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:TRS-80 - available in stores near you

[cstec]

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.

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:vintage computers

[Farmer Tim]

What can you really do with a TRS-80 these days?

As much as you could ever do with one, I'd say.

Re:vintage computers

[SuperKendall]

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

[Osgeld]

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.

Model 100

[pdawson]

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

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.

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:Visicalc changed everything

[cpu6502]

>>>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.)