[Coco] COCO3 System Arrangement of modules

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

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).
 
> > 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).

> 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.

> > (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.

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.

> >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.

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.
> 
> > 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).

Have to go set up a couple of tents in the back yard for leak tests.  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.
--
Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net

These histrionics were probably unnecessary, since there was no reason to think anybody would be watching us with more than casual interest until I made my first move to follow Buchanon's trail, in London.  Still, somebody might check back this far later, and I always feel that if you're going to play a part, you might as well play it all the way, at least in public -- and it's hard to tell what's public and what isn't, these electronic days.
Donald Hamilton, _The Devastators_, 1965