Re: Model 4 Disk Drive Issue

Ira wrote:
Frank, do you have any other ideas?

1) He had already successfully started up into Model III Cass-mode so the contrast was not an issue.
2) I had personally prepared the disks for him so I know they were single sided.

Frank Durda IV wrote:

1. Have he confirmed that the display brightness and
contrast are not turned all the way down and he simply
can't see what is going on?

Press and HOLD the BREAK key while pressing and releasing
the Orange RESET button.
The prompt "Cass?" should appear on the screen.
Press ENTER a couple of times for more text.

If nothing is displayed, check brightness/contrast
controls under left edge of case (when viewed from the front).
Turn them all the way each way until you can see the raster on
the screen and then adjust so that only the text is visible.

If the text is not visible despite adjusting both of these
controls but the floppy drive comes on briefly (which usually
indicates that the CPU is executing good instructions), it is
possible the video cable has come loose inside the case or the
video board or the CRT are bad. Get the video working
before messing with the floppies.


2. Once the display is working and displaying reasonable text, turn
the power on, wait for the drive to stop spinning, insert a
single-sided Model III TRSDOS 1.3 or LDOS 5, or Model 4 TRSDOS 6
or LS-DOS 6 diskette into the lower drive, label side up.
Close the door and press the Orange RESET key and allow
up to 30 seconds for anything to be displayed. TRSDOS 1.3
is the slowest, the others will display something more quickly.

On the original equipment, only single-sided drives were
present, so only single-sided media formats are acceptable.
(Yes, there are additional OSes that will work on this
machine, but these are the originally-supported ones.)


Frank Durda IV - send mail to this address and remove the "LOSE":
<uhclemLOSE.aug08%nemesis.lonestar.org> http://nemesis.lonestar.org
"Dear Mr Icann, the reason I and others use Yahoo is because it
isn't controlled by Microsoft. Quit trying to mess this up."
Copyright 2008, ask before reprinting.

I'd suggest reseating all socketed ic's, especially the floppycontroller on the floppy interface card.

I think the floppy controller is detected and the index hole passing detected but hangs somewhere in the reading process thus it can see that there is a floppy but can't boot. BTW the 'no operating system' message is in the bootsector of data disk not the ROM so there is no message after a floppy is detected.

If he never gets the Diskette? message even with no disk then the state read back from the floppycontroller must be bad in such a way it thinks there is a floppy.
--
Knut
(delete 'nogarbage.' for email)
.

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