[Coco] COCO3 System Arrangement of modules

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 24 May 2008, wdg3rd at comcast.net wrote:
>From: John T Chasteen <johnchasteen.2 at juno.com>
>
>> Gene
>> Thanks so much for the detailed reply. I do have an ohmmeter. I did not
>> check Cloud9
>> recommended to place the two units that plug in MPI. Since I"M recovering
>> from
>> the Shingles and less than 30 days until my 80th birthday, it is hard to
>> play for more
>> than 4 or 5 hours at one time.
>> Thanks for the download saver. I hope I recognize the sockets you
>> mentioned. I can't
>> remember if I have a schematic. I hope pin one is printed on the circuit
>> board.
>>
>> Thanks again for your help. I think I'll wait awhile before running
>> jumpers, and see how things work.
>>
>> John
>
>I'm starting to meet too many people on some of these lists who are later
> into their youth than I am.  Hell, I turn 53 on Memorial Day

What yur address Ward, maybe John & I could go together and get you a towel to 
dry behind your ears. ;)

> and I was 
> already past the best part of my learning curve when I first encountered
> the TRS-80 Model One at the end of my USAF enlistment

I think I was just getting into the best part of mine when I ran into the coco 
in about '85.

> (though it didn't get 
> called that until the Model 2 came out in 1979).  Got a friend on the
> filePro (not Filemaker Pro on the Apple ][, filePro was first seen as
> Profile 2 on the TRS-80 Model 2 [original development was on the Model One
> by a guy active on that list who asks pointed questions of the current
> developers and maintainers] and started to shine as Profile-16 once Xenix
> showed up -- no relation to Color Profile, Tandy Corp had a habit of giving
> the same name to unrelated products i.e. the proliferation of the name
> Scripsit) list turning 80 Sunday.  At just about 53 {Monday, and the office
> is closed so I can eat my birthday pizza and drink the pitcher or two of
> beer though I now have to go outside for a cig
>arette

I got tired of being sick with a cold or whatever, spring of '89.  Haven't had 
on in my face since, cold turkey.

>and the Doc says I really ought not do at least two of those three 
> things -- but La Esposa is down at Balticon and unable to enforce his
> decrees) at a civilized hour), I'm in middle-youth.  I still play with toys
> and some of them are computers that spread across more than three decades
> of history.  I'm gonna fire up several of them this weekend partly to see
> if the dust hasn't gotten too deep and also to play Dungeons of Daggorath
> on a 16k Color Computer 1 again.  (Yes, I know there's a Java version and a
> lot of emulators, but I want to do it on a 19" TV, not an LCD monitor and
> the wrong keyboard).
>
>Age here doesn't compare to some of the political lists I'm on.  The average
> age of a serious libertarian seems to be about Ron Paul's age and the
> average age of a real anarchist (as opposed to the socialist kids who call
> themselves anarchists but just want to substitute one set of tyrants for
> another) is long dead (which puts me at the low end of the spread).  I
> blame government-run education, but I blame that for a lot of things (like
> that kids from Bulgaria and Estonia are better at attacking Microsoft
> cruftware than the young bastards in the US).
>
I'll second that!

>If anybody has a source (or fabrication instructions) for head load pads for
> single-sided CDC 8" floppy drives, I'd be much obliged.  My Mod 2 and
> expansion disk bay units could really use some replacements.

A pair of scissors, a snip of a felt hat (unless you can find thicker, probably 
cleaner stuff at the fabric store) and some fabric glue from the same store, 
and you should be set.  Glue it up and close the drive on a piece of stiff 
tagboard so it takes the shape as the glue sets.

Those I understand had a lubricant in them, probably a hard wax like Carnaba, a 
small sliver of that dissolved in a few drops of paint thinner alcohol & 
applied after the glue is well set might work.

Don't forget to toss a drop of sewing machine oil on the head slider carriage 
rods & drive screw if its not SS tape driven.  Ditto for the rosette bearing in 
the disk clamp.  And how are the belts?  I finally had to replace the SS drives 
in our CG with DS drives because the DS drives were direct drive, the disks 
have laid around now for 20+ years and all the internal lube in the disk 
envelope is gone and it takes 3 or 4 times as much power to turn the disk now 
than it did when all this was new.  The rosette clamping pressure is also 
insufficient & will probably need to be sprung a few thou to increase that.  
Wear marks on the disc's hub rings are your clue there, along with read errors 
cuz it isn't turning steady.  The old SS drives had been closed on a disc 24/7 
for several years and the plastic rosettes collapsed just enough to reduce the 
pressure, and allow the disc to be off-center too.  Its gotta fit right.  I cut 
my downtime with fresh drives from a surplus place, but that was back in '85 
too.  Now they would be made out of pure unobtainium I imagine.

Because of the rosette collapse, don't leave the drive closed on a disc for 
extended periods.

> This is more 
> serious than my above comments which while being half tongue-in-cheek are
> also my arrogant opinions (life is too short to hold humble opinions) --

We've noticed, Ward. OTOH, you've all probably noted that mine aren't too humble 
either. :)

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of sense to know
how to lie well.
		-- Samuel Butler