The Computer Chronicles - Tandy/Radio Shack Computers (1991)

Special thanks to archive.org for hosting these episodes. Downloads of all these episodes and more can be found at: archive.org/details/computerch...

[@RuruFIN]

These videos are simply timeless classics.

[@TDGalea]

@DOSboi Aidan I have every episode stored on my server. Need to move them into a public folder though.

[@mikeall7012]

Stuart was the real deal. When he hosted this show, he was an avid computer enthusiast, and wasn't just some hack reporter, like you tend to see today.

[@supergeek0177]

As a kid who grew up in the 90s, I freckin loved multi media pcs! Encarta ‘95 was one of the first cd-roms I remember using… I thought all the video clips and animations were super cool!

[@sanyr80]

I thought being able to research for papers in Encarta instead of the physical encyclopedias my dad bought in the early 80s was badass. Definitely a sign of the times.

[@BAZFANSHOTHITSClassicTunes]

80s is what its like to live

[@paulreese7788]

Yes Encarta and there were a few other home related information ones basketball, dinosaurs, Indians, dangerous creatures

[@HerecomestheCalavera]

Dude that computer can run "Grandma and Me" like an absolute boss! No slowdowns at all!

[@lenovovo]

Wow, I just learned something here, I didn't know that they had touch screen back in 1991.... man, I love these shows!!!! Thanks for posting!

[@Ikkepop]

@ungratefulmetalpansy touchscreens are an old technology, they just sucked and the software sucked too much to make it viable

[@tarstarkusz]

But WHO in 1991 didn't know what a tube was? Hell, I was only 21 and I knew what a tube was. Lots of tube stuff was still around well into my childhood. Hell, they were still making tube TVs into the 1970s.

[@DusteDdekay]

@@tarstarkusz the fuck time are you from ? non-crt screens didn't dominate until around 2007! The last NEW CRT model was introduced in 2010, so you're way early.

[@knoxduder]

More like 1981. Sony unleashed the touchscreen at the ‘82 Worlds Fair in Knoxville, TN.

[@PearComputingDevices]

You could buy an Apple II with a touch screen overlay. They used it for education, namely special education.

[@simonpetrus1981]

I miss Radio Shack. They were good.

[@maxxdahl6062]

@@DJKinney Dumb.

[@iseeyoo9729]

The first cordless phone I got was from RS.

[@maxxdahl6062]

@@iseeyoo9729 My first computer was a tandy from radio shack.

[@iseeyoo9729]

maxx dahl Too pricey for me at that time, but I would’ve loved to have one.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

They were once good but that all changed later when you couldn't enter a store without getting a sales pitch on why you must purchase a cell phone from them today. Or when they refused to check you out on a battery purchase because they wanted detailed personal information from you to put into their database and you didn't want to give them anything.

[@wallacelang1374]

I remember when Radio Shack began as a electronics hobbyists go-to shop that was acquired by Tandy Leather, but after around 10 to 12 years Radio Shack sales began to out due Tandy Leather sales ... so Radio Shack bought their parent company Tandy Corporation and renamed it Radio Shack Corporation. However when sales began to slump in the early 2000s Radio Shack closed up all of its brick and mortar stores in order to do its sells online instead. I miss walking into an actual Radio Shack store in order to buy my latest electronics and hobbyists items.

[@telesniper2]

I remember walking into the neighborhood Rat Shack and buying one of those pocket phone dialers and a 6.5536 mhz crystal hehehe

[@livesimplyandhumbly]

Portable communications with "wireless LAN", portable handheld computer "pocket Mac". What ridiculous ideas they had back then.

[@Sinn0100]

This is actually quite sad....you are witnessing the end of Tandy right here. This machine the Tandy Sensation was an incredible computer for its time but Tandy made too many mistakes along the way. They failed to innovate and the Sensation was their end. What a shame....they were the first to allow a customer to fully customize their kit before buying it.

[@werpu12]

Actually the first half of the 90s was a hard time for all computer manufacturers. Acorn went under but ARM could save itself, Atari went bankrupt, so did Commodore, Apple almost went bankrupt and many workstation manufacturers as well. One of the main problems was that the PC was finally becoming really good and the other one that Motorola could not compete with Intel anymore on tne 68k line and wanted everyone to move over to PPC! The PC became so good that manufacturers which formerly had superior sound and graphics stopped being able to compete over those things anymore (aka Tandy) on and given the mass manufacturing and research other companies with custom GPUs for their own machine also had a hard time. SGI could compete for quite a while but later on was also blown out of business more or less by off the shelve 3d solutions from the PC side.

[@Devire666]

11:15 A program that explains how the music track was constructed while it is playing? Wow, I would like to have something like this nowadays.

[@lorumipsum1129]

Man, that part about the twilight years of the coco and how every computer will go thru it sticks, as a computer collector, you can only imagine what it was like once they were left behind and software slowly but surely stopped working with or supporting it.

[@X-OR_]

Still have my TRS-80 Model 1 In the box !!!

[@blackneos940]

Joy of Lego What u waitin' for dude, open that beast up and do some retro Programming!!..... :-)

[@vwestlife]

The ZX81 was initially very popular in the USA due to its low price, but there was a delay in getting the 16K RAM expansion modules here, and rather than wait for the RAM expansion to become available, most users gave up on the ZX81 (since you can't do much with only 2K RAM!) and bought a different, more powerful computer instead.

[@raven4k998]

like the c64

[@SWRadioConcepts]

I started working for Radio Shack in summer of 1995. One of my first trainings was held in a conference room at a "Computer City." Shortly after, Computer City failed and the store turned into a Fry's Electronics. That was a little hint of what the future held for Radio Shack at the time. Sad.

[@hulksmash8159]

Do you feel somewhat responsible for its failure?

[@tiguilherman_plays]

@@hulksmash8159 I dont know about him, but your question is definitely the result of a major failure.

[@ibazulic]

Woah, those applications were fantastic! Touchscreen with a good precision 30 years ago.

[@mubd1234]

I remember playing with a CRT monitor based touchscreen about 20 years ago at a government kiosk. They were damn responsive, almost as good as a modern tablet or smartphone. I think it would have been an infrared touchscreen (your finger blocked a grid of light beams as you touched the screen), which was a bit of a disadvantage because the precision was low and the UI was generally restricted to very large buttons only.

[@kennyadvocat]

My first computer was a Tandy. A neighbor had upgraded to windows95 so we got their old setup for free. The Tandy had a 3.5 & 5.25 floppy drive. And just a few mb hard drive. We had the huge printer 🖨 that came with it. It worked like an electric typewriter. So loud! I used the music writing game alot that it came with.

[@asaone11]

Loved, the coco 2 and 3. I also had the TRS-80 model 3 with 16k ram and the cassette recorder for input. Later had a 1000SX with one 5 1/4. 360 disk drive. I later got a 20mb hard card for $500 + .

[@geoffreyoltmans4356]

Procomm Plus! Still use it occasionally in my professional work to this day.

[@fabian999ification]

My right ear is forever alone in this vid :(

[@hulksmash8159]

This video is in mono.

[@dans.8198]

@@hulksmash8159 It's actually in stereo, with mono audio routed only to the left channel. In real mono videos, both left and right channel play the same audio.

[@ArcadeGames]

I was 10 years old, still playing NES. I dabbled with the C64, but I wouldn't get a real PC until 1993.

[@QuertyQw33n]

thank you, Internet, and whoever is maintaining this channel, for the closest thing to a Time Machine.

[@paulreese7788]

Loved computer select in the 90s all the magazine articles on one disk

[@Raptor50aus]

I used to work for Tandy in Australia back in 1983 to 1985 (part time while at school) was great back then as they paid 10% on sales to casual staff and the computer were expensive

[@nukemanmd]

Same here. I worked at a Computer Center in San Diego from 80-81. I'll never forget the time one of the local colleges placed an order for 50 Mod 1 with interface and floppies. On top of that, R.S. had a generous stock option. I'll never forget the shock when I found out what the stock was worth when I was getting ready to buy my first house. It's a good thing that I cashed out when I did.

[@MrShiffles]

I loved Radio Shack...the first time I saw a Commodore 128...at times I would go there for capacitors and such...still miss that store

[@raven4k998]

touch screen fancy fancy and state of the art back then

[@DouglasLippi]

I want to go back to 1991 and stay there forever.

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

1992 was cool!

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

I had a 1000 RLX 286, 20 meg hard disk drive(faulty), one 3 1/2" floppy drive(great), the related monitor, printer, keyboard, mouse and three-year warranty: that took care of the hard drive problem(it jumped from DOS to Desk Mate) at will. It was replaced and worked great! Print Shop, Wheel of Fortune and other software(IBM-Compatible software "Expert Brand"

[@shawnerz98]

A CD player on a portable laptop?!? Bah! It'll never sell!

[@abdulazizalserhani7625]

I disagree with you! you moron >:(

[@dennisdoherty1133]

Hi, it's almost 2023 and I still love my CoCo

[@sologals361]

That touch screen is more responsive than my smart phone.

[@jvolstad]

I remember Procomm +. It was great.

[@shawnerz98]

Grid did eventually integrate the 386SX in to the 1550. I have a 1550SX.

[@patrickmusson4571]

I would have loved to bring people like Alan Turing in a time machine so they could see what computer science has achieved. J Presper Eckert, the co builder of UNIVAC back in the 50's saw some of the modern computing industry as he lived until 1995 but I think he would even be amazed at the power of 21st century machines.

[@hulksmash8159]

They are even better now.

Conrad Zuse would be also a good idea to show where computers went.

[@borkingdoggouwuuwuw]

​@@hulksmash8159you should see them now😮😮

[@prettyboyjesse]

I wish I could walk out of a Radio Shack with some junk today :(

[@Generali087]

"Is the touch screen coming back as an interface?" 😂

[@QuertyQw33n]

wow. I feel so old. I was born in 1991.

[@AcornElectron]

My left ear enjoyed this.

[@hulksmash8159]

This video is monophonic.

[@jason3fc]

I started on a Tandy 1000EX in 86. Good times.

[@shaolin95]

what a bargain! $1300 with 85MB of HDD! wow

[@BrianClarkpharmd]

Sadly i was a d*ck broke teenager at that time and couldn’t afford one of those fancy 80mb HDDs. 3.5” floppies for me. Could still do quite a bit just on floppy back then

[@davidlewis1787]

Ah the combover chronicles, seeing the progression of the famous combover from the early 80’s to the early 2000’s. Marvellous

[@raven4k998]

yeah he got better at it over the years

[@manolokonosko2868]

I never noticed it until you mentioned it!!!!!!

[@ichigokarasu]

Ironically, this is one of the first episodes I've watched that ISN'T in Stereo, but they demonstrate that Beethoven program pretty extensively.

[@ArumesYT]

Weird. Everytime I watch this video, my right ear goes deaf. Then, when I switch to another video, my ear is suddenly working again!

[@livesimplyandhumbly]

It's psychosomatic. Too much guilt from copying that floppy.

[@layzer80]

my right nut itches when i watch this video

[@hopydaddy]

Gee, I thought it was my headphone that was faulty !!!

[@jordancobb509]

Computer City was my first job out of high school.

[@chloedevereaux1801]

the grid 1550 is the computer out of aliens 2 that runs the cannons in the air ducts :D

[@yeshuaeselmashiaj6037]

I my primary we had that computer with cassettes , not even floppys just cassettes.

[@OnTheRocks71]

25:35 oh yeah btw here's wifi. Wonder if anything will ever come of that.

[@Ikkepop]

Is the touchscreen comming back as an interface ? YES, but not until 2006 or so

[@X-OR_]

I still have my TRS-80 (Model 1) in the box.

[@christineayres5339]

At 21min mark IT HAS A HEADPHONE JACK LOL WINNING

[@remino]

5:45 The struggle is real.

[@ochiorbus]

"We are a dying bread living in the twilight of the coco."

[@AlainHubert]

And over 30 years later, videos like this on KZbin can't even have sound on both audio channels. Hurray for technology !

[@Kyntteri]

What happened over 30 years ago?

[@AlainHubert]

***** This program was produced and broadcast on PBS stations in the USA and Canada, with sound on both the left and right audio channels, not just the left one...

[@Kyntteri]

AlainHubert That would be about 24 years... and if the uploaded file has a mute right channel, it's either a badly done digitizing or faulty source media to begin with.

[@AlainHubert]

***** 24 years then. And you're right, it's a badly done digitizing of the audio content. But we're lucky, at least they didn't stretch the picture to fill the screen, with everything being squashed, and respected the 4:3 original aspect ratio.

[@cakestalker]

Especially with headphones, the single channel audio is annoying, fortunately I found a way to fix it via my sound settings.. otherwise it would be unwatchable.. or unlistenable rather..

[@fortroadmassive4095]

Francis was ere!

[@timcsmedic2162]

As an employee of Radio Shack in the early 90's, I'd cringe when I heard CoCo... Here's the Tandy 3100, try this one. XD

[@Replicant2600]

Still have a trs80 with a tape player, leaderless tape :).

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

Our tv(large) had one, which blew! Ow! 1960s/70s

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

1960s/1970s

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

1970s!

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

1970s, huge tube! Eastfield Mall, Springfield, MA

[@BoomRoomFive]

Wow, in the news, she mentioned the beginnings of the ipod. I had a Tandy 1000SX.

[@markchas4554]

Apple was probably hinting around about the Apple Newton.

[@knifelunatic]

1991. Just a little before I started using computers.

[@luxxeon3d]

Touch screen was laughed at when HP introduced it back in the 80's? Wow. Someone was ahead of their time by 30 years.

[@medes5597]

It wasn't the idea of touchscreens that was laughed at. It was how expensive they were for how very poorly the early HP models worked.

[@Mathijs303]

18:41 A lost user interface I've never seen.

[@livesimplyandhumbly]

CoCo Users Group is still going strong.

[@LionheartNh]

I love the way Maria says her name...and she's hot hot hot.

[@yellowblanka6058]

? It creeps me out every time, so weird and robotic.

[@spladam3845]

That wireless LAN thing sounds crazy, it will never catch on.

[@Synthematix]

4:04 staring at screens all day causes bad eyesight

[@LeonHouseDaily-ne5bu]

His name was, “Mark Paulson” just doesn’t have the same ring.

[@kevinlau6372]

HP should've kept the touchscreen during the late 1990s.

[@GeoNeilUK]

More like typical Computer Chronicles era prices, where add ons that come built in nowadays cost more than the computer and software that nowadays you'd download for free would cost you hundreds of dollars. It couldn't have been just the march of technology that changed prices so much, could it?

[@jesuszamora6949]

Mostly, yeah. Integration of components became easier over the years. Think of all the shit on your PC motherboard that old computers needed bulky ass cards for. As for software, when more people buy, you can charge less. The market for software was comparably small in the 80s to early 90s.

[@Blackadder75]

They always tried so hard to make computers for the home use educational , all those multimedia CD roms with encyclopedias and other crap. The real reason PC's made it into everybody's home (outside proper business use) was the same as always: Games and Sex .

[@DataWaveTaGo]

At 0{19 - 85MB Hard Drive! WOW! I could use it to store one Word File!!! Crazy!

[@nilz23]

Does anyone else think Maria Gabriel sounds like she's having a stroke whenever she says her name?

[@CraigsChannel2]

OMG a 386 running at 20 MHz for 1299.00 and that was 20 years ago. wow

[@SWRadioConcepts]

That was a decent entry-level computer in 1991. $1299 for a complete system was very reasonable. It wouldn't really need to be replaced until 1995 or so when you wanted to get on the world wide web/information superhighway.

[@GeoNeilUK]

UK v USA: The TRS-80 Model I and the ZX81 (Timex 1000) are similar spec, yet, in the US, the TRS-80 sold well, while the ZX81 didn't and the two computers look very different. I think it's mostly the different looks that did it, the TRS-80 I looks like a "big boy's" computer for computer-y things whereas the ZX81 looks like a game system (and it was no good at games) In the UK, the ZX81 sold OK whereas the Model I was unheard of Having said that, we bought British then, unless it was Commodore

[@tipperary1082]

He hammered his Kiki!

[@rooneye]

14:48 he looks like the snooooooop kid.🤣🤣

[@Back2BackLakers2010]

$1299 for 20 mhz processor.......ahh the days!

[@markfrost2707]

who else didnt know they had touchscreens back then?

[@raven4k998]

400 dollars for 16 k of ram you got ripped off man

[@D4LM4R]

Get load of that sign "20MHz 386SX WITH 85MB HARD DRIVE!" Hehe $1299

[@m9078jk3]

Something funny is I remember back in 2001 going into a Goodwill thrift store and seeing much more powerful Pentium PC's in there for $10 each you know like the systems that would cost $2,500 or more 5 or 6 years earlier back in 1996 and 1995 when they were the new hottest and latest PC's . I would buy them and resell them for $100 for easy pocket money to buy new computer parts for myself.Back in 1998 I would acquire those 386's and sometimes more rarely 486's (usually slower SX 25's or DX-33's for $10 too.They were useful for me learning how rebuild PC's or modify them.I would sell them too.

[@D4LM4R]

+m9078jk3 lol right on, those were the vintage days

[@hopydaddy]

At the time, I thought that was the best and the greatest... wow blazing fast 20 MHz.

[@staratelrusregion4652]

Как они выводили информацию на экран?

[@EvanZamir]

That combover is the real classic.

[@dgiglio84]

25:39 "Wireless" LAN? Meh. That'll never catch on.

[@deacon6453]

To me, it sounds slow I have CompuServe with a 12000 baud modem so imagine how SLOW it would take wireless than a Modem

[@13thFlProductions]

2:17, Lol 4K! Little did he know 20 years later we would have 4K displays!

[@floydjohnson7888]

And 4GB of RAM (a million times what his TRS-80 shipped with) is considered paltry in 2021

[@fjrthtgrjhrjhr]

Kiki's Delivery Shtockhammer

[@aussieraver7182]

History-inception.

[@DavidJG242]

xerox was the first gui interface Stew

[@nesossin]

what is up with the sound on this video?

[@superspit]

It was edited on a Tandy Computer.

[@OhFishyFish]

I lost my right ear, please let me know if you see it. ʕʘ̅͜ʘ̅

[@BAZFANSHOTHITSClassicTunes]

my right ear divorced me.

[@kinmanyuen]

grid is like a tablet :-)

[@samk2266]

This was during the CDROM era that preceded the WWWinternet.. the CDROMs like the ones they're showing here were more expensive than just a book and not much better so for most people computers continued to be useless.

[@anzwertree]

09:56 LOL, like an old KZbin interface.

[@ValseInstrumentalist]

Wow, Apple wanted to get into consumer electronics back then? It took them a long time to get that shit off the ground.

[@mauriciohuaman9688]

7:35 Touch screen baby!

[@LeonHouseDaily-ne5bu]

Is that Robert Paulson’s brother?

[@Kawa12er]

omg they had touchscreens?

[@BAZFANSHOTHITSClassicTunes]

Touchscreens became available commercially in the early 1980s. HP released the HP-150 in 1983, which featured a 9-inch Sony CRT monitor surrounded by infrared emitters and detectors which could sense the user's finger touching the screen.

[@BoomRoomFive]

No Tandy in Canada afaik too.

[@averagemoes]

Can’t hear right side

[@lokelaufeyson9931]

i remember when encyclopedia on cd was the big thing, i feel old. I also remember when they gave away 56.6 internet in every magazine you could lay your hands on.. my first computer was a PC with a 333 MHz intel MMX cpu. The one cpu that was a big block (socket 1 i think) .. now i really feel old..

[@PearComputingDevices]

1991 was honestly the start of their long and slow death. Heck it might have even started before this but once they started selling the same junk as everyone else and stopped selling stuff that nerds actually wanted it made them irrelevant. I mean they basically had just one kind of customer: the nerd and once they left their base behind it was only a matter of time. Sad really. Other electric stores done the same thing and failed too. There's a formula for sure but you can't abandon your core customers like this and expect to thrive. Even Best buy is on skaky ground. Sure the internet didn't help any, RadioShack was always a tad bit more expensive than going to specialty store online, but with RadioShack at least you could have it that day. I think that's what helps keep best buy afloat. People want this and that but if they need something that's a whole other matter..

[@warwagon]

4:47 now THOSE are coke bottles.

[@kaydog890]

Were you born with an extra chromosome, or did sitting next to a router do this to you?

[@Axelius69]

Last breed. Dying coco user.