I was at McDonalds the other day and I was typing away on my 102 and a guy
stopped and said "My God! Is that a TRS-80. I remember those. It still works?
Wow, that's cool. I always wanted one or those little things."
Something about the keyboard draws the eye, or maybe the ears. Click click
click click.
Kurt
On Friday, May 8, 2015 8:40 AM, Shaun M. Wheeler <[email protected]>
wrote:
I still get comments about my M100 at the coffee shop, despite us being a
regular fixture there for years!On May 8, 2015 10:34 AM, "James Zeun"
<[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks Russel, I was on the fence, not sure whether to share or not. I'm not
half as technically minded as some of the users on the list. But I figured
everyone shares the same interesting, using these machines. Be it making
hardware for them, writing programs or simply using them.
I honestly felt old when the kid was looking at me, like I was Fred Flintstone
or something. I was born 1980, my computer experience comes from the time of
the Sinclair Spectrum, the C64, Atari VCS 2600 and later the Commodore Amiga.
BASIC was the language of the computer, all micro's used a version of it. If
you wanted to talk to your computer, you used BASIC. Which is why I and many of
my friends can still remember 10 PRINT and GOTO. We might never have made a
game, but we certain input plenty from books and magazines.
On 8 May 2015 at 16:26, Russell Flowers <[email protected]> wrote:
That is an interesting story. I found that M100s garner a lot of attention out
in public. I always show off the keyboard. Modern laptops can't hold a candle
to the feel of those keys.
It's also interesting that there will be one generation, or maybe two, tops,
that understand what a "personal computer" really is. Before the 1970s or early
80s, people knew about computers but had no concept of one that resided in the
home. Now, everyone grows up with a computer in the house, tablets laying
about... they will find them no more remarkable than a washing machine or TV.
On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 10:19 AM, James Zeun <[email protected]> wrote:
I don't post on here very often, two posts in one day is something of a record
for me. I don't really know how to program, save for a little bit of Python on
my Raspberry PI. So as an M100 user, I guess I'm what you could class as an
enthusiastic/user. I use my M100 for writing articles for my vintage tech blog,
the battery life just makes it a great machine to use. The screen is far
superior to the Amstrad NC100 I was using previously, which was more of a word
processor then a real computer like the TRS.
Anyways, I thought I would share with you an experience I had with my M100 last
week, while we had a spell of sunshine. I know it's not exactly dissecting a
system rom or anything ambitious as getting an M100 online over wifi. But I
thought I would share it, as it's was a fun moment using a 30yr old computer
for what it was meant for.
Last week the sun blessed us with an appearance, so a group of us 'nerds'
decided to venture out in to the sunshine to soak up some Vitamin D! I packed a
rucksack and threw my M100 inside, thinking I could finish off a blog post.
Sitting on the picnic blanket with a flask of tea, I kept having people come up
to me, inquiring about the Tandy. I genuinely didn't think anyone would raise
an eye brow, aside from take pity on the sad nerd who couldnt afford a Macbook
Air. To my surprise people wanted to know about the little machine, which I was
more then happy to tell them about. Even if it did mean I didn't get any work
done! Some of them sort of knew what it was, while others were completely
baffled. One guy even asked if I hooked it up to the PC using USB. When I
explained to him that I used a serial cable, there was a lost expression his
face. Clearly not a lover of old RS-232! The oddest part of the outing was
having my friends seven year old son approach me, looking genuinely confused.
"What is that?"
"It's a computer" I replied
"No, it doesn't have a lid" Argued the child
"That's a laptop, this is a portable computer. See this label on the front, it
says 'Portable Computer', it can work out maths problems and I can write on it
just like a regular computer"
"It's not a computer, it doesn't have a screen! how do you close the lid?"
"It doesn't need a lid and the screen is there see!"
So if you want to confuse a small child, wave an old computer at them and watch
their brain explode lol. Having grown up in the 80's, it's really difficult to
get my head around the fact there is a generation now, that see's touchscreens
as common place. I really wonder what they would make of sitting in front of a
C64 and typing out a program listing from a book, like I did when I was 7-8
years old. Thats what I think of when someone says the word computer.
Anyways, that was a random adventure with my M100, still a useful work horse.
Hope nobody objected to me sharing :-)
James
--
My retro tech blog and general ramblings
http://bytemyvdu.wordpress.com/
