Tandys Never Die

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..."

Comments

Model 'T'

[soupforare]

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?

[CountZero007]

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 :)

Re:Emulators?

[CountZero007]

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

Cool Computer =P

[terradyn]

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...

Re:Cool Computer =P

[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.

my old trash 80...

[crhylove]

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

Model 100

[jACL]

Yes, I lusted after a Model 100 when they came out (this 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. 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...;)

Re:Bullshit

[modulo]

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.

How about bringing it back??

[ibirman]

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

[efedora]

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.

My Info on the Model 100/102

[Ross]

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

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

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/

Enjoy...

Amazing little machines

[stph]

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.

Journalists still use them

[spacefrog]

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.

[zulux]

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.

The Model 100 beats laptops, WinCE devices.

[aussersterne]

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.

The Tandy 100... it lives...

[dburr]

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.

the model 100 was just so right...

[The_Rook]

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.