[Coco] COCO3 System Arrangement of modules

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 24 May 2008, wdg3rd at comcast.net wrote:
>From: Gene Heskett <gene.heskett at verizon.net>
>
>Ward said:
>> >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. ;)
>
>64 Laurel Ave, Kearny Ney Jersey.  Hopefully by this time next year
> somewhere in the Granite State selling real chili (meat with texture and
> the beans are a side, not inside).
>
Chuckle.  Folks from Oklahoma or Kansas also claim that real chilli never met a 
tomato either.

>> > 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 flashed early.  Blame it on the drugs but I suspect genetics were a factor
> (my dad's family were never the sharpest bricks in the chandelier).
>
Hummm, ;)

>> I think I was just getting into the best part of mine when I ran into the
>> coco in about '85.
>
>I fell in love with it when I got hired to teach at the Las Vegas RSCC
> 11/02/80.  The tech manual was already in stock (and as has been mentioned
> around here, it was mostly cribbed from a Motorola document).  I also
> thought the Model 3 was a serious improvement on my Mod One, aside from the
> lack of space to add stuff.
>
[...]
>> > 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.
>
>I'll quit eventually.  Chain smokers (and coal miners) on one side or the
> other of my family for several centuries and the only known cancer started
> in the bowels.  I don't get colds in the spring, or at least I don't think
> so.  Two generations in Los Angeles means I can handle industrial toxins
> with no problem, but I have no defenses against biological warfare from New
> Jersey plantlife.  Right now my sinuses are so messed up I couldn't smell
> anything beneath my own tail if I was a trained dog.

That I"ll have to admit, it pretty bad.
>
>> >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.
>
>Gene, thanks.  While I don't have a felt hat this past couple of decades
> (got several billed cotton things from vendors and the one I actually wear
> made from a dead cow) I'll look for some (lint-free) felt.  And especially
> thanks for reminding me about the belts.  The subject comes up now and
> again on the Classic Computer list, but I do the digest just looking for
> specific strings.  This email goes in my _permanent_ records (the ones that
> are really backed up) not just in the great big collection of email that's
> accumulated over the last couple of decades.

:)

>The Mod 2 internal and both expansion drives are closed on cardboard, much
> like they were originally shipped with.  Made them meself from a couple of
> shoe boxes.

Make the spindle hole big enough to clear the rosette, less pressure on it that 
way.

>And we all know about unobtainium.  The miner who digs it up will be a lot
> richer than the guy who finds the Lost Dutchman's gold mine.

I hear that.  I just a month ago rebuilt a center filament contact from the 
remains of a cooked one, including the silver plating on the end of it cuz 
Burle is getting hungry & wanted about a thou for a copper bolt about 15" long 
with the brass contact fingers brazed on the end of it.  It burned itself up 
cuz some idijit left a pile of 1/2" tru-arc internal snap rings out of it for 
good contact pressure. the last time they replaced it.  Jerks like that ought 
to have their license to tinker revoked.

>> > 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. :)
>
>You gotta send me a copy of the file your .sig generator rotates through.  I
> only recognize about three quarters of the sources.  A modern public school
> graduate wouldn't recognize a tenth.  (I am so damned lucky I learned to
> read before kindergarten so that schooling didn't interfere with my
> education -- I was reading Rand, Mencken, Orwell and especially Heinlein
> well before I would have been allowed to -- if they are still allowed,
> can't find any of the Heinlein "juveniles" in the local libraries and the
> closest bookstore [Kearny NJ is is a fairly densely populated area between
> Newark and Jersey City] is about three miles away).

We're somewhat alike in that regard, I was reading E.E. Doc Smith by the time I 
was 7.  Great stuff back then.

>Have to go set up a couple of tents in the back yard for leak tests.

Leak tests?  Oh, you mean tent leaks...

>First 
> vacation in two years in two weeks.  The Porcupine Freedom Festival up in
> New Hampshire.  http://www.freestateproject.org/festival/  Yes, I'm from
> Los Angeles, I live in New Jersey, and I'm planning to move further north
> to Mom's ancestral area since a week or two after the Salem trials.  With
> my computer collection.  After I open my restaurant, computers will just be
> a hobby again, not a job. --

If we weren't so set here, Dee was born about a mile from here, I could pack up 
& move to NH too, I like their political atmosphere, a lot.  But I've been here 
24 years & our politics isn't too bad.

>Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net

-- 
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)
memo, n.:
	An interoffice communication too often written more for the benefit
	of the person who sends it than the person who receives it.