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Inside the pages of a 1981 Radio Shack catalog
Mashable.com ^ | 1981 | Chris Wild

Posted on 03/17/2015 7:49:21 PM PDT by AlmaKing

Once upon a time, Radio Shack was saved from bankruptcy — in the 1960s. The British Tandy corporation, at that time a leather goods retailer, bought the company in a resulting merger called Tandy Radio Shack & Leather.

In 1977, Radio Shack's 3,000 stores started selling the TRS-80 (Tandy/Radio Shack, Z-80 microprocessor). Largely forgotten by the general public, the TRS-80 was, with Apple and Commodore's products, one of the pioneering personal computers of the late 1970s, and a key machine in the personal computer revolution. Byte magazine described the "1977 Trinity" of computers: Apple, Commodore and Tandy.

In 1981, the year of this catalog, the TRS-80 earned the nicknamed "Trash-80." Computer designer and writer Adam Osbourne described Tandy and Radio Shack as "the number-one microcomputer manufacturer."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: electronics; radioshack; trs80
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See link for catalog pages that take you back in computing time.
1 posted on 03/17/2015 7:49:21 PM PDT by AlmaKing
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To: AlmaKing
I recall the "Let's do leather-craft" ads.

Probably get SF deviants all excited now........

2 posted on 03/17/2015 7:52:30 PM PDT by doorgunner69
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To: AlmaKing

I started with a TRS-80 that had 4K of memory.


3 posted on 03/17/2015 7:53:30 PM PDT by Retired Chemist
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To: AlmaKing

Had an Apple II Plus at home and a “Trash-80” at school.


4 posted on 03/17/2015 7:54:37 PM PDT by pgyanke (Republicans get in trouble when not living up to their principles. Democrats... when they do.)
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To: AlmaKing

Check the 300 baud modem. I’m so old that I used computers that worked at 110 baud (one start bit, 7 data bits, 1 parity bit, two stop bits - 10 characters a second). How long would an internet page take to load at that speed?


5 posted on 03/17/2015 7:55:28 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day".)
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To: The Antiyuppie

I remember baud or symbol rate vs. bit rate. Started at 300, saw the jumps to 28k, 56k, etc.


6 posted on 03/17/2015 7:57:33 PM PDT by AlmaKing
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To: AlmaKing

Except for printing, I iPhone does everything in that catalogue. But I don’t print much stuff anymore.


7 posted on 03/17/2015 7:58:10 PM PDT by FatherofFive (Islam is evil and must be eradicated)
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To: Retired Chemist

I recall loading programs from the tape recorder.


8 posted on 03/17/2015 7:58:36 PM PDT by AlmaKing
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To: Retired Chemist

Ah, when I had my first “home computer”, you couldn’t BUY one. I had to wire wrap it, and the parts alone almost broke me in high school.


9 posted on 03/17/2015 8:01:22 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day".)
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To: The Antiyuppie
How long would an internet page take to load at that speed?

Don't remind me how many years I had to limp along with dial up connections.

10 posted on 03/17/2015 8:03:05 PM PDT by doorgunner69
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To: AlmaKing

Bttt! I have to show the kids this. :)


11 posted on 03/17/2015 8:03:42 PM PDT by proud American in Canada
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To: AlmaKing

A few years ago, I attended a sort of yard sale put on by a local computer club.

I actually found a few items I needed. My computer was old enough that the memory sticks they were selling for 50 cents each, worked in mine.

One thing I noticed as they were still setting up tables was a 300 baud modem, still new in the box. It had a price of several hundred dollars but the guy in charge told them to mark it 50 Cents too. He said if that was too high, to just give it away.


12 posted on 03/17/2015 8:04:56 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: Retired Chemist

> I started with a TRS-80 that had 4K of memory.

It was so much fun loading programs with one of those bulky tape drives wasn’t it? They didn’t always take. I remember writing tons of programs in BASIC and playing Dungeons of Daggorath and being beaten to death by a stick figure...lol


13 posted on 03/17/2015 8:05:43 PM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: AlmaKing

Still kicking myself in the ass for being a high schooler at the birth of the PC craze and not understanding the potential.


14 posted on 03/17/2015 8:07:15 PM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: doorgunner69

Somewhere in my basement is a Hayes external 300/1200 baud modem. I can remember being excited about finding BBSes that supported 1200...


15 posted on 03/17/2015 8:08:40 PM PDT by ThunderSleeps (Stop obarma now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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To: AlmaKing

Yep! Our Atari 800 did that...


16 posted on 03/17/2015 8:08:56 PM PDT by jughandle (Big words anger me, keep talking.)
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To: doorgunner69

I had to use dial-up until two years ago when I went to Hughes net. Just last night, I checked with Century Link which is the local provider of wired phone service.

Sure enough, they still don’t offer high speed internet out here. If not for satellite, I would still be using dial-up which is now just awful. By the time I switched, a large part of the internet was simply not useable.


17 posted on 03/17/2015 8:08:57 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: AlmaKing
Just showed this to my dad and was like WOW! I remember all that and then started in with how he was involved in computers - told me that he remembers an Apple hard drive of 10MB going for $799 .... killer.

Just bought a 32GB memchip for my camera for around $40 ....1TB backup drive for my laptop for $79.

18 posted on 03/17/2015 8:09:01 PM PDT by SkyDancer (I Was Told Nobody Is Perfect But Yet, Here I Am ...)
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To: The Antiyuppie

> Check the 300 baud modem

I remember having a 300 baud modem and hearing the familiar flurry of noise over the phone linenuntil I heard a single tone then was connected to a bulletin board. I remember the day when the 2400 baud snobs didn’t want us on their boards...lol....boy times haved changed


19 posted on 03/17/2015 8:09:46 PM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: AlmaKing

Remember when they offered the TI-994A for only $99. I bought one and actually was learning to program. It also had a pretty good black jack program.

I gave it to my daughter and gave up on them for a while. She on the other hand got pretty good with computers and she still is.


20 posted on 03/17/2015 8:14:28 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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