New To Radio Shack (Tandy) TRS-80 PC2

[mutantcamel1979]

I have acquired one of these lovely machines from Ebay and I do love the look of the thing. No printer or other peripherals for it sadly at the moment. 

 

It came with a 4K Ram Cartridge giving me 22469 when I input the command PRINT MEM, but I assume only 6K of actual RAM, the other 16K being ROM.

 

I am aware of the 2 modes PRO and RUN, but I don't seem to be able to enter a Basic Program into the thing.

 

I type something such as 10 Print "Hello" and it puts : next to the line number, I press enter and it disappears.

 

There is no program to list, so I'm not sure what's going wrong.

 

I'm used to the CC40/TI-74, so thought it would act in a similar way.

 

Should it keep a program in memory when you turn it off? Keeping a program in memory with it on, would be a good start!

 

Also is there an internal battery which I should remove in case of the risk of it leaking?

 

I did receive it with the computer switched on saying 'busy' and had to remove the batteries to be able to turn it on and off. A bit worrying, not sure what happened there!

 

Any help would be appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 11 by mutantcamel1979

[Michael Kline]

The PC-2 (Sharp PC-1500)  was a quite powerful pocket computer at the time. The good news is that there is an archive available. You will need the manual and software is available that you can download.

 

http://www.pc1500.com/pc1500-pc2manuals.html

 

Programs are entered and edited in the PRO mode and ran in the RUN mode. Press the MODE button to switch between. 

 

Your MEM command used showing around 22K would indicate to me you have larger RAM module plugged in. Although I'm only aware that Radio Shack sold RAM modules up to 8K and Sharp sold them up to 16K. Because MEM shows you total RAM available for programming. 

 

The  command to clear everything out and reset it is; NEW0. After that type MEM to see what's available. The unit also has a reset button on the bottom. You can press it by losing an ink pen or something that fits into the hole. 

 

Download the manual first and start reading it and use the computer along side of it. 

 

Michael 

[jhd]

 

I do not remember the coverage of the PC-2 specifically (as I did not own one), but the TRS-80 Microcomputer Newsletter provided varying degrees of coverage to all of the systems in the Tandy product line: http://www.os9projects.com/MAGAZINES/MicroNews/MicroNews.html

 

 

[CAJoeG]

I have a TRS-80 PC-2. There are 4 AA batteries in the bottom of the unit.

 

For a good book on the TRS-80 Pocket PC-2, view/download this book: https://archive.org/details/gettingstartedon00harv

 

Joe