TRS-80: a TRS-80 running a custom Associated Press ROM | Hacker News Reader

TRS-80: a TRS-80 running a custom Associated Press ROM

wayne.lorentz.me

97 pointsAloha24 comments

The 100 was a nice little machine, and the batteries (at least on the model we used) lasted forever. I first used one for a summer job with our local city, taking down street-damage information for our roads department. We'd drive all over town, take random samples of stretches of streets, and measure cracks, holes, etc., entering all the data into the 100, which would then be uploaded to a 286 (12mhz turbo!) for number-crunching to determine which streets in town needed attention first. The 100 took a lot of punishment and just kept working, with no memorable hiccups. The keyboard was perfectly adequate to the task, and the screen, though small even for the day, was easy to adjust to (as long as the light in the room / outside was right).

More discussion in 2019, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20201354

I had searched for the previous thread and was unable to locate, thank you!

There is also this TRS-80 Model III emulator:

https://github.com/lkesteloot/trs80

Which has nothing to do with the Model 100. The title is misleading.

I'll have to try that out. A neighbor's Model III was the first machine I played Zork on, so it has good memories.

There are a bunch of Model III emulators: http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/emulators/

Including my latest online one: https://www.my-trs-80.com/

I've had a 102 for many years and I programmed on a 102 back when I was in college writing programs for farmers for our Plant Pathology department.

I never knew about this AP ROM. Fascinating.

So interesting what kind of computing you can get now for 4lbs.

Looks a lot like this machine:

https://www.clockworkpi.com/

My first programming memory is using a Model 100 in the back seat of a car on a long road trip. A great machine.

I bought a TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo) a while back. Has the tape drive and thermal printer.

I have to make a cable and find some thermal paper, but otherwise it as all there. Hopefully one day soon I fire it up.

My first computer was in the Windows 3.11 era, so I find this era quite interesting.

The article is extremly US centric. This is also the rrason I no longer watch the 8bit guy. Im getting older and am annoyed by this history rewriting.

The author of this article and The 8-Bit Guy live in the United States. What do you want them to do, imagine anecdotes for other regions? There are plenty of people who cover European, South American, Asian, and Soviet retro computing histories.

Not spreading false information. Of all sites I would think HN would appreciate correctness.

"The TRS-80 Model 100 is claimed by some to be the world’s first portable computer."

About the first portable, at least an earlier one than the TRS-80 mentioned: Epson HX-20 [1]

The TRS-80 Model 100 was a Kyotronic 85 [2] The TRS-80 PC-1 was a Sharp PC-1211. The TRS-80 PC-2 was a Sharp PC-1500. The TRS-80 PC-3 was a Sharp PC-1251. The TRS-80 PC-4 was a Casio PB-100. The Tandy PC-5 was a Casio FX-780P. The Tandy PC-6 was Casio FX-790P. The Tandy PC-7 was Casio FX-5200P. The Tandy PC-8 was Sharp PC-1246.

Beside Tandy, many (all?) Timex computers where Sinclairs invented in the UK [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epson_HX-20

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000

Oh yes, Tandy was the master of contract manufacturing, they had many Japanese manufacturers OEMing their consumer electronics.

Most of the 8-bit microcomputers were US made or developed though, notably:

Apple II Family

Commodore PET, VIC-20, 64 families

TRS-80 Family

Atari 8-bit family (400/800)

TI-99/4 Family

This said - There are many very innovative computers that were not, the BBC Micro, the Sinclair ZX Line, Amstrad CPC. There were also a bevy of machines made in the USSR, which vanishingly little details about have gotten into english language spheres.

And all the Japanese maschines (e.g. MSX, I've used some Sharp MZ-800 in the 80s) and Italian Olivettis.

One could also object to

"they had many Japanese manufacturers OEMing their consumer electronics."

Tandy didn't OEMing Sharp, but Sharp brought computers to the market for themselves, not for Tandy. Then Tandy rebadged those for the US. Semantics, I know, but it's different from e.g. Apple using Foxconn. It's not like Tandy told Sharp what to build.

the software (and hardware at times too) was different than what shipped in the Tandy machines, they were OEM, built to a budget/spec, machines - yes, Sharp used their existing designs, but what sharp sold was often a bit more than slightly different.

And don't get me wrong, the 8bit guy is very knowledgeable, nerd, good hacker, has cool videos and seems to be a nice guy with good intentions.

His most recent video is called "Pocket Computers from the 1980s" but should be called "Pocket Computers from the 1980s in the US" - I would be perfectly fine with that.

He only talked about the PB-700 with it's amazing gfx display for the time. But there were many Sharps and Casio pocket computers in the 80s that had 2 or 4 line gfx displays, e.g. the PC-1600 or some casio FX-8XX models. It's only that Tandy chose to not rebadge those. So the impression he gives about the pocket computers of the 80s is off by his US view.

Not to mention the TRS-80 was made by Tandy, a US-based corporation that sold the computer out of Radio Shack stores.

Yikes, this comment - residing on Hacker News (in California) might seem irritatingly too US-centric to you, too. Look away!

The TRS-80 100 " was made by Kyocera, and originally sold in Japan as the Kyotronic 85" Wikipedia

It was not invented and build in the US, a myth this article spreads because the author could not imagine otherwise.

It was also not the first portable, which arguable was the Epson HC-20.

I have no clue what you could possibly want from the author.

Why not add some value to the world by fleshing out a comment instead of removing value by shitting on TFA?

Dear fatal hombre, many things. For starters mentioning that the model was a Japanese rebranded computer.

As you've suggested I fleshed out some comments thanks for that suggestion. The original was no longer editable.

I was in high school in the early eighties in South America: we had TRSs in our computer lab and a schoolmate brought his dad’s 100 a couple of times. Except France, Japan, the UK and the the soviet block countries, which developed home computers systems, the rest of the world entered the computer era with Us machines.

When my point is that the computer described in the article is NOT a US machine but a rebranded Japanese one. Which many people are not aware of because of such articles. Which again diminishes the efforts of other countries.

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