innocent times....

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

Great job getting the new display working. Regarding the logic - that's almost certainly not ECL - the power consumption would be horrendous. ECL uses bipolar transistors which are not driven into saturation to allow very high speeds. Instead, I would expect some early CMOS or hybrid NMOS / PMOS implementation.

[@julesl6910]

Exactly what I was thinking, definitely a hybrid implementation.

[@theantipope4354]

Yes, I made a similar comment. ECL was used in big, fast, power hungry machines. My guess is that the negative power rail was needed to provide a negative bias voltage for the LCD, which was a common requirement back in the early days of LCD tech.

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

@theantipope4354 Yes, I had forgotten. A negative bias of around -3V to -5V was very common in early complex LCD drivers. And I suspect that the new display glass has slightly different voltage requirements due to using modern LCD manufacturing and materials, therefore it did not require the full -3V rail, resulting in the fourth LR44 not being required.

[@Kazuo1G]

Those strips on the LCD are what they call "ZEBRA connectors". One of the mundane magic things is that it's actually a multi-sandwich-set of conductors. It goes conductor-noncond-conductor-noncond-etc.., but in VERY thin vertical strips. This means that there is many conductors to one pad, much like a single wire has multi-strand sub-wires. This means that should one single conductor fail, the rest take up the slack.

[@Drew-Dastardly]

I have always known them as Zebra strips and they are still used to this day for LCDs. A compression fit is needed, no solder. Very common fault mode.

[@sydneybiscuit]

it's also great because they conduct in the Z axis - and they look like zebra stripes it's a great analogy

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

@sydneybiscuit ZEBRA is apparently a registered trademark for these. I always knew them by their generic name - elastomeric connectors. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastomeric_connector But I am always cautious when removing them, not pulling them as shown in the video, in case they break. I tend to roll them away from the glass, working along their length two or three times. If they break, they still work, but you may have a poor connection to the glass where the two sections meet if the break is not clean.

[@gcolombelli]

The many conductors for each pad feature also probably helps a lot with not having to be super precisely aligned for it to work. I don't want to think how much harder it would be to properly reassemble those things if they weren't like that.

[@krissjacobsen9434]

I did this on an old Sharp PC-1251 about three years ago. I don't know why these displays fail, but I love that someone out there cares enough about them to be making replacement parts for them in the 21st century.

[@Starchface]

I pulled out ye olde calculator box, and I see all the segments on my 1251 have turned permanently black. Incidentally, as a kid I had owned a PC-3, the Radio Shack version of the PC-1251. I did not know then that it was made by Sharp. Some years later the display had stopped working and I threw it out. Around 2000 I saw the PC-1251 at the university bookstore so I grabbed it. It was far past its best-before date and I had no particular use for it, but I wanted it for sentimental reasons. I will look into getting a replacement LCD.

[@gieselats]

Awesome. To bring this baby back to life. Really impressive. Working on old technology could be very delicate. Filming and working at the same time. Really awesome. Keep up the good work.

[@GianmarioScotti]

Also, the filter you removed provided additional pressure on the display, for the contacts to be reliable. I wonder if you have sufficient pressure without that filter - which you would replace with just a glass panel of the same thickness.

[@_hackwell]

one issue with zebra strips: sometimes they take the shape of the tracks on the PCB side, causing them to not be flat anymore. So if in the reassembly process this side of the strip is on the LCD side it won't make a good contact. So pay attention to the orientation of the strips

[@Tarpo]

One of this things I love most about your videos is your passion for some stuff that I 100% DGAF about, but your enthusiasm and genuine desire to share your information makes every video you post a joy to watch.

[@agentmith]

This is what I learned BASIC on. Subsequently, I only know how to make random number games and I can’t go over 544 bytes.

[@Torbjorn.Lindgren]

IIRC the reason the old LCD reacts to your polarization lens but not the new LCD is that the old LCD and camera lens uses linear polarization while the new LCD uses circular polarization internally (LCD's can be built using either). We know they're linear polarization because they react when your rotate them, circular don't do that, instead you get the slightly shimmery look (due to no linear polarization being prescent, so it's random). Both types of polarization are still used for displays, it varies depending on the display type (TN, IPS, MVA) and manufacturing methods. IIRC IPS always? uses circular polarization so it's much more common now (most but not all displays use IPS or IPS variants now). Polarized sun-glasses is another common example of linear polarization, they want to filter out ground or water reflections which is roughly linear due to reflecting off a flat-ish surface. The first LCD screens on the local busses where I live were completely unreadable with polarized sun glasses because they didn't think of specifying this when purchasing them and the cheapest panel happened to be linear AND the final polarization layer was orientend so the screen was black-on-black with polarized sun glasses - you could see it fine through the sun glasses if you held them in front of you rotated 90 degree, confirming what was wrong. Later bus displays were carefully specified so this didn't happen.

[@the-retro-center-develper]

thank you for this info

[@CiscoWes]

I have this exact same pocket computer. I remember looking at it a few years ago and noticed it had the same damage on the LCD. I just figured there’s no way to fix this. Glad to hear someone is making LCD screens for them! I might end up repairing mine as well. I do have the cassette adapter as well. They also made a little printer for this pocket computer as well. Thanks for the video!

[@KAPTKipper]

The connector for the cassette interface would be analog audio, in & out and possibly a pause control. You should be able to build a connection to a phone or other audio recorder.

[@SeanBZA]

Cassette interface is basically TTL level RS232, the cassette interface simply uses a FSK encoder and decoder to make the CUTS standard tape audio, and sends to the cassette interface. The same connector is used for the printer as well, which gives you a pen plotter, or thermal printer, depending on the model, but they all used an off the OEM shelf Epson printer unit, and then also the cassette interface as well for free, as it is using the same serial bus lines, and the same chipset inside. As you could send tones to the cassette interface you could also make music with it, single note only, and limited functionallity.

[@adamonline45]

I noticed you don't have any shorts videos, I hear they can be surprisingly lucrative and the tape save signal over the speakers would be a good one!

[@lazarian4428]

So glad that there are folks making replacement LCD displays for these lovely little machines. There are so many Radio Shack PC2's, Sharps etc that have decayed displays. It's so nice to see these little things brought back to life!

[@nesmaster14]

Cat toy laser pointers can be a good source for LR44s in a pinch, I think they include 3 of them. If don't have any on hand, walmart usually has the laser pointers w/LR44's for cheap in the cat section. I couldn't find any LR44s themselves at walmart so that was my only quick/cheap option once haha.

[@squidjam]

Oh, now you MUST create the interfaces for it! Your idea with a microphone AND one to transfer from the phone through the headphone jack. Search your feelings... You know this to be true!😂

[@233kosta]

The triumphant joy in your voice when that display comes on... priceless!

[@KepperKleen]

These replacement displays are made by Robert Baruch. His youtube channel has a number of tutorials that show the step by step instructions for replacing these displays. I've bought several from Robert over the years, and I am really surprised he is still selling them for a measly 20 bucks.

[@Ivan-hc6il]

Can you give me the link? Thank you

[@donaldmickunas8552]

I had one of these in the 1980s. I loved the ability to enter long equations, test them, then go back and edit them. This was not available on most calculators at that time.

[@uni-byte]

I can get a pack of 4 LR44 / A76 / 357 for $1 at the local dollar store. I see DigiKey have them for $1 each and those are name brand ultra schmeck Murata batteries. These are also Canadian prices. They should be pretty much free in the US. Where on earth did you have to pay $22 for 4 of them???? Nice job on the retrofit! I had one of these back in the day. My zero (0) had a stroke through it and the "O" did not look like a vertically flipped "Q" as yours does. Strange.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

My guess is he included the price of the Barbie they came installed in. 😂

[@Petertronic]

Loved this repair, like a lot of other commenters I really wanted one of these but never had one. It was fun following the progress on your livestreams.

[@binaryguru]

My Fluke 70 Series II has the same type of LCD. Cleaning that conductive strip with 99% isopropyl brought mine back to full contrast.

[@JenniferEliseAtchiso]

I had the SHARP version of this as my first computer . I also had the 4-color printer plotter for it. I was able to program it in assembly language because SHARP made a reference book explaining how to.

[@Starchface]

Was it _real_ assembly language? I have a PC-6 which was promoted as having assembly language. I was hopeful that it would allow some neat tricks. It turned out it was fake. It was an interpreter and extremely limited. However the PC-6 was made by Casio so it may have been different.

[@user_romanport]

The dreaded zebra strip! I remember the original Pebble smartwatches being notorious for the zebra strip for the LCD failing, causing artifacting on the display. Simple fix to unscrew the back of the watch and clean the zebra strip, but it was a pretty widespread problem. Great video as always!

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

Heh, fellow Pebble user here. Still have two Steels in working condition. Anyway, yeah, you could unscrew the back and replace the zebra strips. Or put something in between the PCB and the back to apply some extra pressure. Although that wouldn't last, so only good as a stopgap measure. Except on the original plastic Kickstarter version, which had the back glued on. If it happened on one of those, your only hope was that the warranty hadn't expired yet, as there was no way of opening these and then sealing them again without visible damage to the case.

[@richo3411]

That was fun to watch, that was my first computer, I bought it new. I also have the cassette interface and player as well as the printer. I was tough using a 2" wide printer but it was a great learning computer.

[@Raptor50aus]

Nice, I worked at Tandy Electronics in Australia back in 1983 to 1985 as a teenager and had this pocket computer with the printer and cassette interface. Great times !

[@yveslegrand9826]

I keep an old PC1211 in my basement. It was purchased in 1980 and it was given to me by my boss while being a trainee engineer. He owned a second unit and wrote a small pricing program for the company products, using this toy at 99% of its capacity. It was a 5 hours job in a train travel and was used by the company for years... I had so much fun and great service from this tiny computer...still in my basement...and I gonna fix it...if I can!

[@MistahMatzah]

I had one of these when I was a kid, and it got tossed out because of this issue. We assumed that there would never be a replacement screen, since even in 1992 (I think?) literally NO parts of any kind were available. This is amazing.

[@fabian999ification]

That CASSETTE data signal sounded like either an ASK or PSK signal (due to the constant 4 kHz carrier during the transfer). Recording in Audacity, only the amplitude changed during the symbol changes (with a powerful 3 kHz high-pass filter to remove DC noise), and the phase didn't change, so I suspect it's an ASK signal. ASK is quite common and very simple to implement for a quick and dirty cassette audio interface. However because the receiver relies purely on amplitude, it is very sensitive to noise inducing errors (even just DC noise). FSK and PSK are much better and have stronger resilience against noise, as the data signal characteristics are different from the noise characteristics (e.g. looking for only frequency or phase, means that DC noise doesn't matter nearly as much).

[@JohnDlugosz]

There is a place in my heart for that, as it was my first computer. I learned BASIC from the excellent manual it came with. Unfortunately I sold it when I upgraded to the PC-2 (which I still have).

[@Unfinished80]

I've never not had a battle with the zebra strips. There is apparently some sort of magic to get everything aligned the first time but, at this point in life, I'm losing hope of ever witnessing it. Thanks for showing us some nice skills and a really cool computer system!

[@Mueller3D]

There were a couple of different types of zebra strips. One type used wide conductors that matched the pitch of the metal contacts. These had to be precisely lined up with the contacts. Later types used many smaller conductors so that alignment of the zebra strip is no longer an issue; the PCB and the LCD still need to have decent alignment, though.

[@Starchface]

@@Mueller3D Yes. This example is the second type. There are several conductors per contact. All that is needed is to fit the strip into place such that all the contacts are covered, and ensure cleanliness of course. The latter is the much harder part

[@video99couk]

I have a similar (display is smaller) Sharp PC-1245. I built a cassette interface for it since the Sharp one was too expensive for me. I've also captured the audio from the Sharp training tapes that came with it. All on my channel if anyone is interested. The display on mine is still in perfect order, surprisingly enough.

[@Petertronic]

I will look for that on your channel! 👍

[@PatrickDunn13078]

Hi Shelby I purchase LR44 batteries at the dollar store. Package of 4 for a 1.25. I enjoy your videos and enthusiasm!

[@austinriddick6414]

That conductive pad gave me flashbacks to the PSP-1000's analog stick connector. I always hated those things

[@GrantSR]

My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 100. It fit neatly into my locker in my barracks (USMC). But I have never even heard of these before.

[@____________________________.x]

14:02 so why does the letter O look like there is a fault at the top right?

[@Marcello1b]

I had this and worked/studied with it for a while. I was creating my own little program and it worked really well. In short, it was a little Excel program or formula in itself.

[@AERVBlog]

In the early 90s I wrote a program on one of those that figured out the theoretical RF power of a mult-tower AM radio antenna array. I had the printer that went with it, used thermal paper I believe. It worked very well but they are very clumsy to program and you have to make sure you don't waste any RAM. I think I had something like 10bytes left. Thanks for the memories.

[@justin-g-360]

I am wondering, is the capital letter O and the double-quote showing something wrong with the character ROM, or just a choice made to distinguish characters? Good stuff!

[@theantipope4354]

Yes, it was to distinguish between the letter 'o' & zeros.

[@MakersEase]

I had one of these in high school... It was awesome to create basic programs. Then bought the fold open pc-6 for college... :) loved those things..

[@Starchface]

I have the PC-6 as well. I was hoping to use the assembly-language mode to do some neat things, but it was a fake assembly language, useless. The last time I brought it out it had a problem where the lower section of the keyboard didn't work.

[@MakersEase]

@@Starchface you know.. I just thought I was too stupid to understand the usefulness of assembly.. it wasn't till I was much older that I learned it wasn't a real assembler.

[@MakersEase]

@@Starchface you know.. I just thought I was too stupid to understand the usefulness of assembly.. it wasn't till I was much older that I learned it wasn't a real assembler.

[@Starchface]

@@MakersEase I just opened up the manual. It refers to the assembly language as a simulator of a hypothetical computer. That section of the manual is written in such a pretentious style you would think it's important, but the reality is that it's complete twaddle. The only input is numeric values from the keyboard and the output is numeric values to the display. It's also slower than a Lada full of elephants.

[@therealchayd]

Man, I'd love to have one of these! Also TIL what that mystery switch on business calculators actually means! Thankyou!

[@Jimbaloidatron]

It's fantastic to see these new displays being made, I'll be holding out for Sharp 1350 and 1248!

[@jamescorvett]

i was lucky to get one of these in 1980. I still have it and it works like new. It has a lot of hours on it but Ive not seen any screen issues yet as i do check it every year or two. I actually learned basic on the bigger desktop version of the TRS80 in 1979 and i still have all the programs i wrote. Kind of useless in the real world today. Hopefully I wont need to do this but I might have to pick up a new screen now just in case! Thanks for sharing this!

[@Saturnman262]

Where are you buying LR44 batteries that they're $5 a piece? I bought a 40 pack on Amazon for $8 and they've worked just fine in my cameras.

[@TechTangents]

Batteries Plus... not my best purchase. Walmart didn't have any and I was desperate to get them for the Barbie video so I caved. I wish I could even say they are a better brand, but nope, they're probably the same bulk thing you got but up charged.

[@Samiby]

Yeah exactly, these batteries are still a common format. I use them in my electric calipers, cheap as anything.

[@superciliousdude]

@@TechTangents In case you ever find yourself in need of LR44 cells again, its worth substituting silver oxide SR44 cells in their place. They are both mechanically identical and voltage compatible (1.55v vs 1.50v nominal) with LR44 but they have higher capacity and most significantly they never leak. They are (slightly) more expensive than the LR44, but more than make up for it in terms of useful life and typically end up being more economical overall. After having lost an expensive micrometer to a leaking LR44, I switched to SR44 and never looked back.

[@tomleech9753]

I came to ask that same question. I buy battery assortments on eBay for like $10 shipped and they have like 10 LR44's and a bunch of other common batteries. I never buy batteries from battery or watch stores. They have a HUUUGEEE markup. Though I did use my local grocery store for some CR2's, and some 1/3AA and 2/3AA that I needed for a project. Ace Hardware stocks weird batteries for solar lights like that. Tabless AA's in Lithium, etc.

[@theantipope4354]

No, the display does not use ECL logic, which is (or rather was) a very high speed, very power hungry logic family used for mainframes & super computers. This device would be 100% CMOS logic. My best guess at why it needs a split power setup like that is because back in those early days of LCDs, they needed weird bias voltages, possibly including a negative voltage.

[@HandheldComputing]

Great video! I always wondered how the LCD connections worked!

[@wetukman]

As a yough man i wanted this desperatly , thanks for the memory, the engineers was so good back then

[@ernestcline2868]

Brings back memories. I had one back in the day. Don't know where it got to.

[@eddiehimself]

Thank you Shelby for not referring to it as an "LCD display" lol.

[@button-puncher]

23:11 RadioShack invents NFC. LOL! Love it. So cool if it would have been true. Thanks for another great video.

[@DavidPlass]

Your excitement is awesome!

[@jf_moreira]

I remember using a similar SHARP computer where I programmed it (Basic language) so we could use as a Rally race computer by my navigator guy. Sweet times.

[@SomePeopleCallMeWulfman]

That's some funky battery arrangement inside the computer. Making the best of the available space, I guess.

[@8BitRetroJournal]

Robert Baruch created these replacements. He has two cool videos that show the process he went through to. He actually had to re-design them from scratch and do a deep dive.

[@perinoid]

I have a Casio pocket computer, looking pretty close to this one. I guess, there were many such machines back then. Why is the "O" letter so weird in its topmost line?

[@KipRoof]

To easily differentiate it from zero which doesn't have a slash through it

[@PG-gs5vb]

Perhaps they just used flipped Q to differentiate it from zero? The zero here is not strikethrough.

[@perinoid]

​@@KipRoofit makes sense. I thought, it was a kind of memory error or something.

[@theboyx323]

I bought one of those from Goodwill for $5 but it came with a docking setup and printer.

[@GlitchSystem-xf7jb]

I'm just curious and asking but could you modify it to use a rechargeable battery and a custom PCB to distribute the power to the TRS safely without burning it out? I always wonder if old tech could be updated in some way

[@Schule04]

It might be possible to use rechargeable V40H NiMH cells instead of the LR44. maybe.

[@cfg83]

Would the "dock" that connects to the tape cassette be able to take the sound input so that you can input a program?!?!? Cassette tape -> mp3, mp3 -> dock ?

[@squirlmy]

someone on Github has 119 programs from a book in both .bas and .wav form. So, yes, anything that has an audio jack can upload files. Kinda poetic/romantic uploading apps as "music" (or at least noise).

[@mre9593]

I have a pc 2 (I learned BASIC with it.) I had the printer plotter/ cassette interface too.

[@shawbros]

3:03 Those are only expensive when you buy them at local stores at their ripoff retail prices. When you buy them in bulk online, they are quite cheap.

[@MotownBatman]

The Excitement is Awesome! Great Job Sir!!

[@donutreligion2979]

You can get a set of LR44 batteries from the Doller Tree. I had to get some for a micrometer

[@sentry4944]

It's a mini Model 100. :) That's pretty cool. Nice repair and great video.

[@MrSpacelyy]

Lr44 expensive, really? Those are almost as easily available as cr2032, and mostly they are even cheaper.

[@emdxemdx]

@14:12 it shows the original ASCII specification of the O s with a little slash, a bit like a Q... @22:50 you ought to record the sound with Audacity, then look at it with the spectrum analyser mode; I believe that it encodes zeros with 1200 hz and ones with 2400 hz (yeah, it's dumb, but that's what happens when you're not an audio engineer)...

[@Synthematix]

I had a psion pocket pc back in the 80s it was awesome

[@lucidmoses]

You may be right but those old basic interpreters would also truncate the text of the token. i.e. it may be the line editor did it to you. Check the rounding with a calculation. PRINT 5/7 for example.

[@Blood-PawWerewolf]

I got one of these from my dad, and when i saw the LCD screen (same deterioration on the screen) i knew it wasn’t going to work. But i kept it anyways for moments like this.

[@wilsondavenport6939]

So if the contrast is not exactly right one thing I might recommend is just soldering on a resistor instead of the potentiometer.

[@SilverGreen93]

Hi. I just changed the screen with a new screen, but now when I press ON to start the PC, DEF and RUN show up on the screen and then if powers off. The same happens if I press the reset latch on the back. DEF and RUN briefly show up, and then it shuts off. Do you have any idea what could have gone wrong? The PC was working perfectly before. Thanks!

[@TechTangents]

I would take it back apart and clean the contacts some more, aside from my battery issues making sure the LCD pads was the next most important step.

[@SilverGreen93]

@@TechTangents If i fiddle with the contrast pot, all segments light up, so I think there is no issue with LCD connection, it definitely displays DEF and RUN and then turns off.

[@SilverGreen93]

@@TechTangents I managed to fix it! 🕵 There was a tiny bit of loose solder that shorted two of the CPU 1 pins that caused the issue! Thank God nothing was burnt! 🙄

[@squirlmy]

@@SilverGreen93 There were eight models of TRS-80 Pocket Computers. Some were made by Casio. They had very little in common with each other, not to mention the microcomputers of the same name. Couldn't share software or hardware. PC came to mean something other than "pocket computer", so they flew under the radar a bit.

[@the-retro-center-develper]

hi, i have a Sharp Pc-1251, with the same problem. Where did you get the screen?

[@ToTheGAMES]

So you can save the programs as wave files, or any format really, if you hook up a jack to it? I'm assuming it has that though.

[@edgarmatzinger9742]

16:26 _"You can see the display is now flawless"_ Well, almost. The "O" in Pocket has some erroneous pixels... (see top right of the character). But a great job none the less. In the past I had a watch using those Zebra connectors and half of the segments weren't working. And I never got that correct... You did! 👍

[@valuemastery]

This is how the "O" looks on this computer to distinguish it from "0" (zero). So it's perfectly fine.

[@edgarmatzinger9742]

@@valuemastery You seem to be correct.

[@valuemastery]

@@edgarmatzinger9742 I have one myself. It was my first computer 😀

[@TheCode-X]

20 bucks for 4 buttoncells? dude, where i live i buy them in stripes of 10 for 0.50 cents, or 1€ depending on who i buy them...

[@entity76]

Yeah they are dirt cheap over here. Online or in stores like Harbor Freight or Dollar Tree. But if you are in rush and buying from a local source, like everything, you will get soaked.

[@markdjdeenix6846]

looks nice .i know you know .but you can record into audacity on a PC .keep your phone away from the cables or it will add sounds that you dont want into the weird modem sounds that is that type of data save

[@raypalmer7733]

The letter 'O' (not zero) appears corrupt. The zero appears good, so is the contact aligned?

[@mbrit]

I thought I heard you say the screen orientation isn't important, but surely it is? (I have about a dozen of these -- various different models but luckily all the screens are still ok, or were last time I checked!)

[@kpnconsulting8739]

Wow, I last monkeyed with one of those bad boys in the late 80's. It had a color printer: one of the selling points was you could use it to plot data and equations. The whole affair (printer + computer + recorder) fit in a small briefcase and constituted one of the first portable computers. These are the days of miracles and wonder! Or so we thought. In retrospect it was more like rubbing sticks together to make fire. Or Gordon Gekko on the beach phoning Bud Fox from that chonky beige Dynatak.

[@theantipope4354]

My rich kid besty had one of these setups at the time, & you've left out the best bit about that printer, which was that it was actually a tiny pen-plotter!

[@elektron2kim666]

Mine was a Casio. A bit horrible because it was 1K or something and I was leaving my ZX-Spectrum adventure. The quality was great except the battery change/life and the resets.

[@LaurentValette1234]

It was the clone of the Sharp PC-1211, a nice piece, rare in fonction today. Basic OS and options like printer, recorder, etc....

[@nrdesign1991]

How come that LR44's are $5 a pop? They are super duper cheap here, also sold at discount stores like Lidl. Also, my dad and his brother used to send each other programs over the phone line acoustically. with their Sharp pocket PCs very similar to this one. One of them would "send" the program by holding it up to the phone while the other would record it on cassette.

[@thecomputergeek101old]

i have a sharp el-6500, if possible, can you take a look at it and help fix it?

[@JerryEricsson]

Very cool, I used to use a Tandy 101 in the squad car to type up reports in the car. Our small agency didn't have a computer to it's name so I used my own, at home I had a C=128 at the time, eventually went to a 386. Had a SX-64 luggable that I used to haul up to the PD for some of the stuff I wanted on the computer, ah but that little Tandy, wish I had kept one, had 3 at one time but ended up selling all 3 to one fellow, I listed one for sale and when the dude saw 3 he made me an offer. I could not refuse. Wouldn't mind having one again though.

[@G_Fresh_UK_Extra]

I'm so glad I found this channel, but I'm not sure why..

[@SianaGearz]

I buy a big huge blister of LR44 Varta Industrial cells there's like 20 or 40 on there once every few years, and magically they do get used up SOMEHOW. The whole blister goes for like $3. These are not expensive cells.

[@justin-g-360]

I can almost hear the tech community at large, making a ghastly gasp at the word Varta 🤣

[@SianaGearz]

@@justin-g-360 there's nothing particular to Varta, you just don't want to leave old NiCd cells soldered onto your boards, all of them are caustic, all of them are going to break a seal sooner or later. They are a good manufacturer of coin cells, better than Chinese stuff you get from Elta and Camelion brands and the like. I also think replacing NiCd with NiMH cell stacks is entirely par for the course since it's much less caustic and doesn't take damage when reverse biased at low or no current.

[@tOSdude]

Why are LR44 really expensive in your area? I can walk down to the dollar store and get a 5 pack for 3 CAD

[@liamwatson5125]

Where did you get the Barbie doll?

[@freednighthawk]

Why do I always forget about my 3d printer when I need to heat things like this? I always just go for the heat gun, but this seems far safer, considering it's temp controlled.

[@der.Schtefan]

I thought I remembered this thing to have a 3.5mm plug for Audio in/out? You can save the audio to Audacity and simply play it back. R u sure the speaker does not double as a Mike? You can upload the recorded file for your Patreons

[@automateTec]

I had a Casio one of these and wrote a program to work out compounding interest. I know there's an equation for that, but it would iterate to the end, and after dialling it in I could go in armed. Carried it around for years until it was stolen from my car.