scottyau

So following along from getting my REX installed and playing with it, the next addition for my little M100 kit was a Tandy Portable Disk Drive 2: As the name suggests, its a portable 3.5" disk drive that goes with the Model 100, can run on AA batteries or 6V DC and reminds me very much of a top loading VCR we owned a long time ago. The drive itself appeared in fantastic cosmetic condition when it arrived - however it did not come with the serial cable to connect it to the M100 nor any disks.  I didn't think the missing cable would be a huge deal - but as it turns out I should have asked the question before purchasing the drive.  The cable is not just a straight serial cable, and has to adjust some of the voltage levels between the M100 and the drive to get things to work.  I started looking online at the documentation people have produced around making your own cable.  It was at this point someone very kindly offered me a spare cable that they had excess to...

My last post was about the SuperROM that I received with one of the M100's I purchased.  Now that my M100 was fully functional I started to look at what little extra bits might be fun to play with.  One of the major bits was the REX .  The summary of the REX taken directly from the wiki: REX allows for storage and quick, easy switching between OPTION ROM images. Once the binary software images are loaded into REX, the user can easily jump back and forth between different applications. REX provides the ability to backup and swap working RAM images. At the press of a key, your current RAM contents are saved in REX. Furthermore, you can reload any saved RAM image for use. This creates a library of RAM images, which has a number of uses. This offers an easy way to quickly backup all RAM to flash, or switch between multiple snapshots of RAM. It is like having multiple laptops in the same case! REX includes an interface to TPDD devices (like TPDD, NADSbox, LaddieCon etc) fo...

As mentioned briefly in my last post - I ended up with  Portable Computer Support Group (PCSG) SuperROM.  This guy is a ROM addon for the Model 100 that includes four additional applications: Lucid Write Rom Thought Lucid Data I found the scanned manual for this guy where I have found most of the scanned manuals I need - the Club 100 Library page .  It's a pretty basic install and setup.  Power the 100 off (not the memory power switch - just the main switch), flip the device over and open the expansion bay: The top is the system bus, the bottom is the expansion ROM slot where the SuperROM goes - simply push it in: From there flip the unit back over and power it on.  At this stage you shouldn't see any difference in the display - it should just be the menu you are used to: If this worked you are good, if it didn't maybe try reseating the ROM and try again.  From here to tell the unit the ROM is installed, open the Basic p...

So I have always loved small portable electronics - and retro is no exception.  There is a portable retro machine I have always love the look of - so about six months ago I started searching for one that wasn't going to require me to take a loan.  I found one that was listed as non-working/parts only but great cosmetic condition, going cheap and so I took a punt: The computer that Bill Gates himself last wrote software for, the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100: It showed no sign of anything when given power and turned on - as stated in the ad.  I left it plugged in for a while, as all the documentation around this guy says the internal battery needs a decent charge for the display to function 100%.  This didn't make a different though (not suprising when you see below).  This thing was cosmetically almost perfect.  No yellowing or scratches - thats a good start.  Better yet it came with this guy: A "SuperROM" expansion rom (more on t...