Tandy TRS 80

When you will first lay your eyes on a Tandy TRS 80, you will notice something is missing! You might ask, “Where’s the CPU?”

Well, it’s under the Keyboard!

Tandy TRS 80 was a desktop microcomputer sold in the late 1970s at Radio Shack stores. It came out just in time to give some serious competition to established brand names such as Apple II and Commodore Pet.

At $600, it was Tandy’s most expensive offering to date and its experimental style warranted a lot of uncertainty about its sales. But this Tandy computer proved to be runaway success. More than 10,000 units were sold in the first month alone. Home users, gamers and small businesses alike embraced it. The complete package of a Tandy TRS 80 included a keyboard, TV screen to be used as a monitor and cassette storage.

Two version of this Tandy computer were released. The first ones had a level I BASIC with a 4K RAM and no numeric keypads. Later systems were more attuned to business use and carried an improved level II BASIC with 16K RAM and a numeric keypad.

The earlier version had some inherent limitations; to counter these, Tandy released an extension pack. This $300 expansion interface was visually attractive and sat under the monitor. It offered many improvements such as a printer port, up to 32K additional RAM, a floppy disk controller for up to four disk drives etc.

However, the pack wasn’t perfect. The connections between the keyboard and expansion interface weren’t always very unreliable and caused regular system lock ups. The only solution was to weld the connections making them inseparable! Quirks like these had some unhappy users calling it “Trash-80”.

TRS-80 wasn’t really a portable computer but that didn’t stop Tandy from creating official carry cases for the PC, made available at Radio Shack.

TRS 80 was discontinued in 1981 after having sold more than 250,000 units.

Tandy 1000 succeeded it but it turned out to be Tandy’s last attempt at computer manufacturing. Tandy 1000 also replaced the CoCo line of 8-bit computers.

Many TRS-80 models II and I survive today. They’re among the less expensive units you’ll see on eBay. If you have one of these old models, you’re lucky because there are many computer enthusiasts waiting to take it off your hands.