Did You Know You Can Buy A Computer For — Believe It Or Not — Your Home? The TRS-80

Published on April 25th, 2009

41 users responded in " Did You Know You Can Buy A Computer For — Believe It Or Not — Your Home? The TRS-80 "

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# 1 Mike Craig said, on April 25th, 2009 at 10:01 am

The third video appears to star a young Luba Goy of the Royal Canadian Air Farce. Watching it I kept expecting a punch line as she has been a comedian on Canadian radio and television for thirty plus years.

# 2 Jägermeister said, on April 25th, 2009 at 10:10 am

#1 – Mike Craig

And the other actor is another Canadian… Billy Van.

# 3 BubbaRay said, on April 25th, 2009 at 10:22 am

I can’t believe I still have an old TRS-80 color computer. It plays ancient Sierra games.

# 4 Stu Mulne said, on April 25th, 2009 at 10:25 am

I’ve still got some Model 100’s around, but the rest of them all went away….

However, I think I paid $800 (less monitor) for the HP I’m using right now. 3GB of memory, 3GHZ, something like 300GB of HD. My first TRS80 had 4K of memory and a cassette recorder, for about $700….

Interesting, no?

# 5 Daniel said, on April 25th, 2009 at 10:38 am

Prices of computers haven’t changed… things just get faster/better at the same price points.

# 6 mongo said, on April 25th, 2009 at 10:41 am

No, dummy, you can’t use a TRS-80 program on an Apple II!

No, No, no! You don’t want to be choosing among the much more mature and available software in the market for Apple!

You should buy a TRS-80!

Signed,

Bill Gates

# 7 dm said, on April 25th, 2009 at 10:51 am

I learned LOGO on a trash 80. Cute little turtle.

# 8 pedro said, on April 25th, 2009 at 10:52 am

“And one day in the distant future, everyone will be a macfan”

I swear I heard that on the video.

# 9 RuralRob said, on April 25th, 2009 at 11:04 am

The TRS-80 Color Computer is probably one of the most under-rated PCs in computing history. Other than the crummy chiclet keyboard (which was upgraded in a later rev of the machine), it was a very elegant design. The 6809 CPU was ahead of its time for its performance and instruction set elegance, compared to the competitors’ 6502s and Z80s. You could even get a Unix-like, multitasking, multithreaded OS for it, called OS-9 (not to be confused with Mac OS9).

# 10 Uncle Don said, on April 25th, 2009 at 11:08 am

Heya, Uncle Dave!

Did your ol’ TRS-80 come with floppy disks or a cassette tape? It’s been too long for me to remember.

I do recall when I flipped it on in your apt that it jammed your TV in the living room quite well.

Whatever happened to it?

# 11 Jägermeister said, on April 25th, 2009 at 11:13 am

#5 – Daniel – Prices of computers haven’t changed… things just get faster/better at the same price points.

And that production went to low cost countries has nothing to do with it…

# 12 Uncle Dave said, on April 25th, 2009 at 11:18 am

#10: Cassette. Ah, the joys of spending a half hour to load a program only to find it didn’t load properly. I bought some sort of interface board or box that let me add an external floppy to it. Nirvana!

I sold it to someone I worked with. Unfortunately.

# 13 Mark Derail said, on April 25th, 2009 at 11:23 am

Commodore Vic-20, C-64, Tandy 1000, built my own.

That’s about six years of computing for me.

Never tried the TRS-80. Why bother, when the Commodore product was superior and the TRS-80 overpriced?

I had many friends with the “CoCo” – what they called their TRS-80.
Was that short for Color Computer?

Kings Quest on the Tandy 1000 was awesome.
16 colors, multi-channel MIDI playback.

# 14 deowll said, on April 25th, 2009 at 11:57 am

I had a trash 80. The were solid machines but using a tape drive is for the birds. When they wanted an arm and a leg for floppy drives I bought an Apple ][ C and gave it away.

# 15 chuck said, on April 25th, 2009 at 12:12 pm

video #3 – I’m still looking forward to the day when programs can run on more than one kind of micro computer.

# 16 chuck said, on April 25th, 2009 at 12:14 pm

My TRS-80 (model I) came fully loaded with 16KB of RAM. It was awesome.

My current PC has 262,144 times as much memory. It sucks.

# 17 ECA said, on April 25th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

C64, C64/128, Amiga..(from 78-95), then built X86 machines for company..Built my own in 99′..
Had to change over..
the Amiga 2000 w/68030-50mhz was caught up but the P Pro 200mhz..Think about it. the speeds finally matched. So I built a P3 450..and in 2 years it was obsolete..My Amiga lasted over 10 years..

# 18 John Paradox said, on April 25th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

Stored away I have actually several(?count) Coco 2’s and 3’s (after they went from the chicklet keyboard to real). Also, floppies and cassette drives (since it could use ANY cassette with mic/earphone/remote) probably.
OS/9 was my favorite OS… a variation on the old UNIX, plus there were specialized OS’s (ADOS is burned onto one of the plug-ins for the floppies).
One of my favorite memories was going to BBSes and seeing downloads for C=64’s and others, but there was concern fairly early on about virii, etc. The RS-DOS for the Coco was on ROM (or EPROM?) so there was no concern about it for me.
Also, there were HD interfaces, I probably still have some sitting in the closet/storage with the Coco’s… of course, we’re talking massive 1-2 Meg drives?
Oh.. also the OS/9 was a true multitasking system, hit the ‘clear’ button and go to another screen running another program.. one friend discovered it was limited to twelve (12) screens at once.
As mentioned, it was underrated, and when RS decided to drop their systems, there was a rumor that someone would create an independent “Coco 4″.. apparently it died off before making it to market.

I even think I may have my copies of RAINBOW, the Coco programming/information magazine!

Hey, you kids, get offa my lawn!

J/P=geezer?

# 19 AdmFubar said, on April 25th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

wow… richard stallman looks and sounds like a girl in the third commercial….

# 20 KD Martin said, on April 25th, 2009 at 2:22 pm

I also have an ancient Tandy TRS80 Color Computer and copies of Kings Quest and Space Quest. Also 2 TRS Model-100s that still work, one with the big memory from Purple Computing.

I’ll bet there are enough geezers here to start a museum.

Hey you kids, get offa my rocks!

# 21 Eric said, on April 25th, 2009 at 4:14 pm

Anyone remember when you could get a Moog synthesizer from Radio Shack?

http://kleonard.com/gear/mg1.htm

I remember getting kicked out of the store for shaking the walls with that axe.

# 22 EvilPoliticians said, on April 25th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

The “Trash” 80 (TRS-80) may have paved the way but in the end just became a pseudo game system with a keyboard. I worked at the Shack back then. Not many of the late CoCo2 or any of the CoCo3 sold well.

The Tandy 1000 series had the real impact. Besides earning a lot of commissions from selling them, it was the first computer I saw reach into the “normal” person demographic. Non-techy people bought the 1000 series in droves. At many points, we could not keep them in stock even handing out certificates for people wanting to have something to put under the Christmas tree.

Fun times…

# 23 Ron Larson said, on April 25th, 2009 at 5:39 pm

I remember programming those damn things as a teenager. I found out that their stupid Integer Basic couldn’t add numbers together with enough precision. When I was in high school an oil research company had hired me to figure out why their numbers where off on their research apps.

I had to bust up large numbers into smaller chunks and perform math operations in pieces. I finally gave up and wrote my own math routines in assembler for the client. At least they worked reliably, unlike their dodgy Basic interpreter.

One thing about the TRS-80, the CPU instruction set was far superior to Apple’s 6502. I taught myself 6502 machine code for the Apple back in 79, and then taught myself 8080 machine code for the TRS-80. No comparison. The ability for the 8080 to establish base addresses registered for relocatable code made it so much elegant. Apple’s 6502 was like playing with a toy.

# 24 Uncle Dave said, on April 25th, 2009 at 6:16 pm

I worked in the R&D dept of a company when these were out. Some of the products used Z80 processors, so a bunch of the techs there built their own Trash80s, copying the eprom from a real one.

We’re talking 1978-80 before HBO was on cable (did anyone have cable then?), but instead was beamed to an antenna on your house. Since it wasn’t encoded, it wasn’t hard to build your own antenna using a coffee can and watch HBO for free. At least until the HBO people who drove around searching for illegal antennas caught you.

Ah, the good old days…

# 25 Uncle Dave said, on April 25th, 2009 at 6:21 pm

Just remembered I still had this on my bookshelf

Click pic to embiggen

# 26 tkrehbiel said, on April 25th, 2009 at 8:01 pm

#23, I’m pretty sure the TRS-80 was a 6800 series, 6809 I think… superior to *both* 8080 and 6502 IMHO.

# 27 Uncle Dave said, on April 25th, 2009 at 8:20 pm

#26: Wrong. Z80. Hence the 80 part of the name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80

# 28 Hugh Ripper said, on April 26th, 2009 at 12:44 am

#28 I’m so ashamed. I had a TRS-80 clone back in the day.

# 29 Anonymous said, on April 26th, 2009 at 1:05 am

I have lots of fond memories about the TRS “CoCo”. But did you know that the “CoCo 3″ ran a little known OS called OS-9 Level II which has since morphed into something called OSK? It’s a very capable and handy OS which even the Linux aficionados probably owe a lot of their culture to. But does anyone remember? (Hey! Lonnie Falk are you still out there?) I have to wonder how many people even know that OS-9 is STILL used on NASA’s space shuttles?!

OS-9 was quite a competitor in it’s day. And for those of you who DO remember the 80’s, Apple even sued both Microsoft and Tandy over what Apple saw was an infringement over “their” Graphical Operating System (GUI)!

Funny how Xerox (the true GUI developers) still sit back and watches all this happen…

# 30 Rick Cain said, on April 26th, 2009 at 2:44 am

I cut my programming teeth on a TRS-80 Color Computer. An Apple II at the time was $2500 and $359 seemed a lot more rational a purchase since my family wasn’t very well off at the time.

That darn chiclet keyboard, how could I forget. Worked great the first month or so, then began sticking. The later keyboards were better.

# 31 J said, on April 26th, 2009 at 4:18 am

Good times! Good times.

# 32 JimD said, on April 26th, 2009 at 5:06 am

Hey, lets not forget the REAL VOLKS-COMPUTER, the Sinclair/Timex ZX81 for $99 ! It ran BASIC and used a B&W TV, and the despised cassette storage …

It taught BASIC to lot’s of kids who are now Internet Mavens !

Nostalgia …

# 33 RuralRob said, on April 26th, 2009 at 8:45 am

#27 – the Color Computer used a Motorola 6809E, not a Z80 like the other TRS-80s. The hardware design of the CoCo was in fact a Motorola reference design: the 6809E tightly coupled with its companion 6847 graphics chip. I breadboarded my own computer using schematics from a 6847 reference guide, and I was able to install and run CoCo’s ROM Basic on it.

# 34 ECD said, on April 26th, 2009 at 10:27 am

The Tandy 1000 was basically a faster IBM PCjr. It’s ironic that Radio Shack could make a success out of one of IBM’s failures.

# 35 amodedoma said, on April 26th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

I bought a TRS-80 model 100 in 1980, I still got it, it still works. On occasion I still use it as a serial terminal. They SURE don’t make ‘em like they used to…

Z80 RULEZ!

# 36 Ken in Berkeley said, on April 26th, 2009 at 6:45 pm

#25, I still have “More Basic Games”, by David Ahl, on my bookshelf as well. I had an Atari 800 back in the day and did loads of programming with it. One of my favorite games in the book was a game called “Black Box”.

# 37 Glenn E. said, on April 26th, 2009 at 10:40 pm

I had one of the Model 1s, before I dumped it for an Apple II, with floating point Basic. I had my TRS-80 apart, to improve its function (lower case generation). The Monitor you had to buy with it, was formally a Canadian B&W 12″ Tv with it tuner removed. And small circuit board added to interface the puter’s output, with the Tv (in place of its tuner’s output). I don’t recall if it had a volume control or not. The Ram you got for the base price, was only 4K. And they charged you another $200 to replace it with eight 16K chips. And kept the 4K chips, probably to install in another TRS-80. At the time, R.S. strickly controlled the sale of 16K ram chips, so one couldn’t Do It Yourself! The rear edge connector port was another proprietary deal. A non-standard 36pin plug connected the keyboard unit to the expansion unit. Which can empty of any ram, for another $200. Just a power supply and internal UART chip interface for floppy drives. Which were extra. What the hell good is a near empty circuit board for $200? The Model 1 was definitely designed to gouge the customer. It only seemed to be cheaper than the Apple II’s price point. But the Apple came with everything it needed, built in, to be expand it. And its graphics were COLOR, and of better resolution.

The only thing I remember the TRS-80, having over the Apple, was the Z-80 cpu, and a better built in Basic editor. Which worked something like a Nodepad (per line of code). And checked if what you typed, made sense syntax wise. Whereas the Apple Basic editor, never checked anything before execution. Nor had any text search features, like the TRS-80 did. But since the graphic only amounted to 1024 little white blocks. What good was having a great Basic line editor?

Later, I put my own ram into my Apple II. And built my own game controllers. And made my own Ram/Language card and voice output card, from protoboards and kit parts. The TRS-80 (M1) was useless to expand or improve much. I never got their Color Computer. It seemed too little, too late. It was made to catch up with the TI-99 and Atari game console. Both which had the plugin modules.

# 38 Glenn E. said, on April 26th, 2009 at 11:02 pm

That 3rd video is a crock! The Apple II only reads the disk drive in the first 20 seconds it’s switched on. So any disk put in late, wouldn’t be read, without hitting the reset button. Plus the guy got a bookcase full of crappy software, that only works for a TRS80. So why are there other machines in the room? And there was no “standardization” because every computer maker was trying not to be compatible, in order to gouge us for their proprietary hardware. Printers were the first devices to break this pattern. Even the floppy drives (both 5.25″ and 3″) were unique to each maker’s encoding scheme. Though they used the exact same medium. To adopt another’s as a standard, was to get sued! And Microsoft had the worse disk encoding scheme for years.

# 39 Glenn E. said, on April 26th, 2009 at 11:13 pm

#36 – I got my “Basic Games” and “More Basic Games” books autographed by Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton. So I guess that ups their value a bit, eh?

The North Star basic in those weren’t exactly 100% compatible with either TRS-80’s or Apple’s Basic. Especially as all the game outputs were geared to a printer, not a video screen. So “print” commands had to be modified to work for each computer’s video generating output.

# 40 pedro said, on April 27th, 2009 at 2:59 am

#23 macs have always been toys.

#29 Because Xerox couldn’t had cared less for what PARC did.

#37 Core macfan, aren’t we?

# 41 Glenn E. said, on April 27th, 2009 at 11:04 pm

#40 Sorry to disappoint you, but I never owned an Apple Mac. I went from Apple IIc, to Commodore Amiga (A1000 & A3000). And they suited my use for ten years. Until accessing the Internet with a text only account, was no longer possible. It was HTML or nothing, and the Amiga’s processor speed just wasn’t up to the demands of changing graphics. Though it could handle some video graphics files. So I suspect it was a matter of poorly written TCP/IP stack and browser ware, for it. If it had been written in machine code, it would have been Ok. It just proved far easier to find a used PC (with XP), than to get a stack working on the Amiga 3k.

I never liked those early Macs, because of their small B&W screens, lack of sound and motion video, and a closed programing policy that locked out a lot of useful (often free) programs, written by freelance authors Apple would never have approved. True, this kept out a lot of the junk software. But this didn’t seem to hurt PC’s sales, for having buggy wares. No, not a Mac fan. Then or even now.

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