Having Fun with the TRS-80 Model One |

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Technical work by Joseph William Lewis.

[@CareyHolzman]

I used to love playing Android Nim on my Model I

[@thylacine1154]

I spent countless hours on the family TRS 80 playing Microsoft Adventure, Zork, Temple of Apsai, Morloc's Tower, Starfleet Orion, Sargon II, etc. What a blast I had!

[@carltone]

My first computer. Learned basic. Bought the Level 2 ROM’s and did the upgrade at home. Still have the TRS80.

[@RonLauzon]

They did make an RF cable that would you allow you to plug your TRS-80 Model I into your TV. But that was an add-on later.

[@ronaldbaljeu1612]

The game sound is sent to the audio input of the cassette player. I remember using the cassette player as a speaker. My first programming experience was on the TRS-80. Good times. Thanks for the video!

[@thylacine1154]

In those days I had a baseball game that used that casette audio to play a snippet of The National Amthem as well as primitive bat-to-ball sounds. Of course I was geeked out!

[@richardbatschmann1901]

I learned computer programming on this system. The manual a great leaning tool. I went on and finished as systems programmer on IBM mainframes.

[@WilliamHostman]

The TRS-80 Model 1, with a panasonic cassette player, was the first machine I got to program on. I had to wait for my mother after school 3 nights a week, and was too young to be home alone. (about 8), So I went to the Learning Resources Center at the community college where she was taking classes (the campus and my Elementary school were adjacent.) The LRC staff decided I should get something to do besides read or watch 8mm science films... so they handed me the "Programming your TRS-80 Model 1" book (suitably taking custody of my school ID for the duration) and showed me the 3 minute overview... I worked through it, but didn't grasp enough to do anything interesting other than cheat on my math homework... But once I showed I could use the TRS-80, they let me do some edutainment stuff; they also let me use the Apple II+, at least if no college students needed them. I wasn't the only kid from my school doing so - R. V. also had to meet her mom after school a few days a week. First computer I ever used was an Apple II. Not a plus, the original Apple 2. I was 6. It was in the school library.

[@ronh2821]

Wonderful to see. It appears to be the exact model I had (Level II 16K). At 6:02 there's mention of the logo on the keyboard at the right. Mine actually had a numeric keypad in place of that which came in handy. At 5:10 presenter makes mention of a 'bounce effect' when pressing keys. What a pain that was. It was so bad that I developed a type of slap/tap techinique when pressing keys to minimize the repeated keystrokes. Eventually I was able to buy a cassette tape which contained a program you would load that would remove that effect as mentioned. What a relief! At 11:15 was an oh! moment I completely forgot about. There were 2 modes. The standard and then another mode where everything was larger on screen. There were a couple of ways one could place graphics on screen through its basic language. The standard was to simply plot a pixel at a location. Another interesting thing they did was make a kind of character code set. I recall it as a 2x3 pixel grid (64 possible combinations/codes). This would allow you to place 6 pixels on screen at once which was a great performance alternative, otherwise one would have to resort to using Z80 machine lanugage for speed. One interesting thing as I understand it was that the operating system was actually made my Microsoft. 16K of memory was pretty good at the time. Me and a friend took turns typing for 7 hours entering a game (Sea Battle) from a book which entirely filled the 16K. The cassette tape for program storage was a good memory. When I wasn't loading a program I would use it to play one of many music cassettes I had. The following PC's I had such as Commodore Vic 20 and TI99 4A, I would use my dads big reel to reel tape which even had a fast mode for greater reliability which did the trick. This unit would get very warm even after an hour of use. If you flipped it over it had some ventilation, and you could see through that a very large cylindrical blue tube. The unit cost at the time (early 1980) with numeric keypad etc, was $1200. When you think about it, buying a decent PC now a days is about the same price after 44 years. And while we're at it, a decent sandwich then would cost $3 to get me through my computing day. I still pay $3 for a sandwich at a sub shop I've gone to now for 40 years. You know, this world of PC computing may just be inflation proof! :)

[@tschak909]

You're entering a Level 1 BASIC program, onto Level II BASIC. You'll hit some snags.

[@kevinmartell4085]

I wonder if that is why using "PRINT@" instead of "PRINT AT" works on my Level II emulator.

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

I remember using a TRS-80 with Level 1 BASIC. I've read that this was a "stopgap" release until Tandy could get a license to incorporate Microsoft BASIC into their computer. I remember two of Level 1 BASIC's quirks in particular: Firstly, you could type a calculation into an input prompt which required a numeric input, and the computer would calculate the result and then pass the result to the variable. You could even use variables as part of your input, so if you knew what variable held the answer to a question, you could type the variable name in order to get the correct answer without knowing it. Of course if you knew how the computer calculated the correct answer to something, you could just type in the formula to again enter the answer without knowing it. Secondly, the keyboard was active all of the time, even while programs were running. This was used in one particular game which used the text-only screen to put up a simulation of a spaceship flying around. When the spaceship crossed the intersection of the aiming points, you were supposed to hit the Clear button which cleared the screen even while the program was still running. This would fire your "gun" and the game would immediately redraw the screen so there was only a brief blank-out pause. The way the detection worked was that the program would light up one graphics block near the bottom of the screen and would continually monitor it using the POINT function so that it knew when you'd hit the Clear key since Clear would erase the block and POINT would return a zero instead of a one. I figured out that it would be possible in theory to detect 5 different keys using this method, although I never used it in any actual program. (Backspace, Space, Enter, Clear and Up-Arrow) In practice though, detecting the keys would probably have been unreliable if any screen activity was going on at the same time other than using POKE, since the detection depended on the cursor remaining in one place all of the time. In spite of its failings, the TRS-80 was my introduction to home computers and I still feel a minor soft spot in my heart for it.

[@tinyBigGAMES]

Wow, this was the computer that started my computer programming journey. Fond memories. Good times, good times.

[@alexanderpoplawski577]

Same

[@tomknapp6194]

What sparked my interest in programming is that we had a version of Star Trek (I think it was called "G-Trek") and my dad got pretty good at playing so. Since it was written in basic, he simply upped the number of Klingons and I was amazed. How was that possible!?!? And when he wrote a program to help my brother calculate the size of a circle and it was never wrong, I knew I had to learn about this stuff.

[@miked4377]

wow!! i am very impressed with the meteor game...and zaxxon really knocked me out!!! wow!!

[@TheErador]

Ah Septandy time again! Someone should do a Septangerine...

[@turntheblueiris4626]

What about JanuTandy or FebruTandy? SeptIBMver? Olivettober? Can't think of any others.

[@paulstubbs7678]

I still have my model 1, with a pile of upgrades & rebuilt into a new case, My keyboard never missed a beat, later upgraded to include the numpad.

[@StarsManny]

4:50 the model I could be attached to a regular TV because I know that ours was! Great video btw!

[@chuckgaydos5387]

At work, I still occasionally find a TRS-80 floppy disk while looking for something else. I had the 300 bit per second modem that I used to access CompuServe and The Source.

[@BilalHeuser1]

This is a great computer to start with, because at that time companies like Radio Shack encouraged you to learn about computers and write your own programs. I even learned Z80 assembly language and many other things about computers with my Model I.

[@vanhetgoor]

The real problem with the series of TRS-80 computers is that when they made the first they thought that is was finished. When the Model 2 came on the market, it was not compatible, and the Model 3 was again not compatible with Model 2. If Tandy would have made a second computer that was an expansion to the first model than there would have been something like an evolution and than improvement would be a stimulance to expand or buy the bigger model. What they did was produce new models that were in competition with earlier models, that was counter productive. Eventually they did not survive.

[@bigbadhodad3894]

I think they learned their lesson with the 2, as the 3 and 4 were compatible(mostly) with the 1. I love my rescue model 3, and am proud to be its forever home.

[@bigbadhodad3894]

I think they learned their lesson with the 2, as the 3 and 4 were compatible(mostly) with the 1. I love my rescue model 3, and am proud to be its forever home.

[@bigbadhodad3894]

I think they learned their lesson with the 2, as the 3 and 4 were compatible(mostly) with the 1. I love my rescue model 3, and am proud to be its forever home.

[@newkillergenius]

Excellent video, thanks!

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Cool video, Aaron; thanks! --Mike

[@rmcdudmk212]

There is a special place in my heart for Tandy. The first computer i ever used on a regular basis was my uncles Tandy 1000.

[@ohioterran7374]

Awesome video on the Model 1! For Meteor Mission 2, you can fire the engines to move your ship up faster after you acquire the astronaut. This makes avoiding the asteroids a lot easier when traveling back to the mother ship.

[@Wenlocktvdx]

My first was a Color Computer but a friend and I used to play with a model 1 at the Bourke Street store in Melbourne in ‘78. I still have a CTR81 cassette recorder and a CCR-83, but a gear broke so I can only use the CCR83 with my MC10

[@nuk1964]

The good 'ol TRS-80 model I -- the first microcomputer that I'd used (back in high school). The school got the TRS-80s back in 1979/1980 school year -- mainly as they were the best deal at the time (Radio Shack was offering a better deal to schools at the time, and Apple had yet to start giving "killer" deals to schools). I did eventually acquire a Model I when helping one of the professors I knew at university clean out his garage. As he was planning to scrap it, I offered to "adopt" it. It was in working order at that time too. Since it's been some time since it was put into storage, I'll need to give it a thorough cleaning and checkup for any parts that could have failed before I try turning it on again. Since the unit that I've is an early example with Level I BASIC ROM, I'll probably should locate a copy of the keyboard debounce patch.

[@mohrtechgaming1004]

My first computer.

[@neilloughran4437]

The TRS80 was one of the first computers I recall using in about 1980. The school that I was at had a bunch of these and two commodore PET computers. I remember playing a bunch of games on them... some kind of Star Trek game and a Galaxian clone perhaps... happy memories.

[@TheShepp63]

This was one of the 1st computers my school got in around 1981. At the time I was learning electronics at BOCES so, my school asked me to upgrade the ram in about 5 or 6 of the TRS-80's from 4K to 16K. I remember sitting in a room with the computers in front of me, all taken apart and a pile of (DIP) ram memory chips sitting at my side. I had an anti-static bracelet strapped on my wrist and I was wearing anti-static gloves so that I would not damage the chips. I remember other kids in school walking past the classroom staring in to see what I was doing. They thought that I was a scientist or something! Wow!! what a RUSH that was.

[@Mrdorf14]

This is the 1st computer I ever had. I remember coding games on it (from a book) but I was too young to understand how to save them so every time I wanted to play a game I had to type it out again.

[@lexpee]

unbelievable those graphics of that time ascii characters bloks and other characters. I was saving up for a TRS-80 model 4. This computer was very expensive at that time. In 1982 the MSX computer came on the market here in Europe. This one had much more options and a graphics processor with 16 colors and 64kb ram.

[@SqueekyBums]

Great video! Still have my TRS-80 model 1 level II, TRS-80 4P (yes portable, the size of a sewing machine) TRS-80 Colour (coco) model 1 & 2 and pocket TRS-80 with printer dock. Starfighter was my favourite game (death caster one). These computers captured my imagination, and I worked for interTAN UK ltd (Tandy) from 1988 for about 3 years. Good times 😁 I did put together an emulator with many games, including Starfighter. Still have it, and I published it via torrent. No seeds left now, but when I attempt to seed as there are leechers, I only have 99.5% of the files? No idea why. I created it. Will need to look in to this 🤔

[@jeffreyellison8850]

Cool. My first computer was a model 3. As time went on I stored it at my parents house when I went away for college. My mother gave it away to someone when she cleaned out the attic.

[@mmille10]

Re. RF and noise - I heard about this issue from Joe Decuir, who was with Atari at the time. He said that Apple didn't have to worry about the FCC requirements with the first Apple II models, because they didn't have an RF modulator, and Apple officially classified them as "office equipment." Interesting about Meteor Mission. I've seen a couple games like this on the Atari 8-bit.

[@FoxRivers778]

With the first TRS-80 having typewriter keys, although I don't like the white ENTER key, I never understood why they went to flat keys for the CoCo. Of course they realized their mistake and made the CoCo 2 with typewriter keys.

[@CallardAndBowser]

I think radio shack in Holland, Michigan was selling that for around $800 dollars back then. We used to get games on cassettes from a friend who downloaded them off the early internet and play them on these pc's at school and down at the computer lab at Hope College. In 8th grade we learned how to program basic on these. We called it the Trash 80, lol. This takes me back. lol

[@slightlyevolved]

I'm legitimately surprised and impressed with how reasonably smooth the scrolling was in those games. Even considering what I've seen with other text based systems, even ones that came after, such as the ZX machines and VIC20.

[@neorandy]

Model I level II 16k with cassette tape was my first computer.

[@MickeyMousePark]

As for the large badge on Model 1 ..the top panel could be replaced when adding a 10 key pad (optional upgrade) which would replace the area of the badge

[@tarstarkusz]

2:33 "...or your child could be pleasurably elevated into this " *brave new world* " Only radio shack could say your kid will become part of the "Brave New World"

[@tpcdude]

we had a program called "eliza" which was written in lisp for the PDP-10, it seems you got a version for the TRS-80 love to see that running she used to say "the doctor is in"

[@Metal_Maxine]

There is a very very old LGR video with Eliza in it.

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

Fun Fact: AI chatbots are basically just Eliza with the ability to learn new responses. Yes, they're very much more complicated than Eliza, but all of the complexity is in the ability to learn new responses. The responses are still pretty much "canned" only we don't notice that since the machine is continually updating its responses using input from other people and other text resources.

[@st3ddyman]

You could plug them into a TV via the TV Modulator, which was nice and cheap

[@st3ddyman]

Press and HOLD space to go up quicker

[@carlwaring]

Here in the UK, we had a Model 1 and I'm sure it plugged into our TV.

[@mattalki]

The model I is the computer I got started on. Yes, I played Zaxxon on it. Granted, I was just a kid, so gaming was my life! It still amazes me how playable the games are on that system. I think my dad's old model I is still in my mom's basement. Someday I'll be going to get it to refurbish. It deserves a bit of love.

[@2081dwillis]

Takes me back to my first computer... though I don't see the acoustic modem I also used to connect to local BBS systems, or the Epson 8-pin dot matrix printer that used to screech out my code for hours and hours. Laid the foundation for my entire career. Thanks Radio Shack.

[@spinnetti]

that $600 is $3k today, so not just anybody was buying these. The model I was the first micro I used at school.

[@norfintorkjoe8925]

Great episode! I still have one.

[@user-eg3yv3xr7s]

The keyboard is a foil and foam type. It is easily repairable with the correct type of foam pads and foil contacts.

[@CyranoJones509]

All of the Mod I's I've ever seen had finger-type switches inside. That's where the keybounce came from - the fingers bounced off of each other. A foil and foam keyboard wouldn't be working after this many years.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Oh yeah, I have Zaxxon for the Commodore 64. It's been a good while since I've played it.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

Ah yes, CB's. I remember being a kid and my dad had a '76 Camaro and an Archer CB radio from Radio Shack.

[@dmitribilgere7604]

After all these years, memories of the key bounce is still a bit of a nightmare for me.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

"...A cup of coffee..." ...or hot chocolate drink, or juice, water, milk, soda, etc.

[@dave4shmups]

Great video on the original Trs-80! I’ve never used one, but it would definitely be fun to. That is an impressive port of Zaxxon, given the hardware! Frogger is another one that I’ve read about that got an impressive port on the Trs-80. I’m sure that sales of this computer were helped by the fact that there were Radio Shack stores everywhere back then. I miss Radio Shack store.

[@tarstarkusz]

All of the computer companies at this time were unbelievably conservative with their tape transfer routines. The Starpath Supercharger was a 'games on cassette; device for the 2600. It had 6k of RAM and most of the games were around 6k. It could load these 6k programs in under 10 seconds. I have a newer clone of the supercharger that has 64k and works with all Atari cartridges without extra hardware, which basically means pitfall 2 won't work. There are modern 2600 games much larger. There's one I play that's 32k. It loads in under 30 seconds. it uses the same exact load routine as the supercharger which was made in like 1982. So it's not like there is a bunch of new hardware in it that wasn't available in the 80s. The main problem of cassettes is cheap cassettes have "drop outs" which would cause a failure. But it would fail at almost any speed. Slowing it down doesn't help with that. Commodore takes things even further by writing the whole thing twice. AND Commodore had full control over what cassette recorder would be used because most CBM machines only worked with the dataset and could not use a regular old tape recorder.

[@fredWaxBeans11111]

Great video. I love the monitor. Just ONE Giant, candy-like red button, "POWER". Cant miss it. Can't be confused what the button is for. (so many people today still don't know what the (I /O) symbol on the power button means). Good old-fashioned simplicity which is easy to understand from the get go.

[@Ozymandias1]

I have one but with a green on black screen and the expansion model.

[@pajodato5339]

In Zaxxon there is the lateral height bar. There are 4 possible height levels for the enemies, so that's the way to zap them.

[@jeffnay6502]

I have had a hard time finding information on Don French, as I wanted to make a small display with some information about him on it.

[@donaldhoot7741]

My first PC! So fun until the C64 came out. Ah, memories.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

That enter key looks more like cream color than white.

[@RetroGamingNook]

Agree, Zaxxon looks a little confusing visually due to the monochrome nature, yet impressive at the same time. Those 2 arcade style computer games would have been pretty great in the very early ‘80s.

[@RonLauzon]

You missed the Reset button that was next to the expansion port.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Stop the tape drive now, heh.

[@jeopardy60611]

You actually keyed in the program incorrectly, because you are using a Level II machine, and the manual you're using is for the Level I, which I can tell because you got the "MEMORY SIZE" prompt when you booted it up. The Level II computer requires you to use the "@" symbol rather than the word "AT." The 0 you see on the left side of each line is because it thinks that "AT" is a variable that isn't set to anything. If you key it in correctly for the Level II using the "@" sign, everything will print in the same spot on the screen, so you'll only see one line of output that keeps changing.

[@dan.henderson632]

When are you showing the Dragon 32 on your shelf Aaron ?

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Do you think that 5-pin DIN video is compatible with the Commodore computers that use a similar or same kind of cable?

[@rager1969]

Of course the TV had a speaker.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

"And it actually _broke_ the computer." Wow, how would just entering a number that it couldn't handle _destroy_ one or more of its chips?

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

The weight is lightweight? Or wouldn't the _monitor_ be lightweight?

[@bigbadhodad3894]

Hey, I know it’s probably not the place, but I don’t have an account on the site, do you have any word processors for the Tandy model 3?

[@bigbadhodad3894]

I remember so many Fridays spent at the Chapman highway radio shack playing with these as mom shopped at Winn Dixie next door.

[@reinoud6377]

I wonder why they didnt copy the altair but then with easy manufactoring in eye and a good rom and video etc.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

"The _original_ trinity"? How many other supposed "trinities" were there in computers?

[@tomknapp6194]

Model I Level II. The Level I only had 4k ram and a version of basic that didn't have very good error codes. It would literally say, "What?", "How?", or "Sorry". lol Not very helpful! The Level II was upgraded to 16k and the error messages were much more helpful. I also liked using "?" as print. I also never noticed a problem with the keyboard.

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

"What?" = Syntax error. "Sorry" = Out of memory. "How?" = Everything else. Just in case someone wanted to know. 😃

[@Sashazur]

The keyboard on mine often had bbboooouuunnncccee problems

[@gc1418]

The moniter would fry floppy disks if you placed them on top. Ask me how i know. my friends and i programmed these after school, sometimes until 10 pm. The principal drpve by and complained to our science teacher. Good times.

[@DavidCase-ov5uo]

Yeah crt monitors have a great big electro magnet coil around the tube (scanning yoke assembly) which moves the electron beam across the screen. Great for erasing disks.

[@MariaEngstrom]

Seems extremely risky to have 3 identical DIN sockets. 🤔

[@Kae6502]

Especially when one is the power input!

[@RonLauzon]

Yes, that was a common problem where you plugged the power into the video socket and fried your video chips.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Wow, how silly that this computer asks _you_ for how much memory it has instead of being able to detect and _tell_ you like the Commodore 8-bit ones do.

[@Sashazur]

I think that was optional. If you just hit enter it would give you the maximum available, but you could enter a number to reserve some memory so it wouldn’t all be used by BASIC.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

Haha, the graphics on this computer -- at least that I've seen so far in this video -- are worse than if you wrote a PETSCII version of it for Commodore 8-Bs!

[@Sashazur]

Yeah it had very primitive graphics. But the PET computer that was available at the same time had a keyboard that was like something from a 70s supermarket cash register!

[@lancecozad5704]

The lack of color makes it very hard for people used to color to adjust to. Basically, the opposite of American society.

[@horusfalcon]

Foiled, huh? You do realize that's a foam and foil keyboard you're playing on... There are rebuild kits for those being produced by retro makers. A good repair how-to is at: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r360moNojdWgos0

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

"Theory of simplicity by design"? Not really a theory. More like a slogan or motto.

[@clarkstar11]

err ok.....

[@bazodee2]

But does it have sex games?

[@stephenwalters9891]

Not with 128x48 pixels, no colour and no sound.

[@Metal_Maxine]

If you can persuade it to use cp/m (I doubt it) you could play Softporn Adventure by Sierra Online (yes, that Sierra)

[@Sashazur]

Very pixelated sex games.

[@superhungdwarf4016]

Tandy trash...better then the trash-80? Being forced to use this garbage when it was in my school was enough to never have any fond memories of it.

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

My belief is that this label was earned mostly because of the unreliable cassette tape loading on the TRS-80 with Level II BASIC. There was an error in the timing routines which meant that if the tape wasn't quite perfect, the computer could miss a 1 bit and misinterpret it as a 0 bit when reading from the tape. This bug was eventually fixed by an adjustment in the timing of the tape reading routine, but by that time the TRS-80's reputation had suffered irreparably, especially since other home computers with color and better graphics were coming onto the market and wound up pushing out the TRS-80 almost before anyone had time to notice that the cassette reading was now much more reliable.

[@zachz96]

I'm sorry to have to say this, but the music is too loud.

[@bcburnettcom]

if you take the tandy badge off the monitor the holes for the vhf and uhf dials were there

[@scottbrady419]

Holding down the "R" button will turn on your rockets for you to accelerate; of course it will shoot first, but then your ship will take off. I love playing that game!