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Hardware

Tandys Never Die 172

Posted by michael from the they-just-get-dimmer-and-dimmer dept.
kevcol writes: "Great article on the SF Chronicle's website on a school bus driver in Contra Costa County California who heads a Tandy model 100 computer user group. The model 100 was the portable version of the beloved TRS-80 (jokingly known as the 'Trash 80') which was the first computer I ever laid fingers on in high school back in the day..."
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Tandys Never Die More

Tandys Never Die

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  • Model 'T' (Score:2, Interesting)

    by soupforare ( 542403 )
    I have a copy of these, and their red japanese cousin made by NEC (the pc8401, iirc).
    cute little things, run about a month on double AAs, have a Billy-Born MS basic, a directory listing with fancy arrow-key navigation, w00

    They're tough as nails, anyway :P

  • Emulators? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by CountZero007 ( 39755 )
    Speaking of Yet-another-piece-of-old-hardware, are there emulators available for these Tandy boxen?

    And better yet, why would you want one?

    The Apple IIe is my old box of choice, and at least there's plenty of emulators & ROMs available :)
    • this is a list of emulators on classicgaming.com

      Amstrad CPC Emulators, Apple II Emulators, Arcade Emulators (Multi-Game), Arcadia 2001 Emulators, Atari 2600 Emulators, Atari 5200 Emulators, Atari 7800 Emulators, Atari Lynx Emulators, Coleco Emulators, Commodore 64 Emulators, Magnavox Odyssey Emulators, MSX Emulators, NeoGeo Emulators, NES Emulators, Odyssey Emulators, Sega Genesis Emulators, Sega Master System Emulators, TurboGrafx16 Emulators, Vectrex Emulators.

      Which means this tandy is prehistoric

      • Re:Emulators? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by CountZero007 ( 39755 )
        One of the problems with all the "retro" computing (like the above Tandy club) is that even if you *want* to be interested in joining, you need to find or have the particular old-piece-of-hardware.

        If there's an emulator (which unfortunately there doesn't seem to be), then it means anyone can join in... though in a lot of cases emulators (well, the ROMs) are illegal.

        - CZ
      • John Stiles has the definitive collection that run on Macs at emulation.net [emulation.net]

  • Cool Computer =P (Score:3, Interesting)

    by terradyn ( 242947 ) on Saturday February 16, 2002 @07:26AM (#3017469)
    I got a hold of one of these in high school and was very impressed by its size compared to the heavy ass suitcase portables available at the time. It had great accessories like the tape backup (audio tapes, mind you) and integrated 300 bps modem (you had to connect suction cup-like things to the phone line). You had to code some BASIC to get access to the tape and floppy drives though. Hmm...think the floppy was like 200Kbytes or something in that range. Ah, the memories...

    • No floppy interface. (Score:3, Informative)

      by maynard ( 3337 )
      The model 100 had no floppy interface, though there were external 3 1/2 floppy units available at the time. It did have a built in 300 bps modem The standard modem interface was a DIN 9 adapter on the side of the unit in which RS sold a DIN 9 to RJ-11 cable, though RS did sell an acoustic coupler for use with pay phones. Next to the modem was a secondary cassette tape interface. The screen displayed 40 cols by 8 lines, LCD. It shipped with 8K RAM in its original configuration, though it could be upgraded to 48K. The main CPU was an 8085, not a Z-80. It was in no way binary compatible with the original TRS-80.

      This is an important point, the TRS-80 Model I, III, and IV was a completely different computer system from the Model 100. They weren't compatible in any way whatsoever. Just like the Model 11 and 16 wasn't compatible with the model 1/III/IV. Totally different systems. At one point I ran a BBS off of a model I for four years from 1982 to 1986, which my family originally bought in 1977. It was a good computer for its time, though it generated way too much RFI, the buffered expansion interface cable often broke requiring replacement, and the B/W monitor which shipped with the model 1 was junk. The computer, however, was fast with a 1.77 MHz Z-80. Oh well, enough memory lane...

      Cheers,
      --Maynard

    • Re:Cool Computer =P (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And a built-in, bulletproof communications app. I bought a Model 100 in late 1979 specifically to join CompuServe. At 300 baud you could download a text file and read it as it scrolled down the 40-character, four-line display (extra credit: calculate how long it would take to download Mozilla at 300 bps).

      Assuming you could deal with the mysteries of parity and "echo" you could get the Model 100 to talk to anything with an async modem. I dialed into clients' mainframes and Ward Christensen's original BBS, belonged to most of the early online services, and even chatted with a hotel Teletype operator once. Another time, out of town and needing an emergency hard copy, I sent a TWX addressed to myself at my hotel.

      Never occurred to me to keep the thing. Wish it had.

  • Bullshit (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by Monte ( 48723 )
    The model 100 was the portable version of the beloved TRS-80

    No. It wasn't.

    It was a very useful "laptop" for it's time, but it was a TRS-80 like an IBM AT was a Macintosh.

    Do some research fer crissake.
    • ...shouldn't throw rocks. There was really no such thing as a uber-TRS-80. It was a code designation for a number of computers made by Tandy Radio Shack using the Z-80 microprocessor. The Model 100 portable was as much of an "official" TRS-80 as the original Model I or business-oriented Model II or FCC-approved Model III etc etc etc....

      If you want to buy one, go to EBay [ebay.com]. Notice the TRS-80 moniker located upper right in the photo...

      • Re:Guys in Glass Houses.... (Score:4, Funny)

        by dougmc ( 70836 ) <dougmc+slashdot@frenzied.us> on Saturday February 16, 2002 @02:17PM (#3018671) Homepage
        Hmm. Bought on at the local Goodwill computer store a while back for $9.00. I set up a simple program --
        10 A = A + 1

        20 PRINT "Hello there #", $A ;
        30 GOTO 10
        And it's been running this for something like a year now. It's up to 113,869,084.

        The battery is very nice -- it let it keep going even while we moved offices and lost power :)

      • The Model 100 wasn't a Z-80 based machine any more than the "TRS-80 Color Computer" was, and indeed the successors to the Model 100 dropped the TRS-80 designation. The 100/102/200 series had 80C85s in them, if I remember right, and the CoCos had 6809Es.The Model 16/6000 TRS-80s had Z80s and 68000s, and the last computer with the TRS-80 name plate was the 80186-based Model 2000. (It's always called the "Tandy 2000," but the one I have in the closet has a TRS-80 name plate on it.)

        You're right in pointing out that "TRS-80" was Radio Shack's brand name for computers for a while, just like Archer for electronic instruments and Realistic for stereo components. But the person you're responding to was also correct: you can't legitimately call the Model 100 a "portable version of the TRS-80," because it was its own computer, not a portable version of anything else. Likewise, the TRS-80 Color Computer was not the "color version of the TRS-80" any more than the Commodore 64 was the color version of the Commodore PET.

      • The Model 100 portable was as much of an "official" TRS-80 as the original Model I or business-oriented Model II or FCC-approved Model III etc etc etc

        Groovy. I'll put a Ford logo on my laptop and then I'll be able to drive it to work.

        The Model 100 wasn't a "portable version" of anything - it was a platform in and of itself. That was my point. You can put a "TRS-80" sticker on a grizzly bear if you care to, just don't expect it to load and run Android Nim.

    • Re:Bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)

      by raduga ( 216742 )
      That doesn't follow.

      Model 100 : TRS-80 :. Newton : Macintosh
      actually.

      "fascinating, innovative machine having little to do with its more well-known bretheren, which completely failed to catch on, and had surprisingly little direct influence on future devices of the same style which didn't appear until much, much later, but which changed the computing paradigm forever"

      Model 100 : laptop :. Newton : PDA

    • Re:Bullshit (Score:2, Interesting)

      by modulo ( 172960 )
      IIRC, most TRS-80's (the desktops) used Z-80 processors; my Model 200 (similar to model 100, but with clamshell case design/larger screen) uses an Intel 80C85 - somewhat similar to the Z-80 in that the Z-80 is also an enhanced 8080, but enhanced differently.

      OTOH, the Model II used a 68000 (also?), but I think only like 3 people actually had one of those (list price was what, $6000?). You could get Xenix for them, which was a Microsoft clone of Unix (!), although I probably only ever saw it in those funky brown vinyl software cases on the shelf at the Radio Shack franchise where I used to work.

      The CoCos used a 6809 I think

      I guess the point is "TRS-80" (it is rumored, anyway) stood for "Tandy/Radio Shack for the Eighties", it didn't indicate any specific architecture or software. Back in those days there was less expectation for software to be compatible between different models, but it did help out that the Models I/III/4 were compatible at least.
      • I was actively involved with these in the late 70's and early 80's. I had a couple of TRS-80s at home; we used their Xenix systems at work. Here's a quick summary of the family tree:

        Model I / Model III / Model 4/4P - The original TRS-80, used a Z-80 processor at 1.77 MHz. The Model I had 64x16 video, 4K to 48K RAM, and separate keyboard, video, expansion interface, and disk drives. It came standard with BASIC in ROM, and cassette tape (250 bps at first, then 500 bps). The optional 5.25" floppies held about 90K (that is NOT a typo).

        The Model III was nearly identical except it put it all in one box. The big change was the availability of double-density floppies (180K).

        The Model 4 looked like a Model III, but was entirely RAM-based. It held up to 128K RAM (woohoo!!), though the upper 96K was accessible as one of three 32K banks. The Model 4 also added 80x24 video. The 4P was a Model 4 in a luggable case.

        The Model I/III/4 series all ran an operating system called TRSDOS. These three models were mostly upwards-compatible.

        The Model II followed the Model I chronologically (and preceded the Model III - imagine that). The Model II was their business system. It had a 4 MHz Z80 processor with 32K to 64K of RAM. It had 80x24 video. It used 8" floppy drives - up to four of them - holding 600K each. It contained an internal card cage for expansion.

        The Model II was a tank. The main unit was about the size of a small dorm-type refrigerator, and probably weighed about 40-50 pounds. The external floppy drive cabinet was almost as big. The Model II was the first to offer a hard drive - 8 MB on 8" platters - the cabinet was about two foot square, and about 6" high, about like an oversized desktop PC today.

        The Model II ran a different and completely incompatible OS, also called TRSDOS. It was completely disk-based, containing only a minimal boot ROM. Model II software was not compatible with Model I/III/4 software.

        The Model II was followed by the Model 12 - same basic system with half-height, double-sided 8" floppy drives. Slightly smaller cabinet with up to two internal 1.2 MB floppies.

        The Model II/12 was later used as the core of the Motorola 68000-based Model 16. The Model 16 used the entire MII Z-80 architecture as its I/O processing subsystem. The Model 16 included a 6 MHz 68000 and supported up to 256K of RAM. The 68000 processor and its memory boards were separate cards that installed in the MII card cage. The operating system and application ran on the 68000 side.

        The Model 16 came with TRSDOS 16 (another incompatible variant), but the real power came once Xenix was offered. Xenix was a port of System III UNIX enhanced with a lot of BSD features. At one time, Tandy had the largest install base of UNIX-based systems. They weren't very big, no more than nine users, but there were a lot of them. I supported about 18 of them where I worked at the time.

        The Model 16 series peaked with the introduction of the Tandy 6000. This still contained the basic Model II architecture - you could still dual-boot to Z80 TRSDOS, but the design was updated to focus on Xenix use. It included an 8 MHz 68000, up to 1 MB of memory, and ultimately up to four 70 MB hard drives.

        Having established itself as the leader in UNIX for small business, and having invested substantial time and dollars in building a relatively effective suppport infrastructure for UNIX, Tandy made the brilliant decision to abandon that market and focus exclusively on PC clone systems. Given their prominence in the PC world today, you can see how well that worked. The executive behind this decision later moved to Microsoft.

        OK, that's the history of their original Z-80 family.

        Totally separate from this, Tandy offered the Model 100 mentioned in this article. It was based on an 80C85 processor (low power - CMOS - version of the 8080, with a handful of additional instructions) and was entirely RAM-based, i.e., it had no internal floppy or hard drives. It was a stand-alone product line, completely incompatible with their other systems. The 100 was followed by the 200, and then the 600, as I recall.

        Tandy's third PC line was their Color Computer ("Coco") series. All of the systems I mentioned above were strictly monochrome and used some form of monitor. The Color Computer was their launch into home TV-based systems. Again, IIRC, the Coco series were all based on the 6809 processor. The Coco series initially used cartridges and cassette tapes. Later, a floppy disk upgrade was offered using Microware's OS-9 operating system (pretty cool in its own right, similar to UNIX in many respects).

        Moving on, Tandy also offered several pocket-style computers over the years. They also offered a series of PC-compatibles (more or less) beginning with the Tandy 1000. As a UNIX biggot, I didn't follow the line closely. Again, IIRC, the 1000 was a PCjr clone and the 1200 was a strict PC XT clone.

        The Tandy 2000 was a high performance MS-DOS PC, offering an 80186 a year or so before IBM offered the AT. There was a version of Xenix for the 2000, but it didn't make it into the wild very often. The 2000 was followed by the 3000 and 4000 (both 286-based, I think). They were offered with Xenix, but never gained the penetration of the 16/6000 line. Tandy also offered a 5000 - I think this was their micro-channel clone. (Anyone remember micro-channel?)

        That's the history off the top of my head. There were a couple of other one-of models scattered through this, and after the 3000 & 4000, Tandy moved full-bore into forgettable PC clones. In its early days, however, Tandy was neck-and-neck with Apple for most computers sold.

        Yes, I need a life.

        • I had the model II and 16 confused, thanks for the memory refresh!

        • Having established itself as the leader in UNIX for small business, and having invested substantial time and dollars in building a relatively effective suppport infrastructure for UNIX, Tandy made the brilliant decision to abandon that market and focus exclusively on PC clone systems. Given their prominence in the PC world today, you can see how well that worked. The executive behind this decision later moved to Microsoft.

          I assume the executive to which you refer is Jon Shirley. He did move to Microsoft back in the late 80's, but was he really the one responsible for this decision? I would think former Tandy CEO John Roach was most responsible.
    • Why is this flamebait? Monte is pointing out the obvious fact that the Model 100 had *nothing* to do with the other TRS-80 computers -- it wasn't a portable version of them.

    • Re:Bullshit (Score:2, Funny)

      by gruntled ( 107194 )
      Well, I have one of mine in my lap at the moment (I wrote a newspaper column on this one for years) and it says, in big black letters on a silver background on a label in the upper right corner, "Radio Shack, TRS-80, Model 100, Portable Computer." How's that for research?

    • It was too ya twit. Now don't question me again.

      BTW- your analogy stinks. It betrays your lack of understanding.
    • The model 100 was the portable version of the beloved TRS-80

      >No. It wasn't.

      Ok, yes it was and no it wasn't at the same time. The Model 100 and 200 were both TRS-80's. I have a 100 sitting here and it says so right on the case.

      While it was portable because it is a laptop, it might not be considered a portable TRS-80. The Portable TRS-80 was the model 4P, which I also have sitting here. It was fully TRS-80 Model 3 and 4 compatable and only weighed about thirty pounds. It also had an attractive vinyl carry case.

      I did my research, thank you.

  • My friend had one in the early '80's (Score:3, Funny)

    by flacco ( 324089 ) on Saturday February 16, 2002 @07:29AM (#3017474)
    He seemed to use his TRS-80 primarily as a THC enhancement device. I NEVER saw him in front of that thing unless he was completely baked.

    Now that I think of it, I don't think I ever saw him when he WASN'T totally baked. Seriously.

    But he could do some cool stuff with it.

  • i could swear i read another /. post on almost exactly the same topic, but my searches come up bare.

    anyone else remember this? it was about the same tandy computers, and someone in the comments said s/he was using them for some kind of rugged research purposes, maybe marine...

    ...or maybe i'm smoking too much crack. but i'm allllmost sure...

  • Tandys are indeed sturdy (Score:3, Informative)

    by ism ( 180693 ) on Saturday February 16, 2002 @07:41AM (#3017494)
    Nowhere near as old as the one in the article, but I had a 1000RL (8086 8mhz I think) and when I upgraded to a better machine, sent the Tandy to my cousins in the Phillipines. Their house had no air conditioning, and the machine was situated in a room that often reached well over 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the midday sun. The house is in a fishing village and is often plagued with floods and monsoons.

    I visited the summer the year after and the machine worked flawlessly. I managed to play a Tandy BASIC minigolf game but had to stop because it was way too hot in the room. This continued for a few more years, and about 8 years after my initial purchase of the machine, it stopped working during a visit. I opened the case to discover it had become home to some large native flying insects... which got fried inside. In a weird sort of way, the heat didn't but also did manage to kill it eventually. Those conditions were definitely out of the bounds of a "normal operating environmeny" and I was amazed it lasted so long.

    Buying a Tandy again is pretty much out of the question, but during my ownership they certainly grew on me. The RL's 3-voice PCM sound capability allowed me to exercise my interest in sound programming. Had a subscription to a Tandy magazine (can't remember which one) and specifically looked for programs that supported the special Tandy graphics. As my first (IBM-compatible) PC, it served its purpose well, letting my preteen self learn about programming, proprietariness, and patience. It was a great machine for a hobbyist.

    • I had a 1000RL... (8086 8mhz I think)

      I had a 1000HX, which was effectively a PS/2 clone (IBM, not Sony ;-). It was the first time I had seen a 3 1/2" floppy. The demo model at Radio Shack showed an animation of both-sized floppies sliding into a guy's shirt pockets. The 5 1/4" ripped the shirt, but the 3 1/2" went right in. It's a pity we couldn't hardly ever find software that came on the latter at the time (except Civilization, which forced me to upgrade to 640k RAM).

      As recently as 1993, there was a company in New Jersey that sold mail-order hardware to extend the life of the pre-386 Tandys (sorry, don't recall the name; for all I know, it still exists). I couldn't afford anything from them at the time, but they sold an improved processor (8088) for the HX to run at just north of 8MHz, and boards to give it up to a full 1MB of RAM and EGA graphics! They once claimed to be working on a hardware emulator to let it act as a very slow 386, but then they just sort of disappeared from my radar.

      The RL's 3-voice PCM sound capability... [and] ...the special Tandy graphics.

      Ack! I had nearly forgotten those. My friends were awed by the 3-voice sound, but laughed at the "TGA", since they had the PC squeaker and EGA, respectively. I was fairly happy with the compromise, even though it meant that I usually got stuck with CGA. If I wanted to see it in its full 16-color glory, though, I only had to fire up "Personal Deskmate II" (a Windows-like shell). Ah, those were the days...

      • I'm not sure if it was the same company, but I did get a memory upgrade for the RL... I think it came stock with 768k (odd number, eh?) and the upgrade brought it to 1mb. The particular model I got was a mix between the two "real" models - 20mb HD + 640k RAM or 40mb HD + 768k RAM; I had 768k RAM with the 20mb HD.

        Come to think of it, coming only with a 3.5" floppy at the time seems pretty revolutionary. It's a long time ago but I remember the Radio Shack salesman trying to explain to my dad how they were better than the 5.25" we were used to (we were upgrading from an Apple IIc).

        Finding programs that explicitly supported TGA was a pain. Usually would get knocked down to CGA... ugh. I think some of the early-1990's Sierra adventure games supported TGA, as well as their subsidiary Dynamix. Unfortunately, I wouldn't get anything better than that until I upgraded to a homebuilt 486sx/33 with the glory of 320x200x256c VGA.

        What happened to your HX?
  • ...Hanson says that he still hears from police departments, military contractors and academic researchers who still use the thing...

    Which explains a whole heck of alot about NASA's current dilemmas.
    --
    Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.
    fortune cookie

    • Re:Hanson says... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Cynikal ( 513328 )
      "Which explains a whole heck of alot about NASA's current dilemmas."

      i dunno... back in the day when i used to code on my trash-80 coco2 and 3, "stability" was never a problem, it wasnt even an issue to be discussed. We all took for granted that you COULDN'T crash your computer unless you you started really fusking with the OS, or did something to crash it on purpose.. aside from that, i would probly trust a trash-80 to run my life support if i had to choose that or a pc.. (yea sure sure, linux, whatever, till someone "gets root" and then really DOES 0wN J00)

    • Hey, where else are you going to get a big, cheap, sturdy unit, with a full sized keyboard, that's more powerful than a calculator, and lasts for two months on a couple of AA's. I think it'd be ideal for scientist who don't need the power or cost of modern laptop, but want a solid unit with a big keyboard.

      -me

    • Re:Hanson says... (Score:2, Informative)

      by halflinger_n ( 534215 )
      The same chip that runs the T-100 (and T-102 and T-200) was sent to Mars to run the pathfinder rover. AFAIK there were a couple of reasons:

      1) NASA likes to buy milspec stuff, and I think it was a milspec IC

      2) How would you like to send the latest and greatest (and more complicated and fragile) CPU to Mars only to find out it can't divide properly? Most (all?) off the bugs in the 8045 (if I remember the chip - I could be wrong) were known when it was sent - it was already many many years old and well understood when the mission left the launchpad.

  • my old trash 80... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by crhylove ( 205956 )
    i wrote (in basic) my first video games on an old trash 80... some horrible ansi gfx tanks running around avoiding asterisks... lol those were the days!

    my programming eventually ran into the limitations of the 7 1/2" disks.

    if only i had cd burner in that thing!! lol

  • I don't think it was ever called a TRS-something, it was always the model 100?

    I've still got one, it still works. I have the floppy drive that connects with it. I bought this one used before going to a chess tournament in 1986 because I wanted to keep chess notes on it. Ah the memories.

    • Re:Ah, the Model 100 (Score:2, Informative)

      by OpenLith ( 550974 )

      The original batch of Model 100's were under the TRS-80 brand. Then, Tandy Corp. dropped the TRS-80 brand from its entire line, when it became the Tandy Model 100. Then, the word "Model" was removed, and became the Tandy 100, then the Tandy 102. Clamshell versions were released under the Tandy 2xx line. As mentioned earlier, these were closer to souped-up TRS-80 Pocket Computers rather than scaled-down TRS-80 desktops. Meaning, Tandy 100's didn't run TRS-DOS. This doesn't mean much because TRS-DOS was customized for each model leaving 5 relatively incompatible families of TRS-80 machines: Models I, III and the IV/4 lines; Models II, 12, 16, etc.; Color Computers; Pocket Computers; and Models 10x-2xx.

      (from a RadioShack alum and Tandy enthusiast... won my first few amateur programming competitions on Trash-80s)
      • Ah, the Tandy Pocket Computers... always wanted one of those. I actually every so often still want one, and then I realize that a) I carry around a PalmPilot and b) I can get a TI-83 for about $100... still, it would be nice.

        /Brian

  • Model 100 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jACL ( 75401 ) on Saturday February 16, 2002 @08:16AM (#3017535)
    Yes, I lusted after a Model 100 when they came out (this [geocities.com] is what they looked like if you've never seen one...) but I ended up buying the even more useful Tandy PC-2 pocket computer [inforamp.net]. It was amazing how many Physics and Chemistry equations you could store in 3.5K. Never would have made it through the core curriculum in college without my artificial memory...;)
    • I also bought one of the tiny little ones, and still use it. Mine is labelled as per the subject line even though it doesn't have a Z-80 in it, and the keyboard layout is a little different than yours [inforamp.net]: see a picture of it here [trs-80.com]. According to that page, mine was introduced in 1980, but I bought it in 1983 when the line was discontinued for the whopping price of $CAD 65 (including the soft case and cassette interface).
    • I, too, had the PC-2... Even though I had an Apple II, I liked the portability of the tandys. I started with a PC-4 [pocket.free.fr], and added a 1K memory upgrade and the casette port. This computer could keep 10 basic programs in memory at once (and they could call each other), and had a little memory counter at the top of the screen - it would display, in bytes, the amount of RAM left! It was great for trying to get that last bit of functionality into 1.5K.

      I traded up to the PC-2. It offered graphics (I no longer had to use the yen sign to represent the protagonist dog in my adventure game!), a piezo speaker. I got the 4-color plotter/tape interface and plotted all sorts of neat geometric designs (as neat as you could get on adding machine tape). It's a clone of a sharp model [pocket.free.fr]... I just realized Sharp offered cool stuff that RS didn't, including a soft-key keyboard and apparently a video interface. Besides the video (which I thought was available only on the much-more-expensive HP basic calculator), the holy grail was the RS-232 interface: Thay way I could hook up a modem, a printer, or talk to big computers.

      Little did I know that many years down the line I would eventually get a calculator that came with an RS232 serial port standard (HP48SX).

  • You don't need an apostrophe when indicating the plural form of a noun. "Tandys" is the correct word. The apostrophe would be used when talking about something belonging to the Tandy, such as "the Tandy's power supply".

    • Thank you, I was just checking to see if I had to chime in on this little pet peeve. =)

      Unless Tandy has a "Never Die" policy, "Tandy's Never Die" doesn't make sense.
    • You're right. I fixed it ...

      On the other hand, it wouldn't be *all* that far off to think of the possessive as referring to a casually implied subject :)

      timothy
    • Candy, candies. Sandy, sandies. Tandy, tandies. Tomaeto, Tomahto, Potaeto, Potahtoe (Quaylism). Let's call the whole thing off. This is the internet, IMHO. Since when do we care about grammour?
  • Imagine a beowulf cluster of these :D
  • I never had a model 100 but I loved my CoCo, Color Computer. One of the first that could actualy multi-task with a third-part OS, and you could use those new-fangled 3.5 inch floppy disks to replace audio cassets for mass-storage, transfered at 1500 baud. Tandy had some real cutting edge stuff in its day.

    my first computer COSMAC ELF that never actualy ran, and used a RCA 1802 processor, 255 bytes of static ram, yes that bytes not kilobytes. input was done by setting a toggle switch to LOAD, setting the 8 toggle switches to match the bytes bit pattern and pressing the single-step button! The "mother=board was wire-wrapped.
    • I had all 3 models of the COCO. It worked the best with OS-9 (no not the Apple Mac OS). OS-9 is a realtime Unix clone. For a short time before 3.5 became the standard, I remember being able to be 3" disks and drives ont hat system. There was a lot of cool things on the system. Speech Recognition, and Speech Synthesis (phonetically spelled words), touch pad, gun type joystick (only other system to have that was the First Nintendo at the time), and people used to design and build electornic add-on all the time for the system. There was a lot out there for that system than for any other system. THen I switch to dos, and was disappointed!
  • I have an idea - if these things are so great, how about making a new one with PalmOS. It could be very thin, color screen, still run on 4 AAs... I might even buy one! It could probably sell for under $200.

  • Model 100 goes to work in the gaming industry (Score:4, Interesting)

    by efedora ( 180114 ) <efedora@yahoo.com> on Saturday February 16, 2002 @10:19AM (#3017830) Homepage
    When the Model 100 first came out it had very little memory (16k?). An acquaintance of mine asked if I could help with a programming project on the Model 100. He was a 'numbers' runner (illegal lottery conducted in the poorer sections of the city) and he wanted to keep track of the numbers that were bet. To avoid heavy losses he had to 'lay off' the numbers that were bet too heavily by betting those numbers with someone else. Bets were typically $.25 to $2.00 always in $.25 increments. When he tried to do the job with an M100 there wasn't enough space for the single precision values. I rewrote the program to handle the bets as integer values of quarters (Number 6666 has 450 quarters bet on it so lay off everything above 200 quarters) The amounts were displayed in real floating point values and his helpers knew immediately when a number got bet too heavily. The amounts don't sound like much but the payoff odds were very high. That Model 100 saved a lot of money.

    • 8k (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )
      The 100 came with 8k, expandable to 32k. There were three quite similar machines, but I forget who sold the other two. I think the 100 was distinguished by the internal modem, but it's been a while :)


      I used a 102, the updated model, in law school *87-88). It came with 24k, and I never got around to getting the 8k chip to put in the empty socket when they dropped down to $5 or so.


      At the time in san diego, there was a bbs that actually *ran* on one of these (1.2mhz 8080 equiv, 300 baud internal pulse dialing modem).


      I had the expansion disk, but it wasn't much use--50k (100k? ) on a 3.5" disk. I usually just threw the files to a basic program on a mac to catch them. I also found a program that would run on my XT to let it serve as a "Disk" for the 102 (the disk connected by standard rs-232).


      The display was an amazing 8x40, though there was a function key to display the other/prior 8 lines. You could also bit address the pixels.


      The simple flat design still beats the clamshell laptop design if you're just typing in text; it's much easier to balance.


      It wanted 4 AA batteries for something like 20 hours on alkalines. Some folks used an empty bit of case to hold a 5th to use nicads--which were 1.2v rather than 1.5. I just used 4 nicads, and it lasted longer than if I'd made the mod(CMOS current draw is proportional to voltage applied).


      I still occasionally haul it out.


      hawk

  • I still have one of those model 100s in my collection. I bought it years ago to use as a very portable dumb terminal. It does the job, and runs just about forever on a set of AA batteries.

    If there's anyone else around who collects old laptops, I could use a pointer to where I can obtain a ROM image for an old Epson HX-20 laptop. I have the hardware here, but someone replaced the ROMS with a custom set. I'd like to restore this system to its original working condition if I can.
  • Yeah, we messed with Trash 80's in junior high... Our favorite stunt back then was waiting until a buddy got a couple of "pages" of program typed in (and none of us knew how to type, so that was an accomplishment) and then whoops! Accidentally hit that orange reset key! That button was on the right of the keyboard, well away from the rest of the keys and it was just begging to be hit...
    • Remember it well. I had a cat that liked to sleep on top of my Model 4 - it was nice and warm. I still vividly remember working for a couple of hours on some project or another, leaning back to review what I'd done, and watching in horror as the cat got up and stepped down - right on the reset switch. (The switch was horizontal, slightly recessed in one corner of the keyboard.)

      Save early, save often. Damn cat.

  • I've got some info about the Model 100 and 102 on my site at:

    http://www.ordersomewherechaos.com/rosso/fetish/m1 02/ [ordersomewherechaos.com]

    You can also find a link to the interview where Billy Goates discusses the fact that this was the last project where he personally worked on a majority of the code.

    Also, I've got a back up of a pretty good web site called Web 100

    http://www.ordersomewherechaos.com/rosso/fetish/m1 02/web100/ [ordersomewherechaos.com]

    Enjoy...
  • Game Boys and Game Boy Colors used the same chips as the TRS-80 (Z80's), so people often draw similarities between programming the two. The popularity of the TRS-80 might be why the Game Boy programming community got so large, and so much earlier than any other console.
    • You're right about "real" TRS-80's using a Z80 CPU, but the Tandy Model 100 didn't use a Z80 at all. It ran an 8085, like the processor used in the Mars Soujourner robot. Instruction sets are similar though between the Z80, 8080, and 8085.

      And while we're talking subtle CPU differences... the Game Boy does not use a Z80 either, but its CPU's instruction set is a close subset of it, only with a bunch of registers and opcodes removed. This is/was very frustrating for a Z80 programmer at first! Sega's (color) GameGear from the same era did use a true Z80 processor.
  • I read a few years ago that the 100 was popular with reporters in undeveloped places. Built in modem (that worked over lousy phone lines). Zero boot time. Enough memory for a few articles. Rugged. Here's an article: article [intercom.net]
  • http://www.quickpad.com/Item.asp?id=42

    Saw this in Tiger Direct's catalog. Seems to be an "updated" Tandy M100 repackaged and beefed up. First time I saw it I immediatly pulled out my credit card, but held back until I heard more about it.

    Anyone have one of these?
  • Years ago John Dvorak wrote articles for Infoworld, I believe, and in one of them referred to the TRS80 as a "Trash 80". John Roach, then president of Radio Shack, was not amused. He pulled Radio Shack ads from Infoworld, and shortly thereafter John Dvorak was no longer writing for Infoworld. A little thin-skinned I thought.
  • I have a Tandy 1800HD laptop (bit newer 286) that was passed on to me a short 3 years ago, in that short ammount of time I have spilled pepsi IN the floppy drive while the computer was in operation, it has survived a housefire, lent to my 6&10 year old cousins for a couple of months, had the battery terminals forcefully ripped out, and dropped more times than i can count, BUT IT STILL RUNS. Unfortunately i think it may be on its last leg, every now and then it is unable to boot with a "HDD Error" message, which can be fixed by (beleive it or not) hitting the back right corner as hard as possible with your fist, which somehow brings it back to life.

  • Amazing little machines (Score:2, Interesting)

    by stph ( 541287 )
    When I was in graduate school studying rhetoric, all the journalism folks swore by these things. They fit in a briefcase, they had a real keyboard, and they ran forever. It was (still is in my opinion) a great tool for writing anywhere.

  • CoCo with OS-9 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Saturday February 16, 2002 @12:11PM (#3018186) Homepage Journal
    What about the TRS-80 Color Computer with OS-9. That was amazing. Multiple users in 128K RAM and two floppies. Unix-like OS. It even had a (small) Free Software community.

    Bruce

    • 128K? *Sigh* My old CoCo 1, even with all the upgrades, could only do 64K. Still, you're right about OS9 being very cool. When I got my Tandy 1200 laptop, the first thing I did with it was hack up a serial connection between it and the CoCo and use the 1200 as a terminal. Two logins, different processes, the whole 9 yards. *That* was cool.

      Come to think of it, I've still got the CoCo in my garage...

      Meow
      • Actually, the original poster was probably talking about the CoCo 3, which came standard with 128K of RAM, but could be expanded to 512K (3rd party expansion options allowed up to 2 meg - and someone on the net was making expansion cards to go to 8 meg or so via 30 pin SIMMs!). OS-9 Level 2 was the OS for a multi-user system, and there was even a multi-tasking windowed type thing for it, IIRC. There were expansion packs through third parties that allowed you to hook up SCSI hard drives - though at the time it seemed waaay too expensive to get a 10 meg drive ($500? something like that).

        All in all, even with just Extended Basic as the OS, the CoCo 3 was an insane machine for its time and cost.

        And as far as expansion on the CoCo 2? I seem to recall third party expansion options to take them to 128K or so (Tandy only supported up to 64K)...
  • Now that was a computer. 6502, keyboard, 4K ram
    video modulator..Kansas City standard cassette.
    You haven't lived until understand the difference between indexed indirect and indirect indexed.

    Or perhaps you haven't lived if you do. ;-)

    My brother still has one running a mirror ball on a dance floor. (Poor kid)
  • I believe the tandy 100 was the last computer ol bill gates actually contributed code to.
  • I've still got mine, although it hasn't been powered up in ages. I also bought the ultra cool floppy drive.

    I committed my first hardware hacks on it. A slide switch to flip pins 2 and 3 on the serial port so I could ditch the null modem, and I cut a couple traces and added a couple wires so I could use ni-cads and have them recharge while plugged into the AC adapter.

    They are often for sale on E-bay and usually sell for under $50.
  • I had one of every computer back in the 80's. Commie 64, the 128 D, a TRS-80 Coco, an Atari 800XL, a coleco Adam and a TI99/4a.The TRS-80 was the worst of them. It had a limited BASIC that was more akin the the IBM than it was to anything else, IIRC.
    Back then, I compared the capability of BASIC. The Commodore series had by far the best, and came with the SID chip (sound chip). What was cool, back then, when you bought software, the floppies came with versions of software for ALL the machines out at that time. One copy gave you a version for the Atari line, the Texas instuments line, the commie line as well as the 'Trash-80's". They truly were all different.
  • I didn't see any comments get into the fact that the Model 100 had a built in, rather high speed for the time, 300 "baud" modem. That made it popular with news reports and the like. I also was able to use that feature to "back up date" to "The Source."


    Another feature was that the memory was always powered (I don't think it was FLASH or anything fancy), but basically you could just turn the thing off and when you turned it back on it was exactly where it had been left (e.g., editing some file).

  • A fair number of journalists *still* use these little gems.

    Why, you ask? Besides the fact that they have a very useable word processor and run for weeks on a handful or batteries, there is a biggie.

    You can type quite quickly on them with one hand without having to set it down on something. That is something that you simply cannot say about a modern clam-shell laptop.

  • I have mine as an onbject d'art. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zulux ( 112259 ) on Saturday February 16, 2002 @02:01PM (#3018608) Homepage Journal

    I mounted a 16K model-100 on the wall - with the powercord hidden by the dry-wall. It has a crappy "Draw-Random-Lines-And-Pereodically-Clear-The-Scre en" basic program. If you hold the space bar down, it shows the time.

    It's easily the most facinating thing, for my guests, in my house. It's a reminder to me that computing doesen't have to be high-powered and expensive in order to make our quality of life better.

    Side note - the things have a built in 300 Baud modem and a serial port (typical Radio-Shack DIN-5 style), I have another one that I hookup to all the OpenBSD routers/firewalls that I've installed for my clients - the batteries never seem to run out.

  • there are modern alternatives (Score:3, Informative)

    by markj02 ( 544487 ) on Saturday February 16, 2002 @02:04PM (#3018617)
    There are actually lots of modern versions of the Model 100. Take a look at brainium.com, quickpad.com, calcuscribe.com, and alphasmart.com. The QuickPad runs DOS and uses CF for storage. Some others use WinCE 3.0. These also tend to run batteries.

    So, if this is the kind of laptop you like, you can get modern alternatives, and they even run software for which you can get development systems.

  • My Tandy 1000 SX still runs, with all the original parts (plus a couple upgrades). Unlike my 486dx, Pentium 266, and PII 400. All of those eventually had mobos/procs/hard drives die on me.

    Of course, the best I can do with it is play Bard's Tale. But hey...
  • My Model 100 died of unknown causes; it just wouldn't turn on anymore. So I bought a new one via eBay for nostalgia's sake.
  • Back in the day, one of the best places for M100 stuff was the M100SIG forum on Compu$erve (it's probably still there, but I'm not a member anymore). Lots of shareware and freeware, most with source code. We ran a disassembler on the ROM image (I probably still have a 3-inch thick hard copy) and extended the built-in utilities with our own Z80 code. Anyone remember XMDPW6.CO? It was an enhancement to the terminal emulator to add things like XModem file transfers. I added a keyboard macro facility to that with about 20 lines of assembler code.

    I like the idea of hanging one on the wall as clock/conversation piece. With a serial connection to another box it could even receive live internet updates for things like /. headlines! Maybe I'll dust mine off...

  • The Model 100 beats laptops, WinCE devices. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Saturday February 16, 2002 @02:43PM (#3018779) Homepage
    I wrote my first book on a Model 100. It's a great machine, much better than a laptop or a WinCE PDA these days.

    Instant on, battery life on the order of 20 hours with a few AA cells, no moving parts so no need to be delicate, display with large pixels easily readable in sunlight or lamplight, very light, full-size keyboard... to get your data into your PC, you just connect it to the serial port and "capture" your data using a program like Procomm, Telix or (for those of you who are a little younger) HyperTerminal. On a Unix system, you just redirect it from the right device to a file. Nice and simple and clean.

    Why did I stop using mine? It got stolen at a public library when I turned my back for about a second and a half. Seriously, whoever stole it must have been waiting to snatch it and run like the wind. I looked into replacing it (the theft occurred in the early '90s) but they were still quite expensive at that time.

    I bought a 386 laptop instead but regretted it afterward because the M100 was a much better machine with much better ergonomics.
  • I know several people who still use their Tandy 100's on a daily basis. Those things are amazingly tough, and amazingly long-lasting in the battery department. (Imagine running one of those on a set of 1800 mAh NiMHs! :) ) I've found Tandy 100's in all sorts of places in my travels (garage sales, flea markets, thrift stores) and all of them were still functional. And they're amazingly light as well. When all you need is a note-taking machine or maybe a simple text terminal, you can't beat the Tandy 100. Sure beats lugging around a laptop.

    The only problem I see is in getting the files out to yoru regular computer. But if memory serves me correctly, there were ports on the thing (I'm pretty sure it had a parallel port, and I seem to recall it having a serial as well). I think there was even an internal modem option available(? - correct me if I'm wrong please). And since the thing had BASIC on it, I suppose you could hack together a crude file transfer program of sorts.

    • Plenty of I/O options (Score:2, Informative)

      by SlyDe ( 247694 )
      Yes, there are plenty of ways to get data in & out - serial, parallel, audio-cassette, 300baud modem. There is a freeware MS-DOS program that allows a PC to talk to it over a serial line and emulate a disk drive so the M100 can save & retrieve files by name.

      Some hams even hooked it up to packet radio devices to run it wireless.
  • i remember when the modell 100 came out, even then i thought, the machine was just so "right". think about how the machine could have been wrong.

    if it came out with a one line display or, even more likley, a chicklet keyboard like the one used on the first version of the color computer, it would've been a curiosity, remembered like the sinclair zx computers are recalled today. but because the 100 had just the right combination of elements (real keyboard, a two dimensional display, a full set of I/O ports, and really useful applications) it's remebered as one of the most successful alternative computers at the dawn of the peecee era.

    the model 100 had plenty of competition. luggable computers, pocket computers, etc. when i was in college, the school got a "great deal" on portable computers from texas instruments. one was issued to every incoming freshman that year. they were about the same size as the model 100, but only had a single line display and a chicklet keyboard. and they never went beyond being curiosities and playthings. the coolest thing about them was that with a simple command you could change their language from english to german.
  • This model just happened to be the most portable of the Trash-80 line. I ran into a TRS-80 4P [myoldcomputers.com] when I was in high school. Yes, this is the TRS-80 model 4 - portable. 30 pound behemoth that needed to be plugged into the wall. Ok, it wasn't very portable, but on the bottom of the machine, it claimed to be portable! C'mon, it had a handle!

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