RR#9: Giant Portable Computer "Mystery Box"!

[@VanceStrickland]

Check out the "Hey Birt!" KZbin channel. He's got a lot of videos on the Model 100 /102 etc.. and he shows how to repair them. (If you want to try that route.) The disk drive TPDD2 probably will need a new drive belt - the old ones turn to black goo. Thankfully you can still get suitable replacement belts.

[@RDKLInc]

Thanks! I don't have time and have sold most of them off to people who will do the repair, but mention of the channel will help others. I sold the drive, and yes, parts of it were definitely turning into black goo!

[@mcgregor711]

Where are you located. I have a ton of Tandy trs80 and ti99 stuff. I have all the original receipts for the machines from radio shack.

[@RDKLInc]

Hi! I’m in Minneapolis. Honestly I’m very cheap, if you have good stuff you’d probably get more on eBay

[@crash-stop]

Those trs80 portables are awesome.

[@RDKLInc]

Yes they are. I could type on them all day, their keyboards are equal to any nice desktop keyboard with switches

[@domramsey]

The Dreamwriters are clones of the British Amstrad NC100 and are much later than the Tandys. The keyboards are exactly the same and most of the case parts are interchangeable, but the ROMs are different. That's a bit sad because the Amstrad came with BBC BASIC and was capable of running CP/M, but the Dreamwriters are just word processors.

[@RDKLInc]

Yeah I have one of those too somewhere. The evolution of these things was -- programming but no apps, then programming and apps, then apps but no programming. They realized average consumers didn't care about programming, and would rather buy a cheap $29 organizer device, and the computer people would rather buy a full-blown computer.

[@numinous123]

The sad truth is that a LOT of old tech is just dying due to age. Parts decay after a while. It's sad, but true.

[@RDKLInc]

Yes but it’s never the thing dying as a whole. It’s always a part and always repairable. These just need to get to the right people who do board repair and they’ll be fine

[@numinous123]

@@RDKLInc It's only reparable if they still make the parts. If the parts are still available then give it a shot.

[@RDKLInc]

@@numinous123 they don’t have to make the parts - you get parts from dead machines. Which is the entire basis of my business of 15 years

[@numinous123]

@@RDKLInc So you're getting replacement parts. You're splitting hairs right now. Parts still decay... THUS THE NEED FOR REPAIRS. I understand you're defending your business, but I'm not attacking you. Just stating a simple fact.

[@RDKLInc]

@@numinous123the simple fact is that parts from broken devices repair the viable ones, that’s how refurbishing works, that’s not splitting hairs.

[@dh2032]

just left rotting batteries in! on the floor for 12 month might of been in better condition where batteries dealt with like 12 months ago? why bid,

[@RDKLInc]

Dead batteries with no charge don’t corrode

[@dh2032]

can we appreciate the fact these little gays are all running on a set of four ordinary AA batteries! that you could buy in any suppermarket/corner store, for many happy weeks, on the same batteries too, if lucky and you not power user a month on AA battery, with like modern mobile batteries running coastally for 12 months at time could of been posable, the where Arm ultra low power computers of the time, if had money big IBM boxy portable computer, running time counted out minutes, an hour if you where lucky 🙂

[@RDKLInc]

Yes it is pretty miraculous. The dreamwriters I did a video about recently are the same