In case anyone was curious, the keycaps on that TRS-80 are made of doubleshot-ABS in the DSA profile.
Is that special/better than common keyboards of today?
This TRS-80
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Re: This TRS-80
#32Back in the early 90's, I worked for a company that made parking meters. The big yellow kind with displays and buttons. We sent TRS80 Model 102's to customers for editing rates and messages and uploading them into the meters.
It was my job to reverse engineer the protocols and rewrite the software for DOS so that it could be used on portables like the HP 200LX. A few years later we rewrote it again for Windows.
I'd love to believe that there's still customers out there using the TRS or HP to manage their parking meters.
Re: This TRS-80
#33This is my favorite line, at least so far: There were microphones at each typewriter, and at the computer. When the on-air talent tossed to the newsroom for a live report, the journalism factory noises in the background were real. This is a great story. It helps that it is told by a professional writer, but it's also a special time in the history of tech. I remember lusting after this gadget when I was a kid. I remem…
I heard about that story as well. Must be reported on byte.
Re: This TRS-80
#34A fun side note: the core software that was included on the Model 100's ROM was written by Microsoft, and not just by Microsoft, but by Bill Gates himself. It was the last Microsoft project where he would write most of the code personally. In a wide-ranging early '90s interview at the National Museum of American History, he reminisced about the Model 100, calling it "in a sense my favorite machine": https://americanh…
Yes. OS was an acquisition of Microsoft, but Basic, P-CODE, visual basic and visual basic for applications were very central in Microsoft. It enabled to develop office very quickly.
Re: This TRS-80
#35> The only place I couldn’t use the 100 was in City Hall. The keyboard was too clackety-clack to take notes in that kind of environment. I did it during one meeting and the mayor put a private word in my ear letting me know that the TRS-80 was not welcome.
Start by taking notes on the Selectric and folks will appreciate the relative quiet of the 100.
Re: This TRS-80
#36Thishas made me want to dig out my https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88
Re: This TRS-80
#37I'm wondering what happened at the other of the wire service uploads. Were they vetted? Checked? Edited? Or did they just get sent out to subscribers automatically?
Re: This TRS-80
#38A fun side note: the core software that was included on the Model 100's ROM was written by Microsoft, and not just by Microsoft, but by Bill Gates himself. It was the last Microsoft project where he would write most of the code personally. In a wide-ranging early '90s interview at the National Museum of American History, he reminisced about the Model 100, calling it "in a sense my favorite machine": https://americanh…
Yes. OS was an acquisition of Microsoft, but Basic, P-CODE, visual basic and visual basic for applications were very central in Microsoft. It enabled to develop office very quickly.
All of the early PC's had a variant of GW Basic and Microsoft wrote those - they all even had the same memory leak.
You can tell an old school basic professional programmer from the Pet and Apple ][ Days by how they break out of Loops.
Re: This TRS-80
#39> The only place I couldn’t use the 100 was in City Hall. The keyboard was too clackety-clack to take notes in that kind of environment. I did it during one meeting and the mayor put a private word in my ear letting me know that the TRS-80 was not welcome. Start by taking notes on the Selectric and folks will appreciate the relative quiet of the 100.
The VT100 if you turned on the keyclick sound was awesome if you where a touch typist - I got yelled at once for using that :-)