Hi
I think I need to dig out that "Trash 80" as some called them through jealousy, as at that time Tandy Radio Shack could claim to be the world's best/biggest selling computer/brand. It was a "PC" before PC's were invented with proper keyboard, dedicated displays, floppy drives, printers etc and had software available for most applications. You could easily use it for business, engineering or just as a hobby. You couldn't really say that about the competition despite Sir Clive stating his ZX-80 was equally at home running a nuclear power station as it was playing games. I remember a lecturer at college (Dept. Head or something) coming in to talk to our lecturer about something trivial, holding, sorry displaying a ZX-80 for all to see. How proud he was with his new machine. I was always curious as to how a complicated a nuclear reactor could really be if the entire operation could be controlled with 4K of ROM and 1K of RAM
The case designs of computers in those days had to be admired though. Some were very futuristic. When I first drooled over a picture of a Commodore PET circa 77' I wanted one (I think it inspired the creator of Dr. Who's dog, K9). Never did get around to it..... Do you remember the Orac? Named after the arrogant computer in Blake's 7 ?
From memory, I think in the late 70's your commercial options were kind of limited to Commodore, Apple and TRS with Apple pricing themselves sky high compared to competition with no real obvious advantage to justify the price that I could see (nothing changed there then
). I think the Commodore's and TRS's were not too dissimilar in cost but of course Tandy (Radio Shack) had a marketing advantage in having high street stores. I think that really was why they were so popular. You could walk in, get a demonstration of whatever software you wanted and walk out with a complete system with support just a walk down the high street away. Bigger stores had whole sections dedicated to their computers and software well before high street chains started selling home computers such as the ZX etc. I remember doing some work in a rather upmarket house and noticed a TRS-80 in the corner of the home office. Naturally I asked about it. The owner had a business selling system/software/support to double glazing companies that did all the engineering calculations for construction as well as payroll etc. He wrote most of the software himself despite knowing nothing about computers until he went into a Tandy one day.
Two games I remember playing a lot were a space shoot-em-up and a dungeons & dragons variant. The D&G was based around exploring a pyramid by typing in commands such as N (for go North) or "pick up axe". Don't think I ever got around to finishing it and remember using a roll of wallpaper to draw a map. Never even heard about "chiggers" prior to that game but now know to avoid if I ever come across any in real life...
The space game was quite complicated, you had to navigate around the galaxy, hiding behind planets, destroying enemy craft before descending into a trench, much like in Star Wars, and fighting off craft before launching your missiles. Chunky monochrome graphics (in my case green) too. Happy days indeed... It also came with detailed manuals and the BASIC manual gave details of every command and examples of usage. I spent ages working my way through and consider it time well spent.
Years later before it ended up in the loft it had an issue. I had a "system" in that I had the computer, display and cassette. The display connected via a DIN-plug which provided 5v and composite video. The display stopped working one time upon boot and I never did get around to finding out why. Might be a problem with the computer or the display. There are quite a few sites dedicated to these machines and I obtained copies of most manuals a while back. I particularly liked a description of the Expansion Module where it stated a benefit of two cassettes. You could read a payroll from one, modify it and store on another thereby saving time.... Kids of today don't know they are born...
I did get my hands on a QL once. It was given to me as it didn't work too well. Despite Sir Clive marketing it for business (with two teeny-weeny "8-track style" inbuilt cassette ports) it never really took off. The one I was given had keyboard issues. Certain keys would not work as the PCB was flexing too much thereby moving away from the key being pressed. Solution was to jam wads of photocopy paper behind the PCB to provide support. I did like it though but by then liked beer better, so swapped it for a case of something.
Regards
