The Gadgeteer Reviews Radio Shack's TRS-80 Portable Computer

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/tandy102-review.html' target='_blank'>http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/tandy102-review.html</a><br /><br /></div>Yes, you read that right -- The Gadgeteer has reviewed a 20-year-old PDA-like device, and it shows that handhelds aren't exactly a new concept.<br /><br />"Imagine a portable device that runs on 4 AA batteries &amp; runs for 20 hours+, has an address book, a date book, a notepad-like app, a built-in modem, a full-travel keyboard, a terminal application, even the ability to connect to a modern Windows or Linux based PC &amp; transfer files. Sounds great doesn't it? But in 1983? No way I hear you say! What are you smoking son?"<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/parekh-20040404-GadgeteerTandy.jpg" /><br /><br />Admittedly, I won't be turning in my Pocket PC any time soon for one of these... but it's cool to see that people have been taking handheld computing seriously for a long time.

[rmikulec]

Wow flashback! I wrote all my papers in college on one of those. Too bad I had to sell it to pay the rent!

[Rikostan]

I still have a working one of these. I play Scott Adam's adventures on it once in awhile.. There are still a few support groups for these devices too..

http://www.rikostan.com/e107_files/images/trs-80.jpg

Yes that IS a modem. :)

[BTS]

AWESOME! I used to have one of these and wrote most of my stuff in university on it (until I picked up a Zenith 8088 notebook/anchor). It was a great little unit. Unfortunately, parts of the keyboard quit responding and it was no longer usable.

Like the previous post I had the modem and floppy disk drive. What a cool flashback!

[Zack Mahdavi]

Pretty cool... I love reading about old computers. It brings back memories when people used to appreciate their computers! :)

[Lday]

I had one in 1984, used the terminal function to hook up to the RS-232 interface of a grocery store computer to run diagnostics and backups from an 8" floppy drive hooked up to the store computer. The alternative was a fan-fold paper printer that printed out responses to a "Push button once for yes, twice for no" prompts. The Model 100 was slick stuff!

[Anthony Caruana]

Love it! :rock on dude!:

What it also goes to show is that just because there's something newer avaialble that your old gear does not cease to be useful (try to remember that when a new OS or device is released).

[Steven Cedrone]

Somewhere buried in my basement, I still have an accoustic coupler. I'll have to find it and see if it still works! Then again, handsets on phones are no longer the "correct" shape. :wink: They just had to go and break up Ma' Bell...

Steve

[stjohn1335]

I first learned BASIC programming on this machine. It was my father's, and I was about 11. I was in the middle of programming my first game when I ran out of internal memory (256K?)!! I could never get the external floppy drive to work, so I gave up the project. I always wanted to finish that game, too... :(

[dean_shan]

Could these things be hooked directly to a printer. I remember somthing like those in my school when I was younger. They looked about the same but I don't recall the name. Could it be that my school had about 20 of these things?

[bjornkeizers]

Somewhere buried in my basement, I still have an accoustic coupler. I'll have to find it and see if it still works! Then again, handsets on phones are no longer the "correct" shape. :wink: They just had to go and break up Ma' Bell...

Steve

Geez, old farts in here; let me crack a window :D Considering I was born in 1982, I had to google it to find out what the heck you're talking about! :-)

[klinux]

Oh how I lusted after one of these as I learned BASIC programming on my TRS-80...

[DubWireless]

this was my first "true" PDA from around '86, in that it was a really portable form factor from what had gone before, the Psion Organiser II

http://devices.ie/external/pocketpcthoughts/psion_org_ii_cm.jpg

it still works, although it wasn't Y2K "ready", it even had two expansion slots, although capacity was small and the size was a little larger than today's memory cards ;), here is one of the EEPROM "DataPaks" with a huge 32KB 8O

http://devices.ie/external/pocketpcthoughts/32kbdatapak_256mbsdcard.jpg


BrianG

[Oleander]

Geez, old farts in here; let me crack a window :D Considering I was born in 1982, I had to google it to find out what the heck you're talking about! :-)

Hey! I recent that! :lol:

I remember it as if it was yesterday! Ahh the memories.

Back in 1979 when i learned BASIC, the first chapter of the book i used, had an introduction on how to use an acoustic coupler to dial in to a national mainframe to run BASIC. The same mainframe that supposedly also was used for the national SSN-database. 8O

I guess that computing have lost a great deal of it's innosence between then and now..

[jlp]

BrianG,

Yeah and the flat SD card has 8,000 times the memory capacity.

I had the exact same PO II and used OPL to store text files; I didn't program, just wrote ideas and things with it.

I never had a TRS-80 m10x, these were too expensive here, but I clearly remember them, and others similar like the Epson HX-8 I think it was called; it had a Microcassette drive built-in. One model had a fixed screen, another HX-20 I think had a bigger, swivel screen.

Kyocera and Olivetti had something similar and I think those 2 and the TRS were made by Kyocera.

Journalists bought lots of these things.

[dorelse]

I always loved that computer...I especially loved its portability. Every time I programmed BASIC on my Coleco Adam or typed a letter, I just always thought that was the coolest!

Ah...the days.

[eugarps]

All,

How about the HP 200LX? DOS 5.0 and up to 4 MB out of the box with 40 hour battery life on 2 AA's? It also has a better PIM and word processor than most "modern" PDA's. Too bad it doesn't do WiFi and Bluetooth!

[acronym]

dub - what an old, antiquated piece of hardware !

oh, and what's that big brown thing next to the sd card?

[jlp]

dub - what an old, antiquated piece of hardware !

oh, and what's that big brown thing next to the sd card?

This betrays how young you must be. :twak:

Concerning "that big brown thing next to the sd card" it's written on it: Psion Datapack 32KB, easy to guess it's a memory module, especially since Dub said it is one :roll:

[Bill Gunn]

Here's what my first "Pocket PC" looked like.
http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/sharp_pc1211_tandy_trs80_pc1.html

[rhmorrison]

I used to use (and still have) a NEC PC-8201A (http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/nec8201a/) laptop computer which is virtually identical to the Tandy 102. With the added ROM I had enhanced Text Processing and Database capabilities. I used it for years as an electronic word processor connected to my Brother typewheel typewriter. I also own the 128k sidecar and a 300 baud acoustic modem (battary powered).

[gorkon280]

Here's what my first "Pocket PC" looked like.
http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/sharp_pc1211_tandy_trs80_pc1.html

I had a Tandy PC-1. It was the coolest for the mid to late 80's. I think I got my Atari 800XL first then bought a PC-1 many years after they were new. It was really cool to write little math programs.


The Atari 800XL was a awesome machine but never got the credit due because of Apple even though it used the SAME processor as the Apple II(6502). The Atari also had the Antic and GTIA Graphics chips which gave it outstanding graphics for the time. I still think cartridge software rocked. I had a instant on computer in 1986! Too bad it took my a half an hour to save a 10 k word processing file on casette! :mrgreen: Anyway, there are STILL people writing software for the Atari 8 bit computers. In fact, there's a circuit and piece of software that lets you use HD space as Atari FD images. Imagine a 100 MB drive on a Atari 800XL! I even think someone ported Linux over to the atari 8 bit computers....really!

[Tom W.M.]

Wow, I feel young. I'd best leave before the feeling becomes any more acute. :byebye:

I've always wanted to use that one….

[paulv]

I've still got my Tandy 100 - I reckon it's great. My only problem was that the serial speeds are faster than the screen refresh - which means that using it as a terminal is a pain. The keyboard is unbeatable - Still better than my desktop keyboard at work.

My first Pocket PC was the Casio PB-700 (http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?st=1&c=474). This was an awesome machine. I had this at tech back when teachers didn't know about programmable calculators. I had a lot of answers in it, including graphs!! It ran about the same speed as my ZX80 at the time but had more memory, so it was an extremely useful computer.

If that's not old enough (I'm not really that old). My first computer that I learnt to program on (until our school got an Apple ][ with 8K and Tape) was the Canon Canola 167P (http://oldcalculatormuseum.com/w-canon167p.html). This was awesome with programming mainly done by punched cards. I enjoyed the challenge of programming these things - this was real.

[acronym]

dub - what an old, antiquated piece of hardware !

oh, and what's that big brown thing next to the sd card?

This betrays how young you must be. :twak:

Concerning "that big brown thing next to the sd card" it's written on it: Psion Datapack 32KB, easy to guess it's a memory module, especially since Dub said it is one :roll:

sarcasm escapes you, my friend.

/proud owner of working TRS-80 Model 100 (24k/SuperROM, VectorMZ and DEC-VT180 (robin), let alone about 50 other pre 1985 computers.

[Janak Parekh]

sarcasm escapes you, my friend.
It was a little too dry. Considering that I have students that have never used DOS, I could easily read your original post as being perfectly non-sarcastic. 8O

--janak

[KDF9511]

When my dad brought home the 102 his company bought him I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I had been using a Timex/Sinclair 1000 with the 16k backpack. I used to use a WATTS line to dial into bbs that were listed in the back of Computer Shopper magizine. I spent many a happy hour loged into those systems. :mrgreen:

[omikron.sk]

OH MY GOD, THAT THING IS OLDER THAN ME! 8O

[dlinker]

I've had my Seiko Sports 100 Memo watch for over 20 years (Dec. 1983). I still wear it every day. It stores a colossal 7 memos - of 16 characters each - besides telling the time of course. You can also set the alarm to show any of the memos. Still going strong - just replace the batteries every few years.

I used it to store my bank account numbers and passport number when travelling. Much harder to loose or get stolen than a PDA.

There's my bit of nostalgia for this week.