How to retreive data from TRS-80 floppy disks

Question

I have a program that was written in TRS-DOS BASIC on a TRS-80 model 1. There is the program and more importantly the data files. Does anyone know of a service that I can sent the disks to that will read the data (for a reasonable price)? The original computer is long dead and it was a cool program that a couple of friends and I put together.

Answer 1

Really? What could be so interesting?

My first suggestion would be trying to find somebody with a Trash-80 that still works. Personally, I have a TI-99 4a, so no help there. I really wish you all the luck in the world as I have trouble finding ways to get old IBM (5.25") floppies read.

Voted up for daring to ask the impossible. :)

Answer 2

I'm not sure what your budget is, but looks like you can actually buy a working TRS-80 for less than $100 on ebay:

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37.l1313&satitle=trs+80&category0=

Answer 3

Not specifically a service, but have a look for any TRS-80 specific news groups or discussion forums; some of whom seem to hang out on comp.sys.tandy

You may well find people willing to copy your data.

Alternately, find out if there are any local computer museums. Locally to Toronto Ontario, Canada we have a couple, my favorite is PC Museum which is completely hands on. If you have no other recourse, Syd - the owner of the museum, might well have a go at it.

I am not at all a TRS-80 expert, but are the disks readable in any other machine? If so, you can likely find an emulator or interpreter for the BASIC code on the disks.

Good Luck

Answer 4

Get in touch with Ira Goldklang. He maintains a TRS-80 site (www.trs-80.com) and has the required gear to read any TRS-80 disk. I bet he would do that for you at no charge at all.

Miguel.