Monday, February 11, 2008

Cracking open the TRS-80

CNet has a series of pics that show disassembly of a Tandy TRS-80

http://www.news.com/Photos-Cracking-open-the-TRS-80/2300-1042_3-6229672.html

My first real computer was a Tandy Color Computer 2, which is pretty much just a cost reduced version of the TRS-80 with a slightly different ROM. My father bought it for me for Christmas when I was eight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer#Color_Computer_2_.281983.E2.80.931986.29

No hard disk. No floppy drive. The only secondary storage I could use to save my BASIC programs was a $12.00 cable you could buy to hook it to a cassette recorder. Radio Shack sold dedicated cassette recorders specifically for the purpose, but my old radio/tape player worked well enough.

That little computer held me over for quite a few years until I got my Apple IIc.