Oh yeah, the TRS-80 Level II was much fancier and more powerful than the Level I, by far! Level I BASIC was pretty cheesy. Good call. ;) I bet you even had an Expansion Interface, huh?
And, yes, I wrote one or two text adventures which had the split screen interface -- current room, objects, and exits on the top, while commands and their responses scrolled on the bottom -- that I'm pretty sure Scott Adams pioneered. (Mine were very bad.)