Friday, August 3, 2012

Please Don’t Call It Trash-80

Please Don’t Call It Trash-80: A 35th Anniversary Salute to Radio Shack’s TRS-80 | Techland | TIME.com: "Quick — name the most important personal computer of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Those of you who mentioned the legendary Apple II–that’s fine. I respect your decision. Forced to think objectively in 2012, I may even agree. But if you just named Radio Shack’s TRS-80, you made me smile.

Your choice is entirely defensible. And back in the TRS-80′s heyday, I not only would have agreed with it but would have vehemently opposed any other candidate.

Gadget-retailing giant Radio Shack unveiled the TRS-80 Model I at a press conference at New York’s Warwick Hotel 35 years ago today, on August 3, 1977. (The company didn’t call it the Model I at the time: Like Apple’s Apple I, it only became the I after a II was introduced.)

It wasn’t the city’s biggest news story that day. That would be the bombings of two office buildings by Puerto Rican terrorist group FALN, which killed one man and prompted the evacuation of 100,000 people from other buildings, including the Empire State Building and both towers of the World Trade Center. But it was a big moment in the burgeoning microcomputer industry: The TRS-80, which began shipping in September, was one of 1977′s trinity of early consumer PCs, along with the Apple II and Commodore’s PET 2001."

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