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John Roach has died
- oenetan 5y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20220323205111/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/technology/personaltech/john-roach-dead.html http://web.archive.org/web/20220323205111/https://www.nytime...
- MBCook 5y agoI had no idea the TRS-80 was the first pre-assembled computer.
- neilv 5y agoIIUC, common mods/expansions of the TRS-80 Model I (or so) weren't pre-assembled. A guy I worked for as a kid one time said/joked he got his company's start by finishing people's botched attempts at assembling their TRS-80s. (Though his company also dealt in S-100 bus CP/M systems around then, and he might've been speaking more/also about those.)
- musicale 5y agoProbably the latter. According to wikipedia[1] the Model I was modular but preassembled while the later Model III was an all-in-one integrated system, and Radio Shack provided upgrade and repair services (presumably installing things like RAM upgrades or expansion boards like an RS-232 interface.) Neither machine seems to have included the sort of user-accessible slots that S-100 machines, the Apple II, or the IBM PC had. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80 This bit from [1] is hilarious by the way: > In February 1977 they showed their prototype, running a simple tax-accounting program, to Charles Tandy, head of Tandy Corporation. The program quickly crashed as the computer's implementation of Tiny BASIC could not handle the US$150,000 figure that Tandy typed in as his salary, and the two men added support for floating-point math to its Level I BASIC to prevent a recurrence. Presumably Mr. Roach only made <= $32K.
- neilv 5y agoI mean common mods/expansions atop the base pre-assembled system. For example, the Model I with and expansion box that I used circa 1980 had, for example, a hole drilled in one of the chassis with a homebrew toggle switch in it. I never learned what it did, but I recall the whole thing with the ribbon cable looked like there was still a homebrew/DIY aspect to it.
- musicale 5y agoPerhaps an alternate ROM, memory upgrade, 80 column or lowercase board, graphics upgrade, or??? I wonder! Radio Shack (and Apple, for that matter) actually made schematics for their computers available, enabling people to potentially repair or modify their own machines – and this was actually practical because of the discrete (and often off-the-shelf), through-hole soldered components. Talk about "right to repair!" Personally I'd feel a bit queasy potentially bricking a $2700 computer, but then again you could also possibly replace a component if you damaged it. I think Apple and IBM also included firmware listings. In general vintage PCs seem to be very hacker-friendly, and they're also simple enough so that you can understand the entire system. The closest thing now might be something like an Arduino or bare-metal programming on a Raspberry Pi.
- smackeyacky 5y agoPi's are fun but they don't really have the spirit of those 8 bit machines. For starters it's way too powerful compared to those machines. Some of the machines had communities (offline!) who flat out encouraged hardware hacking, from simple things like piggybacking EPROMs and switching them with a toggle switch (as above) right up to hacking together sound processors. Often the documentation was non-existent so curious hackers would trace all the lines on whatever expansion was available and document it themselves. This was generally on the "also ran" computers (thinking specifically of the Australian Microbee) since expensive US things like Apple 2 or TRS-80 were mostly unaffordable here. If you want the real deal, the closest thing would be single board kit computers based around a Z80 or a 6502.
- mark-r 5y agoWow, I don't think I've ever seen so many 5 1/4" floppy drives at a time.
- neilv 5y agoMy instant thought was "When did Tandy clones start using TEAC drives?" :)
- billsmithaustin 5y agoMy high school physics teacher lent me his TRS-80. I learned my first assembly language on it. My whole career started with that.
- Agamus 5y agoMy elementary school principal would let me skip class and hang out in the closet of his office where he had a Trash-80. My older brother would never let me touch his Apple][, so I loved that closet, and that computer. My career began there too!
- fsckboy 5y ago> Young John, a math whiz, calculated the change in his father’s grocery store without using the cash register. seems like a millenial wrote the obit :) everybody used to do this
- maestroia 5y agoUsed to???? I still do.
- agumonkey 5y agoBut you used to too
- fsckboy 5y agoyeah, I didn't want to quibble with his quibble, but the keyword was everybody used to
- 1647423594 5y agoMay Mitch rest in peace :)
- cf100clunk 5y agoI was recently asked by a young counter staffer who could not make change without the cash register whether I wanted to buy an extended warranty... on a pack of batteries.
- Johnny555 5y agoYou should have gotten the warranty and then gone back in a month and asked for a warranty replacement "These are defective, I put them in my flashlight and they worked fine for a few weeks, then just stopped working."
- mdp2021 5y agoThe anecdote from cf100clunk is apical and worth spreading (and I do not believe represents a "single isolated case"), but the follow-up J. suggests is not impossible: a story is known (not verified) of someone who insured a box of precious cigars, but in time smoked them, then requested payment from the insurance - presumably thinking "if one is fool enough to cover consumables, then has to follow consequently": the insurance company sued the insurer for arson.
- musicale 5y agoMr. Roach's (and Radio Shack's) story is amazing and largely unknown in 2022. It's interesting to imagine what might have been if Radio Shack (or Commodore, etc.) had managed to be as successful as Apple as a computer company. It's too bad that Radio Shack no longer exists - they didn't serve much of a purpose as a phone accessory store, but their prior incarnation selling computers, electronics, stereo and TV equipment, toys, educational kits, and components seems like it was was a lot more interesting. At one of the last Maker Faires, I recall a Radio Shack executive saying that they were planning on adding a DIY store section supporting things like 3D printing, microcontrollers, and electronics kits, but sadly that didn't seem to materialize (and probably it wasn't a large enough market to be successful with thousands of small stores.) I'd like to think that there's still an opportunity somewhere for small shops like Radio Shack (or larger stores like Fry's) that sell cool and useful electronic stuff (maybe with fast local delivery!) but it's probably hard to compete with Walmart on one hand and Amazon on the other. I'm actually surprised that Best Buy seems to be hanging on somehow.
- cf100clunk 5y ago> It's too bad that Radio Shack no longer exists As a kid, pouring through the latest Heathkit catalogue was a joy, as was rummaging through an old-school Radio Shack store for new stuff to put on the bread board. In later years such expeditions included Fry's in Sunnyvale EDIT: Palo Alto, actually. When Radio Shack put TRS-80s in every store it wasn't long before kids of all ages with a bit of BASIC knowledge snuck loops of obscenities onto those screens before sales staff would finally notice and interrupt. In later years it seemed that every Radio Shack store everywhere had an endless loop of Top Gun or Star Wars videos on endless loop. I cannot help but remember most people calling the TRS-80 the "Trash 80" even though nobody I knew disliked the machines, per se. RIP John Roach, marketing visionary.
- datavirtue 5y agoTandy, and that computer in the pic with John (Tandy 1000ish-- thier first PC clone), made my childhood. I was lucky enough to have a hard drive expansion card and later purchased a brand new Tandy color EGA monitor with my own money for it. Nothing online, all the time spent learning every nook and cranny of numerous DOS versions, Norton utilities, and BASIC. I spent years (12 to 14) at 3.77mhz and loved every minute of it.
- keithnz 5y agothey didn't seem to be too popular here in NZ, but I remember them in the ads in comic books, I even had a superman comic where superman lost his powers and needed kids with a TRS-80 to help him make calculations! Found it here :- https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Superman_in_Victory_by_Computer https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Superman_in_Victory_by_Computer
- mustntmumble 5y agoI agree, until the early 80s, while most computer owners I knew in NZ had a ZX81, Spectrum, Vic20 or C64, but there were a few people I knew who had an Australian made TRS80 clone called the Dick Smith System 80 - https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/ https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/
- jussij 5y agoIn the early 80's Australia also had the Microbee: https://physicsmuseum.uq.edu.au/microbee-computer https://physicsmuseum.uq.edu.au/microbee-computer
- yesenadam 5y agoAh the memories. I loved them. My NSW high school used them (early to late 80s at least) and my friend's dad had one and we got into programming on them. When I wanted my own computer about 1986 that was the obvious and only choice. Experts could do amazing things with BASIC by embedding machine code routines into REM comment lines with POKE statements. I wrote mainly in BASIC, Turbo Pascal, Z80 assembler. I remember trying out Lisp and drawing a Mandelbrot set image on it. They were CP/M. I remember it said "Gary Kildall" on screen as it started up. I was programming on it until 2000! - I never had a computer with a mouse until then. It was so different pre-internet - I never laid eyes on a book or manual on Turbo Pascal or Z80 assembler. I think I picked up crumbs from computer magazines in libraries.
- keithnz 5y agoin my friend group it was Atari, Spectrum Vic20 / C64, or apple mostly, I started on ZX81, then we got an Atari 800XL
- Kye 5y agoMy first computer was a store demo unit of an on-the-way-out Tandy 1000 HX. It came with several games, some kind of productivity suite, and A Tandy Bear Christmas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPYmpf64OfA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPYmpf64OfA Secret money-saving strategy that makes store people love you: "got any old demo units I can buy?"
- ai_ja_nai 5y agoI remember I heard of Tandy by messing around with settings in Arkanoid (DOS) when I was a kid (I was born in 1983)
- pacman128 5y agoReally sad to hear this. The TRS-80 Model I was the first computer I ever owned in high school. I spend many, many hours programming on it. Taught myself BASIC and Z-80 assembly language on it. Definitely was a major factor in my professional life.
- coldcode 5y agoA friend of mine worked on the Model I OS, it was surprisingly sophisticated. I didn't own one, but borrowed a friends occasionally to play with.
- jgrahamc 5y ago“ Young John, a math whiz, calculated the change in his father’s grocery store without using the cash register.” This was common in any store in that time period. I worked in a popular shop in England in 1981 and the cash register did not calculate change IIRC. This is still common in small shops. Not sure why the NY Times thinks basic arithmetic is hard.
- dtgriscom 5y agoRemember the screen printer [0]? It had a spinning drum with metal fingers that dragged across a curved sheet of aluminized paper. Sparks would remove the aluminum, leaving the underlying black paper visible. [0]: http://www.trs-80.org/trs-80-screen-printer/ http://www.trs-80.org/trs-80-screen-printer/