4 ms·

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

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.
- joezydeco 10y ago
  The pro-level trick was to make that string exactly 13 characters long. Since the screen was 40 characters wide (at least on the Apple ][ it was), the print would happen 3 times and then the next one would wrap around and be offset by 1 character on the next line. This had the effect of making the words appear to smoothly scroll horizontally across the screen as the text rolled vertically.
- lakkal 10y ago
  I used to do something similar to Apple ][ computers. I'd go into the monitor (CALL -151) and type a short machine language program that looped infinitely, printing random characters and clicking the speaker. So the screen would fill with scrolling garbage while the machine emitted a buzzing noise. Good times. Atari rules!
jhallenworld 10y ago
I have a better story: I know someone who constructed a TRS-80 model 1 clone. He walked into the RS store to copy the OS ROMs. Maybe on tape? I'm not really sure.
WalterBright 10y ago
Geez, I thought I was so clever and original when I did that!

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.

joezydeco 10y ago
The pro-level trick was to make that string exactly 13 characters long. Since the screen was 40 characters wide (at least on the Apple ][ it was), the print would happen 3 times and then the next one would wrap around and be offset by 1 character on the next line. This had the effect of making the words appear to smoothly scroll horizontally across the screen as the text rolled vertically.
lakkal 10y ago
I used to do something similar to Apple ][ computers. I'd go into the monitor (CALL -151) and type a short machine language program that looped infinitely, printing random characters and clicking the speaker. So the screen would fill with scrolling garbage while the machine emitted a buzzing noise. Good times. Atari rules!

jhallenworld 10y ago

I have a better story: I know someone who constructed a TRS-80 model 1 clone. He walked into the RS store to copy the OS ROMs. Maybe on tape? I'm not really sure.

WalterBright 10y ago

Geez, I thought I was so clever and original when I did that!