In 1978, I was just a youthful fourteen-year old. But I knew the future when I saw it, and I wanted a piece of it.
It was this year that Tandy released their first home computer, the TRS-80, via their Radio Shack stores. As soon as I saw this black and gray beauty, I knew I had to have one.
So I saved my money until I had enough to make the purchase, all the while drooling over the product catalog and making frequent visits to the local store.
Here is theTRS-80 Model I, in all its glory.
I just found the TRS-80 emulator page, which allows you to turn your computer into a TRS-80 interface. Ah, the memories. The good old days.
That machine had 4K of RAM (that's 4000 bytes), NO hard drive and NO floppy drive! To load and save programs, you used a cassette player. My modem was 300 baud. The fastest dialups today are 56000 baud, so that gives you an idea of how sloooooow it was.
Anyhow, I'd like to get my hands on a working TRS-80 just to keep as a collector's item, but they sell for way too much on Ebay.
I have my original TRS80, Model III, with 16kRAM, and my cassette recorder that I playe Rakka 2 on! The old fashion text game. If you want make me an offer and cover the shipping and its yours! It's been in storage for 20+ years..
I had a TRS-80 Model I - Level II basic 16K .. I loved it and did a fair amount of programing on it! 8 bit technology was soo much better in a way, simply because you got a computer, you got basic, and that was pretty much it. Next came a long read of the manual, your first typed programs, full of typos! ... ahh - the glory days of computing in a sence!
Joel,
I have 2 + TRS-80 Model I's, accessories, software and magazines in 23 boxes, 450 lbs. total. If you want a full inventory I'll email it. Contact me at markswanson@comcast.net.
Best Regards,
Mark Swanson
Naples FL