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I had three different TRS-80s. There seemed to be a new computer every two weeks or so in the house. My fondest memories of the TRS-80 were on the Model III and
by orbitingpluto 10y ago
I had three different TRS-80s. There seemed to be a new computer every two weeks or so in the house. My fondest memories of the TRS-80 were on the Model III and I remember being discouraged by the lack of documentation, multiple operating systems, the quality of instruction I could get, and of course access time. I remember feeling lucky not having to use a tape cassette. Apparently, I also learned to swear and type simultaneously.
It was such a strange time because of all of the different form factors and sizes. I had a DOS computer that looked like a metal waste bin with a monitor embedded. The keyboard would clip onto the monitor: "Portable" The Apple II, Atari 1200XL, and Commie were all short lived, as they are not 'business computers'. There were also countless 'bubble pop' keyboard computers that I only remember because of the feeling of pressing on the keys. The standard IBM Personal Computer XT was my sole computer until the 486 era. The lack of EGA/VGA in that time meant that I increasingly wandered onto BBS systems until I found several that actually had Internet access by syncing with the University. I had two email address in 1986. It took me about a year to discover the difference between electronic mail on the bulletin board that I was used to and e-mail. As for modems, the jump from the TRS-80 Direct-Connect Modem on page 12 of the catalog that connected at 300bps to a 2400bps internal modem on the XT was mind blowing.
I also remember being disgusted by GW-BASIC and being on a programming bulletin board called McAffee's. It was so frustrating because I did not have access to a C compiler and was crushed to find out from the SysOp how much it cost back then. When I finally managed to get a pirated version of Borland Turbo C, I was ecstatic.
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoAh, cassette tapes. I remember learning the hard way that leaving one on top of the microwave could make it unreadable to the TRS80...
- orbitingpluto 10y agoI had a bunch of floppies in a box fail in a peculiar manner according to the Fibonacci sequence. Luckily the important stuff was clustered in the back.