Craigslist score TRS-80 Model 4

[mykrowyre]

I have a CoCo2 and I've owned a bunch of Model 100's, but something about the old Model 3 and 4 always caught my eye.. they have that robust serious look, like a NASA workstation terminal, and well I am a fan of heavy clacky keyboards and monochrome monitors. Today I was cruising craigslist looking for old Commodore stuff, and I found Model 4 with 430 printer and 3 organizers full of disks, and original disks and brown binders for Multiplan, Visicalc, SuportScipt, DeskMate, and a bunch of other original disks with manuals, original BASIC and system manuals, and a bunch of other books. It's a later model with the green monochrome screen and arrow keys, 64k. I snatched it up

 

The printer is HUGE.... typically I consider vintage printers to be almost worthless but there is something pretty neat about a printer that will print up to 15" wide. It's worth keeping. Now I just need to find 15" fanfold paper!

 

Of course, I booted up the machine... and it ran great for 10 minutes and then screeched and coughed and a huge plume of white smoke rising like a mushroom cloud and then spreading out along my ceiling.

 

I quickly shut it down and discovered the common filter caps blown.

 

I've already ordered them so repairs should be sometime this week.

Edited July 13, 2015 by mykrowyre

[Omega-TI]

Nice find if you can get it to work again. I'm not trying to be nosy, but if you don't letting us know how much you paid... I'm starting to collect average prices as the Mod for is on my 'future get list'.

 

[mykrowyre]

Sure, I paid $140 for the computer, 430 printer with original driver disks and manuals, original plastic covers for computer and printer, and 3 plastic disk organizers about half full, 3 original binders with disks amd owners manuals for TRSDOS 6 for the Model 4/4P (I guess they had multiple copies / computers, this came from a business), Original Visicalc, DiskScripsit, GeneralLedger, Profile 4 Plus, Multiplan, Deskmate, original basic programming manual and quick reference guides.

 

For the computer alone, not a great price, but considering it's a later model with green monochrome screen and a bunch of disks I think I did pretty well... also no shipping costs.

 

The repair is very easy, there are two common capacitors that go on these power supplies. They are cheap... 2$ each.

[daafies]

nice! that's actually a pretty good price if you ask me. specially for a working one and all the goodies coming with it.

 

i think i have a similar later model with the green screen and arrow cluster.

 

enjoy!

[+save2600]

Always nice when you can find stuff like this locally. Besides the hassle and expense of shipping, rarely see things like this survive the experience.