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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 10d

A little surgery on the Dallas chip and the message is gone and BIOS settings can now be saved again.
#retrocomputing #pcclones #pentium

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 11d

Re-assembled and first power on this old Pentium clone and it’s alive. Oddly set to 100Mhz but couple of dips later and we’re at 166. No surprise the Dallas is dead. It still has a funky Windows 98 install.
#retrocomputing #pcclones #pentium

Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 12d

Motherboard is a bog standard board of the era with 128 MB of memory. Dallas clock so that is probably dead. The chip is a Pentium 166 MMX. Time to clean, re-assemble, and see if there’s life in this computer.

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 12d

For cards we have an Diamond Stealth 3D 2000, a Sound Blaster 16, 3com network card, modem and USB card. For drives a 1.44, a 850 MB Quantum, and a Liteon CD/RW. Nothing too impressive.

Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 12d

First look at this PC clone I picked up. Was hoping for a 386/486 judging by the case but looks like we have a Socket 7. And the CD and USB card are kind of a tell.
#retrocomputing #pcclones #pentium

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 15d

Picked up these two non-descript PC clones. One looks from the XT/286 generation and the other 386/486 generation. But the CD drives make me doubt that’s what I’ll find inside.
#retrocomputing #pcclones

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 17d

The TRS-80 Model III is fixed, cleaned, assembled, and tested. Nice to have this piece of computing history in the collection. I have memories of using these in high school before the IBM clones took over.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii #septandy

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 19d

Quiet Friday evening pulling keys and cleaning the Model III keyboard.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii #septandy

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 21d

After some fiddling with IMD both drives are aligned and the Model III is booting off its drives once again. Time to tackle the dirty keyboard.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii #septandy

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 23d

Good and Bad news with the Model III. Hooked up a Gotek and the machine boots – so controller is good. But when I try and format or copy to the drives same errors on both. So pretty sure it’s the drives.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii #septandy

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 25d

IT’S ALIVE! First power on for this TRS-80 Model III and the system is up and the screen is good. Unfortunately no “Diskette?” prompt and no boot from the disk drive. So not sure if it has controller or just drive problems.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii #septandy

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 26d

Stepper motor on the Model III drives seemed very stiff and sticking. A couple of hours of exercising both drives and they’re working much smoother.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii #septandy

Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 28d

TRS-80 model III is blown apart. All is there and looks good. So time to start cleaning and get it re-assembled for a first power up.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii #septandy

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · 29d

Oh! I don’t like that. Metal washers under the power supply. And only 3 bolts so one of those was just floating there – that’s not good. Time to print up some plastic washers.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Sep 14

Interesting that’s not where the power supply goes for the disk drives. But appears to be an original power supply. Aftermarket controller card and brackets might be 3rd party.

Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Sep 14

No shielding but the board looks clean and has been upgraded to the full 48K possible. Judging by the Tandy logos with original memory.

Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Sep 14

Some dates put it as a midlife span model with dates in 1982.

Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Sep 14

Good news is this TRS-80 Model III case is not empty, looks likes all the guts are still there. We have some gooeyness on the anode cap and some RIFA caps just waiting to give the next guy to power this on a bad day.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Sep 6

It has a funky orange filter but the screen burn in is pretty heavy. I can read the menu. Was in a doctor’s office. From the wear we can see the keypad was primarily used. Some wear on the top edge – were we storing paper on top of the machine?

Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Sep 6

This TRS-80 Model III has a 16K badge and the model is 26-1062 but we have dual drives and an extra port so some upgrades were done in the past.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Sep 2

For #SepTandy 2025 I’m going to restore this TRS-80 Model III I picked up a while back. I have mixed feelings about these computers. My high school had these and being a Commodore kid they nothing for me at the time.
#retrocomputing #tandy #trs80 #modeliii

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Aug 31

That 286 accelerator card works. It give this IBM 5160 a nice period correct boost. Doesn’t do much for disk access performance and could us a 287 since even the 8087 blows just the 286 math out of the water.
#retrocomputing #ibm #ibmpcxt #ibm5160 #ibmxt

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Aug 27

This IBM XT 5160 is all cleaned up and working great. But I think I want to give it a little boost. I found this generic 286 accelerator card a while back and this machine would be a great candidate to inherit it. Let’s see if this upgrade card still works.
#retrocomputing #ibm #ibmpcxt #ibm5160

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Aug 24

Took me embarrassingly too long before I figured out why CTRL-ALT-DEL wasn’t working on the 5160. Can you see it?
#retrocomputing #ibm #ibmpcxt #ibm5160 #ibmxt

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Andrew's Tech Break @andrewstechbrk.bsky.social · Aug 24

Not bad. After a night of Spinrite the WD12 checked out half decent. Looks like the 5160 will be keeping its original “little” 10MB HDD for a while longer.

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