"Trash-80"

Brian_Fenner

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TRS-80.........Remember these puppies?
They were all the rage way back in the late 70's/early 80's!

We're spoiled now! :cool:

mod1lobo.jpg



The TRS-80 Model 1 was Radio Shack's first personal computer. It was developed back in the late 1970's when the only home computers available to the general public were things like the Altair kits, and (if I remember correctly) the first Apple machine.

The Model 1 was first made available with a 4 kilobyte tiny BASIC in ROM, and either 4 or 16 kilobytes of RAM. The CPU board of the computer was contained in the keyboard unit, and it used a separate black and white monitor. The monitor was really a RCA black and white TV without the TV guts in it. A friend of mine had one, and I was almost able to talk her out of it. (Thanks to Robert Bottomley who corrected me when I remembered it as a Sony!)

The Level 1 BASIC was very limited. There were 26 number variables available, A through Z, two string variables (A$ and B$) of up to sixteen(!) whole characters each, and one array, A(x) that allowed as many elements as you had RAM for. With a 4K machine, that was right around 875. I managed to find the box that my Level I BASIC manual was in, and finally looked it up.

While it's true that the original machine, the Model 1, was a little flakey and probably deserved the nickname "Trash-80" at times, the rest of the product line was pretty solid. And even the Model 1 could be "fixed"
 
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