14 ms·

1981 Radio Shack computer catalog (2015)

148 points by wyclif 10y ago

SixSigma 10y ago
My friend has a TRS-80 Model II. I translated some games for him from other computer magazines. It was a fun experience. I can't remember much about it other than I did it and was quite proud of myself (being only 12 at the time).
- ansible 10y ago
  Yeah, back before my friends and I had computers, we would pour over the program listings in various magazines. We even started writing our own adventure game, modeled after one we saw the source for... even though we weren't able to even run it. Crazy computer kids, we were...
  - madengr 10y ago
    I remember some magazine came out with BASIC programs translated into bar codes, and with their special scanner, you'd scan in your program instead of typing it. Damn how I wanted that thing, of course you would not learn as you did from typing it in and finding your errors.
    - SixSigma 10y ago
      I learned to code by transcribing code for the Acorn Electron (which I didn't own or have access to) from teletext onto paper ! What I didn't know at the time was that some of it was encoded so that say "#" would mean "print", I didn't find out until the internet came along and I read stuff like the link [1] for nostalgia. I still have a BBC computer and Cub RGB monitor - I have an SD card adapter for it nowadays. I have a BBC Forth ROM chip in it and so I have a Forth Machine at the flick on a switch with a built in A/D convertor, Speech Synthesis also in ROM and a 1Mhz interface bus. Pretty cool gadget still. [1] http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/mags/aab/revs/morley/Teletext_Adaptor_000.html http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/mags/aab/revs/morley/Teletext...
      - madengr 10y ago
        I have a C64 with many bells and whistles (modern interface adapters), an Apple II, and a Briel Computers Altair clone kit (blinken lights). Also have a C64-SX portable, and Tandy 100. https://rfpoweramp.com https://rfpoweramp.com
DanBC 10y ago
"telephone interface - $199". That's roughly $500 today. And the $299 8K ram expansion gives a bit of context to "640k should be enough" comment.
- Finnucane 10y ago
  Though that seems high for 1981. I recall that my Apple II from 1979 came with 32K, and a 48K model was another $200. Later, I was able to get the 16K upgrade for $15--and that was probably around 1981 or 1982. I had a 300 baud modem to go with that.
- walshemj 10y ago
  Back around that time in the UK I brought 5 modems 4 answer 1 answer originate. I think they where around £350 for the answer and £600 for the answer originate one. I wish I had had the nerve to get our electronics shop to build the $20/$30 modem design that was published in BYTE
kilroy123 10y ago
Wow that power controller is pretty cool. I'm curious how that works... It sends a signal through the power socket, but do you have to have special light bulbs?
- gm-conspiracy 10y ago
  I didn't see that. What page? It sounds like X10 (was developed in the 1970s). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard)
- VLM 10y ago
  Standard X10 protocol, unchanged since the mid 70s. 4 bits of house address (usually a letter) plus 4 bits of unit address (usually a number) gives 256 theoretical devices. As far as long lived protocols go, X10 is up there... 1975 to 2016 and counting...
  - michaelcampbell 10y ago
    And still useful. I use it to control a water pump to push water to sprinklers on my roof for the hot Atlanta summer months. 1 Gal of water evap from the roof is ~8000BTU's (I'm told - someone correct me if that's wrong).
    - hx87 10y ago
      8000 BTU is about right. It's impressive that you actually got that water to evaporate from the roof in a decent amount of time in Atlanta though, since it's so humid. I'm not sure that it does much, since either your roof or your attic floor is insulated.
      - michaelcampbell 10y ago
        A gallon over a big enough area, with a roof that's dark, in 90+degree ambient temperature and direct sun... evaporates within a few minutes. Sometimes < 1 minute by visual inspection, anyway. re: "doing any good", yes, that's hard to say. The ROI may not be for years, if ever. It was as much a "I have an idea,let's see it through" project as a real money saver. The attic is insulated, and with a radiant barrier, to boot.
VLM 10y ago
Original source seems to be https://archive.org/details/radio-shack-catalog-rsc-04-computer-catalog-1981 https://archive.org/details/radio-shack-catalog-rsc-04-compu... Theres a lot more to see at archive.org of course.
- fail2fail2ban 10y ago
  That is a wonderful site, so much information, they even had full emulators for favorite old programs and games that run in the browser. (Curse JavaScript for working so well.)
  - Tempest1981 10y ago
    I played with this a while back -- brought back memories. Takes a few steps to set it up. https://github.com/lkesteloot/trs80 https://github.com/lkesteloot/trs80
- jupiter2 10y ago
  One of the links I visit, when I want to relax is: https://archive.org/details/computermagazines https://archive.org/details/computermagazines So happy when I discovered they had a few DAK Catalogs. So many pleasant memories and a few orders too! That guy could really put a catalog together back in the day: https://archive.org/search.php?query=dak%20catalog https://archive.org/search.php?query=dak%20catalog
squozzer 10y ago
Hacking in those days was a rather strightforward affair. Walk into RS store. Type 10 print "some profanity" 20 goto 10 Leave store before RS dude sees you.
- Finnucane 10y ago
  I did that.
- michaelcampbell 10y ago
  The local RS is what got me into computing in 1981. They let me sit down and type in BASIC programs as long as I wanted, and they didn't need it to show customers. Spent hours there. My first programming "ah hah!" was: let T = T + 1, to count how many times that section of code had been hit. I've been a software developer professionally since not long after that.
  - Corrado 10y ago
    I have a remarkably similar story! My local RS let me plug away at a CoCo for hours on end. I remember when an older boy showed my friends and I how to use if..then..else. Wow! My head almost exploded. Good times...
- meggar 10y ago
  This is the only thing I ever used a Tandy for.
- fecak 10y ago
  My mother was a HS teacher who worked nights/weekends in a RS store in sales, and also taught Basic. I can tell you that people did that kind of stuff in stores all the time, at least in suburban NJ.
- unwind 10y ago
  As an obnoxious note from the past, it's way better if you do: 10 PRINT "SOME PROFANITY "; 20 GOTO 10 The trailing ; makes the PRINT not move the cursor to the next line, so you end up with your string plastering the entire screen in a cool (at least to early-teen me) way. Also, of course computers of that day didn't use lower case (it seems that was an add-on for the TRS-80) quite as often as we do today. :) And yes, I checked the BASIC manual for the TRS-80: http://www.trs-80.com/trs80-info-level2.htm#IO http://www.trs-80.com/trs80-info-level2.htm#IO to make sure this was supported, I never had a TRS-80.
madengr 10y ago
That's cool; thanks for posting. Brings back memories. We had several Model 2 (gray) and 3 (white) in our school (mid 80's), but only a few had floppy drives. The ones that didn't were connected to the instructors machine (had had dual drives; oooohh) connected via that network controller (box with big knob). It hooked to the cassette port of the client machine so a program could be dumped to multiple machine simultaneously, or the knob could be switched to receive from a particular client machine. Used to play Telengard, and use the hex editor to insert foul words into certain programs. Computing back then just seemed so much more exciting; Tandy, Commodore, Atari, Apple, original PC. It's ubiquitous and drab now, or maybe it's my middle agedness.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  I feel the 'drab' aspect of what you're saying, although I also see that we focus more on what we can do, vs 'how' it might get done (different versions of software for Commodore, Atari, PC, Apple, IBM, etc).
typetypetype 10y ago
I love how detailed and wordy the descriptions are.
ecloud 10y ago
I still have the flatbed plotter. I don't see it in that catalog; maybe it came out a little later.
webtechgal 10y ago
My ex-boss used to sell Tandy computers (offered under collaboration with a domestic computer company here in India, called DCM Data Products) in the 1980s and I think he still has a few TRS-80 Model IV (running CP/M) and Tandy 1000 (their first IBM PC clone, 8088/4.77Mhz) stashed away somewhere.
- DanBC 10y ago
  There's probably a Youtube channel there, of getting old software running and doing a video review of it. People kind of know that we had spreadsheets and word processors and payroll systems back then, but they don't know what they were like.
_spoonman 10y ago
This made me realize how much money my parents had to save in order to buy us a computer for our home. They must have had to save up for months and months for it. My father was a loan officer at a small community bank and my mom was a homemaker (is that still PC?). Now I work in IT. Thanks for the investment, mom and dad. How humbling.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  Exactly same situation. trying to give back a bit by financing reconstruction of house i bought from rest of family for them after grandparents died. Humble place, but much better compared to relatively crappy flat I grew up in crammed with 31 other flats in 1 concrete building. So for their retirement they have more privacy, calm and a tiny land around.
  - _spoonman 10y ago
    Ah, cool. Well good luck with the project I hope it turns out better than you imagined.
- OJFord 10y ago
  > my mom was a homemaker (is that still PC?) I don't know if it's considered PC (can't honestly see why not, if anything other than neutral it's actually offering more respect) but it's certainly US-centric. I've never heard it outside of US TV/films.
- jackhack 10y ago
  Similar experiences here, spoonman. A computer in the 70s/80s was a serious expense, similar to buying a nice used car, or a year of state college. My folks bought me an Apple ][ around 1980. $2500 bought : 1mhz, 48k of ram, 1 floppy drive, a 9" Sanyo monochrome monitor, and what seemed like an endless universe of possibilities. The next six years were a blur of Assembly (Lazer Systems Interactive Compiler), and Applesoft Basic, trying to unlock the secrets of that machine and write my own games. It was magic! I am 100% certain that $2500 investment by my folks is the reason I have had a career in software. I remember riding a 10-speed bike downtown to Computerland to buy an individual floppy disc @ $5/each. The university bookstore only sold Gorilla brand, and they were around $7 each. Imagine the joy when I learned to use a scissors (later, a nibbler tool) to cut a notch out of floppy case so I could use both sides. Like finding free money! Now a RaspPi Zero is $5 and information is limitless. This is a gilded age.
dsiegel2275 10y ago
This is great. Thanks for sharing. Really brings back some memories. My father ran his own business and had a few TRS-80s. The first programming I did was on these machines when I was in the second grade.
walshemj 10y ago
I never knew that RS did a videotext system as well as its computer line.
martin1b 10y ago
I bought a model 3 a few months ago from a guy cleaning out his basement. Love it. TRS80s were a fantastic computers. Reminds me of walking into RS playing with the display computers, wishing I could take them home. Was hoping to see a Dungeons of Daggorath game cartridge.
carrja99 10y ago
This brings back my memories. Many nights of my elementary school years were spent up late hacking on basic programs on our Tandy Color Computer 3.
norea-armozel 10y ago
Wow this takes me back. I think my parents had one of the cheaper models. All I ever did was play games on it. It's sad my dad eventually gave it away or threw it out. I would love to play with it now.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Same here. Our first home computer was a TRS-80 when I was a little kid, maybe 7 or 8. I'm not sure how my parents afforded it, but I think by the time we got one it was already deeply discounted. We had to use a tape drive to load programs and I'd ride my bike to Radio Shack to buy little games on tape. I mostly used it to program simple things in Basic. It came with this wonderful manual narrated by a cartoon TRS-80 robot that was very kid friendly. Then shortly after the Apple //e came into our lives. It was like night and day, especially considering we had a modem and I could dial into these strange things called BBS's. It even had color! Wow, what a game changer that was. Computer camp was little more than my classmates and I copying videos games. There was almost no DRM back then, maybe a question asking you to check something in the manual to make sure you at least had the manual that shipped with the floppy. Its crazy to think how the Mac and Windows 1.0 came out shortly after. The innovation from 1981 to 1985 was incredible. In four years you went from using a TRS-80-like monstrosity to sitting there using a mouse and keyboard running a refined and user-friendly GUI interface. I remember the first time I used a mac. I just used paint for hours on end. It was magical to me.
facepalm 10y ago
Note that it shows a lot of women using the computer. So much for "advertising drove women away".
- jandrese 10y ago
  It shows lots of secretaries using the computer. It's clearly something the boss bought to get fancy graphics on his reports that the secretary is typing up.
  - FrancoDiaz 10y ago
    "Bosses" back then couldn't even type.
    - madengr 10y ago
      I can type with two fingers; does that count? I blame that on having a C64 as my first computer, with it's horrible keyboard.
      - FrancoDiaz 10y ago
        That C64 keyboard was heavy, IIRC.
      - jandrese 10y ago
        The best (worst) part is that you couldn't even swap the keyboard out for a different one, because the keyboard was the computer. I do miss having all of those drawing characters on the front of the keys though. C64 character art was the best. It's kind of a shame that the IBM-PC character set won out with its all international and business friendly characters instead of the cool art characters.
  - facepalm 10y ago
    Right - because if they are women, they have to be secretaries, whereas the men are technicians? What about the teen girls that are also shown in the catalogue - training to be secretaries at an early age?
mzs 10y ago
In '91 I started HS and the one my parents wanted me to go to had a lab of Model IIs with the huge floppy discs. I guess they were well made.
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  The old 8" floppies like in WarGames http://www.itworld.com/article/2823486/security/106464-The-technology-of-WarGames.html#slide3 http://www.itworld.com/article/2823486/security/106464-The-t...
SpikeDad 10y ago
I wrote agricultural software for both the Pocket Computer and the Mod II working my way through college. The PC was actually a very nice piece of kit. We wrote some of the first software that farmers could use while carrying it in the fields - IPM (integrated pest management). Ah, backing up to cassette.
- camiller 10y ago
  Yeah, the local Farm Bureau Co-Op sold TRS-80's to the farmers around where I grew up. I had a Apple //e but bought many Elephant Memory Systems 5.25" floppy disks from the Co-Op.
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
  Ah, the Pocket Computer. I had one of those in early 90's when I was a student pilot. I programmed it to do flight calculations and learned valuable lessons in UX. Trying to operate those tiny keys and read the display while trying to fly a hot, noisy, vibrating Cessna 152 was an exercise in frustration.
  - fuzzfactor 10y ago
    By 1982 there was the second-generation Pocket Computer, with the optional 4-color printer/plotter and the RS-232 ("COM Port") interface so I could also connect to an acoustic coupler telephone modem, then use any dial or touch-tone telephone to connect to time-sharing services. This all fit into a carrying case not much smaller than a regular laptop these days. The Standard API Petroleum Measurement Tables had been recently reapproved in 1980, for the first time as a computer routine rather than hardcopy handbooks of 83,000 entries each. This was a specific standard computer program, about 2K of Fortran77 32-bit mainframe floating-point code which had been jointly adopted by API & ASTM complete consensus. That much text would not fit into the Pocket Computer anyway. To get the 4-bit Pocket computer functional as a replacement for the handbook, I had to ditch the floating point, not use the exact algorithms the table was based on in any recognizable way, and come up with a bit-saving scheme not unlike the UNUMs of Gustafson[0] which have been discussed here. Each byte of memory was economized. Carrying it while boarding tankers and barges back then, I would guess that pretty much turns out to be the first laptop on the Ship Channel. Now everybody's got a laptop and it's no big deal. [0] http://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=2913029 http://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=2913029
fail2fail2ban 10y ago
I graduated High School that year, I'd done some BASIC programming on an Atari 2600 with a BASIC cartridge. I imagined a consumer computer like the ones on that cover but with several tape machines and a loader top program so the user wouldn't have to load tapes manually for common programs. Little did I know the hard disk had been invented by IBM in the 1950's. Today kids learn Java in High School and carry powerful computers in their pockets and on their wrists. I'll probably be pushed out of the Java industry before I even retire by one of them.
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  I had a 2600 back in the late 70s, but never knew that they had a BASIC cartridge. That must've been one helluva limited programming experience considering how limited the 2600 was for game programmers writing in Assembly.
  - spc476 10y ago
    It is. Here's a picture of what it looks like (http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/14.1 http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/14.1) and I even wrote about my experience in using it: http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/16.1 http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/16.1 The executive summary: it's both incredible (it has features I've never seen elsewhere) and horrifying (wait until you see the keyboard, and you only have 64 BYTES for everything).
pskisf 10y ago
The TRS-80 is still alive! Everyone come listen to our TRS-80 focused podcast TRS-80 Trash Talk http://www.trs80trashtalk.com http://www.trs80trashtalk.com
camiller 10y ago
My cousin had the pocket computer, I always coveted a model III, but my school installed 8 (eventually 16) Apple //e computers networked to a corvus constelation 10MB hard drive. So I ended up with a Apple //e at home.
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  10 GB?
  - camiller 10y ago
    10MB, fixed Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_Systems#Disk_drives_and_backup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_Systems#Disk_drives_and...
  - phurley 10y ago
    Kids these days :-) Check out the add https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/5b6/a0b/e6d/5b6a0be6d0d4c0c58c10c925ff4218d4.jpg https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/5b6/a0b/e6d... Makes me feel better about the 2 grand I dropped after I graduated from college on a 1G hard drive.
    - colanderman 10y ago
      I think the GP's post originally said 10 GB.
      - camiller 10y ago
        Yes, I corrected after realizing, and having it pointed out.
    - aidenn0 10y ago
      Look at the asterisk too; that's a bare refurbished drive. It's an additional $1500 for the disk controller.
- jacquesm 10y ago
scottlu2 10y ago
I saved money from lawn mowing and paper delivering to buy a trs-80 model 1 level 1. I remember it being around $525 which was a really tough goal to reach. It was awesome though to finally reach it and bring the trs-80 home.
- antod 10y ago
  $525? Coincidentally that is the exact amount I paid for my first computer (in NZD though). That was two years of saving up money from delivering newspapers. It was the TRS80 model II and model III from my fathers work that made me want a computer. My the time I had saved up a chunk of money, the ZX Spectrum was released and I could finally afford one (I waited a bit longer so I could get the 48k one). The C64 was far too expensive for me at the time.
MrZongle2 10y ago
I love the "TRS-80 Certified Cassettes" on page 14.
mosburger 10y ago
My middle school had about 6 Model III's in the library around 1986. One of the science teachers taught a programming class during study hall on those things, so it was one of the first computers I ever programmed on. A year or two later my parents bought a Tandy 1000 and I was hooked.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
zwieback 10y ago
I was a 6502 man at the time - still looking down on all the Z80s. I eventually put a Z80 card in my Apple ][ to run CP/M but it felt dirty.
- to3m 10y ago
  Well if you don't like the Z80 models, there's a 6809 one too! That should be more to 6502 programmer tastes. The weird thing about the range is how none of them is compatible with any of the others.
aidenn0 10y ago
This takes me back. I just built a new home server and realized it has over one million times as much ram as the first computer I used (A Kaypro II). Fun fact about the Kaypro II: it was the first Kaypro model, but they added the roman numeral II to borrow some of the Apple II's popularity.
- ansible 10y ago
  I've been telling people for years that my optical mouse has more compute power than my first computer. It's crazy how far we've come. It's also unfortunate that we're seeing the end of Moore's Law, and the easy gains in compute power through the use of a process shrink. Here's hoping people get really serious about molecular nanotechnology research.
JoeDaDude 10y ago
So many gray haired models are in the photos. You don't see that anymore, and certainly not in computer ads!
- slfnflctd 10y ago
  Marketing has become more biased in some areas, but at least we can say it's definitely become less so in others. The only black person appearing in any of the photos in the entire thing was shown as an example of a user for the 'starter' (lowest end) system.
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  They tried to be inclusive in those days, I wonder how that stopped despite the constant lip-service to diversity you hear today. In print ads it looks like we've regressed.
spaceisballer 10y ago
Any idea what the profit margin was on computers back then? That's what I'd really like to know.
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
  I don't know about desktop computers, but in the late 80's-early 90's I worked for a peripheral company that made laboratory/light industrial I/O boards for TRS-80's, PC, etc.. Our rule of thumb was that selling price was roughly 5x Bill Of Materials cost. So a $100 relay board cost us around $20 in parts (and probably $5-10 in labor) to build. Most of the non-parts cost was probably marketing expense. These days I can buy a similar piece of hardware on Alibaba for $15!
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if the same rule about BOM and labour cost still applies.
    - Gibbon1 10y ago
      It does when the volumes are low due to overhead and non reoccurring engineering. Back in the 80's took an engineer and draftsman a 2-3 months to design and layout a PCB with tape. Might spend $100k on engineering, overhead, and sales and sell ~500 units/yr. ($200/unit)
      - HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
        Ugh! Tape layout! I did that a few times in high school the cheap way (scotch tape/duct tape and a Sharpie). By the time I graduated and got a job as an EE, at least we had (crappy) PCB software so I never had to do it again except for a few hobby projects. And now I can get OSS tools for free that totally blows away the state of the art at that time. Amazing!
protomyth 10y ago
I think the TRS-80 model III has generated more love / hate relationships than any other computer. My Dad had them for teaching college classes, and they definitely took folks on a love to hate to love ride in the space of 15 minutes. They were pretty damn useful though. I miss the old daisy wheel printers sometimes. Documents seemed more formal being pounded out.
adam12 10y ago
There's nothing quite like looking at old computer ads that takes me right back to my childhood.
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  Yep, reminds me of Byte
WalterBright 10y ago
I acquired a Heathkit H11 around 1981. Sadly, it's the one computer I later got rid of, and the only one (of probably dozens) I've ever owned that was worth a damn a few years later.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Those people needed to learn about ergonomics. But seriously, my first computer was the handheld TRS-80 and I fondly remember programming Pascal on the TRS-80 Model III in H.S.
johnohara 10y ago
On page 7, it seems that for twice the price, the "Business" system bested the "Engineer" system by including a set of curtains and a bad toupee.
outside1234 10y ago
This ad made me remember how much text "bulged out" at you on the screen in early computers (because they were CRT technology) and how it looked "sunk in" when the first flat screens came out. Good memories!
Tempest1981 10y ago
More nostalgia -- old calculators: http://www.mrmartinweb.com/calculator.html http://www.mrmartinweb.com/calculator.html

148 points by wyclif 10y ago

My friend has a TRS-80 Model II. I translated some games for him from other computer magazines. It was a fun experience. I can't remember much about it other than I did it and was quite proud of myself (being only 12 at the time).

ansible 10y ago
Yeah, back before my friends and I had computers, we would pour over the program listings in various magazines. We even started writing our own adventure game, modeled after one we saw the source for... even though we weren't able to even run it. Crazy computer kids, we were...
- madengr 10y ago
  I remember some magazine came out with BASIC programs translated into bar codes, and with their special scanner, you'd scan in your program instead of typing it. Damn how I wanted that thing, of course you would not learn as you did from typing it in and finding your errors.
  - SixSigma 10y ago
    I learned to code by transcribing code for the Acorn Electron (which I didn't own or have access to) from teletext onto paper ! What I didn't know at the time was that some of it was encoded so that say "#" would mean "print", I didn't find out until the internet came along and I read stuff like the link [1] for nostalgia. I still have a BBC computer and Cub RGB monitor - I have an SD card adapter for it nowadays. I have a BBC Forth ROM chip in it and so I have a Forth Machine at the flick on a switch with a built in A/D convertor, Speech Synthesis also in ROM and a 1Mhz interface bus. Pretty cool gadget still. [1] http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/mags/aab/revs/morley/Teletext_Adaptor_000.html http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/mags/aab/revs/morley/Teletext...
    - madengr 10y ago
      I have a C64 with many bells and whistles (modern interface adapters), an Apple II, and a Briel Computers Altair clone kit (blinken lights). Also have a C64-SX portable, and Tandy 100. https://rfpoweramp.com https://rfpoweramp.com

DanBC 10y ago

"telephone interface - $199". That's roughly $500 today. And the $299 8K ram expansion gives a bit of context to "640k should be enough" comment.

Finnucane 10y ago
Though that seems high for 1981. I recall that my Apple II from 1979 came with 32K, and a 48K model was another $200. Later, I was able to get the 16K upgrade for $15--and that was probably around 1981 or 1982. I had a 300 baud modem to go with that.
walshemj 10y ago
Back around that time in the UK I brought 5 modems 4 answer 1 answer originate. I think they where around £350 for the answer and £600 for the answer originate one. I wish I had had the nerve to get our electronics shop to build the $20/$30 modem design that was published in BYTE

kilroy123 10y ago

Wow that power controller is pretty cool. I'm curious how that works... It sends a signal through the power socket, but do you have to have special light bulbs?

gm-conspiracy 10y ago
I didn't see that. What page? It sounds like X10 (was developed in the 1970s). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard)
VLM 10y ago
Standard X10 protocol, unchanged since the mid 70s. 4 bits of house address (usually a letter) plus 4 bits of unit address (usually a number) gives 256 theoretical devices. As far as long lived protocols go, X10 is up there... 1975 to 2016 and counting...
- michaelcampbell 10y ago
  And still useful. I use it to control a water pump to push water to sprinklers on my roof for the hot Atlanta summer months. 1 Gal of water evap from the roof is ~8000BTU's (I'm told - someone correct me if that's wrong).
  - hx87 10y ago
    8000 BTU is about right. It's impressive that you actually got that water to evaporate from the roof in a decent amount of time in Atlanta though, since it's so humid. I'm not sure that it does much, since either your roof or your attic floor is insulated.
    - michaelcampbell 10y ago
      A gallon over a big enough area, with a roof that's dark, in 90+degree ambient temperature and direct sun... evaporates within a few minutes. Sometimes < 1 minute by visual inspection, anyway. re: "doing any good", yes, that's hard to say. The ROI may not be for years, if ever. It was as much a "I have an idea,let's see it through" project as a real money saver. The attic is insulated, and with a radiant barrier, to boot.

VLM 10y ago

Original source seems to be https://archive.org/details/radio-shack-catalog-rsc-04-computer-catalog-1981 https://archive.org/details/radio-shack-catalog-rsc-04-compu... Theres a lot more to see at archive.org of course.

fail2fail2ban 10y ago
That is a wonderful site, so much information, they even had full emulators for favorite old programs and games that run in the browser. (Curse JavaScript for working so well.)
- Tempest1981 10y ago
  I played with this a while back -- brought back memories. Takes a few steps to set it up. https://github.com/lkesteloot/trs80 https://github.com/lkesteloot/trs80
jupiter2 10y ago
One of the links I visit, when I want to relax is: https://archive.org/details/computermagazines https://archive.org/details/computermagazines So happy when I discovered they had a few DAK Catalogs. So many pleasant memories and a few orders too! That guy could really put a catalog together back in the day: https://archive.org/search.php?query=dak%20catalog https://archive.org/search.php?query=dak%20catalog

squozzer 10y ago

Hacking in those days was a rather strightforward affair. Walk into RS store. Type 10 print "some profanity" 20 goto 10 Leave store before RS dude sees you.

Finnucane 10y ago
I did that.
michaelcampbell 10y ago
The local RS is what got me into computing in 1981. They let me sit down and type in BASIC programs as long as I wanted, and they didn't need it to show customers. Spent hours there. My first programming "ah hah!" was: let T = T + 1, to count how many times that section of code had been hit. I've been a software developer professionally since not long after that.
- Corrado 10y ago
  I have a remarkably similar story! My local RS let me plug away at a CoCo for hours on end. I remember when an older boy showed my friends and I how to use if..then..else. Wow! My head almost exploded. Good times...
meggar 10y ago
This is the only thing I ever used a Tandy for.
fecak 10y ago
My mother was a HS teacher who worked nights/weekends in a RS store in sales, and also taught Basic. I can tell you that people did that kind of stuff in stores all the time, at least in suburban NJ.
unwind 10y ago
As an obnoxious note from the past, it's way better if you do: 10 PRINT "SOME PROFANITY "; 20 GOTO 10 The trailing ; makes the PRINT not move the cursor to the next line, so you end up with your string plastering the entire screen in a cool (at least to early-teen me) way. Also, of course computers of that day didn't use lower case (it seems that was an add-on for the TRS-80) quite as often as we do today. :) And yes, I checked the BASIC manual for the TRS-80: http://www.trs-80.com/trs80-info-level2.htm#IO http://www.trs-80.com/trs80-info-level2.htm#IO to make sure this was supported, I never had a TRS-80.

madengr 10y ago

That's cool; thanks for posting. Brings back memories. We had several Model 2 (gray) and 3 (white) in our school (mid 80's), but only a few had floppy drives. The ones that didn't were connected to the instructors machine (had had dual drives; oooohh) connected via that network controller (box with big knob). It hooked to the cassette port of the client machine so a program could be dumped to multiple machine simultaneously, or the knob could be switched to receive from a particular client machine. Used to play Telengard, and use the hex editor to insert foul words into certain programs. Computing back then just seemed so much more exciting; Tandy, Commodore, Atari, Apple, original PC. It's ubiquitous and drab now, or maybe it's my middle agedness.

mgkimsal 10y ago
I feel the 'drab' aspect of what you're saying, although I also see that we focus more on what we can do, vs 'how' it might get done (different versions of software for Commodore, Atari, PC, Apple, IBM, etc).

typetypetype 10y ago

I love how detailed and wordy the descriptions are.

ecloud 10y ago

I still have the flatbed plotter. I don't see it in that catalog; maybe it came out a little later.

webtechgal 10y ago

My ex-boss used to sell Tandy computers (offered under collaboration with a domestic computer company here in India, called DCM Data Products) in the 1980s and I think he still has a few TRS-80 Model IV (running CP/M) and Tandy 1000 (their first IBM PC clone, 8088/4.77Mhz) stashed away somewhere.

DanBC 10y ago
There's probably a Youtube channel there, of getting old software running and doing a video review of it. People kind of know that we had spreadsheets and word processors and payroll systems back then, but they don't know what they were like.

_spoonman 10y ago

This made me realize how much money my parents had to save in order to buy us a computer for our home. They must have had to save up for months and months for it. My father was a loan officer at a small community bank and my mom was a homemaker (is that still PC?). Now I work in IT. Thanks for the investment, mom and dad. How humbling.

saiya-jin 10y ago
Exactly same situation. trying to give back a bit by financing reconstruction of house i bought from rest of family for them after grandparents died. Humble place, but much better compared to relatively crappy flat I grew up in crammed with 31 other flats in 1 concrete building. So for their retirement they have more privacy, calm and a tiny land around.
- _spoonman 10y ago
  Ah, cool. Well good luck with the project I hope it turns out better than you imagined.
OJFord 10y ago
> my mom was a homemaker (is that still PC?) I don't know if it's considered PC (can't honestly see why not, if anything other than neutral it's actually offering more respect) but it's certainly US-centric. I've never heard it outside of US TV/films.
jackhack 10y ago
Similar experiences here, spoonman. A computer in the 70s/80s was a serious expense, similar to buying a nice used car, or a year of state college. My folks bought me an Apple ][ around 1980. $2500 bought : 1mhz, 48k of ram, 1 floppy drive, a 9" Sanyo monochrome monitor, and what seemed like an endless universe of possibilities. The next six years were a blur of Assembly (Lazer Systems Interactive Compiler), and Applesoft Basic, trying to unlock the secrets of that machine and write my own games. It was magic! I am 100% certain that $2500 investment by my folks is the reason I have had a career in software. I remember riding a 10-speed bike downtown to Computerland to buy an individual floppy disc @ $5/each. The university bookstore only sold Gorilla brand, and they were around $7 each. Imagine the joy when I learned to use a scissors (later, a nibbler tool) to cut a notch out of floppy case so I could use both sides. Like finding free money! Now a RaspPi Zero is $5 and information is limitless. This is a gilded age.

dsiegel2275 10y ago

This is great. Thanks for sharing. Really brings back some memories. My father ran his own business and had a few TRS-80s. The first programming I did was on these machines when I was in the second grade.

walshemj 10y ago

I never knew that RS did a videotext system as well as its computer line.

martin1b 10y ago

I bought a model 3 a few months ago from a guy cleaning out his basement. Love it. TRS80s were a fantastic computers. Reminds me of walking into RS playing with the display computers, wishing I could take them home. Was hoping to see a Dungeons of Daggorath game cartridge.

carrja99 10y ago

This brings back my memories. Many nights of my elementary school years were spent up late hacking on basic programs on our Tandy Color Computer 3.

norea-armozel 10y ago

Wow this takes me back. I think my parents had one of the cheaper models. All I ever did was play games on it. It's sad my dad eventually gave it away or threw it out. I would love to play with it now.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
Same here. Our first home computer was a TRS-80 when I was a little kid, maybe 7 or 8. I'm not sure how my parents afforded it, but I think by the time we got one it was already deeply discounted. We had to use a tape drive to load programs and I'd ride my bike to Radio Shack to buy little games on tape. I mostly used it to program simple things in Basic. It came with this wonderful manual narrated by a cartoon TRS-80 robot that was very kid friendly. Then shortly after the Apple //e came into our lives. It was like night and day, especially considering we had a modem and I could dial into these strange things called BBS's. It even had color! Wow, what a game changer that was. Computer camp was little more than my classmates and I copying videos games. There was almost no DRM back then, maybe a question asking you to check something in the manual to make sure you at least had the manual that shipped with the floppy. Its crazy to think how the Mac and Windows 1.0 came out shortly after. The innovation from 1981 to 1985 was incredible. In four years you went from using a TRS-80-like monstrosity to sitting there using a mouse and keyboard running a refined and user-friendly GUI interface. I remember the first time I used a mac. I just used paint for hours on end. It was magical to me.

facepalm 10y ago

Note that it shows a lot of women using the computer. So much for "advertising drove women away".

jandrese 10y ago
It shows lots of secretaries using the computer. It's clearly something the boss bought to get fancy graphics on his reports that the secretary is typing up.
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  "Bosses" back then couldn't even type.
  - madengr 10y ago
    I can type with two fingers; does that count? I blame that on having a C64 as my first computer, with it's horrible keyboard.
    - FrancoDiaz 10y ago
      That C64 keyboard was heavy, IIRC.
    - jandrese 10y ago
      The best (worst) part is that you couldn't even swap the keyboard out for a different one, because the keyboard was the computer. I do miss having all of those drawing characters on the front of the keys though. C64 character art was the best. It's kind of a shame that the IBM-PC character set won out with its all international and business friendly characters instead of the cool art characters.
- facepalm 10y ago
  Right - because if they are women, they have to be secretaries, whereas the men are technicians? What about the teen girls that are also shown in the catalogue - training to be secretaries at an early age?

mzs 10y ago

In '91 I started HS and the one my parents wanted me to go to had a lab of Model IIs with the huge floppy discs. I guess they were well made.

FrancoDiaz 10y ago
The old 8" floppies like in WarGames http://www.itworld.com/article/2823486/security/106464-The-technology-of-WarGames.html#slide3 http://www.itworld.com/article/2823486/security/106464-The-t...

SpikeDad 10y ago

I wrote agricultural software for both the Pocket Computer and the Mod II working my way through college. The PC was actually a very nice piece of kit. We wrote some of the first software that farmers could use while carrying it in the fields - IPM (integrated pest management). Ah, backing up to cassette.

camiller 10y ago
Yeah, the local Farm Bureau Co-Op sold TRS-80's to the farmers around where I grew up. I had a Apple //e but bought many Elephant Memory Systems 5.25" floppy disks from the Co-Op.
HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
Ah, the Pocket Computer. I had one of those in early 90's when I was a student pilot. I programmed it to do flight calculations and learned valuable lessons in UX. Trying to operate those tiny keys and read the display while trying to fly a hot, noisy, vibrating Cessna 152 was an exercise in frustration.
- fuzzfactor 10y ago
  By 1982 there was the second-generation Pocket Computer, with the optional 4-color printer/plotter and the RS-232 ("COM Port") interface so I could also connect to an acoustic coupler telephone modem, then use any dial or touch-tone telephone to connect to time-sharing services. This all fit into a carrying case not much smaller than a regular laptop these days. The Standard API Petroleum Measurement Tables had been recently reapproved in 1980, for the first time as a computer routine rather than hardcopy handbooks of 83,000 entries each. This was a specific standard computer program, about 2K of Fortran77 32-bit mainframe floating-point code which had been jointly adopted by API & ASTM complete consensus. That much text would not fit into the Pocket Computer anyway. To get the 4-bit Pocket computer functional as a replacement for the handbook, I had to ditch the floating point, not use the exact algorithms the table was based on in any recognizable way, and come up with a bit-saving scheme not unlike the UNUMs of Gustafson[0] which have been discussed here. Each byte of memory was economized. Carrying it while boarding tankers and barges back then, I would guess that pretty much turns out to be the first laptop on the Ship Channel. Now everybody's got a laptop and it's no big deal. [0] http://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=2913029 http://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=2913029

fail2fail2ban 10y ago

I graduated High School that year, I'd done some BASIC programming on an Atari 2600 with a BASIC cartridge. I imagined a consumer computer like the ones on that cover but with several tape machines and a loader top program so the user wouldn't have to load tapes manually for common programs. Little did I know the hard disk had been invented by IBM in the 1950's. Today kids learn Java in High School and carry powerful computers in their pockets and on their wrists. I'll probably be pushed out of the Java industry before I even retire by one of them.

FrancoDiaz 10y ago
I had a 2600 back in the late 70s, but never knew that they had a BASIC cartridge. That must've been one helluva limited programming experience considering how limited the 2600 was for game programmers writing in Assembly.
- spc476 10y ago
  It is. Here's a picture of what it looks like (http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/14.1 http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/14.1) and I even wrote about my experience in using it: http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/16.1 http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/16.1 The executive summary: it's both incredible (it has features I've never seen elsewhere) and horrifying (wait until you see the keyboard, and you only have 64 BYTES for everything).

pskisf 10y ago

The TRS-80 is still alive! Everyone come listen to our TRS-80 focused podcast TRS-80 Trash Talk http://www.trs80trashtalk.com http://www.trs80trashtalk.com

camiller 10y ago

My cousin had the pocket computer, I always coveted a model III, but my school installed 8 (eventually 16) Apple //e computers networked to a corvus constelation 10MB hard drive. So I ended up with a Apple //e at home.

dorfsmay 10y ago
10 GB?
- camiller 10y ago
  10MB, fixed Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_Systems#Disk_drives_and_backup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_Systems#Disk_drives_and...
- phurley 10y ago
  Kids these days :-) Check out the add https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/5b6/a0b/e6d/5b6a0be6d0d4c0c58c10c925ff4218d4.jpg https://habrastorage.org/getpro/habr/post_images/5b6/a0b/e6d... Makes me feel better about the 2 grand I dropped after I graduated from college on a 1G hard drive.
  - colanderman 10y ago
    I think the GP's post originally said 10 GB.
    - camiller 10y ago
      Yes, I corrected after realizing, and having it pointed out.
  - aidenn0 10y ago
    Look at the asterisk too; that's a bare refurbished drive. It's an additional $1500 for the disk controller.
jacquesm 10y ago

scottlu2 10y ago

I saved money from lawn mowing and paper delivering to buy a trs-80 model 1 level 1. I remember it being around $525 which was a really tough goal to reach. It was awesome though to finally reach it and bring the trs-80 home.

antod 10y ago
$525? Coincidentally that is the exact amount I paid for my first computer (in NZD though). That was two years of saving up money from delivering newspapers. It was the TRS80 model II and model III from my fathers work that made me want a computer. My the time I had saved up a chunk of money, the ZX Spectrum was released and I could finally afford one (I waited a bit longer so I could get the 48k one). The C64 was far too expensive for me at the time.

MrZongle2 10y ago

I love the "TRS-80 Certified Cassettes" on page 14.

mosburger 10y ago

My middle school had about 6 Model III's in the library around 1986. One of the science teachers taught a programming class during study hall on those things, so it was one of the first computers I ever programmed on. A year or two later my parents bought a Tandy 1000 and I was hooked.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

zwieback 10y ago

I was a 6502 man at the time - still looking down on all the Z80s. I eventually put a Z80 card in my Apple ][ to run CP/M but it felt dirty.

to3m 10y ago
Well if you don't like the Z80 models, there's a 6809 one too! That should be more to 6502 programmer tastes. The weird thing about the range is how none of them is compatible with any of the others.

aidenn0 10y ago

This takes me back. I just built a new home server and realized it has over one million times as much ram as the first computer I used (A Kaypro II). Fun fact about the Kaypro II: it was the first Kaypro model, but they added the roman numeral II to borrow some of the Apple II's popularity.

ansible 10y ago
I've been telling people for years that my optical mouse has more compute power than my first computer. It's crazy how far we've come. It's also unfortunate that we're seeing the end of Moore's Law, and the easy gains in compute power through the use of a process shrink. Here's hoping people get really serious about molecular nanotechnology research.

JoeDaDude 10y ago

So many gray haired models are in the photos. You don't see that anymore, and certainly not in computer ads!

slfnflctd 10y ago
Marketing has become more biased in some areas, but at least we can say it's definitely become less so in others. The only black person appearing in any of the photos in the entire thing was shown as an example of a user for the 'starter' (lowest end) system.
mixmastamyk 10y ago
They tried to be inclusive in those days, I wonder how that stopped despite the constant lip-service to diversity you hear today. In print ads it looks like we've regressed.

spaceisballer 10y ago

Any idea what the profit margin was on computers back then? That's what I'd really like to know.

HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
I don't know about desktop computers, but in the late 80's-early 90's I worked for a peripheral company that made laboratory/light industrial I/O boards for TRS-80's, PC, etc.. Our rule of thumb was that selling price was roughly 5x Bill Of Materials cost. So a $100 relay board cost us around $20 in parts (and probably $5-10 in labor) to build. Most of the non-parts cost was probably marketing expense. These days I can buy a similar piece of hardware on Alibaba for $15!
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if the same rule about BOM and labour cost still applies.
  - Gibbon1 10y ago
    It does when the volumes are low due to overhead and non reoccurring engineering. Back in the 80's took an engineer and draftsman a 2-3 months to design and layout a PCB with tape. Might spend $100k on engineering, overhead, and sales and sell ~500 units/yr. ($200/unit)
    - HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
      Ugh! Tape layout! I did that a few times in high school the cheap way (scotch tape/duct tape and a Sharpie). By the time I graduated and got a job as an EE, at least we had (crappy) PCB software so I never had to do it again except for a few hobby projects. And now I can get OSS tools for free that totally blows away the state of the art at that time. Amazing!

protomyth 10y ago

I think the TRS-80 model III has generated more love / hate relationships than any other computer. My Dad had them for teaching college classes, and they definitely took folks on a love to hate to love ride in the space of 15 minutes. They were pretty damn useful though. I miss the old daisy wheel printers sometimes. Documents seemed more formal being pounded out.

adam12 10y ago

There's nothing quite like looking at old computer ads that takes me right back to my childhood.

FrancoDiaz 10y ago
Yep, reminds me of Byte

WalterBright 10y ago

I acquired a Heathkit H11 around 1981. Sadly, it's the one computer I later got rid of, and the only one (of probably dozens) I've ever owned that was worth a damn a few years later.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

Those people needed to learn about ergonomics. But seriously, my first computer was the handheld TRS-80 and I fondly remember programming Pascal on the TRS-80 Model III in H.S.

johnohara 10y ago

On page 7, it seems that for twice the price, the "Business" system bested the "Engineer" system by including a set of curtains and a bad toupee.

outside1234 10y ago

This ad made me remember how much text "bulged out" at you on the screen in early computers (because they were CRT technology) and how it looked "sunk in" when the first flat screens came out. Good memories!

Tempest1981 10y ago

More nostalgia -- old calculators: http://www.mrmartinweb.com/calculator.html http://www.mrmartinweb.com/calculator.html