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The Aster CT-80, an early (1982) home/personal computer developed by the small Dutch company MCP, was sold in its first incarnation as a kit for hobbyists. Later it was sold ready to use. It consisted of several Eurocard PCB's with DIN 41612 connectors, and a backplane all based on a 19-inch rack configuration. It was the first commercially available Dutch personal/home computer. The Aster computer could use the software written for the popular Tandy TRS-80 computer while fixing many of the problems of that computer, but it could also run CP/M software, with a large amount of free memory Transient Program Area, (TPA) and a full 80×25 display, and it could be used as a Videotext terminal. Although the Aster was a clone of the TRS-80 Model I it was in fact more compatible with the TRS-80 Model III, and ran all the software of these systems including games. It also had a built in speaker which was compatible with such games software.
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of Tandy Radio Shack, Z80 [microprocessor]. It is one of the earliest mass-produced and mass-marketed retail home computers.
The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and sometimes nicknamed the CoCo, is a line of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Computer is a completely different, incompatible system and a radical departure in design and compatibility with its Motorola 6809E processor rather than the Zilog Z80 earlier models were built around.
VisiCalc is the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for Apple II by VisiCorp on October 17, 1979. It is considered the killer application for the Apple II, turning the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool, and then prompting IBM to introduce the IBM PC two years later. More than 700,000 copies were sold in six years, and up to 1 million copies over its history.
The Tandy 1000 is the first in a line of IBM PC compatible home computer systems produced by the Tandy Corporation for sale in its Radio Shack and Radio Shack Computer Center chains of stores.
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initially confined to single-tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes of memory, later versions of CP/M added multi-user variations and were migrated to 16-bit processors.
The MCS-48 microcontroller series, Intel's first microcontroller, was originally released in 1976. Its first members were 8048, 8035 and 8748. The 8048 is probably the most prominent member of the family. Initially, this family was produced using NMOS technology. In the early 1980s, it became available in CMOS technology. It was manufactured into the 1990s to support older designs that still used it.
The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, and, in early models, a cassette deck.
Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first version of BASIC published by Microsoft as well as the first high-level programming language available for the Altair 8800 microcomputer.
The Tandy 2000 is a personal computer introduced by Radio Shack in September 1983 based on the 8 MHz Intel 80186 microprocessor running MS-DOS. By comparison, the IBM PC XT used the older 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 processor, and the IBM PC/AT would later use the newer 6 MHz Intel 80286. Due to the 16-bit-wide data bus and more efficient instruction decoding of the 80186, the Tandy 2000 ran significantly faster than other PC compatibles, and slightly faster than the PC AT. The Tandy 2000 was the company's first computer built around an Intel x86 series microprocessor; previous models used the Zilog Z80 and Motorola 6809 CPUs.
TRSDOS is the operating system for the Tandy TRS-80 line of eight-bit Zilog Z80 microcomputers that were sold through Radio Shack from 1977 through 1991. Tandy's manuals recommended that it be pronounced triss-doss. TRSDOS should not be confused with Tandy DOS, a version of MS-DOS licensed from Microsoft for Tandy's x86 line of personal computers (PCs).
The TRS-80 MC-10 microcomputer is a lesser-known member of the TRS-80 line of home computers, produced by Tandy Corporation in the early 1980s and sold through their RadioShack chain of electronics stores. It was a low-cost alternative to Tandy's own TRS-80 Color Computer to compete with entry-level machines such as the VIC-20 and Sinclair ZX81.
The TRS-80 Model 100 is a portable computer introduced in April 1983. It is one of the first notebook-style computers, featuring a keyboard and liquid crystal display, in a battery-powered package roughly the size and shape of a notepad or large book.
The TRS-80 Model II is a computer system launched by Tandy in October 1979, and targeted at the small-business market. It is not an upgrade of the original TRS-80 Model I, but a new system.
The TRS-80 Model 4 is the last Z80-based home computer family by Radio Shack, sold from April 1983 through late 1991.
Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user. These computers were a distinct market segment that typically cost much less than business, scientific or engineering-oriented computers of the time such as those running CP/M or the IBM PC, and were generally less powerful in terms of memory and expandability. However, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporary business computers. Their most common uses were playing video games, but they were also regularly used for word processing and programming.
PolyMorphic Systems was a manufacturer of microcomputer boards and systems based on the S-100 bus. Their products included the Poly-88 and the System 8813. The company was incorporated in California in 1976 as Interactive Products Corporation d/b/a PolyMorphic Systems. It was initially based in Goleta, then Santa Barbara, California.
The Tandy 3000 is a personal computer introduced by Radio Shack in 1986 based on the 16-bit 8 MHz Intel 80286 microprocessor.
Parasitic Engineering, Inc., was an American computer company founded by Howard Fullmer and Gene Nardi in 1974. Named as a tongue-in-cheek reference to a comment by MITS co-founder Ed Roberts, Parasitic's first products were hardware upgrade kits to MITS' Altair 8800 microcomputer kit, improving the latter's power supply rating and susceptibility to noise. The company later released their own microcomputer based on the same bus as the Altair, the S-100, but it was less popular than the company's hardware-improvement kits. By 1979, the company had pivoted to providing upgrades to Tandy's TRS-80. Parasitic went defunct in 1983.
References
- 1 2 Libes, Sol (March 1979). "BYTE News". Byte . p. 109. Retrieved 2015-03-17.
The Tandy-10 is made for Tandy by Digital Data Systems (DDS) and will have a base price of $8995. Using an 8080, it will have a video display, keyboard 48 K bytes of programmable memory, two 8 inch flopy disk drives, BASIC and a disk operating system similar to CP/M.
- ↑ TRS-80 Monthly Newsletter - Issue 1-6 - Part One (1979)(H & E Computronics)(US)(reprint)
- ↑ Tandy 10, 2 Page Sales Flyer, Radio shack, The Trailing Edge Resource Center - TRS-80
- ↑ 1978 Tandy 10 Brochure, TRS-80 & Tandy Computer Catalogs (Misc. & Foreign)
- ↑ New Products: Tandy 10 Business System, Page 12, Kilobaud Magazine (September 1978)
- ↑ Advert: Tandy 10, ,St. Petersburg Times - Dec 8, 1978, Page 12C,
- ↑ Here are some pics of the Tandy 10 16K RAM board. As you can see, the board consists of an array of 1Kx1 2102 RAM chips, along with some DIP switches. The DIP switches were used to configure the bank of memory for the card. The Tandy 10 had three of these cards, for a total of 48K., May 23rd, 2006, Mike Motta, Vintage Computer Forum
- ↑ Matthew Reed. "The Tandy 10". TRS-80.org. Retrieved 2015-03-17.
