I had loads of fun with my TRS-80. No doubt the best documented piece of equipment I have ever owned-- the technical reference manual (written in 'for Dummies' style) provided enough detail to troubleshoot down to the IC level. It explained every aspect of the design, with full schematics, timing diagrams, troubleshooting flowcharts, and complete bill of materials. Truly extraordinary:
I added the 'Level II Basic' ROMs (providing a line oriented text editor) and hacked a minor mod to the PCB allowing the character generator to display lower-case ASCII. The TRS-80 Expansion Interface (providing add-on memory and floppy interface) was also fully documented.
For aesthetic reasons (I thought the pancake form factor looked even more toylike than the computer itself) I bought the schematics wirewrapped my own and stuck it in a proper sheet metal box. I remember paying $16 per Motorola 4kx1 dynamic RAM cerdip (that's $32,768 per megabyte, in 1979 dollars... a mind boggling $123K today). I'll never forget the thrilling woodpecker sound the floppy disk made when it indexed to track zero for the first time.
I thoughtlessly junked the TRS-80 not long after I bought my IBM PC in 1981 (I got a near full-boat 64Kbyte version for only $2700 with my IBM employee discount; as I recall that config would have listed for over $5K), but I kept my homemade expansion board (pictured here minus the floppy controller IC which blew out).
Oddly enough I still remember what most of the 74LS- series part numbers were (74LS367: hex tri-state buffer... 74LS74: dual JK flip-flop!) since I used them in my day job, but I can't remember why I added the UV EPROMS:
I had no better foresight for nostalgia, I threw mine out too. I inherited my grandfathers when he passed away. We had the exact same setup, as I learned to code on his. He bought me a used system and decked it out for me as a birthday gift. My friends had TI994a and Sinclair's, the world changed when my dad's work provided him an IBM PC AT to use at home.
I didn't have the lowercase mode on mine. The one in storage does. I miss my grandfather; that early exposure to a computer changed my life from science fiction fan to technology fan and now a technology professional.
Those were the days. I started with a Heath Kit build-it-yourself computer that was programmed with a Hex keypad and had not way to save your program. When RS came out with the Color Computer I bought one. Can't recall the price, but I know when I bought the external 5.25" floppy it was $600 - with a huge 180k storage on single sided floppies. Went thru lots of Z80 CPM machines and my buddy bought the first 5 meg hard drive I ever saw - $5,000 and used VCR tapes for backup. Yep, lots of money and lots of fun and plenty of hair pulling.
Oh yeah remember the heath kit well.... The CoCo had a decent process a Motorola 6809. It was 16 bit under the coversin a word that was still primarily 8 bit. It was "dumbed" down to 8 bit. I worked for Tandy Computer Corporate and had access to the "latest" stuff. It was a fun time in those days.. Stuff was simple and the wow factor was easy to obtain LOL.
I sold all of my TRS-80 stuff after the IBM PC came into power. I regret it as well. Would have loved to have it around among the MANY piles of junk in the storage building that I still have. LOL No telling how much money I have spent storing old stuff that I will never use again.
I have too much accumulated also. Trying to dump some on ebay now. The Heathkit was a model ET-3400 trainer. Built lots of Heathkit stuff over the years. Radio Shack, Olson Electronics, right up to Jameco....they may still be in business. I did a design/build of our first home alarm system, right down to etching the pc boards. Took a course thru Devry when i was discharged from the Army in 1966. Lots of fun and memories. How about computer languages? Cobol, c, pascal, basic, even pilot. Borland made software affordable to the average guy.
Jameco is still around and I think the last time I ordered from them was when I was making custom temperature probes for StarGate's from JDS Technology.
Even the process of ordering was such a different experience back then.. poring through a bunch of fine print ads in the back of magazines... you mailed out a check, waited for it to clear and then waited for your stuff... No tracking, no status. If you were lucky there was an 800 number to follow up if nothing showed up.
Bringing back some old memories for sure.... As far as languages.... BASIC, Fortran (IV, V FortG1), Cobol, PL/I, Assembler, Pascal, Algol, RPGII, RPGIII, RPG/400, C.... and some I probably forgot... LOL
I work in the insurance/retirement industry. About 2 years ago we were talking about the issues we were having recruiting kids right out of college and someone actually said "we just can't find college kids with COBOL experience." Ya think?
