TRS-80 - The Most Popular Personal Computer of 1977 |

Let's explore the history of the TRS-80 and see if any of my TRS-80 gear is still working. Thanks to pcbway.com for sponsoring this video!
Be sure to subscribe to my second channel / @retrohackshackafterhours
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:31 - TRS-80 History
06:45 - PCBWay Ad
07:11 - Pile Of Hardware
09:42 - Testing Monitors
22:21 - Testing Power Supplies
26:08 - Testing System 1
39:01 - Testing System 2
Music used by permission:
“Fakebit World” by Malmen
/ malmen
"The Dream Is Always The Same"
by @stateazure
Other music from the KZbin Audio Library
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#Retro #Computers #septandy #trs80

[@jessiec4128]

I used a TRS-80 when I was in college in the early 80s. I was studying the Basic Language and I had to wait in line at the college I attended. That was until I got my fist Commodore 64, my dad let me get the matching Screen and Diskette drive too. I then could head home and create my programs for the next day. Me and a friend created a program that helped kindergarten kids, I had my first daughter use it and she mastered it really quickly. When we brought her to start kindergarten, they had a meeting with us and told us, she was too smart for kindergarten, and they gave her a test and moved her to first grade. That changed her life. She was always younger than the kids in her class.

[@wildstar1063]

My great grandmother bought me a TRS 80 model I level one back in 1979, in 81 or so, when I graduated, I upgraded it to level two and later got a couple of floppy drives and an expansion interface. The system is currently sitting on my kitchen table, it stopped working a while back, and I had to replace one of the vram chips. Now it is working and I have added one of those GOTEK floppy emulators so I can run different software that I have downloaded. I will probably never get rid of it as my great grandmother bought it for me, and she was my favorite human in the universe

[@inlovewithi]

In what year was she born?

[@wildstar1063]

@@inlovewithi 1898 she died in 1980

[@derealized797]

My grandparents gave my brother a TRS-80, sometimes around mid 80s. Later on they gave us a TI 99/4A too. I have fond memories of both, but the TRS-80 stood out for certain games, like downland, and some I can't remember the name of... thing is though, we would get one of the magazines for it and my brother learned quickly how to program. So eventually we started trying to make our own games. Which we never finished but still. Kids these days will never understand it, they're so spoiled now, the experiences back then with all the limitations and having to order a game through the mail. It meant something different to us. They don't appreciate what they have like we did.

[@SaberRiderMT2]

reach people

[@RedTroPc]

@@derealized797 im now 17, and i enjoy older computers :D

[@Johngoodman454]

I was born in 85 but I do reamber using this very computer and I miss those days a much easier time for alot of people that arnt around anymore

[@firsteerr]

me and a pal used to club our pocket money together and buy a computer magazine , we would laboriously input a few games and save them to cheap cassettes for sale at school for other spectrum users i miss those simple days

[@rogerlevasseur397]

My high school got 2 TRS-80s in 1979. influenced me to get a CS degree. still working as a software engineer.

[@williamweiss6128]

Yes, our school had one in the office probably played pong on it at lunch.

[@stevensonDonnie]

I bought a TRS-80, Mod 1, Lvl 1, 4 k, tiny basic for $599 in 1980 and got an associate degree in Computer programming. I was the only guy who owned a computer and interviewed with 4 companies. I got four offers. I miss that simple machine.

[@stevensonDonnie]

@@HK-fz5rn no. I bought it when I got out of the army. I had saved some money

[@kokomo9764]

I bought the exact same thing, and I still have it, including all the manuals and accessories. It is in perfect condition except for the "E" key, which is broken.

[@sydneyhart]

I miss those times. Good luck getting a job nowadays.

[@Lethgar_Smith]

I went to a 2 year vocational electronics school in 82. We had a computer lab with a dozen or so TRS-80 Model III's. Learned to program in BASIC. Played Saipan! my first computer game, not counting arcade games. Also became familiar with the Qwerty keyboard layout for the first time in that lab. I remember siting there, struggling to find the "B" or some other character, cursing at technology. Now Im a pretty fast typist. Little did I know all the ay back then, that typing on a computer keyboard is how I would earn a living.

[@veganbutcherhackepeter]

​​​@@sydneyhart Are you trying to tell me that it's hard to get a good job in IT with a solid background and decades of experience? Sorry, but I call major BS. I started on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k back in the 1980's and taught myself programming in BASIC when I was 11 years old. Today I am 52 years old and still have a great job in IT (Cyber & Information Security, namely Identity & Access Management) and I never even got a degree in computer sciences.

[@FlyBy2507]

All my carrer as software engineer (58 years old) begins on a TRS80 Model 3 ♥

[@lucius1976]

1977 was special for long lasting technology - Voyager probes are still working

[@MrGchiasson]

Yeah...Voyager lasted a lot longer than my 77' Ford Pinto. Hah!

[@eugenecbell]

Very good point.

[@thekraemer1757]

V-Ger is searching for the Creator, carbon unit.

[@richardbutton1179]

I had a late 70s black and white tv that lasted well into the 90s and still worked except for the knobs. My grandparents had a color RCA tv i believe from late 60s perhaps very early 70s that lasted 17 years.

[@jfbeam]

Mostly working. Much of it is turned off now. It has a few more years before the RTG won't be able to power the radio. It had a glitch recently where it reactivated a broken processor. (when you're made with transistors big enough to see with the naked eye, it can take a pounding.) I'm impressed the _tape_ it uses for persistent storage still works.

[@kcrosley]

Badass 70s-80s engiscience here. Spent a good part of my boyhood messing with Tandy TRS-80 computers in the local Radio Shack in bumfuck nowhere Montana. Changed my life.

[@AstroBoyAU]

Ahhh my first computer, the things I did with that would astound you, Learnt Z80 machine code programming, Connected a model 15 teletype to it as the printer with software, Built the LNW-80 interface for it, had DSDD drives for it a 40 track and 80 track drive (Both 5.25"). used it to decode Radio Teletype signals (RTTY) read the news from around the world (Using a communications receiver to get the signals etc> RF shielded the whole computer to reduce radio interference. Doubled the speed of the CPU, built a high res graphics interface for it from a book, fixed the mistakes in the bookand got it working, wrote the software for it an Yeah LOTS of fun when I was 17 years old... (Now 62) :)

[@RetroHackShack]

Wow. Great memories.

[@agranero6]

My first work as a professional programmer was with TRS-80 model I and later a model III while I was at High School.

[@Er_Guille]

My entry into the personal computer world was with a TRS-80 Color Computer hooked to my TV set and I used it to make slides for presentations in the university (I was a medical student at the time). I still remember the awe of my teachers and class mates with my material… 😅😅

[@RetroHackShack]

Cool!

[@Tech-Relief]

Brings back memories, I got one of these in 1978 as an electronics student at the time and it started my career as a software engineer now recently retired. I lived in Australia at the time and ended up working for Micro-80 which published a magazine and supported the TRS-80. Subsequently I wrote the "TRS-80 Rom Reference Manual" and designed devices to plug into the TRS-80 including a full fledged replacement for the expansion interface box. The original had several problems; the ribbon cable connecting the expansion interface was an edge connector with solder pins instead of gold plating so they would corrode and the expansion bus did not use buffers so it was unreliable. My expansion box therefore had buffers and used static RAM to alleviate the problems and was sold by Micro-80 around 1982 if I remember correctly. I used to write software using Z80 assembler for speed and efficiency. I then moved to the TRS-80 Model II with 8 inch floppies and finally to the IBM-PC and worked as a software developer/engineer from 1983 until 2022. But the TRS-80 Model 1 gave me a foundation and got me started so I remember it fondly.

[@RetroHackShack]

Awesome!

[@tomtube1012]

That's a long career as a software developer. People usually burn out after 10 years.

[@Tech-Relief]

At times I worked as an IT Manager and Software Development Manager but I ended my career as a self-employed Software Engineer; worked for HP and Micron in the last 13 years or so. I guess I had a talent for it or something...

[@JohnS-ii3mp]

Oh yes, that ribbon cable to the expansion interface was a major problem. I would buy them 3 at a time because they'd only last a few months. I finally got one from Micro-80 with the RAM and it lasted years. What a wonderful machine and so much fun. I learned basic on it and wrote so many programs (mostly games). I only had the tape drive for a very short time as I got the wafer drive (if anyone can remember those) which were so much faster at loading and saving. Then got the disk drive which was even faster, as well as the modem so I could play games "on-line" (which did not at all mean what it means today - think two computers talking to each other as the entire internet), but such a great little machine. I still have 2 of them but they haven't been plugged in for 20 or maybe 30 years... probably still work though. Anyway, thanks for posting about Micro-80 and the amazing fix to the headache of that short little ribbon cable. Amazing I found the guy that made that life saver...

[@Tech-Relief]

@@JohnS-ii3mp Yes that "wafer drive" was called a "stringy floppy" if I remember right. It was a device originally designed to log information from electronic probes and sensors.. I must admit I miss those days when our reason for being was to prove to the world that micro computers could do anything. So called mini computer and mainframe guys used to think of micro computers as toys and we had to prove them wrong. Today PCs are so complex few people fully understand them and it is not as much fun to work with them.

[@curtisblake261]

I worked two full time jobs in high school the summer of 1978 to save up enough to buy a TRS-80. It quickly became evident that 4 KB RAM wasn't enough. I remember sweating bullets as I de-soldered the 4KB RAM chips and soldered in 16KB RAM chips. Shout outs to Creative Computing Magazine and the Scott Adams of Scott Adams Adventures fame (not the Dilbert guy).

[@Tharkunify]

Loved that computer! Temple of Apshai, coding in basic, copying games on cassette tape using brother's stereo tape deck...

[@dharvell]

My fifth grade teacher had a pair of TRS-80s in his classroom in 1985. No internal hard drive, external tape player to load/save software, dual floppies... loved those things. We could only use them if we were finished with our classwork. It was on the TRS-80 I learned how to write programs in BASIC. It was the same teacher who introduced me to a music group called Kraftwerk. So I can blame my teacher for eventually getting me into Industrial music!

[@lucasrem]

@dharvell Industrial music, a carrier, why can check you ? I was expecting a story you becoming a great coders as i am, but you became creative, lol Kraftwerk. is German, so i did hear that on the radio, in Europe, not that conman in the US ?

[@saszab]

But Kraftwerk is not Industrial music. Laibach and Einstürzende Neubauten play Industrial music. I like all three of them! My first computer was a ZX Spectrum clone. I had to make it by myself, because the ready made one was at least 2 times more expensive, which was too much even in 1991 for a student like me :-)

[@saszab]

@@lucasrem Kraftwerk was a very influential band in Electronic music, so no wonder they were known in the US.

[@dharvell]

@@saszab They may not be Industrial music, but if not for my fifth grade teacher introducing me to Kraftwerk, I would have never discovered industrial music. It was that introduction that opened my eyes to the world of electronic music, as a whole. Was that ZX Spectrum clone a kit or did you have to source everything from scratch?

[@saszab]

​@@dharvell Now I see. I also started with another genre of music: Depeche Mode and A-ha in 1989. Yes, kind of, but not a real kit. First you had to buy a PCB with schematics and a list of all the parts, then buy all the chips and other parts from different sellers (at a place like a flea market, but for electronic parts - there was nо store were you could buy everything in one place), then assemble and solder everything, make your own keyboard from scratch (i.e. design, draw by hand and etch another PCB), make your own power supply from scratch, then test and debug the board (so I had to buy an oscilloscope for this) - at least one microchip was faulty, so I had to buy another one, and so on. My first ZX Spectrum clone was a simple "Leningrad-1", like on this video (but mine was with 2 ROMs): kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6KoqIunaNOdgNU A year later I assembled a much more complicated clone, ZX Spectrum on steroids - "ATM Turbo-2", with 512K of memory ("Leningrad" had only 48K), 7 MHz Z80, extra video modes (almost like EGA), sound chip AY-8910, CP/M and FDD, like here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4nNoXVsesqXgKs Unfortunately none of them survived - I moved overseas and left all this stuff in my parents' apartment; when they moved a couple years ago to another city they left everything they don't need. So now I'm itching to make another simple clone of ZX Spectrum 48K :-)

[@pulsatingsausageboy2076]

They were popular throughout the 80’s. I remember as a kid dreaming of having one but my family was way too poor.

[@user-vl5cf3ix9x]

Bought my Trash-80 Color with 16K Mem in 1983. Including the interface cable for the Cassette player when I needed to save my BASIC software projects. It eventually died in 1994. But, It was still interesting to have.

[@RetroHackShack]

Nice

[@brianbedoe8656]

I was a Radio Shack Computer Center Manager back in the day. The Model 1 had lots of upgrades and retro mods due to issues/user upgrades. (like the buffered interface cable mod). It was hard to keep track of it at times. The numeric keypad was an upgrade at 1st, then later part of the regular machine, I believe with Level II. Man, after 40+ years its hard to remember all this stuff ...... It was hard to keep hacker users fingers out of the machines, but some of those guys were a total Genius! We even maintained an VERY UNOFFICIAL list of the local Hacker/Club members in the area......... My favorite "SHOW AND TELL" was showing off Daisy Wheel Printers!

[@knerduno5942]

I used to drool over that all-in-one unit when I was a kid (Model 3 or 4?), but $999 was a budget beyond what my mother could afford. It seemed like a super computer to me. In the end I was able to get Captain Kirk's computer, the VIC-20 for only $300.

[@heaven-is-real]

@@knerduno5942 VIC-20 was a cool computer I remember that.

[@FoxRivers778]

I'm gratefully thankful for my local RS Computer Center, which was nice enough to let me use their printer to print off my first school report I typed on my CoCo in 1981. When someone came in asking about the Coco the employee turned the customer to me because I guess I needed to work off the time and resources of using their printer. I would go on to work at a local Radio Shack store in 1987 my first job out of college when the Tandy 1000 HX came out. Our manager was nice enough to let us take one or one like it home to try it out, and somehow I erased the DOS disk.

[@FoxRivers778]

​@@heaven-is-real I was looking at that along with TRS-80 CoCo just before the C64 came out because Apple II was too expensive. It was a nifty little machine but unfortunately only had a 20-column screen so you couldn't see much text on it.

[@KlodFather]

I snagged a copy of the store operating software from one of the stores and we learned a lot about how RS did their store bookwork and how the system worked. You guys threw away some amazing stuff in the trash and we were there to gather and sift it all. We were able to use parts of some of that software to build other stuff and learn. What a great time to be alive. Also a guy who lives in AZ now made a program with the radio shack pocket amplifier that could do instant messenger between machines on a dry telephone pair in a local area. It was crude but it worked. This was operational around 82 or so. I do not know if the software even exists any more... but the cassette port would send out a signal with a preamble and all the machines would listen and put up the typed message in the received box with the sending machines name or ID. You type in your box and the press send and you could reply. We were able to test 4 machines on the same wires in a half mile area and i worked good. We were all teens at the time. Was written directly in assembly language because basic was too slow but it did call on subroutines in the ROM. I believe 1200 baud, the higher cassette speed. All machines were level 2.

[@alexanderpoplawski577]

Good memories. I learned programming on a TRS-80 Model 1 Level II. This started my career as a self employed developer in 1980. Still in the business and loving it.Looking forward to more videos in this series.

[@RetroHackShack]

So cool. So many of us got our start here.

[@jonfreeman9682]

If you have it still in mint condition it's an antique and you can fetch maybe $20G on it.

[@alexanderpoplawski577]

@@jonfreeman9682 I did some modifications on it. I installed an additional memory chip for 8 bit characters, some graphics extension and a number keypad, like the one on the later models. It gathers dust somewhere in the attic. So, sadly no mint condition 🤨.

[@alexanderpoplawski577]

@@RetroHackShack I ordered it with 4kB of memory , but when it arrived, it already was the 16kB model. My parents payed for it, it cost 2000 Deutsche Mark. More than my first used car.

[@jonfreeman9682]

@@alexanderpoplawski577 Try booting it up see if it still works. Dust it up a bit. Careful not to blow anything up as it's hard to get vintage parts. Recently a working Apple original sold for $440,000 but they are rare since Steve Wozniak only built a few. Several have sold over $200,000 depending on condition. TRS 80 doesn't have Apple's pedigree but it has a place in computing history. Even if it's not working I'll bet enthusiasts will still buy it to try to fix it up and resell it for much more.

[@tolkienfan1972]

Fond memories. I grew up with a TRS80 Model III. I learned that machine inside out and backwards. It's great seeing people bring them back to life!

[@jonfreeman9682]

I worked at radio shack in the 80s and it was a popular PC. I sold a few but it was not that big a hit.

[@MrGchiasson]

If I remember...store programs on a cassette recorder

[@tolkienfan1972]

@@MrGchiasson correct. Although a disk drive and a disk operating system were available. We used to store data on audio cassettes (instead of the official data cassettes). They could hold a large number of programs, one after the other. But they were easily corrupted, and you could lose every program. That was painful! These days I could write software that used redundancy to make them much more robust. Man, that'd be a fun and useless project!! I might just do it

[@MrGchiasson]

As I recall..they later sold it without a monitor...to reduce the selling price.@@jonfreeman9682

[@argonwheatbelly637]

A friend had one of these, and we used to hit up BBSes on it.

[@garymathis1042]

The TRS-80 was my first PC back in 1978. I wrote a BASIC program to invert a 50 x 50 matrix. It took an hour of run time but, by George, it did it.

[@clintonstaley8441]

I believe that's about 7500 operations by the classic algorithm, so you're saying it was doing < 3 ops/second... Wow!

[@garymathis1042]

@@clintonstaley8441 I wrote the algorithm but don't know (or remember) how many operations it took.

[@YourCapybaraAmigo_17yrsago]

I had no idea PCs of any kind existed in the 70s, I thought that only started in the 80s lol. How absolutely awesome.

[@antonnym214]

Nice part one here. I had one of these when I was 17 and learned BASIC, APL, and Z-80 programming on it. Yes, APL! You got very lucky getting hardware in nearly operating condition. Looking forward to part 2. A little lexical assistance: You meant "Foray" and not "Foyer" meaning excursion into this field of study. All good wishes.

[@rev.davemoorman3883]

I had to have a computer in 1978. The choices were PET (chinzy), Apple II (pricey), and TRS-80 Model 1, Level II. I spent about $2,000 - to get the Expensive Interface and a Disk Drive. The drive was a disappointment, so I sold it off and got by with the cassette. In 1982, while working on a typewriter program to drive an Galaxy printer (upper case and lower case were switch), the power company destroyed a week's worth of work in about 1 second. And, I had made my last save on the leader tape on the cassette. I learned what the Bible means by "parish!" Recreated what I lost in two nights and finished the program by the end of the week. "Tressy" was my gateway to programming. Later, I moved to the Commodore 64, and was the last editor of Loadstar Disk Magazine.

[@RetroHackShack]

Nice

[@JimCoder]

The early TRS-80s had a key bounce problem. You'd press one key but get two or three characters. You'd have to pop off the key and scrub the contacts with a burnisher strip. Later they fixed that problem with a software patch. I repurposed the expansion interface cassette relay to repeatedly dial my pulse-dial phone. When it detected a carrier it honked a horn that I could hear from the other room, telling me my connection was ready. Fastest demon dialer in the west! LOL!

[@RetroHackShack]

That cool!

[@KlodFather]

And then Joshua (the WOPR) called you back and the rest is history... Would you like to play a game Professor Falken?

[@grege9862]

I loved my TRS-80 Model 1, expanding it all the way from the 4K standalone keyboard to 48K with expansion unit and dual 5 1/4" drives. Back then the things I was learning wasn't even being taught in colleges. This PC helped me launch my IT career and I'm still at it 40+ years later.

[@KlodFather]

We put 48k in the keyboard on one so no expansion interface. My buddy and I had an old engineer as an elmer and people thought we were top notch. It just took some reading and curiosity and some logic to figure out how to add the extra address wires for the chips. I did the disk thing on my model 3 and later model 4. The 4 was superior in every way running in model 3 mode. Much smoother and less buggy than either of the previous two. The model 4 would support larger MFM drives also.

[@donaldhoot7741]

My first computer! So much fun learning on it! Thx!

[@eugenecbell]

I used to go to the mall and while the rest of the family was shopping, I went to Radio Shack to program their Model One and later the Model 3. In 1976 all the stores had one on front counter siting there looking very high tech, but with nothing running, as there was no software. I would write a small program to put some eye can’t on the screen. I usually left a random pixel generator with reflections make it a 4 part symmetry. Then I would sneak away. They loved these little programs as they were worth watching at the time.

[@RetroHackShack]

Yeah. It was the start of the present day hacker culture. (Not to demean the hackers of the 60s who started it all.)

[@johnfoster3895]

I still have the TRS80 pocket computer with printer. We had a TRS80 model I in electronics class and would write various programs for it. Whenever I seen a computer sitting out front of Radio Shack, I would write a quick program that would slowly fill the screen with white pixels, then turn them back to black

[@JohnS-ii3mp]

yes... I remember that program. I bet if I had a working Mod 1, I would remember the code... Something about the x and y axis and then a go to line to repeat... Its just been too long, but it was a very short program. Maybe 3 or 4 lines. 10 cls 20 set (something, something, x, y, or something) 30 goto 20. I don't know, maybe it was something like that, but yes, I'd run it on every Mod 1 I got close to. Great fun.

[@BRBTechTalk]

7:52 Wow the dust covers are still hanging in there, I am amazed they have not turned to dust yet.

[@RetroHackShack]

Same

[@user-rt9zq8rs9k]

The first album Eddie Van Halen made at his new home recording studio was 1984 . He played all the instruments on the demos . Donn Landee was controlling the mixes . There was also 2 albums worth of songs they recorded BUT never mixed all the instruments . So there is 2 albums worth of unmixed tapes that were only numbered . Each number coded tape information was stored on a TRS-80 computer . The computer's hard drive crashed so all those tapes sit probably never to be heard

[@knerduno5942]

Same thing happened to Gene Roddenberry with a bunch of scripts. The data was recovered maybe a year or two ago. I am sure it could be also recovered.

[@user-rt9zq8rs9k]

@@knerduno5942 Eddie had experts try and fail on recovery .

[@knerduno5942]

That is informative, and unfortunate @@user-rt9zq8rs9k

[@KlodFather]

@@user-rt9zq8rs9k - The technics used now are much better... And this version of TRS80 never had a hard drive... But the model 3 did have a 5 meg MFM drive and the model 4 could use it or a 10 meg MFM. The MFM drive was the forerunner of the IDE. The "HardCard" was a little MFM drive basically with a built in controller which is what eventually became the IDE drive which is a self contained hard drive and controller sitting directly on the CPU bus for speed. Its an interesting read about the MFM but there are interfaces for PC's that do diagnostic and recovery work to extract the data on MFM platters. They are crude but doable.

[@DHTSciFiArtist]

Got this second hand back in 1990 from my father's job. Boy I loved that thing considered to be my first true computer.

[@RetroHackShack]

Nice

[@FritzPinguin]

My first computer was a TRS-80 I with 4kB Ram and Level II Basic. Great machine once you got hold of KBFIX. The new generation keyboard (left on the screen, with the numeric keypad) does not have the problem with key bounce. A great improvement, easy to upgrade.

[@SqueekyBums]

Still have my TRS-80 model 1 level II, TRS-80 4P and pocket TRS-80 with printer dock. Starfighter was my favourite game (death caster one). 🥰

[@RetroHackShack]

Nice. I will have to check Starfighter out.

[@SqueekyBums]

@@RetroHackShack 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. 🤔

[@mathgeek7966]

I never had one at home, but a few years later I got to use the TRS-80 in the math department in my high school. I’ll always remember using CHR$ to make a program that moved characters across the screen. Wow that was a long time ago! LOL

[@KlodFather]

CHR$ 32 made the screen charactors double size :)

[@Mr101beers]

Tandy had great products with the Realistic Brand that I still own and use today.

[@johnrayfield11]

This was my first home computer, and I spent a total of £1500(in 1978) on the 16k level 2, with expansion box, and disc drives. We had a great operating system called LDOS, which was well ahead of it's time.

[@MartynCole]

This was my first system too. I was never really happy with the monitor as it had a wobbly picture because of the 60/50 hertz difference in mains frequency.

[@joshuascholar3220]

Same as mine.

[@jonfreeman9682]

Haha ha I worked at radio shack and sold a few. That's alot of money back in those days. It's like $10,000 today.

[@francishuddy9462]

£1,500 in 1978 is about £10,000 in today's money ...

[@KlodFather]

Logical systems was a good operating system. Most software worked really good running under LDOS.

[@neccron9956]

I started playing with an IMSAI, but the first computer, I owned, was the TSR-80 (4k basic, 4k ram). It was a hacker dream of a machine :) 1. Upgrades to 12k Basic (plus the tape that had the extended basic extensions) 2. 16k ram 3. Added the extra 2102 video ram (for some reason, RS did not want to spend the 1.50) to add lower case. Required a OS patch to enable. 4. Added the Clock mod (2.1g vs 1.7g) 5. LMW Expansion board (32kram, floppy, serial, parallel) 6. Voice and speech add-on 7. RS Light pen 8. 2 floppy disks, not the RS disks. RS disk drives were only 35 tracks, while everyone else had 40 tracks.

[@KlodFather]

There were kits to put all the ram in the keyboard and not in the expansion interface.

[@ohioterran7374]

Always great to see another TRS-80 in working order and getting some love! Great job and great video!

[@RetroHackShack]

Thank you very much!

[@wheelieblind]

@@RetroHackShack Hi I am here to burst your small in the US forget the rest of the world bubble! Un no the in the US I think the Apple II was still more popular plus we were using them in school. We were not using the TRS80 at schools were we?! The answer was going to be for the most part a big NO. It went Apple II all the way up to the IIe and then meanwhile the IBM PC was also becoming common, plus if you went to the UK etc their was no RadioShack! The UK was using the BBC Micro etc. To you, in the USA it might of seemed like the Tandy was the most popular but you did not say 'In The US' you just stated that it was the most popular when it was not! Where they good computers, sure they were. The amount of schools I went to because we moved, I have seen way more IBM TX's that were not Tandy in schools then I have seen Tandy's! As must as it was the 80's and by then we were using way more other brands of PC's. One school I went to decided to go with Compaq for example. The Apple IIe was the most common one I ever saw. Their was also an other machine that came out while the Macintosh was also out but still I saw way more Apple IIe's. There was no RadioShack in Canada to my knowledge, so they were gong to be using something else if it was an Apple II. I loved going to RadioShack it is a shame it is gone now. I am by the way not saying that the Tandy computers sucked, I've used them before at one point even.

[@peterfable]

@@wheelieblind Hate to burst YOUR bubble, but by most measures the TRS-80 was THE microcomputer leader in TOTAL UNITS SOLD until Apple finally overtook them by '82-'83. That includes sales WORLDWIDE.

[@KlodFather]

@@wheelieblind - And everyone knows UK is a wholly owned subsidiary of the USA as carried by the Americans in WW2. We should have made the UK apply for StateHood LOL Then all you blokes could be Blessed Yanks like the rest of us HA HA. Love from USA. Its always fun getting a few jabs in on the Brits. (I'm Brit by blood) don't tell anyone.

[@Sandpipercom]

Awe the memories, programming on the Pet, Commodore, and my Trs-80 Model 1 and tape drive, 4k of memory, then loved my TRS model 3/4, 32k, i upgraded from 180k disk drives to four 800k dual sided, bent a few pins and solded jumpers on the cpu chip to double the cup speed, clock was no longer accurate but who cared. Upgraded the 300 baud modem to 9600 then 2400 baud lthe 4800. Purchased a hard drive that the case was just as big as the computer and only had "5 megabytes" for $650. I ran a Syslink bulletin board system, BBS, on it with 2 modem lines, for the public, with email, news groups, online games, dating service, and free public domain downloadable software, and this was done in the years way BEFORE the internet went public. Local newspapers did two news stories about it. I built a weather station to display the weather on it. Oh man how the computer technologies; speed, memory, storage, has changed so quickly over the years. Look at what a cellphones can do now..

[@RetroHackShack]

Great memories!

[@SamanthaP_123]

Miss my Model 1. I gave it to a highschool friend in trade for him picking me up in the morning to not have to walk 2 miles in the winter cold to school in Winter 1993/1994. I had the 16k RAM expansion module with 2 floppy drives and printer. I got it for $120 in 1990 off a coworker at K-Mart who moved to VT from CT. One whole paycheck to buy it after working at $3.75 an hour for a full week. While limited it was a great computer also set up the CLOAD to read/write from cassettes in BASIC. Replaced it with a 286 10Mhz in 1995 with CGA monitor for $120 and then 8088's and 286's and 386s started to show up around 1996 for free and grabbed up all I could get for free. Got online on AOL 2.5 with a 386 SX 40Mhz and 14.4k modem and VGA monitor with 1MB Trident Video card and 120MB HDD with 4MB RAM with Windows 3.11

[@RetroHackShack]

Nice!

[@armandoanderson3536]

Took my very first computer programming class on the TRS-80 back in 1981 after the 9th grade. It was offered at the community college during the summer. Loved it. I'm sure having an Atari 2600 game system influenced me to try it out. Bought an Atari 800 when it came out. Became a computer science major in engineering college and am still a software engineer today. Thanks Tandy!

[@RetroHackShack]

Awesome

[@FoxRivers778]

@@RetroHackShack You must be about the same age as me. My first computer programming class was in 1980 and I was in 10th grade. Also I got a Sears Video Arcade (same as Atari 2600) the first year it came out. I eventually went on to programming MS Access databases.

[@SidebandSamurai]

@19:46 - Yes this is one of the first monitors that Radio shack produced for the Model 1. You will notice the antenna keeper at the top, as well as the wood grain top that did not come with later models.

[@hstrinzel]

Wow, this is the BEST TRS-80 video I have ever seen! WELL DONE! Superb job! I'll try some TRS-80 stuff on an emulator soon to get aqcuainted with the old pioneering world.

[@RetroHackShack]

Thank you!

[@ahmad-murery]

This is really weird, it's a 45 minutes video and yet it ends so quickly, Can't wait for part2 and I hope you consider making a video demonstrating what is on those cassettes. Thanks Aaron!

[@ds99]

I bought a TRS-80 model 1 that looked exactly like the one you have with the numeric keypad. I bought it in 1981. It was around $1,100 in Canada. I learned to code BASIC with it. I had years of fun with it. In year 2001 I decided to move to a different province and I did a major throw out of things I no longer used. I threw a perfectly good working TRS-80 into the garbage. I should have given it to someone as it seems a shame to have thrown it out. I loved the keyboard on it. I loved the feel and the noise it made. Watching this video brought back a flood of memories. Very cool that you have some still working after so many decades.

[@CravingCanada]

I remember learning DOS and LOVED programming in machine language. Worked a whole summer and spent every cent on my Commodore 64 and peripherals. Got so much use out of it. Miss those days.

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

BASIC programming on TI 99 4A and IBM 360

[@frankpmarsala7682]

with building a Netronics Elf with a TV Typewriter keyboard and Tiny Basic programing language. Many of the offices I worked in as a painter, banks, law offices, accounting firms, were running these Tandy computers in the late 70's. Great video.

[@RetroHackShack]

Thanks!

[@frankpmarsala7682]

@@RetroHackShack Some how the first sentence got lopped off . . . "I always wanted one of these but started off with building . . . etc. " LOL I have restored my Amiga 500 with a Zuluscsi HD and am starting on my Amiga 3000. Videos like yours are valuable insights no matter what system one is tinkering with. Like I said being exposed to seeing these Tandy's all over the place helped spark my interest in computing. And YES, Radio Schack was one of my prime suppliers of electronic parts . . . I surely miss them :)

[@JimmyCall]

Many got their first hands on computing from visiting Tandy stores and using their demonstration computers.

[@michaelfuller34]

Yes! The local radio shack was on my summer bike route :) and when the shooed me out, the local arcade was probably open or if quarters were in short supply the local video store was bound to be playing some rated R movie (beta max of course) that you could watch 😂

[@jamesbeemer7855]

God ! I wish I had the money for it ( the TRS 80 ) at the time . I had just graduated from highschool , and it was apparent that the internet was talking off too . And the TRS 80 was a good starting machine to learn . There was a need for coding that was fast growing .

[@RetroHackShack]

Yep

[@flyddw]

I couldn't afford an atari or apple 2, so I talked my father into going into debt to buy a TRS-80. Level 1 4k that I quickly upgraded to Level II 16k. spent stupid amount of time programming - basic and assembly. took tons of computer algorythms through it. learned how to do stuff to win local computer contests. z80 chips were very fast for the time.

[@hetismewat]

I had one around 1984 with a casette player and a load of copied tapes (I was 7 by that time). Spent sooo many hours on that machine. It is very nice to see the history since I live in Europe and these were not common at all over here. Thanks, and I subscribed for the next one, really like it

[@RetroHackShack]

Thanks

[@thecfamily5294]

This was the computer I started on. I used a model I, model III and had a model IV at home. I used them throughout high school.

[@Melbournelost66]

I have always thought the year 1977 was one of the BIGGEST happening years of my life. I turned 11 in 77. So many big things happened, the shock loss of Elvis, but many other great stars died. I remember going to friends house and he a computer similar to this. Tandy Electronics was big in Australia. I also remember seeing Star Wars as a school excursion of all things.

[@elizabethpeterson1644]

For me it was the early 1980’s. My father did used a Radio Shack computer during the summer for a computer math class. It had a cassette player for a disk drive, monitor, and keyboard. When I was 13 years old in 1983 or 1984 my parents gotten a Franklin computer. It was liked an Apple 2 computer. When I was in high school that I did played on a Radio Shack TRS-80 during my years of high school. I even took computer math class using those computers. Even my father had one from his school when he taught the class. In the early 90’s my parents gotten a new computer. A Macintosh 2 from Apple. My favorite thing on that computer was drawing pictures on it. In the late 90’s my father had a Windows computer and my mother had the iMac. In the early 2000’s my father gotten a Sony laptop computer. I did used that one,too in playing games on or surfed the web. My father got me a Toshiba laptop for me. In 2011 my mother gotten an iMac Air to used in the living room. I’m not going on and on.

[@jerryorourke7191]

I was the lead tech. for the first 4 years of production of the trs80 model 1 @ Tandy advanced products in fort worth TX. There were 20 technicians under me with us repairing 50 boards per day each & we made 8 million computers in those 4 years; a record that I still thank stands as the largest # of computers produced of 1 model. Glad to see the old board is still loved.

[@RetroHackShack]

Still loved for sure! What were the most common problems you had to fix on those boards?

[@jerryorourke7191]

#1 problem hairline shorts from bad etched boards; #2 out of speck CPU chips from Zylog; #3 bad ram and/or video memory ( a digital thermometer is good for finding the bad chips that you could light a cigarette on); #4 faulty gates in the 7400 series; #5 bad crystal in clock circuit # 6 solder shorts (usually easy to find); That was a normal day in the life of a Tandy tec. 😀@@RetroHackShack

[@RetroHackShack]

@jerryorourke7191 This is so awesome! Thanks for these insights. I want to share these on my next video in the series when I try to fix my system that is acting up. But my current hypothesis is that I have a bad/scratchy horizontal pot and maybe some bad RAM based on the symptoms. Not sure what is causing the power crash after a minute or so though.

[@profithunter777]

Thank you for doing this video, brings back so many memories!

[@Nas_Atlas]

Great video. Lots of fun. I love to see a man who has his garage filled to the rafters with retro gear.

[@RetroHackShack]

That's definitely me 😁

[@shanebluett5560]

My mate Syd had a TRS-80 back in the early 80s. I remember borrowing it and playing with it at home it was great 😊

[@guylavoie1342]

I bought a model 1 with level 2 Basic and 4k of memory (which I upgraded to 16k myself) in 1978. It cost me roughly $1000 Canadian. It was the best $1000 I ever spent. I learned programming (including assembler), hardware, etc with it and the knowledge benefitted my entire career.

[@varnk]

The TRS-80 fascinated me when I was a kid. It inspired me to learn how to program. I would ride my bike to my local Radio Shack almost every day after school and would spend several hours in the store playing with the model that was on display. The manager of the store was pretty cool with me doing it as I would develop some games and demos for them to use in the store. My parents wouldn't buy me a TRS-80 as the $600 cost was outrageous back in the day even though it was marketed as "affordable." I literally would learn to program in BASIC using the instruction manual that sat beside the demo unit in the store. A BASIC programming elective was offered at my high school the next year, but by then I had already learned quite a bit from my time with the TRS-80 at Radio Shack, so I breezed through the class with ease. There is much more to this story, but I am now a Software Engineer at a major corporation writing Windows software and some firmware, and can attribute my early TRS-80 exposure as the catalyst of my career.

[@RetroHackShack]

Awesome

[@peterfable]

ME TOO! Biked after school, played on their machines, got to know all the store managers, probably sold a few for them just by being there all the time!

[@ralphb.3802]

I still have mine. Got it in 1979 and learned what computers programming was all about. The book that came with was very comprehensive. If you started at the beginning followed the lessons, buy the end of the book you could program in basic. I went to computer programming trade school and spent the next 42 years as a software developer, analyst, DP manager. I owe it all to the introduction to computers with my TRS-80.

[@ronnyb5890]

this brings back nostalgia 😃 i can remember witching tis machine thru the window of a tandy (radio shack) store, i wanted so much to own one, sadely, it was too expensive at the time, and i was only a teen going to school, but i had some realistic products like a tape recorder, i even couldnt buy the realistic synth they sold, also too expensive, but i loved the tandy store for their electronic components

[@RetroHackShack]

Even if we couldn't afford it, it was still fun to hang out in the store and see what they had.

[@AlistairKiwi]

Ah, the Trash-80. The first computer I used was some behemoth which used Focal in 1977, then a Honeywell mini computer running Basic, and an Apple II also in 1978 and also using Basic (Apple Basic). But the Trash-80 was so well known.

[@artisans8521]

We had 10 of those and a 3 in the school computer lab. A development of one math teacher. Most high schools never had computers back in those days.

[@chrismeans6750]

WOW. Memories here for sure. I was a rookie sales associate in a RadioShack in Spokane, WA. Started in Jan 1977. This item came out in Q3 1977. I had no idea what it even was - it was just "another itme" we could sell and get paid a commission on. What I most certainly DO remember is that customers would walk in the store, ask if we were selling this TRS-80 product. When we said we could order it for you and it would take 60 days, they didn't even blink. Instead they opened their wallet and handed me $600. Easiest sale I ever made. And they were LINING UP to do it. Being a commission sales associate trying to survive let me tell you - that was a GREAT day at the office.

[@kdw75]

Thank you so much for this video. I remember being years old in 1979 and sitting on my dad’s lap and he let me type on the computer. We still have all of our Tandys. Model I, Modell III, several Model 4 machines, not 4S models, and a COCO 2 and 3 as well as a bunch of 1000 variants. We also still have lots of Macs.

[@RetroHackShack]

Finally, someone who kept their computers from childhood. So many of us sold or got rid of them along the way.

[@kdw75]

My mom even saved all my toys. I still have my 7ft GI Joe Aircraft carrier in storage. lol@@RetroHackShack

[@hopleyp]

I had a TRS-80 around 1978-79 when I was an electronic apprentice, here in the UK. The stores here were just called Tandy not Radio Shack. I was kind of considered weird at the time for having a computer at home. Anyway I eventually got a degree in software engineering and went on to have a great career as a software engineer. All thanks to that start with my TRS-80

[@RetroHackShack]

Nice!

[@RetroWK]

Great video! Very insightful. Thanks for the work you put into this!

[@RetroHackShack]

Thank you so much!

[@stuartbear922]

The Tandy 1000 portable was used by journalists to send in their news stories.

[@billholloway9175]

I had one. Lower case kit 4 disks drives newdos80 v2. Was a great operating system. At first I used a model 33 teletype as my printer. Paper and ink was cheap. Then bought line printer iv. The boss at work found out I had a system and promoted me to a computer room. 250 a week on salary for 4,years I kept adding to the machine. Bought 80 track drives. When the company went under I took it home and started the cobra bbs running the French connection with fidonet mail. Those were good years. 1985-1907. It ran the internet killed it and I had three kids to raise.

[@robertredmon5409]

My parents got me one in the mid 80's this brings back a lot of memories

[@RioSul50]

My first computer was a TRS80 Mod 1, Level 2. With 16k of ram, a cassette tape, black and white monitor and it cost over $1000 in 1980.

[@donfisher8035]

Saw one in 1980, after graduation in 1976. We ought not be so jaded in that this was a mini revolution at it's time, and started a ready market for desktops later. The cassette tape data storage was kinda novice but a start.

[@PRS9091]

Bought my model 1 in 1981 just as the model III was replacing it. Retired it in 1984 as the IBM compatible standard had become the dominant platform. I still play some of the Big Five software games using an emulator.

[@RetroHackShack]

Awesome

[@KlodFather]

Robot Attack, Asteroids, and Galaxians. Did you ever see the game "Time Bandit" from another company? I never did figure out how to play that. And lets not forget 13 ghosts. I would love to have the startup tune from that game as a ringtone for my phone LOL

[@andyt1313]

I learned BASIC in junior high school on the TRS-80. They also had an Apple in the classroom.

[@telengardforever7783]

I never once touched a TRS-80. I was a Commodore 64 kid growing up. But I do know that when I went to my local library in the mid 1980's to see if they had any programming books, mostly what I found were TRS-80 books. I spent countless hours converting TRS-80 BASIC to Commodore 64 BASIC. It was tedious, but it taught me a lot about porting code and address spaces.

[@FoxRivers778]

I always remember the thing I didn't like about C64 was most everything was PEEK and POKE. That's why I opted for a TRS-80 CoCo and later an Atari 800. I even remember the BASIC manual that came with it. It was written so any age programmer could understand it.

[@glennng6221]

My unit, purchased in '79, was operational at the time I donated it in 2019. I had the basic system (monitor, keyboard and tape cassette recorder) which cost me nearly $1K. I also purchased a printer and a voice synthesizer. My software included a TRS word processor and a few text based games. It was a money pit. I ended up working IT the last 21 years before I retired. I'd like to think my TRS-80 helped pointed me in the right direction.

[@RWSCOTT]

aw yeah, nice work. I grew up in upstate NY and these were probably the most common machine you'd see in the computer labs after the PET, very space efficient and their look had that home stereo component appeal.

[@lucasrem]

RW Scott Here in Europe too, the Tandy store was the epic shop was a kid back then. My father needed that PC for, i was only need a Commodore Vic 20 or this for games etc, i got the IBM. very happy too.

[@RWSCOTT]

@@lucasrem ha, I had a VIC, too. Many happy hours playing Omega Race. :)

[@weefishy9129]

I didn't know these existed in 1977. We got the TRS80 little tabletop model that you hooked to a TV and a phone modem in 1985.

[@brentftaylor]

My brother owned the 80th Trs80 built. He and his partner went on to write and sell several cad programs

[@RetroHackShack]

Wow. That's early.

[@Bran08Eman]

Worked and owned so many different computers in those early days. Always felt part of a movement toward Star Trek.

[@happmacdonald]

Hooray I see a TI-99/4(a?) on the bakers rack back there 😄 I recently pulled the ole' TRS-80 model IV out of the garage and tested that out with my son, and it worked well. Portable shell really helps that one weather the ages more easily. OTOH "recently" may be 15 years ago by now so I'unno

[@LOTUG98]

I still have my TRS-80 , and the micro one too.

[@dirckxd]

Loved the Tangerine Dream soundtrack on the intro.

[@CoreDreamStudios]

Was born in 1979 so never got to enjoy the 70s but I adore them and am a retro lover at 44. :-)

[@RetroHackShack]

I feel the same way! I was too young to appreciate it at the time, but I love it now.

[@brianv2871]

I was old enough that I could have, but our first computer was the c64, so I didn't get to experience the trs-80's or the PET (we did eventually have an apple ii+ clone). Now I have both a model 4 and a PET and really do enjoy the Model 4. (not really the pet, I love the way it looks but thats about it).

[@DesiluTrek]

That's actor Paul Burke of the classic crime drama "Naked City" as the pitchman in the first ad. In 1980 in my first experience with computing I created a "Family Feud" survey game on the "Trash"-80 for my high school computer class.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

Well done sir. This is a fantastic retrospective.

[@RetroHackShack]

Thank you

[@captlazer5509]

Played Lunar Lander on a TRS-80. Took a while for the cassette tape to load. The first computer I ever used and learned Basic on it.

[@emfyates]

Best tips ever! Keep sharing INDOC and training tips! Thank you so much from a soon-to-be airline pilot.

[@DeanTalboys]

I still have my portable TRS-80 Model 100. Had it since 1986. Nice machine for the time. I kept hold of it all the time during the Iraq invasion of Kuwait. It was great that I could continue programming while in hiding!

[@largethoughts]

I bought my TRS-80 in the late 70's. Wrote a BASIC program for my bowling team's handicap, and printed it out on my thermal printer. Also used VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet app) for the mental health department's annual budget. The country administrator gave the director great reviews for having a "perfect" budget with no errors. I wish I had not gotten rid of this computer. Did have the Model 16 later and used the app Profile and later renamed to FilePro for a number of apps I wrote for various businesses.

[@RetroHackShack]

Nice

[@proteque]

Very interesting video. Thanx for making!

[@RetroHackShack]

You bet! Thanks 👍

[@mattwuxx3888]

My dad was a Silent Generation member so, 1970's high-tech were Craig car stereos with tape decks and printing digital calculators. We didn't have any real computing power in our home until around 1980, with an Atari 800. The sound/graphics and upgradeable to 48K RAM was nice. But I was always more fascinated by the TRS Model III's, Apple II's, and IBM 5100's. They seemed more like heavy-duty build quality, heavy-chassis grownup computing machines, instead of plastic-ey game-playing toys.

[@patbutete1722]

The Trash 80! My 1st computer too. Learnt BASIC programming on it. Got rid of it in place of an Amiga and an Atari ST.

[@actualkevin]

I worked at a Radio Shack in 1980 and bought my Model I with Level I BASIC, and later bought the Level II BASIC with 16k RAM upgrade and watched the tech do the upgrade. The Level II ROM upgrade also fixed the key bounce from the older flat style keyboard (in ROM otherwise you had to load a small program from cassette to accomplish the debounce) and also gave you Upper and Lowercase character set for certain applications rhat supported it like their Scripsit word processor. I later upgraded with an expansion interface with 5 1/4” drives (insanely expensive) and ultimately an OMIKRON CP/M mapper board that let it dual boot CP/M or TRS-DOS. So I wound up able to run Wordstar on a TRS-80 model I with only a 64-column screen.

[@RetroHackShack]

I didn't know the debounce was baked into the level II rom. Cool!

[@captcorajus]

John Roach said that 'if they don't sell, we can always use them to help with doing inventories."

[@RetroHackShack]

Yeah. If I do a 10 things you didn't know video about trs-80, this will be in there.

[@robertarnold9815]

I remember back in the late 70's the geek group I hung with would go to the local RS and play with the TRS-80 on display. The clerks would let us program and run it for hours. Suspect it was either because they thought one of our families would buy it (didn't happen) or be a good live demo for potential customers. Ah those good old geeky days.

[@alantasman8273]

The venerable Trash 80 ...memories. Loved programming in Basic.

[@alexxbaudwhyn7572]

Dancing Demon was the cool demo on the Trash80 back in the day

[@RetroHackShack]

I need to check that out.