Radio Shack's TRS-80 Turns 35

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."

Comments

TRS-80 - available in stores near you

[cstec]

Got that straight. The TRS-80 Model I was for sale in stores in August of '77 [I was when it arrived], available as a retail purchase when Apples were just kits.

Re:TRS-80 - available in stores near you

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:vintage computers

[xevioso]

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:respect

[ralphdaugherty]

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

(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.

Re:Model 100

[Cornwallis]

Exactly. I get a kick reading the poseurs knocking the TRS-80.

The thing was mass-produced and worked. You could hack it. My Model 100 still works after almost 30 years of use. Four AA batteries runs the thing for weeks. I could and did access CompuServe with its built in 300baud modem. Just a few years ago I found a mod that allowed me to solder a Blusmirf Bluetooth chip to the ancient UART allowing me to pair to my desktop and even telnet to a RS6000 we were using.

The thing is slow, clunky (but with an absolutely great keyboard) and I still use it for note taking... because, as a tool, it works.