TRS-80 Games - For the good memories

[@barrydiller542]

You showed my game! Thanks!

[@MarioRBSouza]

WOW !!! Really ?!!! You are a living legend !!

[@CelebrityDirect]

Cavern Quest was one of my favorites!!

[@youtoobe169]

It reminds me of a game that came after called paganitzu

[@ChristopherWentling]

Thanks to all the authors. I had most of these games and actually paid for most. In many ways the TRS-80 model 1 was my all time favorite computer. I could actually write software and even though I wasn’t an artist I still could write games. Later bought a coco I and was severely disappointed. Was always amazed at how much could be done with such a basic machine. Joystick, sound, stringy floppy, disk, magic crayon. Haha good times. One gem I thought you missed is Starfighter. Man I loved that game.

[@antonnym214]

Big Five and Instant software houses were legendary. Also, I loved, LOVED Asylum. I was so impressed by it, I called one of the authors. A young man about my age (19-ish?) and told him how much fun I was having with it and asked how he fit so many rooms in memory, and things like that. Very cool and generous of him to talk with me about it.

[@japhyriddle]

The TRS-80 seems magical to me. I was gifted a CoCo II recently, but I've always desired one of these.

[@antonnym214]

I didn't know about Armored Patrol, but that is a great looking game! Only a year after Battle Zone came out, and certainly does it justice; in fact, improves on BattleZone with a couple of nice elements, like the humanoids and the houses. Very nice job by Terry Gilman and Wayne Westmoreland! Getting a 3D engine in a z-80 machine. Wow!

[@ridiculous_gaming]

All I can say is...wow. The programmer's were masters considering the hardware they were to work with...very playable games.

[@amare65]

I'm amazed that the TRS-80 model I could do voice synthesis! This is an impressive feat, considering it was among the very first generation of mass produced home computers.

[@ballyastrocade5672]

It wasn't, really -- those were digitized samples, not actual speech synthesis. (There *was* a speech synthesizer add-on available, but it was kind of expensive and not many programs supported it, especially since it *only* worked with the Model I; it didn't work with the Model III or IV.) Still a pretty impressive feat, though, considering that they had to pack those samples *plus* the game into only 16K of RAM, and the "sound" had to be done by manually bit-banging the cassette signal pin and counting instruction cycles to make it work!

[@AE-bm4no]

it's kind of interesting that virtually all the games are shooters. And that, shooters (FPS) is one of the most ,if not the most, biggest genre in 2022! This is an outstanding compilation!

[@elephantrange]

Not exactly known as a 'games machine'. Amazing what these programmers got out of it.

[@Dreamshadow1977]

I played many of these games on my Model 3 as a four year old. I had a ready pipeline as my father worked for Tandy during the 80s and early 90s. While the CoCo II and my Tandy 1000 were my favorite PCs, I have fond memories of booting LDOS and typing in games from a magazine when I was five and six.

[@capnzilog]

Cornsoft game author here... thanks for the memories and the slick editing!

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Did you also program for other systems or just the TRS-80?

[@capnzilog]

@@JustWasted3HoursHere Many systems, but primarily PC and Amiga

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@capnzilogDo you still program? If so, do you miss being able to "scrape the metal" to get the very best performance. Or actually do you do anything for those old systems anymore? Retro gaming is red-hot right now.

[@capnzilog]

@@JustWasted3HoursHere God yes, I lived for that. Optimization uber alles! Still code a bit, but yes I miss the Wild West fondly.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@capnzilogNowadays systems have so much memory, storage and speed that there is little incentive to optimize and everything is so bloated. Heck, even a simple phone app is 30 megabytes or more (over 450 times as much memory as a C64).

[@BilalHeuser1]

With my TRS-80 computer all I would have to do get sound was get an AM radio within 20-feet of computer and turn it on. Of course my neighbors didn't appreciate listening to the games!!

[@Spider_Rico]

These sound effects are phenomenal! I would have been floored by them when I was a kid.

[@moggsy71]

I remember spending hours typing in programs from huge encyclopedia sized mags. If it didn't work, then spending hours trying to find the error! I do remember, my fave game was, in fact, a text base game called Bedlam. It took a lot less time to load, and wasn't too fussy about the volume setting on the tape player! Ahh the memories!!! Dancing Demon! Ha! Great times.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

I did the same on my Atari 600xl. I spent hours to get that simple game running; nevertheless, it was exciting times.

[@rodneyabrett]

This was the first computer I programmed on. Had a lot of fun with it, despite its limitations. Played a lot of fun games on it too. The version I had only had 16k of total memory. Amazing that games for this thing were still pretty fun.

[@MarioRBSouza]

I played this game a lot. I also made my own games. I started teaching programming classes in 1975 when I was studying engineering. Too bad I wasn't Steve Woz's neighbor..

[@vapourmile]

I came here to see excellent games. Was not disappointed.

[@tomknapp6194]

I just love all the comparison vs specialized arcade games. This was a home computer that could run many things, not just one program like arcades. Sure, it was limited, but it was also the early 80's. Things needed time to progress.

[@labnine3362]

The sound effects are much better than I anticipated.

[@Bobrogers99]

Many years ago, my elementary school acquired a TRS-80 Model III, and I taught myself BASIC to write a number of useful programs for my students. I also remember tinkering with Santa Paravia to add more graphics and a new level (Emperor), and I spent many summer hours writing a game similar to Zork. Great fun, and something that didn't require a master programmer to accomplish! Sixth-graders could do it with ease! As computers developed, the increasing complexity made this impossible. :-(

[@sprybug]

You sound just like me in 4th grade. Our classroom had a TRS-80 Model III computer and I taught myself how to program it. I accidentally broke into BASIC one day, and when I saw that, it reminded me of the year earlier when I saw someone do the same thing on the classroom's TRS-80 Color Computer 2 and programmed a quick looping text of the guy's name. That lunch break, I went to the library, checked out a BASIC programming book, went back and programmed a guess the number game on it. When the other kids came back from recess, everyone was trying to figure out what the hell was going on with the computer. XD

[@retroguy4322]

Great video! From today's perspective, the games have a very special charm. I love my TRS-80 for this and will certainly try one or the other game from the video.

[@IrishCarney]

I had a different TRS-80, the Color Computer, but I remember reading in detail about 13 Ghosts. Maybe it was a type-in game in one of the magazines.

[@tomknapp6194]

I had a book of BASIC from Tom Rugg and Phil Fledman. I thought it was too funny when 11 year old me found a bug in their exponent program! lol

[@jeopardy60611]

I had a TRS-80 Model I. My understanding is that there were two teenage kids that wrote and sold the games for Big Five Software. I was a few years younger than them, so I didn't have the skills to write arcade-quality games. I'm still a computer programmer now, but I don't know if I'd be able to work out the graphics and everything to do an arcade game.

[@BrBill]

I was a teenager during the Big Five TRS-80 era. Loved those games. Especially Robot Attack and Attack Force, as Berzerk and Targ were my two favorite arcade games back then.

[@keithramsey4470]

Embarrassed to say how many of these games I bought. Plus subscribed to 80 micro magazine and typed many programs in BASIC. I only had a 4K ram model 1 for awhile and rewrote many 16k games to play in 4K. Then I took my model 1 keyboard down to the Shack and had them mail it away for the 16k upgrade. Tons of memories...

[@thearners]

Definitely some of my favorites! I did not know there was a Galaxy Invasion Plus. The original you could pretty much play forever once you got good at it. And, how I loved looking forward to getting the monthly edition of CLOAD magazine in the mail!

[@asgerms]

This video is really well made. Allways fascinated with the games the TRS community could produce, given such low specs. And the games play really well.

[@Sebiohazard]

Hello thank you for answering :) okay it's you who retouched the video... it's very nice work bravo really a pity that there are not these options... If you do not know I invite you to discover this wonderful emulator that can have a wonderful scanline effect ! www.retrovirtualmachine.org/en/ kzbin.info/www/bejne/pmGnYnywr8iFa5o Greetings

[@frankguthrie2825]

I have all but 4 of the games you showed - you brought back some great memories, thank you. I still have my TRS-80 Model 1 with the expansion interface. I need to get it out of the box and fire it up. I also have something pretty rare. I have a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 desk. Thanks again for putting this together, it was great!

[@IsaacKuo]

Ah, the memories! This is like the ONLY video I've seen of this version of Crazy Painter. And Outhouse was really great - lots of action dealing with attackers from all directions.

[@gurok2]

Well done. We had Cosmic Fighter, Missile Attack and Galaxy Invasion, all on cassette for the Model III. Also had Hangman, which I didn't see in this group. Good memories.

[@martindejong3974]

I liked sea Dragon the best (on my LNW-80) I'm always amazed at how many arcade games the model 1 could do.

[@mmmasseo9952]

Wow, thanks for showing this. I really dismissed the TRS-80 as nothing more than an equivalent to the PET. I assumed the games would be the same. Boy, was I wrong! Im going to have to get a TRS80 model (non coco) emulator running on my handled now.

[@antonnym214]

In 1980, My father and I wrote Games Pack I for the TRS-80 which was Battleship and a few card games. Also we wrote a Monopoly that was years before Monty came out. Our games would output speech to the Voice Synthesizer, if you had one. Fun times! What impresses me is how much you could do with an 8-bit Z-80, like the sound and speech, because there were no sound chips on the TRS-80. That output was from the Cassette write port, that you had to toggle to the frequency you wanted. Very CPU intensive.

[@tappersreviews4677]

I had a friend with a TRS-80 back in the day. I never knew it had so many good arcade games. Not bad at all considering the limitations of the hardware.

[@LauraSeabrook]

OMG, OMG, FLIGHT SIMULATOR!!!!!! I remember that, and many of the others, very well!

[@ukcroupier]

Given the limitations of the machine, these are some hugely impressive games. TRS-80 programmers must have had a real love for the machine to make games with this amount of polish.

[@FunAfter52]

I don't remember playing any games, but in 1981-82, I took a "computer math" class when I was a Junior in High School.

[@Simcore999]

The 80 was great for text based gaming, action gaming should have only been on consoles until the smartphones were developed 👍

[@VegasPublicity]

Nice to see someone playing 13 Ghosts. We created that game and licensed it to Tandy. It was great fun. We also made Orchestra 90 and Orchestra 90cc for Tandy plus a bunch of other software. Bryan Eggers / Software Affair.

[@8bitrelics]

Lots of good memories playing some of these games! Excellent video!

[@andyastrand]

I had attack force and galaxy invasion. Great games. Also worth a shout out to the Scott Adams adventure games.

[@navinmandla3871]

I liked raaka tu, cuthbert, phantom slayer on my trs80 - on cassette-

[@chinabluewho]

The crazy part about the TSR-80 games in this video is that I don't recognize any of them as we had a basic programming class in our high school and they used TRS-80's with dual 8" floppy drives and all the games we played were home brew affairs as the only way to pass the class at the end of the semester was to create your own unique game. So many dozens if not hundreds of home brew games we got to choose from in our 7th grade home room class that served as the computer room for our high school, man while all the other kids went outside to play physical games at recess all the kids in my home room went straight for the computer room to play those games, the other kids didn't understand why anyone would stay inside when you could go outside run around and play wallball and basketball. We were allowed to bring in our own 8" floppys and copy as many as the games that we wanted and take them home but my family was dirt poor and there was no way my parents would buy a ton of floppys for me, much less a TSR-80. I wish I could have saved all those games from that computer class.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

I am amazed by how many games were made by Big Five Software . And for all the work involved, piracy was so massive, so how many copies were actually legitimately purchased back then? I remember my Amiga and Atari 8 bit computer days, and my money was invested pretty much exclusively in blank disks.

[@ballyastrocade5672]

Many of those original Model I games were distributed on cassette, not disks, since disk drives were still very expensive add-ons back then. (A floppy drive for the Model I would run you $499 -- and if you didn't already have the Expansion Interface, that would cost you another $299 - $697, depending on how much RAM expansion you wanted installed in it. And those prices are from a 1978 catalog, BTW, so when you account for inflation, it's more like $2000(!) for the floppy drive and between $1200-$2800 for the E/I!) Cassettes were actually harder to pirate, since the TRS-80's cassette circuitry was pretty touchy about the audio signals on the tape. You might be able to dub it once and have the 1st-generation copy work okay, but if you tried to make a copy of a copy, the analog signal degradation from copying a copy would quickly make it unusable. (Much like making a copy of a copy of a copy of a VHS tape turns the picture into a scrambled mess.)

[@ridiculous_gaming]

@@ballyastrocade5672 My Atari 600xl ran on cassette and it would take literally 20 mins, or it seemed, to load a 8kb game. If today's kids only knew what patience was.

[@meangreen323]

This takes me back... computer class in junior high

[@earthb67]

Oh wow. The memories! Thanks! Did anyone else make awesome levels with the Penetrator level editor?

[@markaes]

I never had a TRS-80 (had a TI-99) but man I just love those chunky graphics and crackling sound (and voice). Games seem quite comparable to the Apple II.

[@ytgc-royalewarex5190]

A game changer of PC !!

[@youtoobe169]

Super cool to see this! I had one as a kid

[@johnknight9150]

You do the best of these kinds of videos.

[@djholcomb]

This video is fantastic and brings back a lot of memories! It would be cool if you could add the list of games, their manufacturer/publisher and year in the description.

[@zed80]

Added, thanks for the suggestion!

[@a2pha]

Good stuff. Missed my favs, Flying Saucer, Chess, Haunted House, and Invsasion Force (spelled correctly).

[@michaelneuman4851]

You left out dancing demon!

[@casalessv]

I happy Very much because i player almost all games. Good times

[@SqueekyBums]

Can't believe 'starfighter' wasn't featured. Amazing game, and I doubt anyone has beaten the death caster. Rumor has it you got a special code if you did and could send off for official acknowledgement of your conquer 😁

[@Thegoldmine1]

I think the Apple 2 Games just look better

[@MarioRBSouza]

Only 17 subscribers with me !!! In the 1970s, no one believed that PCs would exist in homes around the world. In my college, just me developed programs in the science and games field.

[@LauraSeabrook]

I used to have at least half of those!

[@bokami3445]

Aww no Bounceoids? or Pac-Attack? Still some good memories. I remember typing in the code for Android Nim from 80 Micro magazine.

[@johneygd]

Donkeykong will be my favorite game on the trs80😁

[@lucgev]

And what about Dancing Demon? Apple Panic, Babble Terror, Time Runner, etc.... But a nice video, brings back soms memories.

[@jeffbarnhart6441]

I played a game called wormy on this back in the 80s a lot.

[@Krimsorn]

None of the games I played are here. They are 'Monster Maze', 'Castle Guard' & 'Wildcatting', that's all I can remember

[@OmegaTI]

Nice video! The TRS-80 Model I & III always had a special place in my grey matter nostalgia files. While I don't have room for a TRS-80 today, I did get a dedicated RPi 3 to emulate one. Some of my favorite Model III games are here: kzbin.info/aero/PLshIznEcyXK4DfQfZjuTK7GuCm4gZLBzc

[@antonnym214]

I had friends with flight simulator on the TRS-80 and the Apple ][. It was UGLI, but we didn't care; we were FLYING!

[@Vickron]

Tô velho mesmo... Já joguei todos esses aí...

[@AndrewBernardin]

Which emulator did you use for this? The sound is like over-the-top awesome as well as the scan lines.

[@mgabrysSF]

Sound? How? The model 3 and 4 I used were incapable of audio.

[@ballyastrocade5672]

The sound went out through the cassette port. The TRS-80 generated the audio tones for cassette storage by directly bit-banging an I/O line that went to an analog amplifier circuit, rather than using a dedicated tone generator; it was up to the cassette-storage routines in ROM to flip the I/O line high-low-high-low at the correct frequencies to generate square-wave tones signifying binary 1s and 0s. Games like these simply used the same technique, and bit-banged the cassette I/O line at different frequencies and timings to get sound effects. To hear them, though, you'd have needed to have a cassette recorder or an audio amplifier connected to the cassette-out jack from the computer; there was no internal speaker to monitor the sound with.

[@charliejolly6022]

I'm getting Pico-8 vibes.

[@a2pha]

9:34 How is that fade being done ? I remember programming on the TRS-80 it did not have this.

[@zed80]

Oh, that was just a full screen fade while editing the video, but since only that part of the screen changed it gave the wrong impression.

[@a2pha]

@@zed80 Ha, I remember writing some Z80 code to merge two pages in one allowing me to make a super HIRES Space Invaders where you had to tilt the monitor 90 degrees to get the right effect. Basically letter I and

[@zed80]

@@a2pha Good times indeed!

[@TheMonkeyNeuron]

It looks like this channel may not be live any longer, but if the creator ever reads this, you must saw the mystery that’s been bugging me for 40 years: what was the text based TRS80 game we played together as a family when I was small? Zork My first video game!

[@neilthomas8070]

Interesting video, games looked primitive compared to the arcade originals.

[@cathrynm]

TRS-80 programmers managed quite a bit, considering the system basically has no graphics.

[@chadfarrow2086]

Ok, so I had a Trs 80 with a cassette player and I had this math based game (on cassette) about a crew who landed on a planet that had some sort of pandemic that ended up affecting the crew one by one. You had to answer match problems to create the serum to cure everyone. Does anybody remember the title name ?

[@SomePeopleCallMeWulfman]

I assume the digitized speech comes from a voice synthesizer? Anyway, that's pretty impressive!

[@gp2k00]

Nope, just from 1 bit audio out the cassette port.

[@BrBill]

@@gp2k00 I remember building a switch box between a little speaker and my cassette player, so I could switch the sound on and off easily.

[@squirrelattackspidy]

Do you have Starfighter? Love your intro. The sound quality is great too.

[@Sebiohazard]

Hello thanks for this beautiful video what emulator did you use ? Thanks best regards :)

[@zed80]

I use SDLTRS for linux, which is no longer maintained, unfortunately. Cheers!

[@Sebiohazard]

@@zed80 Hello thanks for your answer SDLTRS still exists under Windows & under RetroPie in Linux :) By cons how did you get the scanline effect ??? I do not have this option ??? Greetings :)

[@zed80]

@@Sebiohazard I added the scanline effect while postprocessing the video. I wish there was an option in the emulator, though. I also added some filtering in the audio to simulate the speaker distortion. I wish there was an option for that as well. Cheers!

[@Sebiohazard]

@@zed80 thank you for answering me congratulations for your video editing work is the most beautiful effect I love rendering scanline ! I invite you to discover this magnificent emulator: www.retrovirtualmachine.org/en/ kzbin.info/www/bejne/pmGnYnywr8iFa5o Greetings

[@a2pha]

What kind of sound is that ? Is that the TRS 80-votrax system in use for all the games ?

[@zed80]

Just the standard cassette output, which was commonly used at the time for audio in TRS-80 games.

[@a2pha]

@@zed80 Now I remember the toggle for the TRS-80 back in Model I level II Z80 games. Was not nearly so loud. Tiny little clicking could barely hear it. My Dad warned me that it could burn out the motor and I wouldn't be able to load or save data if I continued to play games that used this kludge for SFX. He might've been right.

[@zed80]

@@a2pha You're probably talking about the relay for the cassette motor? That is not it, people just connected the output that would go to the cassette recorder to an amplifier. The audio part, not the relay.

[@a2pha]

@@zed80 Hmm ... I never had that. About the time I had heard that that TRS 80 had disk drives, I think I was 9, Dad went Apple, and COLOR entered the scene. :) Strangely the only thing I missed from the TRS 80 was that most interesting text adventure, "Haunted House" which I have not seen to date reproduced on any other system or console. "PLUGH" anyone ?

[@jables3377]

I had a trs 80 cassette game that was a sci-fi action adventure where a group of space adventurers and a robot visited a planet where the people had been infected by a mysterious virus that put them into hibernation. The crew then started to become infected and you had to do math problem to determine the right amount of serum to produce. Does anybody remember the name?

[@johnsmith1953x]

What speech synthesizer was used?

[@rottmanthan]

you hear that? the panik game took a dump.

[@jmp01a24]

Do you collect any original games for the TRS80?

[@janfreidun]

Will there be a "mini"?

[@bradleycasady9810]

How much is a working 16k ram TRS-80 model 4 worth . What should u sell one for ?

[@afficial83]

Why no model II?

[@thatguyfromca]

Can you play that game zossed in space?

[@zed80]

Interesting, I haven't heard of that one before. I will definitely include it if I make a part 2.

[@pixelatedmushroom]

Too much intro