Radio Shack's TRS-80 Turns 35 231
harrymcc writes "On August 3, 1977, Radio Shack announced its TRS-80 microcomputer at an event in New York City. For the next several years, it was the world's most popular PC — but it never got the respect it deserved. (I still wince when I hear 'Trash-80.') Over at TIME.com, I'm celebrating the anniversary with some reflections on the machine and why it was so underappreciated."
TRS-80 - available in stores near you (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:TRS-80 - available in stores near you (Score:4, Interesting)
My first computer. Figured out how to up the RAM from 16k to 48k (the max) myself. Figured out how to get lower case letters myself. Burned a ton of time on Scott Adams adventures.
But the big thing was I taught myself to program. First BASIC, then when it proved too slow Z-80 assembler. For work I was a tech working on 8080-bases systems, so I used that assembler knowledge to write tests to exercise various circuitry. A co-worker and I wrote a Space Invaders clone, which turned out to be a hit at trade shows (prolly because marketing grabbed it before we gave the invaders missiles of their own. Engineering found out what I was doing and suddenly I was writing new software.
Fast forward 35 years, I still write embedded software. And have my Trash-80 in the garage.
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Figured out how to up the RAM from 16k to 48k (the max) myself.
Yup, my dad saved over $300 buying the modules for our Model I Level 2 himself over letting Rat Shack put them in -- my first lesson in vendor markup, as a kid.
With both parents having done their dissertations on that machine, it's no wonder I'm used to being up all night -- that Daisy Wheel Printer II was loud enough to be heard across the house, and would go at all hours.
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But the big thing was I taught myself to program. First BASIC, then when it proved too slow Z-80 assembler.
This was also my experience. I saw the display model at the local Radio Shack and was fascinated. The owner let me take the programming manual home overnight. It was extremely well written. The next day when I brought it back, I could program in BASIC. I was breaking into the program and modifying it, and I was definitely hooked. I got a loan and bought one that day.
The first 'pc' I worked on (hardware-wise) was a Model 1. I did the upgrade to 48K for a buddy of mine and installed a 3rd party lowercase mod. That was back in the day when I could still solder for shit. Haven't picked up an iron in almost a decade.
First 'pc' I owned was a CoCo 1. 16K RAM (until I got it home and voided the warrantee), the old Microsoft ROM BASIC. I learned Basic on it, then 6809 machine code. I got a 64K CoCo2, ran a COBBS board on it for about 6 months, a high speed board at 1200
Re:TRS-80 - available in stores near you (Score:5, Informative)
Most people do. The Apple II didn't even have production tooling for the case until December 1977/early 78. Some early units were kits that were assembled and hand-sanded. Meanwhile the TRS-80 sold 10,000 units in the first month and a half.
Don't get me wrong, the Apple rocked. But it wasn't really a production machine like the TRS-80 was. If you're going to call Apple the first consumer PC, then it's not. If you want to include Apple's kit days, then include all the kits like the Apple I (go Woz!) and the Ohio Scientific Challenger, the Exidy and of course the legendary Altair, which might truly be first.
First consumer PC? PET was before it (Score:4, Informative)
I never thought the Apple ][ was first. But the TRS-80 wasn't either. The PET was available before either of them.
Why would you mention Exidy (the Sorcerer)? It came after all these computers. Where I was you could get an Apple ][+ before you could get a Sorcerer.
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I clearly remember my dad running his small business using Radio Shack accounting software, first on a Model I then later a Model III. This would have been starting in the late 70's.
Daily reports and employee commission calculations were done with a BASIC program that my uncle wrote.
In fact, the Model III ran payroll, receivables and general ledger until 1996 or so.
Tax/withholding rates in the payroll program were changed by editing a DATA statement in the program. The user manual provided clear instruction
It was the Processor: Z80 vs 6502 (Score:2)
I was routing for the 68000 to be the next step, but when Apple announced that the MAC was going to be a closed system (Pay for the SDK) I, as did many, jumped ship to the PC's 8088.
My first computer (Score:3)
Those were the days. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
They had a room full of Trash 80s in the local Boys and Girls Club when I was growing up. While other kids were playing fooseball I was getting into the BASIC code for the bowling game and hard coding myself as the all time scorer on the high score board. They caught on when I started having scores higher than 300. 1,000,000 just sounded better.
Good times.
The Thing - Cheating Bitch! (Score:2)
Wasn't it a TRS-80 that Kurt Russell was playing chess against at the beginning of "The Thing"?
That totally cracked me up: "Cheating Bitch!" then poured his scotch into the case - I wanted to do that so many times when playing chess against that damn computer! Granted, at that time I was drinking Koolaid, but the sentiment was the same.
the respect it "deserved" (Score:4, Interesting)
I owned a model 1.
calling it "Trash-80" is exactly what that hack deserved; it was significantly behind what most hobbiests at the time would have cobbled together on the same parts budget.
It's tough to choose a favorite design flaw, whether saving four bits by only using 7 video chips instead of 8, even though the character generator had lower case . . . Running the processor bizarrely slow, the same rate as characters appeared on screen, but yanking control away and creating a glitch on the screen with each read or write . . .
My choice, though, is using the same connector for the power supply and video output, toasting the board for those who unwittingly just reached behind to plug them in . . .
hawk
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I had a lot of fun with the BASIC with only two string variables: A$ and B$. Of course I had no clue what I was doing at the time.
"Trash-80" always seemed more like a term of endearment.
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calling it "Trash-80" is exactly what that hack deserved; it was significantly behind what most hobbiests at the time would have cobbled together on the same parts budget
I agree that the Model I was nobody's idea of an awesome hardware design, but for $595, could anyone else have done better, at either a hobbyist or professional/corporate level? That was what really got my attention. Even as an 8-year-old, I knew $595 wasn't that much money for a real computer.
The Apple II was about $1500. Sure, it was a
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Commodore could, and did... At first with the PET, then with the Commodore 64, which debuted in Jan 1982 with 64K memory for $595.
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You missed the important step of the VIC-20 in 1980. I always felt the PET was not really a consumer computer (more for business), but the VIC-20 certainly was. The only computer in 1980-81 which had more sales was the Atari 800. (Due to brand recognition from the #1 selling Atari console.)
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I think that's what they call a "leading question". Here's an unusual answer - the UK magazine Electronics Today International published plans in 197(?) for a home-build hobby computer that had similar specs, ran BASIC and could be assembled from parts you sourced yourself, using their PCB design. They even had off-the-shelf case, keyboard and so on. It would definitely have been in this price range or less. I bet nobody can remember it now - I believe it
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That "(?)" in the date makes all the difference in the world.
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If this gets any hobbier, it might reach the point, where it becomes the hobbiest thing of them all.
respect (Score:2)
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And it had only two string variables: $A and $B I think.
Re:respect (Score:5, Interesting)
Cassette tapes unreliable storage? That's one of the kinder ways to describe it. :) But seriously, I taught myself programming with the Z-80 assembler/debugger and would make multiple backups to tape to counter the occasional read glitch that rendered the tape contents lost for all practical purposes. (Although in a pinch attempting to read it in over and over with fingers crossed hoping that one time it would work was occasionally successful, at which point you wrote it out to a new backup tape.)
Wrote Double Deck Pinochle as my first program, later rewrote for DOS (is freeware out there somewhere), rewrote it in Java a few years ago (seriously proper OO architecture, but an interesting experience to rewrite 8086 to Java), and just so happens am now rewriting from Java to RPG for my IBM i (iseries AS/400) web server. Again an interesting experience. :)
For those who might wander about RPG looks like these days, I have open sourced a couple of projects:
http://code.google.com/p/rdwrites/downloads/list [google.com]
(the ascii source downloads can be viewed in a text editor.)
And I have the TRS-80 to thank for it all. So happy 35th, TRS-80.
Model 100 (Score:5, Informative)
The model 100 was a great machine. Got me through HS and college in the 90's. Lightweight, runs forever on 4 AA batteries, stores 32k text worth of class notes. And the key for me, no distractions like sol.exe, no network access. Transfer the notes to PC vis serial port at home and you've got room for the next day's notes.
And its even still available and supported at www.club100.org
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Fun story: When Empire Strikes Back came out, a friend of mine went and bought a Model 100 just so that he could work on a term paper while sitting in line. Worked great.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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If you're into vintage hardware, why not just buy the real thing? [ebay.com]
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Reconditioned units are about $150-$250 on club100.org (102 is $250, 100 is $150, each with the full 32k) Or you can spin the wheel on cheaper ones on ebay that probably work and might have 8, 16, 24, or 32k memory
Visicalc changed everything (Score:3, Interesting)
The fascinating thing about this period of time is how close Apple came to disappearing altogether.
While early sales of all personal computers were slow - sales were measured in thousands - it looked like the battle was always Commodore vs Radio Shack. Some magazines ignored Apple because they sold so few machines.
What changed everything was the development of Visicalc. According to Brian Bagnall's "The rise and fall of Commodore", Dan Bricklin wanted to develop Visicalc on a Commodore PET but they were too popular for him to get any time on them. He used an Apple II because no-one else wanted to write software for it and so it was always available.
Visicalc went on to be the application that changed personal computing forever - business' bought Apples by the bucketload to run visicalc- and elevated Apple from being insignificant to being the dominant selling machine.
While Visicalc saved Apple, Dan Bricklin has always denied that Visicalc had any effect on Commodore or the TRS 80, and that they were responsible for their own demise.
Having read the Commodore story (Bagnall) and Apple's story (too many books to mention) I look forward to reading the book mentioned in the article - 'Priming the pump' and getting another perspective on that period of time.
Re:Visicalc changed everything (Score:5, Informative)
>>>visicalc- and elevated Apple from being insignificant to being the dominant selling machine.
Interesting revisionist history. Here are the top selling ("dominant") consumer machines according to ars technica:
...
1977 TRS-80
1978 TRS-80
1979 TRS-80
1980 Atari 800
1981 Atari 800
1982 Atari 800
1983 Commodore 64
1987 Commodore 64
1988 IBM PC + clones
and so on.
Now do you see any place where Apple II was dominant? No. It was always 3rd place behind the other brands. (Mainly because the pricetag on the Apples and Macs was too high for average people.)
Re:Visicalc changed everything (Score:4, Insightful)
The Apple II was dominant in terms of income, if not sales units. If you're referring to Jeremy Reimer's article you'll read that in 1980 Apple's turnover was $200 million, Radio Shacks was $175 million and Commodore's was $40 million. It might not have sold as many individual units but they made Apple a lot more money.
Sales figures for the PET weren't kept, but it is interesting that in 1982 Commodore sold more Vic 20s in 6 months than Apple sold Apple IIs in 5 years.
Figures are here: http://jeremyreimer.com/postman/node/329 [jeremyreimer.com]
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To be honest, until Reimer published those figures, I'd always believed Apple's claim of being the "best-selling personal computer", and it still seems to be a widely-held misconception. From where I was sitting (school), it sure looked like it too.
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Absolutely. Apple gave my 'inner city' school some free computers, and in return got national press with a picture of some of my classmates in Newsweek. I've since paid them back many times over for that favor.
They're doing the same thing with the iPad right now BTW.
Never had one (Score:2)
I had a different (6502 based) system but my dad bought me the TRS80 BASIC programming book. It was the only BASIC reference I had so I effectively learnt programming from it. Six months later I had exhausted the possibilities of BASIC and got into machine code.
TRS-80 Mod 1 L1 was my first (Score:2)
And yes, the lowercase mod was simply a chip piggyback - did it myself.
With Level 2 BASIC I learned to poke short routines into memory so they'd run faster.
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I'd forgotten about the speech synthesizer. Someone had dumped a fully-loaded Model I system on my school, so the 'computer club' quickly dug into to see if there were any good games. We were playing a "Star Trek" style game when all of a sudden a giant ASCII alien appeared and started yelling - everyone jumped out of their seats.
There was also a neat drawing/animation program where you could create blocky movies. However, by the the system seemed so out of date, we spent most of our time trading Apple disk
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And I used that computer to figure out Sprint's pass codes for their dial through long distance service.
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I'm sure we spent a few hours giggling at it anyway.
Most popular? Debatable.... (Score:2)
Math Class (Score:2)
The Last TRS-80 fanboys (Score:3)
Written by the last of the TRS-80 fanboys. And why did it not get the "respect it deserved"? From the authori's own article:
Now I must admit when it appeared in the fall 1977 Radio Shack catalog, I was excited at the prospect of being able to purchase a pre-built computer. But then as an owner of an Atari 2600, and while waiting to save the money for a TRS-80, brochures for the Atari 800 came out, and I of course waited for that. 8x the resolution, color, hardware scrolling, hardware sprites, four-channel sound, and (gasp) pixel addressing (as opposed to 2x3 "pixel" blocks of character graphics on the TRS-80).
TRS-80 Model III (Score:3, Interesting)
I found my TRS-80 on the side of the road in a garbage pile in the middle of nowhere Ohio while on a camping trip. I picked it up and took it home (over the wife's objections) and found that it still worked perfectly (initially it looked like it didn't work, but it turns out that the brightness dial had just been turned down all the way and was frozen in place). I guess my TRS-80 really IS a Trash-80.
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Tempest, that is an awesome story.
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You've got ZAXXON?!
I'm coming over to your house right now.
Nostalgia... (Score:2)
I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine. Lou Reed
That said, I was born in 75. My first two computers where the TRS-80 Model 1 Level 2 (it was about 8-9 years old when I got it), and a Mattel Aquarius my grandmother won at bingo or some such. [wikipedia.org]
My Tandy had just the monitor and cassette drive, and I did not have the game expansion for the Aquarius. Using both I taught myself basic programming, and I even had some programs on tape for the Tandy that had C-64, Pet, and Apple versions on the same cassette, I became adept at telling the difference by ear to fi
My First Computer (Score:2)
Ah, memories (Score:2)
My first job was working at a music store - basically I was their (very low paid) in-house programmer, except during the start-of-school crunch time when I helped sell instruments like every other person in the store. I wrote stuff like payroll and inventory software that ran on their TRS-80, and had to serve as the data entry clerk as well. That beast had dual floppy drives... good times, good times.
Opinion of an 12 year old (Score:3)
Back in 8th grade (1985) I was introduced to the TRS-80 CoCo II. Our school had a lab full of them (two students per computer), and we were taught keyboarding and some basic programming. Now, up to that point, my computer experience was already pretty extensive. I owned a TI-99/4A, and the highlight of each month was receiving the next edition of Compute! so I could type in the BASIC / Extended BASIC programs. I had already written thousands of lines of BASIC code from scratch (from the time I was 10). I had a lot of experience on the Apple II and the C-64 as well.
Now, 30 years later, I can't remember enough specifics to state the technical reasons, but as a 12 year old, I absolutely hated the CoCo II. I was not a TI-99 fanatic (I had great appreciation for the C-64, for example), so I didn't dislike the TRS-80 because of some external factor- I didn't like it simply because of what it was.
Odds and ends I remember is that the performance was laggy and sluggish (even in the day, compared to the machines I mentioned already). BASIC syntax had some convoluted stuff going on (probably related to graphics and sound) and code editing was a chore. The hardware felt cheap.
To compare to the other machines I was familiar with, the TI-99/4A felt very professional and refined throughout. Both the hardware, and the software. It felt more engineered and like something a scientist would use or something. lol As a 10 year old, I felt I was using a machine intended for real adults to use. It was serious and real. It had a certain rigidity that was authoritative. The CoCo felt like a toy or a gimmick in some way.
The Apple II was similar. The hardware felt very high quality, and the OS was refined and consistent.
The C-64 gave the impression there was always something deeper and lower-level, just waiting to be exploited. It was complicated (just loading a program off of the disc required these weird, non-intuitive parameters that neither I nor my 10 year old friends understood, like "why do you have to put ,8 after the filename?"). Compute! listings had all these pokes and peeks, directly manipulating memory. You could change the color of text using these weird keyboard combos - no other computer of the day had nearly the flexibility or flashy pizazz of the C-64.
So as a 12 year old, there simply weren't any redeeming factors to the TRS-80. I knew that other computers of the era did various things better and were more fun to program and use than the TRS-80, and I complained often to my classmates, lamenting that we couldn't have TIs or C64s because they were better computers.
My first computer! (Score:2)
In high school this was my first computer. The Apple 1 wasn't available for me at the time and so I grew up on the TRS-80 models as they evolved, eventually, into the Model III with built in screen all looking very slick for the time. By the time my school had built a computing lab and filled it with Apple II's I had my own machines at home. When the Model IV arrived I'd moved on to other machines and was looking to my first PC (with help).
I remember when I had to write lines (the teachers chosen method fo
Critical Business App on TRS-80 (Score:3)
> _
I still remember..... (Score:3)
I can still remember how the Model I smelled.
My first store-bought computer (Score:4, Insightful)
The TRS80 model 1 was my first store-bought computer -- I'd built my own "microcomputers" up until that stage.
Compared to the Apple it had some real strengths: A BASIC with double-precision math, a Z80 processor (the 6502 is wicked-good but once Page 0 is used up you lose so many of those cool addressing modes so the Z80 works better in a "store-bought" machine with ROM firmware), plenty of support in magazines, and later, a brilliant disk OS in the form of NewDOS80
I had most of the Tandy micros: The Model 1, the Model 2 (with 8" drives and later, CP/M), the Tandy 100, the Model III and later, the seldom mentioned Tandy 2000 with its Intel 80186 processor at 8MHz. That thing just blitzed all the 4.77MHz 8088-based PC clones that were around at the time.
But those were different days.
Before the advent of the IBM PC, every machine was wildly different and exciting. Once the "PC-compatible" virus hit, hardware became rather undistinctive and "samey".
Good days!
I lost my computing virginity to a TRS-80 (Score:3)
I wrote my first program ever on a TRS-80 color computer. It was a community computer programming course that they ran from a local school. We had to write out our programs at home on special graph paper and type it in during class. I was immediately hooked on computers and programming.
I used to book programming time at the local library for their TRS-80 model III. It was a lousy machine compared to its contemporaries, but, it was the only reliable access I had to a microcomputer, so I cherished the few precious minutes I had available to program. I was only able to book one hour at a time, so I had to work fast and leave enough time to save the programs to tape. I remember programming some games from David H. Ahl's "More Basic Computer Games--TRS-80 Edition" which was modified to use the primitive TRS-80 graphics. I tried making a light cycle game, but failed at that attempt pretty badly. I never got it to work right. If only I had more time...
In the early 90's, I stumbled upon an old Model III sitting on the clearance table at the local Radio Shack. They were asking 30 bucks for it. I really wanted to buy it, but my wife would have none of it. To this day, I still regret not acquiring that classic machine. Yeah, it wasn't great, but it still was an important piece of computing history... and my own.
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Memories of Asylum and other games (Score:2)
When I was in high school my dad's office had a couple of TRS-80 model 2s (cassette tapes!) and a model 3 (8" floppies!) and after school I'd go to his office and spend ages playing The Asylum (see http://www.trs-80.org/asylum/ [trs-80.org]) It was awesome. Even more so than the school's sole Apple ][, the "trash 80" introduced me to programming and I taught myself z80 assembler in an effort to write my own version of Scramble (see http://www.arcade-gameover.com/scramble.asp [arcade-gameover.com]) as I quickly realised that BASIC was never
If you had a color get off my yard (Score:2)
like so many others I got my first programming chops & computer knowledge from the TRS-80 my dad brought home. Did anyone else try copying the software from the back of the old compute magazines?
I remember soldering a speaker wire up to the unit since there was no computer speakers back in the day. I described that one day to my much younger sister, and realized how silly it sounded 30 years later were a pair of speakers are $10 and actually sound good.
Best was when we got a disk drive instead of the
Re:vintage computers (Score:5, Interesting)
The TRS-80 model II was my very first computer, and I learned basic coding on it. I can't remember the language, but there was a way to create your own games, like Snake and Pong, by using a cartridge, that only loaded the language and a basic compiler.
I suspect that you could teach folks how to do some basic coding by using one of these old machines as an example. I have fond memories.
Re:vintage computers (Score:5, Funny)
The TRS-80 model II was my very first computer, and I learned basic coding on it. I can't remember the language
Yes you can.
Re:vintage computers (Score:4, Insightful)
The TRS-80 model II was my very first computer, and I learned basic coding on it. I can't remember the language
Yes you can.
Absolutely friggin priceless sir!
Peek Poke (Score:3)
This is what I still remember ... commands like "Peek" and "Poke"
Back in those old days, we used to comb through the user manual, from the first page, to the last, and to try out every-single-command there is to see what they do
CP/M, Sinclair, Osborne, oh my, all those things do bring back sweet memory
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Poke (ADD=4AD4, Find = 18, Change=20)
For some reason I still remember something like the above. We used to use it to strip any floppy protection, or to pick some random address to basically prevent someone else from doing this.
We started with the old TRS-80 model one though. We had the old cassette tape storage, where you had to note on the tape with a pen as to what number to start 'playing' or 'recording' your program back.
Those were the days..lol
Re:vintage computers (Score:4, Informative)
The TRS-80 model II was my very first computer, and I learned basic coding on it. I can't remember the language, but there was a way to create your own games, like Snake and Pong, by using a cartridge, that only loaded the language and a basic compiler.
If it took a cartridge, you probably had a TRS-80 Color Computer [wikipedia.org] and not a TRS-80 Model II [wikipedia.org], which was the version targeted at businesses. I had great fun learning programming on the Model III and 4 [wikipedia.org].
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10 PRINT "I just learned that mine (I was using it in the late eighties) was just one of the many models of 'TRS-80 Color Computer II'"
20 PRINT "It was this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TRS-80_Color_Computer_2-64K.jpg [wikipedia.org]"
Re:vintage computers (Score:4, Funny)
10 PRINT "I just learned that mine (I was using it in the late eighties) was just one of the many models of 'TRS-80 Color Computer II'" 20 PRINT "It was this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TRS-80_Color_Computer_2-64K.jpg [wikipedia.org]"
It's not complete without
because that's what all of us preteens did when we first learned BASIC. I learned BASIC on a CoCo, and although I have never coded in BASIC since the 1980's, I still feel it was a very formative learning experience. Thanks, Radio Shack.
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Not me. I set about using the semi-graphics mode of my TRS-80 MC-10, my first computer, to make my own version of Pacman. The resolution was insufficient for any kind of animation but I did get it to the point where you could move the man around a maze.
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Let me guess, you code in Python now, do you?
(just kidding, I love Python)
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Many models of Color Computer II?
I think there was just one, with maybe a few different options for how much RAM you got.
There were two different looking versions of the original Color Computer though, as I recall, one silver and one beige, with maybe different keyboards. But the Color Computer 2 (roman numerals were for the Apple) looked pretty much like the Color Computer 3.
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Well, if you've got a bunch of 'em [weburbanist.com]...
Re:vintage computers (Score:5, Insightful)
What can you really do with a TRS-80 these days?
As much as you could ever do with one, I'd say.
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"What can you really do with a TRS-80 these days?"
Run a business. As it happens I have a complete TRS-80 payroll system on audio cassettes still in shrink wrap and ready for someone's brilliant startup plans.
As Farmer Tim says, they'll still do what they did then, but people change and have less patience. Nostalgia can only carry you for a short time.
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It's probably just as fast as an equivalent system running on a modern PC, too. The big problem is that as PCs have got more powerful, more crap has been added in that no-one ever uses.
I'm prepared to bet that all bar a handful of Microsoft Word users don't do anything they couldn't have done with WordStar in CP/M.
Re:vintage computers (Score:5, Insightful)
Have fun with them?
Entertainment is one of those ageless things if you find something you like. People like old movies, music, books, etc, why is it difficult to think about people enjoying old computers? Some like the games, some like poking at software some like hacking hardware, heck some like me like it all.
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Re:vintage computers (Score:4, Insightful)
What can you really do with a TRS-80 these days?
Learn to appreciate the value of abstraction.
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I use it to control my robot arm.
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv3lq4fCmT1qhpy7q.jpg [tumblr.com]
It helps to pass the time.
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actually you can. It's called accounting, word processing, printing, hell you can even run a spreadsheet. Of course keep in mind that the documentation that came with the TRS-80 m4 included all of the internal circuit designs. This wasn't the PCB design but the electronic circuit themselve including the chip functions. We used one for busienss purposes for over a decade (got in 1982) before we finally moved to a Tandy 1000 (IBM AT compatible).
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Why does it need to do anything related to "work" for it to be "useful"?
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Agreed.
I suppose that since it has all the circuits defined in the manual, and has serial ports, a TRS-80 could be used to programmatically control lights, the air conditioner, house fans and a few other neat things like that.
But then again, you could do all that with a raspberry pi using a usb serial cable at a fraction the size, heat, and power...
I do consider entertainment to be a "useful" application, so I suppose that designing a system of homebrew upgrades and other fun things for nerds would make the
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I'm younger, but still in the "old" generation.
My first computer was dad's IBM PcJr. Lack of ISA, bizzare IRQ scheme, freakish sidecar bus, chicklet keyboard and all.
But hey, it had EGA graphics, dad's had the rare Racore second disk drive, memory and DMA controller upgrade, and it had a primitive synthesizer for multichannel audio instead of just a tweeting internal speaker.
I spent many hours playing with ROM basic on it. I have very fond memories of that old fishtank. I fully understand where computers
Re:vintage computers (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, I was talking about this to someone the other day. They wanted to demonstrate how TCP/IP works, but obviously everything happens so quickly all you see is a couple of lines in a wireshark window and it's done.
So as a demonstration I set up soundmodem on two machines, and set up TCP/IP using AX.25 as the link layer - 1200bps audio tones, rather like the tape tones from early 80s home computers. You can even adjust them to sound slightly different while remaining in spec to give the two computers slightly different "voices". Instead of hooking them together using radios, I just used cables, and left the PC speakers hooked up to so you could hear what they were doing. Then ping from one to the other, and "BLEEEBLORP BLEEEBLIRP" - there goes the ARP request and response, "BLEEEBLURBLURBLURP BLEEEBLIP" - there goes the ping and response, and so on.
Doing SSH over it is very, very slow to get going but tolerable once it's started.
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I learned Pascal on one.
No reason why someone couldn't do the same today.
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I can still fire up the ol' Tandy Color Computer 2 and put those 64Ks through their paces with a rousing game of Pooyan, Demon Attack, or Dragonfire.
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Three words; Dungeons Of Dagorath. I wore out a keyboard on that game.
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you can browse the web on an apple II tyvm
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Good to see that Commode users are upholding their fine 30 year tradition of trolling every unrelated computer discussion.
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Oh great... NOW the mods learn how to properly mod an off-topic post.
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Still have my TRS-80 CoCo. Haven't plugged it in about six years, but hey.
Apparently the TRS-80 CoCo [wikipedia.org] is a totally different (and incompatible) machine to the original TRS-80 [wikipedia.org] being discussed here. They're not even based on the same processor...
While I appreciate that they probably wanted to keep the brand recognition, it's slightly confusing that they reused the exact same model number on incompatible machines with entirely different architecture. You'd have thought (e.g.) "TRS-100" would be similar enough without the obvious- and incorrect- implication that both lines were part
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And speaking of the Z-80 processor: I lusted after the Commodore Portable for the ability to drop in a Z-80 board to run CPM, but never had enough cash to make it happen. But to me the Big Iron holy grail was the Altair, with a Z-80 processor & S-100 buss.
Instead, I had a Timex Sinclair with a 2k memory expansion module & tape drive storage. I used it's built-in BASIC to solve sparse matrix calculations for rudimentary circuit analysis. By the time I got out of community college, the Zenith Z-150 (I
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you were elsewhere, not at the Tandy Radio Shack, stay sober the next time you go shopping, The clerk at the Candy Jack Shack repeatedly told you that vibrating butt plug was for in house use only and not for sale
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I always coveted the Radio Shack pocket computer... Imagine having a computer that you would take with you on the go! Yeah, that's a bit of a joke now, but back then it was almost the stuff of science fiction. I finally managed to get ahold of one on clearance well past its end of retail shelf life, and found it to be extremely useful. A few months ago, I was cleaning up and found it again! A new battery and it worked like new! Whoot! It's still a pretty impressive machine, considering how old it is.