This photo on Reddit - another Radio Shack folding - reminds us of the key role Radio Shack has played in the life of the Progressive Review. In the early decades of this journal, Radio Shack was our technological guardian angel. Here are a couple of our favorite devices– Sam Smith
The Trash 80
CNET, 2013 - Lewis Kornfeld, who died Friday at the age of 97 in Fort Worth, Texas, was the president of Radio Shack in 1977 when he saw a grand future for the personal computer. When Kornfeld and Radio Shack debuted the TRS-80 in 1977, the personal home computer market was wide open. With no major player dominating consumer's pocketbooks, and no perceived consumer need for this technology, the future was unknown.
The TRS-80 microcomputer was priced at just $599.95 and stood in stark contrast to the build-it-yourself machines available to super technical hobbyists at the time. It was a rudimentary machine by today's standards, but it was a revolution in all-in-one technology and price at the time.
When it launched, consumers went wild, and the TRS-80 was backordered for months, ultimately selling nearly twice as many units as Radio Shack had originally projected.
Introducing affordable electronics to America including computers, stereo receivers, and cellular phones, Radio Shack arguably did more to promote the culture of digital consumerism in the United States than any other company.
The Model 100
Many
editions of the Review, then the DC Gazette, were composed on a Model 100 and
the editor's wife wrote her 200 page history master's thesis on a Model 200
which had an external disc drive that could only handle three pages per
disc.
Sam
Smith, DC Gazette 1983 - Although the Gazette is, so-to-speak, computerized,
our particular device — a Radio Shack Model 100 — uses a liquid
crystal display, a sort: of blown up version of what you see on a digital
watch. Having used both the LCD and the VDT, I can tell you that the
difference is quite astounding. I find that typing on a LCD (like right
now) is even less tiresome than typing on a piece of paper. I can adjust
the brightness of the screen to my inclinations, the type is roughly
twice the size of normal typewriter characters and there is none of
that annoying space-age flicker and glare you find on a VDT.
The
screen is only eight lines by 40 characters, but I suspect that
full-scale LCD screens will be available before too long. Incidentally^
the Radio Shack 100 is a phenomenal device which is only
8"xll"x2", can be run on four AA batteries, and, with 24
built-in file slots, an internal modem for telephone communications,and
other goodies, I can set the Gazette, pay bills, do accounts with a 13
column by 18 row spreadsheet and keep a self-dialing telephone directory
— lounging in my favorite chair all the while. The main thing I have to watch
out for is that I don't spill my drink on the keyboard.
Old
Computer Museum
– The Tandy 100 was actually a computer made in Japan by Kyocera. All the
ROM programs were written by Microsoft, and even a few of them were written by
Bill Gates himself These programs include a text editor, a telecommunication
program, which uses the built-in modem (300 baud), and a rather good version of
BASIC. . . The operating system uses 3130 bytes of the 8 KB RAM. So the 8 KB
models didn't sell very well. But there was also a 24 kb model. . . The CMOS
CPU allows [people] to use the Tandy 100 for 20 hours with only 4 AA batteries.
The model 100/102 is still considered and used as an excellent machine, mainly
to type texts when you're on the move (you can transfer them to modern
computers) and even to send and receive emails
2 comments:
You omitted the Color Computer. I purchased one because I could stuff it and a cassette tape recorder in a brief case and travel with it. After a long day of tedious meetings, I could transcribe notes in the evening using the hotel room television and dump them to printer on arrival home.
Sam,
My first computer was a Trash 80. I bought because the screen was wider than an Apple's and I could keep more than one program on a floppy. I managed to cobble together a crude word processor for it and even a first generation spell check, which I really needed. Much loved. The model 100 was, as you know, was a big hit among reporters. Hell, there's still a need for something that compact with a full keyboard.
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