Model III & IV High Resolution cards

[Rogelio Perea]

While not a pressing matter, I have been looking for the Tandy issued
graphics card hardware for both the TRS-80 Models III & 4. Have not seen
any on Ebay nor Craigslist and beyond the references in some of the
TRS-80 related websites, there is no pictures to go by in case I happen
to stumble upon one at a flea market.

Anyone with some insight on where to find more info on this hardware
upgrade for the machines?



-- RP

[Grinder]

I was hot to have one of those bad boys as well, but bought and built a
3rd party product (can't remember the name now) that was external and
also offered color. I wrote some software for it, but lost interest
fairly quickly.

Here's a webpage for the RS one:

http://www.trs-80.org/radio-shack-model-4-high-resolution-board/

You've probably already seen that.

Unfortunately, I've never seen the card, or even a picture of the card.

[Clu]

Define "high resolution" in regards to the Model 3 and 4.

This should be interesting. :P

Doc Clu

[Grinder]

I guess you couldn't be bothered to follow the conspicuous link to find
your answer?

[Michael Black]

On Sat, 7 Jul 2012, Clu wrote:

> Define "high resolution" in regards to the Model 3 and 4.
>
> This should be interesting. :P
>
> Doc Clu
>

"Higher resolution" than was built in. Low resolution compared to what's
available today.

I dragged home a 3GHz computer on Sunday, and it "only" has 512megs of RAM
in it, and then I grumbled as a chunk of that was used for the built in
video interface, that is much more advanced than what was in the Radio
Shack computers (the fact that it uses a "big chunk" of RAM is an
indicator of that). The best permanent storage I had up to late 1993 was
720K of disk space on a 3.5" floppy on my CoCo III. Of course, that
computer had 512K of RAM, after I upgraded it. It's a near infinite
increase in computing specs, in 20 years.

Michael

[Alpinist Petrofsky]

I don't know of any pictures of complete boards, but in the service
manuals you can find a lot of information, including the board circuit
traces and component-label silkscreens. You could identify a board by
looking for the part number 8709297 or 8709397 (for Model III or 4)
written as part of the solder-side circuit trace.

The 26-1125 service manual, "TRS-80 Model III Computer Graphics
Upgrade Kit", was scanned by David J. Cooper in 2010 and made
available at his Marmotking archive, here:
http://marmotking.com/327a0f31bb7061464c18469d8dd1e999/downloads.html

For the Model 4 graphics board, see either the Model 4 service manual
or the Model 4P service manual. A copy of the latter, scanned by
Larry Fosdick in 2005, can currently be found at multiple locations,
including these:
http://www.classiccmp.org/cpmarchives/trs80/Library/Manuals/Hardware/Model%204P%20Service%20Manual%20(1984)(Tandy).pdf.7z
http://www.1000bit.it/support/manuali/trs/Model%204P%20Service%20Manual%20%281984%29%28Tandy%29%28pdf%29.pdf

-al

[Rogelio Perea]

On 07/07/2012 06:34 PM, Alpinist Petrofsky wrote:

> The 26-1125 service manual, "TRS-80 Model III Computer Graphics
> Upgrade Kit", was scanned by David J. Cooper in 2010 and made
> available at his Marmotking archive, here:
> http://marmotking.com/327a0f31bb7061464c18469d8dd1e999/downloads.html
>
> For the Model 4 graphics board, see either the Model 4 service manual
> or the Model 4P service manual. A copy of the latter, scanned by
> Larry Fosdick in 2005, can currently be found at multiple locations,
> including these:
> http://www.classiccmp.org/cpmarchives/trs80/Library/Manuals/Hardware/Model%204P%20Service%20Manual%20(1984)(Tandy).pdf.7z
> http://www.1000bit.it/support/manuali/trs/Model%204P%20Service%20Manual%20%281984%29%28Tandy%29%28pdf%29.pdf

Thanks for the heads up, had not thought of checking on the service
manuals - will do now!


-- RP

[Clu]

> On 7/6/2012 5:05 PM, Clu wrote:
>> Define "high resolution" in regards to the Model 3 and 4.
>>
>> This should be interesting. :P
>>
>> Doc Clu
>>

On 7/7/12 4:50 AM, Grinder wrote:
> I guess you couldn't be bothered to follow the conspicuous link to find
> your answer?
>

>>> http://www.trs-80.org/radio-shack-model-4-high-resolution-board/

Wow... those WERE nice graphics. I mean even now I look at those crisp
graphics, compare it to the regular graphics of the TRS-80 and think...
that is damn good. Where can I get one of those? Be fun to use from
some BBSing.

But then I slap myself back to the present day. :P

[texweb...@gmail.com]

I have 3. Finding them will be the issue. I do not remember what software is required. It seems that only a few programs could use the cards.