pski

In 1977 the demand was so great that the TRS-80 was selling itself. The number of backorders surprised everyone at Tandy Radio Shack. You'd be lucky to find even a demo model in your local Radio Shack until 1978.

Thanks for posting about the Model II. It is nice to see some appreciation for this machine. There were a lot of business software packages written in Model II BASIC that supported many different businesses in the 1980s. From accounting to inventory control, databases, tax software....you name it. It was a real workhorse in these settings due to some of the advanced qualities that you have articulated. I have seen the 40 col mode used a few times in kiosk oriented applications where the larger type makes sense. But, yes, it was not widely used. The Graphics board was another feature that was barely used, even by Tandy themselves, unfortunately. It provides high quality graphics capability for the time.

TRS-80 Trash Talk Live #24 will be taking place on Saturday, April 30th at 9pm Eastern. We'll be covering all the news and current events happening in the TRS-80 vintage computer community. Please get in touch to receive an invite to the interactive Zoom meeting if you'd like to actively participate. It's so much more fun to join via Zoom so please do ask for an invite via our email address or social media channels. We will also be streaming the meeting on our YouTube channel for those that just would like to watch. See you on April 30th! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXkGugvdCkpkMDylVQb9gfg

Someone should create a registry of games that run on Level I.

Many machine language games should run just fine on a Level 1 system as long as they do not use ROM calls. For example, my games Breakdown and RoundUp! work just fine on a L1 16K machine. Even Big 5 games like Galaxy Invasion will run on a Level 1. So give some of your favorite games a try.

TRS-80 Trash Talk Live #23 will be taking place Saturday, March 26th at 5pm Eastern. We'll be covering all the news and current events in the TRS-80 vintage computer community. Join TRS-80 enthusiasts from around the world as we discuss the computers we love to collect and work on! Please get in touch to receive an invite to the interactive Zoom meeting if you'd like to actively participate. We will also be streaming the meeting on our YouTube channel. See you on March 26th! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXkGugvdCkpkMDylVQb9gfg

TRS-80 Trash Talk Live #22 will be taking place this Saturday, February 26th at 9pm Eastern. We'll be covering all the news and current events in the TRS-80 vintage computer community. Join TRS-80 enthusiasts from around the world as we discuss the computers we love to collect and work on! Please get in touch to receive an invite to the interactive Zoom meeting if you'd like to actively participate. We will also be streaming the meeting on our YouTube channel and on our Facebook Page. See you on Feb 26th! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXkGugvdCkpkMDylVQb9gfg https://www.facebook.com/trs80trashtalk

Shameless self promotion. https://pski.net/2021/03/21/roundup-is-a-new-game-for-the-trs-80-model-i-iii-and-4/ https://pski.net/breakdown-a-new-trs-80-game/

TRS-80 Trash Talk Live #19 will be taking place on Saturday, November 6th at 5pm Eastern. We'll be talking about all the news and current events in the TRS-80 community, including a review of Tandy Assembly 2021 and the release of the newest TRS-80 game from Nick Marentes called "Gem Hunter". Please get in touch to receive an invite to the interactive Zoom meeting if you'd like to actively participate. We will also be streaming the meeting on our YouTube channel and on our Facebook Page. See you on Saturday evening! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXk...kpkMDylVQb9gfg https://www.facebook.com/trs80trashtalk

I had to reply to this old thread because it just popped up on the list. Regarding the Model II bashing I've read on some of these posts. The Model II line was far, far from a failure. The Model II family ran for 10 years. Of course it did not sell as many units as the smaller TRS-80s or Apples or Commodores. This was a workstation class machine meant for medium sized businesses and serious technical environments. In one year, the Model 16B was the most popular Unix based workstation by sales across the industry! The 8" floppy drives offered multiple times the storage capacity of comparable 5.25 drives for most of the lifetime of the series. This was a critical feature for data intensive workloads for which the machine was intended. Of course, by 1988 it was hopelessly outdated. This was a time of rapid progress in the microcomputer industry. The Model II line was a success by any measure.

There was even a DeskMate for Tandy 6000 XENIX! https://github.com/pski/model2archive/tree/master/Software/Xenix/260-6405 - DeskMate - Model 6000

For an easy floppy emulator upgrade I suggest going with the HxC. It is a direct plug-in replacement for the Tandon drives. You will only need a 34pin ribbon cable to connect the HxC to your Model III's floppy controller. The HxC will support 2 drives so you will will only need the one device. It is more costly than the Gotek, but it is easier to use out of the box with no firmware flashing required.

TRS-80 Trash Talk Live #16 is this Saturday June 26 at 9pm Eastern This is our monthly virtual gathering of TRS-80 and Tandy enthusiasts from all over the world. PM me for the Zoom details or watch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXkGugvdCkpkMDylVQb9gfg

Those DIN connectors are a real pita to solder. I usually just buy a preassembled cable and snip it in half for two uses.

I'm curious. Can you describe your setup? I didn't think there were native TRS-80 telnet options other than using the M3SE.