TRS-80 4P software

Found a box…

Model 4P can run Model III programs too

Which explains the last 2 Model III books

From here. Use Thousands of Programs. Model 4P can use all Model 4 disk software. It can also run all Model III TRSDOS and LDOS disk programs (in Model III mode) without change. So a huge software library is already available. And Model 4P is compatible with the CP/M Plus operating system which opens the door to literally thousands of applications…

I didn’t find CP/M in that box, but I know I have or had it at one time because of the CBASIC software from DIGITAL RESEARCH.

My 39 year old TRS-80 Model 4P

Here is a nice summary page on the 4P. I tried to power it on many months ago and it smoked and there was some other indication of malfunction…maybe some message on the screen. Maybe blank or horizontal lines…I just don’t remember. Anyway a neighbor that had a career in electronics said he would look at it. So today I pulled it out…cleaned it up a bit. Powered it on to refresh my memory of the problem.

And…

It worked!

If you enlarge the pic you can see the screen says Seek Error…because I didn’t have a boot disk in it!

Sorry…I couldn’t wait 3 more month’s for a more dramatic title, My 40 year old TRS-80 Model 4P!

3D Printing

I don’t think I’ve said anything about this before…but I’m interested in trying it someday when money is less of an issue. Seems like a strange interest for someone admittedly not very artistic/creative. But it’s a tech thing. And 3D printers are cheaper than I imagined.

PDP-11 & Heathkit

It’s about time I mention Heathkit a popular electronics kit maker…back in the day! I ran across articles about the H11 that said it was similar to a DEC PDP-11/03. I’m sure I was aware of at the time because I got their catalogs. But the fear of spending that much money without the kit building skill set, no doubt scared me away. although you could also buy one assembled.

PDF @Internet Archive

sdltrs (TRS-80 emulator) Failure

I tried Dancing Demon and it starts out fine then when running a demo he taps once then the show ends. At first I wondered if the disk image of the demon software had become corrupt, However, it’s not a bad disk because trs80gp runs it fine. My guess is it has something to do with a library I recently used to rebuild it, because it use to work. Same thing with Galaxy Invasion, it starts but when the actual demo should start it just ends. They use to work because I have videos of them running, under sdltrs.

And they work using the trs80gp emulator!

An older Dave’s Garage video

I referenced another Dave video on Twitter in January. I tweeted…Very interesting “Dave’s Garage” YouTube video of how Microsoft’s Basic owes it’s beginnings to a 8008 simulator written by Paul Allen on the IBM 360. That particular section is below although the whole video is interesting.

OBS screen crop solution

OK…I figured it out myself. It wasn’t an OBS problem. It was a systems setting problem!

I’ll mention that I’m using Cinnamon which is based on GNOME 3.

From the Systems Settings screen…

  1. Select Windows under Prefrences

2. Select the Behavior Tab

3. Change “Special key to move and resize windows” to something other than Alt

OBS screen crop problem

I’m certain I’ve done this before. But now I can’t get it to work. Looked at vids and write-ups. Seems simple… hold Alt while right clicking resize handles…then resize. While you are adjusting, the border you are adjusting turns from red to green. Well that doesn’t work for me. The border stays red and the whole OBS window moves. Like I said…I’m certain I’ve done this before.

I wanted a short example of the PDP-11s console lights blinking to add to my TRS-80/PDP Star Trek video. I thought for sure YouTube would have one but I couldn’t find one. So I wanted to crop that out of the JavaScript browser example.

Googled and didn’t find a hit. Not asking a question because I’m certain I’ll just get “Works for me!”. So I guess for now I just won’t do it!

See the next post for the solution!