The Trash Computer That Became Your Phone

Comments · 2.1K

• MI

  @mikebell2112 · 2 years ago

  You could have just run down to Radio Shack for that 3.5mm adapter.

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• J.

  @j.tann1970 · 2 years ago (edited)

  Having owned, and still own, Sinclair computers with tape loading I can tell you that many systems required the volume of the tape deck to be around the 70-80% range. This prevents the tape deck from possibly making the audio clip.<br>You said yourself that you turned up the volume to the max, this is likely why your games failed to load correctly.

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• TO

  @Tortenkopf · 2 years ago

  Kids these days. Back in the 80s we did not even have the cables or the docking station and had to type all of the code by hand. And we were grateful!

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• TO

  @tomlake2732 · 2 years ago

  I feel sorry for those who weren&apos;t alive in the &apos;70s. It was a wonderful time! Everything was new and exciting. Just being able to run BASIC at home was incredible. We all bought up Kilobaud, Byte, Interface Age, Creative Computing magazines and typed in the BASIC listings. Then the fun of debugging began just to find out we mistook a 0 for an O in line 1279. Once we got the program running, we had hours of fun hunting Wumpuses (Wumpi?), walking around Colossal Cave, etc. It was an age that will never be repeated.

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• NO

  @nocomment1212 · 2 years ago

  Radio Shack was such a great resource<br>for anyone with an IDEA.<br>You could almost always find parts to assemble in ways previously unimagined.

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• MR

  @mrflamewars · 2 years ago

  Stop all that hating - Radio Shack was the stuff of dreams during the time this was available.

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• TH

  @themaskedcrusader · 2 years ago

  One of Tandy&apos;s computers was an Apple ][ clone. My grandfather gave me an apple ][ and the Apple-compatable Tandy (I still have all the floppies) and told me &quot;Learn this, sluggo. this is the future&quot;. 40 years later, I am a senior software developer with over a 20 year career in computers and technology.

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• AN

  @andywest5773 · 2 years ago

  Had to laugh at the idea of Tandy being a &quot;fly-by-night electronics company&quot;. Tandy computers were EVERYWHERE in the 80s.

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• NU

  @nunyabusiness7602 · 2 years ago

  It was 1980, I was 12 years old. My father comes home with a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III. Within a month I was writing my own software. Two years later I had mowed enough yards to purchase my own TRS-80 Pocket Computer 2. Within a few days of that I was sent to the principal&apos;s office by one of my teachers for having &quot;a cheating device&quot;. My PC-2 was banned from school. Short sighted fools I thought. Over the next few years I learned how to program in Z80 and 6809 assembler. Since then I have been in the IT industry as a programmer, computer repair technician, Systems Administrator, and Computer Science Teacher. Thank you Charles Tandy for making computing available to the masses. The local Radio Shack was my drug of choice. I still own my PC-2 pocket computer and it still works. I still have my Tandy Color Computers, and they still work. My MC-10 still works and my Tandy 1000EX and 1000HX systems are still going strong. Amazing machines then, amazing machines now. Those were the glory days of computing, not this mega corporation spawned crap we have today.

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• BA

  @barelyamelia · 2 years ago

  As a formal RadioShack employee familiar with the TRS-80, the cables you&apos;re looking for should basically be 1/8 inches audio cables. Most devices from that era used RCA and 1/8 barrel jacks, they were used like the C-Type USB cables we have today.

  10

• VI

  @viktorakhmedov3442 · 2 years ago

  My boss (an architect) STILL uses one of these, he says he has dozens of new-in-box ones as insurance, he loves it that much. He is super old school. He designed our campus in 1980 and I&apos;m sure he used it then.

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• DO

  @DoctorNemmo · 2 years ago

  That trash computer helped me pass my biostatistics course. I&apos;ll be forever thankful.

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