It's the 40th Anniversary of Radio Shack's TRS-80 (smithsonianmag.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Smithsonsian: It was with minimal expectations that, on August 3, 1977, Tandy Corporation teamed up with Radio Shack to release the TRS-80, one of the first personal computers available to consumer markets. While Don French -- a buyer for the Tandy Radio Shack consumer electronic chain -- had convinced some Tandy executives of the need to release a personal computer, most felt it was unlikely to gross substantial profits. This bulky item with complex operating procedures would never sell, they thought, more than 1,000 units in its first month... As it turned out, the TRS-80 surpassed even the most cautious sales estimates by tenfold within its first month on the market; the burgeoning prospects of a new era in personal electronics and computing could no longer be denied.
It had no hard drive and four kilobytes of memory, according to the article. Radio Shack's $600 PC was preceded by the MITS Altair, as well as PCs from both Apple and IBM, but "the TRS-80 was one of the first products that came fully assembled and ready to use, bridging the gap in accessibility between hobbyists -- who took interest in the actual building of the computer -- and the average American consumer, who wanted to know what this new, cutting-edge technology had in store for them."

Does this bring back any memories for anyone?

Comments

Radio Shack is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Thousands of black men and women died building Radio Shack storefronts. The white supremacist owners of Radio Shack used their corrupt dealings with politicians, injections of purified melanin, and their white privilege to accomplish this. When mass graves were found underneath various Radio Shacks, the general public started to boycott the company. When it was discovered that no black people were allowed to work at Radio Shack, and all the managers were required to be members of the Ku Klux Klan, that was it. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with Radio Shack anymore. Radio Shack was also known for selling radios that could somehow pick up the Ku Klux Klan radio station at all times, allowing racists to listen to racism night and day. Radio Shack was pure evil and now that it is dead, perhaps now my dead brothers and sisters can find peace.

Re:10 PRINT "FIRST POST"

[Zero__Kelvin]

What the FUCK does that have to do with anything? Are you actually trying to tell us that the TRaSh was superior to the Apple?