Improving signal strength on Superboard II

[ronin47]

Looks wicked, I totally agree, speakers at the sides, or on one side with TV controls on the other perhaps?

My display has just got through UK customs, so hopefully will be here soon. Still no LS163s yet, so it's off the bench for the moment anyways.

[Sideburn]

Yeah little grills and controls for volume and the menu buttons for brightness contrast etc.

I had another thought and now I’ve thinking of embedding a microcassette recorder into it with buttons on the side.

Just put an offer in for this:

IMG_8115.jpeg (1.34 MiB) Viewed 102 times

Thinking gut it and make a custom cassette door cover that matches the case so it’s flush on top with the play / record / eject on the rback right side.

So then you can save and load programs all in one.

I’ve calculated out that I should get over 6 hours of runtime off that behemoth lead acid battery I’ve got

[ronin47]

Yeah little grills and controls for volume and the menu buttons for brightness contrast etc.

I had another thought and now I’ve thinking of embedding a microcassette recorder into it with buttons on the side.

Just put an offer in for this:

IMG_8115.jpeg

Thinking gut it and make a custom cassette door cover that matches the case so it’s flush on top with the play / record / eject on the rback right side.

So then you can save and load programs all in one.

I’ve calculated out that I should get over 6 hours of runtime off that behemoth lead acid battery I’ve got

Ahh, I remember Tandy (Radio Shack) here in the UK and all the Realistic gear, it was quite the treasure trove when I was young!!

Almost seems a shame to gut it! But internal cassette does sound like a good idea.

My LS163's just arrived and video is restored, so just trying a tweaked ROM to see if I can move the columns over.

[ronin47]

OK, so the replacement LS163 has revived the video out.

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@bxdanny

I've made a slight tweak to the value in the monitor ROM at $7E0 from 65 to 64, and it's shifted over 1 column left now, which is enough.

A value of 63 is too far, and ideally the value would be 63.5, but we know that's not going to happen.

It's close enough for 24 columns to work.

[Sideburn]

That’s great news. Looks good. And nice radio shack keyboard haha
Why is it clipping so much on the right?

Yeah RadioShack as a kid, and a bike ride away for a replacement part! I was the same electronics tinkerer as a kid as I am today and loved that place. The Trs-80 coco was my first computer and I had all of the Forest Mimms electronics handbooks and a couple of those 100 in 1 electronics kits.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing a shame to gut it. I didn’t want to find one in box with manuals either for that reason.

Might find one in poor cosmetic condition.

These were great. I still have some.

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I had this exact one but the parts on it did not last long before that became part of one of my “inventions”

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[ronin47]

That’s great news. Looks good. And nice radio shack keyboard haha
Why is it clipping so much on the right?

Yeah RadioShack as a kid, and a bike ride away for a replacement part! I was the same electronics tinkerer as a kid as I am today and loved that place. The Trs-80 coco was my first computer and I had all of the Forest Mimms electronics handbooks and a couple of those 100 in 1 electronics kits.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing a shame to gut it. I didn’t want to find one in box with manuals either for that reason.

Might find one in poor cosmetic condition.

These were great. I still have some.

IMG_8129.jpeg

IMG_8128.jpeg

IMG_8127.jpeg


I had this exact one but the parts on it did not last long before that became part of one of my “inventions”

IMG_8119.jpeg

I had the exact same 150 in 1 kit too

I do also have one of those engineers notebooks, but it's for digital logic circuits. Tandy was never close, it always needed a journey of around an hour and I usually went with my parents, but whenever we were in the vicinity I always took myself off there for a browse

The RS keyboard is a fully working TRS-80 Model 1 with a Quinnterface and FreHD HDD solution. it's really a good machine, very solid, though build quality internally is a bit dubious Reminds me a bit of the OSI

As for the screen clipping? I just don't know but it's good enough, though I have discovered that with my 5" CRT, having the value changed makes it clip off the left hand column!!!

Hopefully the 10" LCD will arrive soon and we'll see how that goes.

Fingers crossed you can find an alternative to that Realistic cassette, it's just too nice.

[Sideburn]

Ok on the crt mine is clipping on the right as well but not as much as yours only a few characters. But mines also got the 48 column mod. I can deal with it by setting a screen width value after hitting the C key to enter basic.

One thing I don’t like about my 48 column text mod is i can hardly find any software that works with it.

[Sideburn]

The RS keyboard is a fully working TRS-80 Model 1 with a Quinnterface and FreHD HDD solution. it's really a good machine, very solid, though build quality internally is a bit dubious Reminds me a bit of the OSI

Yes I figured it was a model 1 or model 2. That computer was the first one I saw when I went to my neighbor kids house who was an electronics wiz and taught me a lot. He was probly 16 and I was probably 11. He was into analog electronics and CB / HAM radio and not so much digital but fully understood it and immediately opened it up and started showing me what all the chips did. I anxiously said put it back together and turn it on! And started figure out BASIC and wrote my first hello world loop and was hooked!

I begged for a computer for Christmas and got the COCO and started programming sound and graphics and the rest is history. The beginnings of a career in software development and electronics.

[ronin47]

The RS keyboard is a fully working TRS-80 Model 1 with a Quinnterface and FreHD HDD solution. it's really a good machine, very solid, though build quality internally is a bit dubious Reminds me a bit of the OSI

Yes I figured it was a model 1 or model 2. That computer was the first one I saw when I went to my neighbor kids house who was an electronics wiz and taught me a lot. He was probly 16 and I was probably 11. He was into analog electronics and CB / HAM radio and not so much digital but fully understood it and immediately opened it up and started showing me what all the chips did. I anxiously said put it back together and turn it on! And started figure out BASIC and wrote my first hello world loop and was hooked!

I begged for a computer for Christmas and got the COCO and started programming sound and graphics and the rest is history. The beginnings of a career in software development and electronics.

Cool

I was always into computers and interested in electronics as my uncle was a TV repairman, I remember him giving my my first soldering iron

I ended up being an aircraft engineer in the end, but nothing to do with electronics, and I came back to electronics as part of my retro collecting hobby and the need to fix the stuff I was buying!!!

The TRS took a lot to get going, including a 16K upgrade, lots of dead ICs and building the FreHD. Lovely little machine though.

I got a Coco recently and had audio problems but that was a bad IC too, and upgraded that to 64K and extended basic.

[Sideburn]

Ha similar. Was always in software and got back into electronics fixing all these retro machines. Now I need a bigger house to support my “problem”.

Never knew about OSI til my friend gave me his Superboard II. I guess it’s kindof rare and valuable.

I need to find some more games and programs so I can make it do more than hello world loops.

I’ve got to brush up on my basic and figure out how to do graphics on it. But this portable project will keep me busy for a while.