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Inside the TRS-80 Model 100
enalbro writes "What wouldn't you give for a laptop that starts instantly, weighs 3 pounds and gets 20 hours of battery life? That's the TRS-80 Model 100 in a nutshell. Granted, it displays only 8 lines of text and has just 28 kilobytes of memory, but it's a classic, the first truly popular portable in the U.S. At PC World we have a teardown that'll show you the guts of this featherweight champ." And, like many of the best things in life, it's powered by AA batteries (as is the Apple eMate).
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
One of which the previous owner had ran over with her car. Except for the missing LCD (was cracked) the unit worked; keyboard and all.
Had a nice little BASIC and lots of cool ports. Trivia: the OS was the last major coding work by Bill Gates himself.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
GK Chesterton once wrote, 'there has never been a revolution that was not a reinstitution' - or something very similar to that.
With the new crop of machines like the EEE PC it seems that we're moving back to small, power-efficient machines as opposed to huge hulkers.
Hopefully, as people become more conscience of the cost of energy, both in economic and environmental terms, we'll see more applications of low-power consumption chips like ARM and 20hours of battery life won't seem so amazing anymore.
And the best part of it is...the control key is in the proper place! That is to say, it's directly left of the A key, on the home row. Just like the Happy Hacker or Sun keyboards. Amen.
Laptop makers could learn a thing or two from that keyboard - WAY better feel than those stupid flat keys that so many laptops use today (Apple, Sony, etc.). If you can't do something better than they did 20 years ago, just don't even try, m'kay?
With the new crop of machines like the EEE PC it seems that we're moving back to small, power-efficient machines as opposed to huge hulkers.
:)
With OLED screens coming as the next big thing in the next few years, processors like VIA's Nano (formerly Isiah, I think), Intel's Atom, SSD storage, integrated graphics, things are definitely looking up on this front. Along with fewer moving parts to improve useful life, this is all great news.
I just hope the usability improves as well. Keyboards like on the Model 100 have a *much* better feel than any modern laptop I've used.
I read an article the other day about some big advance coming up for Lithium-Ion batteries, so that'll be nice, too.
Came across one in the hallway of a university I sometimes work at; it had been left for the janitors to take away so I snagged it for my son. He's almost two, and has fun banging away on it...any time he starts making his way toward my laptop, or my wife's, we just say, "Hey, where's your laptop these days?"
Only problem is, my wife has an iBook, and once he notices that his laptop isn't nearly as shiny as hers we're doomed. Lucky thing I'm a Linux sysadmin...I can just point to an xterm once he starts wondering about the difference between his laptop and ours. :-)
Carousel is a lie!
Granted, it is older than I am, but it is indeed quite impressive. My parents gave it to me when I was about 10 years old. Since I wanted to play games on it, I had to type code in from a book.
Instant boot. Sunlight readable display. Full travel keyboard, full size keys. Ctrl key in the correct place. No screen joints to wear out.
20 hours, on 4 AA batteries. No proprietary battery.
External storage is an audio cassette. I think it uses the modem to generate the sounds for the cassette, but I could be wrong.
The OS does have a few bugs, where if a program does something bad (not using PEEK and POKE, but pure basic), or is too big to tokenize, it crashes and erases all memory. That makes writing big programs very exciting.
The OS also isn't Y2K compatible, with this year being "1908".
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I have an NEC PC-8201a (same as the model 100). It was a requirement for college at the time.
I'd sell it, but have found that it is worth less than the cost of shipping.
If you can't do something better than they did 20 years ago, just don't even try, m'kay?
Bad news for virgins, huh?
From first page:
"the Model 100 served as the portable computing workhorse of its day. Bill Gates' also ranks it as one of his favorite computers of all time, in large part because he and a friend wrote the firmware it uses."
And then on the 4th page:
"Peeking in from the left is the reset button, which the user needs from time to time due to a few pesky bugs in the ROM code, reminding us that even non-Windows systems can crash."
Come on then. It's funny.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
The eMate does not take AA batteries if I remember correctly. I could dig though my closet to find my emate to double check, but I really don't feel like it.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
The eMate is powered by a rechargeable battery. It won't take AA batteries unless you modify it, including cutting up the case a bit.
Spent a lot of time making BASIC programs and trying to figure out how to work the modem. Battery life is phenomenal. Rumor is, some people still use them as primary notebook.
HA HA! Fantastic! I wish I had mod points...
So say we all
The battery pack it used was made up of AAs but it was a rechargeable battery pack and NOT set up to take AAs alone like the 100 was. That being said I still think the eMate was the perfect OLPC computer.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
well, unless it comes out in all white, I'm not interested. I mean, how would I be able to look cool at the [local coffee shop]?
-- All this knowledge is giving me a raging brainer.
But it's still working, 27 years after I bought it, doing exactly what it was meant to do. Funny but there are times when you don't need an upgrade for your technical gear...
Great keyboard and the built-in software was nice.
Sure, those were the days before wifi, but the built-in 300 baud modem was
a great addition. I spent many hours curising BBSs back in the day. I could also
dial into my schools vax, and even e-mail (fidonet) letters home.
Probably the best part was you could put it in your book bag without dislocating your shoulder.
one of my first jobs in life, in high school, consisted of going to the local town hall, typing up the records of the week's real estate transactions on the model 100, and then relaying it back to the local paper over a 300 bps modem (also self-contained, rather than needing those rubbery headset couplers i remember from the time)
i remember marvelling at the time how high tech my job was! (that, and how many real estate transactions were made for a $1)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What about the Poqet PC? XT Clone about the size of a VHS tape. (See the wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poqet_PC). I wanted one badly. Still think it would be handy.
I have 3 of them, picked up a couple of spares off eBay for $30 total.
I use them to take minutes at meetings. I used to have a PC laptop but since all I used it for was to take minutes, I gave it to my brother who actually needed it. The Model 100 performs minute-taking just fine. Also I can touch type on it better than on a newer laptop keyboard.
The Model 100 was a MAINSTAY of journalists at the time; since it ran for many hours on AA batteries which you could get anywhere, even in small towns in foreign countries, and it had a built-in modem and a very portable acoustic coupler that would work with any phone you could find. I bet the majority of remote print reporting for several years was typed in the field on a Model 100.
... for taking notes. Text only, no distractions (such as the web), print out on 9-pin dot matrix printers. Only thing better is an old Underwood....
Mine was stolen in an airport 5 years ago, sadly. I got it at a flea market for ~$3. It was fun to play with although I didn't use it seriously in college by any means.
Damn thieves! Went on eBay to look for a replacement and it was too expensive for me at the time.
While the eMate did use rechargable AA's, they were soldered together in a little heatshrink pack. So while they are a common size, it's not like you could pop them out and stick more in easily. Still, the battery pack is much easier to rebuild than something like a Powerbook battery from the same era, which often had 4/5 AA's soldered together with various safety components inside a sealed hard plastic case that was impossible to get apart and back together without some major hassles.
The Newton 2000 and 2100, on the other hand, had an optional removable battery pack that took standard AA's.
Those Newtons are remarkable machines and are amazingly useful for being more ten years old now.
Too bad they got discontinued, but the form factor of the eMate was the inspiration for the original clamshell iBooks.
Sure, but what about the Epson HX-20, circa 1981? I didn't actually own one, but I got to borrow one from a guy who was using them to run CNC machines.
And does anybody else have a Convergent Technologies WorkSlate? I should see if I can get that baby to fire up . . .
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
and it works too!!! Now if only I had a set of acoustic couplers (mine died many moons ago). I could go to a pay phone and can call a BBS at either 110 or 300 baud!!! Does anyone still run BBS's? Maybe I should see if I can find some of my old software, I might need to borrow a 5 1/4 drive though.... This might be fun!!!
"...a civilian some of the time, a soldier part of the time and a patriot all of the time." -Brig. Gen. James Drain
I worked at Denning Mobile Robotics, and we had a bunch of them. They had a printer port, modem, and RS232.
We used them as portable RS232 terminals!! They were cheaper than Wyse terminals and far more portable. They were awesome devices. I often wonder why simple devices can't be created to do a job efficiently and reliably. I guess, with no stable computing standards, they would become obsolete too quickly.
The EeePC was close, but now that it has gone Windows, that device is on the upgrade treadmill as well.
Time for a writing competition. Let's see who's out of the running first: you on a fancy laptop because your battery died, or me on a 100 because I ran out of memory. :)
http://www.modshop.net/users/rodrosenberg/rig/trash80 oh and it was built from a dead trash80
I've been going on about this for years.
I want a note book with 40hr batter life. In days of yore I used a psion with a full keyboard and small LCD. Great battery life.
I have all the components except I need a screen. I'm looking for a either a 1024x768 or 80x24/25 character lcd. B+W is OK. It must have low power drain. Preferrably 14" at least. Where do I find such a beast?
I would have a low power CPU (arm), 4GB SSD, 1GB RAM, screen, clicky keyboard. All bashed into a cutom CNC cut case. Running off 4 C or D cells.
Currently I have an emate but it's days are numbered.
It's not from 1995, you idiot. And they were awesome for their time, heavily used by journalists in particular. Christ, I hate how stupid children have infected Slashdot.
The Dana and Dana wireless uses 3 AA batteries.
160x560 graphical screen runs PalmOS v4.1
Appently still avalible for $350.
To bad Access doesn't suport v4.1 anymore so you can't get the SDK anymore.
It's almost identical, but has more RAM. I recently put it to very good use by loaning it to a friend who had a vocal cord infection and was told not to talk (or sing) for 2 months. She's a great typist so it became her notepad for communicating to others. She loves it.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I recall Scott Oki (International VP of Microsoft at the time) keying meeting notes into one of these things in May 1983 - around the same time Bill Gates was demo'ing a thing called Windows on a Compaq Plus sewing machine to us. Could still use one of these things today... Ian W.
I'm trying to "modernize" my 1000 TL Series Tandy so it can talk on my all Linux network. I've currently outfitted it with a 256 K ISA VGA Card, and I'm trying to get a cheap 8-bit ISA IDE Hard disk card to replace the crummy XT Western Digital Whinchester Drive in it.
What wouldn't you give for a laptop that starts instantly, weighs 3 pounds and gets 20 hours of battery life?
I'd give a lot for that, but this wasn't it. This is more accurately described as a PDA that fits on your lap. What it did, it did well (for the time), but it was very limited. And modern PDAs get a lot more than 20 hours of battery life.
In other words, if you want a modern Model 100, get a PDA with one of those fold-up keyboards and go to town. Instant-on, long battery life, and destroys the Model 100 in usefulness.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I still use a trusty old HP 200LX, which sports a graphics shell, MS-DOS, 2MB RAM which serves part as disk, and it too runs on AA batteries.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
My older Alphasmart 2000 was just a typing machine, but as such it was amazing. It got, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of hours of battery life from 3 AAs. I was always shocked when the batteries died, once every eight or ten months.
A 3 lb. weight on your wrist is awesome when you want to work out your... uh, non-dominant hand.
Er, wait, nevermind I said that.
More Twoson than Cupertino
I have one of these as part of my "classic computer" collection, and it was the best eBay find I ever got. For something like a hundred bucks I got a Model 100 in near mint condition, with a faux-leather carrying case that was in such good condition it still had the cardboard insert from the packaging in it, a boxed cassette recorder, some software on cassette (remember the good old days when software came with a leather-bound binder containing printed instructions?), all the hardware and software manuals, and a few other items.
Everything is in simply amazing condition for its age, and works great except for the Y2K issue (for which I understand the Model 100 users groups have a fix).
I got the Model 102 about 15 years ago and have gotten lots of use out of it. At first, I used it for BASIC programming (all I knew at the time). Later, I wrote several assemblers in BASIC and learned 8085 machine coding with it. I figured out how to do graphics much faster than the built-in firmware does, allowing full-screen scrolling graphics, and lightning-fast text scrolling using the LCD driver's built-in line scrolling commands. This was also my introduction to interfacing hardware. I hooked many things to it, like a sound chip, NES, and later used it as general-purpose I/O for programming a PIC and NES and SNES battery RAM. At some point I also wrote an emulator so I could run my old BASIC programs on my PC. I had even wired up 32K of RAM that could replace the ROM, allowing me to change the font used in the firmware. I still have it on my workbench, connected via RS-232 to my PC.
Where does the swipe card cracker plug in? Like the ones seen in T2
... the Model 100 is kinda the definition of the perfect portable:
Sure, it doesn't have the bells and whistles the kids are into like "color" or "graphics", but in a portable for writers none of that is really important -- which is why many journalists held on to their Model 100s long after they became ludicrously obsolete.
With the demise of products like the Psion Series 5 (another writer's portable), the niche that the Model 100 pioneered has basically been abandoned; the only thing close to it today is the EEE PC, which would be an ideal spiritual successor to the hardy 100 if the keyboard wasn't so danged small...
Read my blog.
This reminds me of the Psion Series 3a palmtop, which is almost 15 years old now.
It had a great usable keyboard for its size (similar to a glasses case) and a big clear greyscale 480x160 screen.
In terms of runtime, it would run for around 20 hours on a pair of AA's, with negliable standby power, ct1620 button-cell memory backup and instant-on giving literaly weeks of reliable operation between battery changes.
It ran rock-solid custom-made PDA software (agenda, word processor, timezons, the usual stuff), and included a programming language/editor/parser for coding.
Amazingly for its time, you could even surf the internet on it (albeit slowly) since a complete TCP stack and webbrowser were available for the later versions, connecting via the serial port on it. I used to run a usable full 80x24 terminal emulator connection over a 9600bps cellphone link on my one - oldschool pocket internet before the days of wifi.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
You can have wireless, you just have to try harder.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
Bought one new with a coupon I had gotten from AT&T. Used the computer for memo-writing and spreadsheets for about four years (including pricing out several real estate deals). Unit had the best keyboard feel of any computer I've ever used. There even was a magazine (Portable 100) devoted to the unit, with ads for prop-up feet, plexiglass covers, disk drives, memory, software, etc.
My friend had a Model 100 and I was so jealous. That thing rocked! But I still have my TRS-80 PC-2 pocket computer. It's so easy to use. It's better than a calculator. You can type out entire formulas then if you make a mistake you can hit the back button and see the whole formula and fix whatever you did wrong. I use it every year come tax time. For such a small display you can address every pixel if you want to draw something or make a simple game and it has a speaker you can play music on. I also have the cassette/printer interface. The printer isn't a dot matrix but pen plotter. That was cool to watch it print reports or draw graphs. The paper goes up and down and the pens go side to side. That memory on it lasts for weeks on 4 AA batteries. Sometimes simple is better.
Durable as all hell, power lasts a long time (and spare batteries easy to carry), and a good old fashioned serial interface.
:)
We still use them to interface with SCADA gear out in the field. You're not going to want to haul a regular laptop into some of those areas.
And yes, I've been trying to pilfer one ever since I discovered that they were still in use
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Back in 2001 when I built humanclock.com, I threw this in as a joke:
http://www.humanclock.com/webserver.php
It caused quite a tizzy on Slashdot though. Funny how a lot of the Slashdot comments revolved around a page that I spent an hour on, while the rest of the site (something I spent a few hundred hours building) was ignored.
My horse veterinarian used to use one of those. She had a PC running UNIX back at her office, and used the portable to connect to it from her truck.
The first M100's came with a whopping 8k of RAM/Storage, not 24k. I know, I have one. Used it all through High School for taking notes in class (can't write fast enough), and again through college. Just plug in the serial cable and upload to PC at the end of the day. Although by college I'd upgraded it to 32k via the wonderful Club100 site that still sells parts/addons/programs for it (http://www.club100.org).
It also gave me my start in programming via hand-keying games from a book into it, and learning how to adapt those programs to fit into 8k RAM I was stuck with then.
I've used many, many PDA's for over 10 years now, starting with a timex @ ~200k then on to a Palm IIIx(e), and eventually a Windows Mobile device and a Blackberry, too. What are you talking about battery life being better than 20 hours on modern PDA's?? I can say by experiences with all of the devices I've used (I used to sell them via retail, too and most of the other varieties are the same) that battery life of modern PDA's are much much less than 20 hours. This is primarily fueled by the need to make them smaller, and (you say useful, I say) bloated with features. Stronger processors, more storage, quicker storage access, beautiful backlit color screens, rich audio, network connectivity and multiple I/Os coupled with TEEENNY TINY batteries! I get about 2.5 hours of Pocket Word with backlight on low and nothing else running. How's that for progress?
--
Live Fluid; Die Drowning.
I have a Model 100 and the thinner Model 102. I used the 100 in college in the late 80's to take notes in class, and even wrote an alarm clock program that woke me up in the mornings! I did a little hack so that it would charge ni-cads from the ac adaptor (not a standard feature). I have the floppy drive, bar code reader, modem cups, etc... It had a very well integrated operating system. one of the better things microsoft has done IMHO.
Kids these days, what do they know? Get off my lawn!
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I volunteer as a race official at some bike and running races. One of the guys who does the chip timing for some of these races still uses them as data loggers. He has a whole trunk full of spares he picks up at garage sales.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
He had the ribbon cable soldered somewhere on the Motherboard... although now that you mention it, I've been trying to locate John Conner . He's not in trouble, I just want to ask him a few questions.
--
Live Fluid; Die Drowning
I remember in Jr. High when a friend of mine brought one of these to school. It was old even then, but still pretty cool.
Nowadays, it kinda makes me miss my Psion Series 5.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Wrote all of my high school papers on one of these back in the 80's.
It was a TANK: heavy, nothing could hurt it, always worked, ports for everything (at that time).
Almost wish I had one today...
Lurking in the desert
I'm wearing a 3 lb Casio (Pathfinder) watch I got about three years ago, you insensitive clod!
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
16 pages, one paragraph per page. Tried finding an "print" link or something like that, but I couldn't. I don't read PC World, maybe this is common for them. At least there's one photo per page as well.
Go check out the pics.
"Cleft Asunder
Only four screws separated me from the inside of the 100, which splits conveniently into two sections."
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I understand that standard AAs will not cut it for today's devices.
But why must every laptop and mobile device have a special battery developed just for it? Could it not be narrowed down to about 10 different standardized rechargeable batteries?
I had way too much fun with Mod100s and the NEC version ... even dumped the ROM out through a dissassembler I wrote. I wonder if I still have that 3-ring binder?
Then I wrote an assember/linker and with it, an easily-crackable encryption program.
Sigh ...
Which was the non-Radio Shack version. I try and remove or hide the RadioShack or Tandy logos on anything I have to buy there... so buying the NEC was easier. And it was a little more slanted. Bought it to write a book on schedule, which got me a time bonus that paid for it. Still works. Haven't transferred text from it since the serial mac days. We also have 2 Mod100s around here somewhere. At this point the amazing part of the comparison is that they cost as much as my iBookG4 and does as much as an AlphaSmart (if you're not a BASIC programmer...)
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Oh I use to gaze at this lovely behind glass before I had a PC of my own.
10 CLS 20 ?"What is your name?" 30 Input Name$ 40 CLS 50 Name$ " is cool!"; 60 Goto 50
That was an Atari Portfolio.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Not quite the `850 series Model 101`.
Could it not be narrowed down to about 10 different standardized rechargeable batteries?
But that would mean numerous companies could make the one battery type that covers numerous laptops, thus increasing competition and lowering price. Sadly, that means your favorite PC mfg couldn't gouge you for replacement batteries.
And that's why it won't happen.
I bought one of these in 1980 and it still works perfectly. What made it so amazing was that it had the BASIC programming language included with the ablity to create sound, a modem and other goodies. The OS for this device was reputed to have been the last piece of software that Bill Gates himself wrote. The user's manual was incredibly badly written--with page references to non-existent sections, etc. The manual was also reputed to be Bill's first book.
I went to work at a Radio Shack Computer Center in 1982. Worked with some crazy guys I should write a book about. We made a lot of money selling "Trash 80's".
When the Model 100 came out, most of us were managing our own stores. Being the boss(es), we took one with us to our bowling league and ran a score keeping application we wrote in BASIC. Actually drew the sheet on the display, player at a time, in turn order.
The dumbest thing about late leagues is waiting for both teams to do "gazintas" and sign the score sheets. We were out the door as soon as we got our shoes changed. Teams that bowled against us thought we were giant geeks, but loved leaving early. And, we got a lot of sales from word of mouth and passersby asking "what is that?"
I loved that machine. The 300 baud modem actually worked...most of the time. The price out the door for most customers was well over $1000 for one of these puppies. The 8KB model rarely sold; we always moved the customer up to the capacious 24KB, with genuine leatherette slipcase, various dongles, wires, and of course...BATTERIES! We're freakin' Radio Shack, you can't leave without BATTERIES!!
Sorry...Tandy flashback.
Increasing the meds tomorrow.
I am my own gestalt.
on one of these that my uncle gave me. Pretty much changed my life.
What this article really failed to mention was the software side. You could program anything on the computer in BASIC and the LCD screen made it easy to create and position graphics (no need to worry about resolution - each pixel is always in exactly the same place and precisely the same number characters will always fit on the screen.) Made for years of writing games and applications on that thing. This is really something the "laptops for kids" people should be thinking about.
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
I was going to mod you up, but then I saw where they put the arrow keys -- smaller buttons, all in a line (not in a WASD-type shape), above the backspace key. They're also missing |\{} and have [] on the same key, but to be fair, my Apple II only had one of these keys ( ] = shift-M... not marked on the keyboard... don't ask... there were no lower case letters) and lacked up/down arrows. But, I have to give them props for putting the "GRPH" and "CODE" keys in the right place.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
or at least were a few years ago. I didn't RTFA so I hope this isn't duplicated info, but next time you go to an older self-storage building (the kind with a keypad to open the gate), look to see what they use to program your new personal code into open the gate.
Last time I checked, they were model 100's. They have decent connectivity and are pretty easy to program. They have parallel and serial, and a nice enough display to do solve most problems that need solving.
The control relay made a really decent single-bit output.
The memory rarely goes away (almost never unless I was screwing around).
A really awesome little device for its time.
I'd love to see something similar today. A general system with a few input sensors and output relays, both analog and digital. No predefined purpose--just general hardware control that's fully programmable. Portable enough, but not "Pocket". Full keyboard. Amazingly cheap (would be now). Maybe even no OS to speak of--just throw Ruby or a JVM on there and call it good.
All I'd add is a few meg of ram, wireless network connection and a display the same size but with a resolution closer to that of a gameboy.
Considering the cost of it's features against those of a bottom of the line laptop, it should cost $50-80 each.
color LCDs take tons of power compared to B/W LCDs but only the OLPC folks seem to know this. Remeber when Palm Pilot handhelds lasted for 6 weeks on 2 batteries and then hardly made it for 2 weeks when color screens were the norm?
If the multimode OLPC display scaqles to the larger size of the normal laptop, batteries could last more than 2x longer.
I bought my first Model 100 in 1984. I took it on a Med cruise when I was in the Navy, and powered it for the full six and a half months off of one 6 volt lantern battery, which I kept in the pocket of my coat. I used to keep all sorts of notes on that little device.
;-)
I made the mistake of giving it away to the son of a friend of mine, back in the very late 1980's. I had pined away for that little computer for many years, then I ran across Rick Hanson and the club100 website. I bought a reconditioned one from him (which I still have and use), and I've also collected another Model 100, a Model 102 and a Model 200. These may be limited computers, but you can still get a surprising amount of work done with one!
This time I refuse to ever part with my Model T's!
No matter where you go... there you are.
I prefer T800 Modell 101...
Simon Travaglia originally scored a TRS-80 out of a bin at the university he worked for at the time, and he wrote out a few articles of the Striped Irregular Bucket. Within that bloody machine came the character of the BOFH, and the rest...is something.
http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard8.html
It's only an insult if it's not true.
I still have it's successor, the Sharp PC-1403H. It has an uptime of 200+ hours on one set of batteries. It's from the 80s and I still have yet to see a computer that can beat that.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
In the late 1980s, Clive Sinclair brought out a new computer, the Cambridge Z88. It can run for 20 hours on its AA batteries, and has a suite of useful productivity software. The LCD is also quite a bit larger, and it has a built in BASIC interpreter (BBC BASIC) and a built in Z80 assembler!
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
If you ever get a chance to try one--try it. Everything you know about laptop keyboard may be wrong. I wish I had a desktop keyboard as good. I wish I even knew who made it.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Guess its time to break that old Trash 80 out of the closet! I'd completely forgotten about it. Nice thing about mine was it came complete with an Acoustic coupled modem that transmitted at a whopping 300 Baud
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
From the article:
I have a 100 that I used extensively. For a pure writing machine, I can't think of anything better. Seriously. I can take it anywhere and pour text into it fast and easy. Getting the text out isn't quite as easy but it was never too awfully bad.
I'd pay $500 for a clone (well, a physical interface clone) of the 100 or 102 that boots to a command line in linux and lets me run vi. Add some sort of wireless connectivity and a few gigs of flash to hold data and I'd be in heaven. Lots of writers who can do everything on their smart phones except type would also be in heaven. The physical interface of a typing device simply can't be overemphasized. The feel of a keyboard, the convenience of the device, the "rightness" of the way it feels, the ability of the machine to step aside and never impede the creative process are all things that the M100 got so completely, sublimely right.
A successful writing instrument can't be shrunk to EEE size. (I have one and it's wonderful but it's not a writers tool.) It can't be made out of a PDA connected to some flimsy little fold-up keyboard. (Those things are a bad joke.) It can't irritate the writer with little chiclet keys that float a half-millimeter above some ill-defined point of contact. It can't be designed with style in mind. It simply has to work, to meld with muscle and skin and bone to become a transparent portal for the codification of creative thought.
The 100/102 nailed it. Nothing since then has come close.
Mine sits 10 feet from where I lay my head at night. I may just fire it up this evening for nostalgias sake.
When we used those TRS-80 Model 100 computers back in the day, the keyboards were too noisy for taking notes in class, so we popped the keys and placed those little rubber bands for orthodontic braces over the posts, put the keys back on and the keyboard was virtually silent.
I've had one of these for about 10 years now. One year we lost power due to a hurricane but somehow still had phone service. I got to experience the internet at 300bps for close to a week before power was restored. Thankfully my isp had a termcap entry for the thing. I use an eeepc as my primary machine now, it certainly has a similar feel. Small, rugged, gets the job done, and begs to be tinkered with.
As recently as 3 or 4 years ago, Nickels & Dimes, Inc, the company behind the TiLT arcade chain was still using the TRS-80 in ALL of their stores for weekly collection and uploading to the home office.
In Australia, we gave it the local name of "Trash 80". No idea why.
I thought the epson HX20 came first? And i know it was available here in the US as i almost bought one.
:)
But i guess 'popular' is a relative term.
The 102 was better then the 100
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Actually, I think most people just get a new laptop. Since, the high cost of new battery can hardly be justified if the laptop is over three years old.
I just think it's a shame that so many mobile devices are retired before their time.
The HP 200LX was a great machine. It was the size of a checkbook got 15-20 hours of life on a pair of AA cells, ran Dos 5.0, WordPerfect, Windows 3.0 (dos mode), Word, Excel, Quatro, 1-2-3, Foxpro and about a thousand other apps. It even had a proper serial port so you can jack into cisco router consoles.
I have a theory, and it's not a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy implies conscious intent, and intent requires awareness which such jokers, and indeed many regular people simply don't posses. That theory goes like this. . .
The state of communications technology is mirrored by public awareness. --That is, the more aware people are, the more likely it is that they'll have at their disposal tools like the Model 100 with which to communicate. Over the last decade, the portable writing tools available to us have been seriously limited. Small, awkward keyboards and small, awkward screens represent a very choked up conduit for thought. We've made huge gains in terms of connectivity in the other direction, through distributed 'experience', but that's about telling people what to think rather than giving people the ability to report on their own thoughts and experiences in a useful manner. (A cell phone conversation is not a good way to get an article to press, or to update your blog).
When you're out in the field and you want to express your findings and thoughts to the world, the available devices became next to worthless despite the fact that we are capable of making stunningly effective and easily affordable machines using today's technology. The Iraq war and the public perception of it is an excellent example of the mirror. People were very, very ignorant, wanting information served to them, (like poor Bill O'), and invested very little into actually trying to divine the truth for themselves. The communication devices broadly available mirrored that head-space perfectly. i.e., there weren't any.
But things are changing! Many more people today DO want to find out the truth for themselves; they are becoming increasingly fed up with the nonsense fluff offered up by the traditional channels. And just look at the mirror. . . We've got a slew of new portable devices coming down the pike.
The Asus eee 1000 has a 10" screen, a full laptop keyboard and the new Atom chip offering up 7 hours of battery life. And it's around the same size, if not smaller, (and certainly lighter), than the Model 100. All for $550, half the price of the original Model 100 of yore.
While I do like a text-only machine for strict writing, the shape of knowledge collection and dissemination today has grown to include the internet. Today, real journalism requires access to the web in a meaningful way. You need to be able to check facts and current events, compare notes with your peers, and update your blog or whatever from the field, and now you can. The Model 100 was an excellent conduit for knowledge in a time when knowledge itself was less robust. The light was dimmer, had less octane. My opinion, and please remember that this is an OPINION, is
I met one 386 laptop powered by D-cells. This was back during the time before laptops moved their hinges totally to the rear. The best thing about it was you could replace the stock cell with those radio shack extra life D cells and actually get close to 4 hours. Not as good as the model 100 by any measure, but ultra practical.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
The 100 was good in its time, but the original Omnibook 300 beat it hands down. HP calculator build quality, great keyboard, much larger display, built in Word, 3 lbs, could run on double AAs, and a 9 hour battery life with the optional flash drive.
Plus a functional PIM, Excel, terminal and more in ROM. And the sleep mode worked!
Carried one for 5 years until software bloat forced its retirement. The new Mac Book Air is the next best thing.
And this is what they file as intellectual property.
Obviously it was some mod that wasn't even in diapers when the Trash-80 was all the rage. Heck he probably wasn't even born yet. Anyway, we called it the Trash-80 here in the States too, so you're not alone.