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Matthew Reed
Personal blog · trs-80.orghardwaresystemshistory
Matthew Reed's personal blog at trs-80.org covers hardware, systems and history. Since 2012, 33 different Hacker News readers have linked it 39 times, most often “An Interview with Jack Crenshaw (2009)”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
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39mentions?
33HN people?
2012–2026first – last linked?
TRS-80.org is a source for information about the Radio Shack TRS-80 line of computers, hardware, and software, with articles, interviews, and more!
Most-linked posts?
- An Interview with Jack Crenshaw (2009)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-05-07
- /plug-n-power/2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-10-24
- /t80-fs1/2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-08-01
- Tiny Pascal (2017)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-06-03
- /trs-80-screen-printer/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-03-24
- /pascal-80/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-07-08
What Hacker News says?
from http://www.trs-80.org/multiplan/ "Originally code-named “EP” (for “Electronic Paper”), Multiplan was written to use a very clever p-code compiler system created by Richard Brodie. This p-code system, which was also used later by Microsoft Word, allowed Microsoft to target Multiplan to a huge number of different 8-bit and 16-bit computer systems. (Charles Simonyi once estimated that Multiplan was available for 1…
Comment linking /multiplan/
on “Why SQLite Uses Bytecode”Submitted Tiny Pascal (2017) as a story · 116 points
HN discussionVideonics DirectED, a video editing system, conveniently loaded its software from... VHS tape. Here are some details: https://twitter.com/foone/status/1325945997160165376 and apparently you can still buy it well-preserved as new old stock, complete with the VHS software tape: https://www.ebay.com/itm/124380109086 A little less crazy and more straightforward (software on audio tape was super common after all): Radio…
Comment linking /basic-over-shortwave/
on “YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos”Submitted The TRS-80 Pocket Computer as a story · 33 points
HN discussionCompared to my main desktop running Windows 3.11 [1], I have to say, this 95 thing is quite the looker - extremely visually appealing. 3.11 is starting to feel a bit dated, now that my wife is showing off her TRS80.[2] Her machine is actually a portable that can be placed on a desk anywhere and plugged into any outlet! This 95 seems a fine upgrade path to newer hardware! [1] https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-3/…
Comment linking /model-1/
on “Make Linux look like Windows 95”Submitted An Interview with Jack Crenshaw (2009) as a story · 12 points
HN discussionIn the 80s my dad controlled the lights in our home using the Radio Shack plug 'n power system. Plug-in switches and the control box would talk to each other by sending signals through the home electrical wiring. There was no need for wifi or Bluetooth or rc or anything funky like that. It was about as dumb as a smart home could get. http://www.trs-80.org/plug-n-power/
Comment linking /plug-n-power/
on “Matter – Protocol to connect compatible devices and systems with one another”Submitted Electric Pencil as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe old TRS-80 used audio tape to save/load programs. As a 6th grader, I was amused that there was a "TRS-80 network" setup whereby you could cable a classroom of computers together, set all but one of them to "load from tape", then set the teacher's computer to "save to tape" and it all worked. I thought that was a clever bit of engineering/hackery, actually using sound for file-sharing. http://www.trs-80.org/netwo…
Comment linking /network-1-controller/
on “Serverless, peer-to-peer, local file sharing through sound”Submitted An Interview with Jack Crenshaw as a story · 2 points
HN discussionWriting Basic Adventure Programs for the TRS-80. [1] It contains this gem [2], which is pretty much how every program works. I occasionally riff off this diagram for work as an inside joke with myself. 1: http://www.trs-80.org/writing-basic-adventure-programs-for-t... 2: https://imgur.com/gallery/Vz63D
Comment linking /writing-basic-adventure-programs-for-the-trs-80/
on “Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?”Submitted An Interview with Jack Crenshaw, Author of the “Let’s Build a Compiler” as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMost of them weren't, but some were. If all you were doing was looking at screens of text, a long persistence phosphor could be desirable[0]. I've got one that is inside an Apple II monitor. Can confirm, the image looks very flicker-free, but has pretty bad ghosting if you're looking at anything that scrolls. It looks cool but is pretty rough to do any work on. The other green CRTs I have are barely more persistent…
Comment linking /soft-view-crt.html
on “Cool-retro-term: terminal emulator which mimics look and feel of CRTs”Reminds me how the TRS-80 Level 1 Model 1 BASIC interpreter had just three error messages: http://www.trs-80.org/level-1-basic/ Error Messages Level I BASIC had three error messages: HOW?, WHAT?, and SORRY. User’s Manual for Level I described the error messages this way: In general, a HOW? message means, “I understand your instructions, but they’re asking me to do something that’s impossible.” The WHAT? error messag…
Comment linking /level-1-basic/
on ““Huh” exists in all human languages, according to research (2019)”Luxury! I spent hours on the TRS-80 flight simulator by Sublogic. 128x48 in glorious monochrome! It is the direct ancestor of MS FS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FS1_Flight_Simulator http://www.trs-80.org/t80-fs1/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmkYVSbodw4 PS. MS FS history web page from that Youtube channel. http://josef.havlik.sweb.cz/fshistoryenglish.htm
Comment linking /t80-fs1/
on “Microsoft Flight Simulator returned to the skies”Radio Shack had a control module you plugged into the cassette port that interfaced with the X10 bus. http://www.trs-80.org/plug-n-power/
Comment linking /plug-n-power/
on “How we built a Smart Office system based on Raspberry Pi”- po · 2012-12-09
Loved the Trash-80 so much. I consider myself lucky to have used one when I was a child. My favorite game was Android Nim: http://www.trs-80.org/android-nim/ When I was young I thought that game was unbeatable and the adults who could beat it had a secret code or something. Now I realize it just plays a perfect game but you can win if you understand it. Oddly enough one of the movies that I remember best when I was…
Comment linking /android-nim/
on “1983 Radio Shack Catalog” I would argue that the TRS-80 model 1 was more significant as the first home computer: $400 instead of $1300. Like the Apple-][ it also was usable out of the box, it just lacked color. http://www.trs-80.org/was-the-trs-80-once-the-top-selling-co...
Comment linking /was-the-trs-80-once-the-top-selling-computer/
on “An original Apple-1 computer sells for $400k”I remember seeing visicalc for the first time in a Radio Shack store on a TRS-80 Model 1, around 1980-1981 and it was so very different than the rest of the very analog world at that time, totally fascinating. http://www.trs-80.org/visicalc/
Comment linking /visicalc/
on “VisiCalc Executable for the IBM PC (1999)”I typed in a lot of these in the late '70s, it was "learning Basic the hard way" to get them to run. My access to computers was limited, so I read them more than used them at a computer. I later bought: http://www.trs-80.org/trs-80-programs-32-basic-programs-for-... I really liked "The Flying Walloons", simple as it was. Here's one I never saw but would have been fun, I think: http://www.trs-80.org/trs80-graphics/ I…
Comment linking /trs80-graphics/
on “Updating “101 Basic Computer Games” for 2021”Radio Shack's TRS-80 had a voice synthesis box available for $399 way back in 1979: http://www.trs-80.org/trs-80-voice-synthesizer/ Here's a YouTube demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeIJxXCh8P8 ($399 in 1979 is equal to about $1399 in 2018)
Comment linking /trs-80-voice-synthesizer/
on “A Sound Card Before Its Time”FYI - Deathmaze 5000 was released for the TRS-80 two years prior. http://www.trs-80.org/deathmaze-5000/
Comment linking /deathmaze-5000/
on “The First First-Person Shooter”Remember the screen printer [0]? It had a spinning drum with metal fingers that dragged across a curved sheet of aluminized paper. Sparks would remove the aluminum, leaving the underlying black paper visible. [0]: http://www.trs-80.org/trs-80-screen-printer/
Comment linking /trs-80-screen-printer/
on “John Roach has died”We've come a long way since the TRS-80 had "HOW?", "WHAT?", and "SORRY.".... https://www.trs-80.org/level-1-basic/
Comment linking /level-1-basic/
on “What's in a good error message?”I always regretted that though I got a cassette copy of Pascal for the TRS-80, I was unaware of their being a patch to make it work in TRS-DOS. Anyone, here's an example of one compiler for an 8-bit machine: http://www.trs-80.org/pascal-80/
Comment linking /pascal-80/
on “MacBASIC”Omikron's ad for the hardware product reviewed in the column (that let TRS-80s run CP/M software) in 1981 is a lot more colorful. http://www.trs-80.org/omikron-mapper/ And the obituary for George Gardner, the man who founded Omikron. He led a very interesting life. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/times-standard/obituary.asp...
Comment linking /omikron-mapper/
on “Omikron TRS-80 Boards, NEWDOS+ and Sundry Other Matters (1980)”> Tandy otherwise kept all software technical information secret > Read this BYTE article from two years after the TRS-80's release which complains about the complete lack of Tandy documentation that motivated the author to write the article in the first place. This nice, well-written technical manual (including a complete schematic for the system) was published by Tandy in 1978, the year before the BYTE article: ht…
Comment linking /trs-80-micro-computer-technical-reference-handbook/
on “The Tandy Corporation”> complete lack of Tandy documentation that motivated the author to write the article in the first place It looks like Radio Shack published this in 1979: http://www.trs-80.org/trs-80-assembly-language-programming/ It also appears that they supplied a machine language monitor/debugger, T-BUG. So armed with a Z-80 manual and a memory map of the system you could probably do basically anything. Since the system used bl…
Comment linking /trs-80-assembly-language-programming/
on “Why Apple II Is the World's Best Selling Personal Computer (1978)”> You are under the impression that Commodore did not keep up with Apple Thanks for the interesting summary; what was the last year that you think Commodore was a viable competitor to Apple? I do wish Apple paid as much attention to gaming on macOS as they do on iOS. It is cool though that C64 is still a viable game platform in 2020, with products (C64 Mini) that you can buy. ;-) > TRS-80 had, as I mentioned, nothin…
Comment linking /trs-80-micro-computer-technical-reference-handbook/
on “Why Apple II Is the World's Best Selling Personal Computer (1978)”Pity they don't show the even older graphics on TRS-80. Delight in the 128x48 monochrome display, max 6 fps. http://www.trs-80.org/t80-fs1/ The basic layout (airfields, mountains) you see in the article was kept for a few iterations even after MS bought them.
Comment linking /t80-fs1/
on “Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics (2023)”
