Jona Vark wrote:

With respect to the TRS-80. Apparently it wasn't that fine of a machine. It
has been gone for decades. Although I was an Apple / Commodore / IBM / Atari
developer in the early 80's I was never asked to consider any products for
the TRS-80 because , other than a few features that you mention, it was a
miserable piece of trash. I believe it earned the nickname Trash-80 rather
quickly.

RS sold a bunch of machines. They had the Z-80-based Model I, III, and IV,
which ran TRSDOS, their proprietary OS. You could also get a third party
OS called NEWDOS-80. These were single-threaded machines with an OS that
was about on the same level as CP/M although without the easily reconfigured
BIOS (since it never needed to be ported to other hardware).

They also had the Model II, which was a standard CP/M machine that could
run everybody's CP/M code. It was basically sold to small businesses
rather than as a home machine, after RS realized that a lot of the I machines
were going into small businesses and that there was a market there. It
also had a Z-80.

Then they had the Color Computer, which was a 6809-based machine. It ran
only an interpreted BASIC without any real OS (much like the Apple and
Atari), but the 6089 was surprisingly powerful and had a multiply.

For larger small business applications, they sold the Model-16, which was
a real 16-bit computer with a 68000, running Xenix and able to support a
number of terminals. It was pretty cheaply built by DEC standards, but
it was a lot cheaper than the comparable DEC product, and a lot of them got
used in things like point of sale applications, small press publishing, etc.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Jona Vark wrote:

With respect to the TRS-80. Apparently it wasn't that fine of a machine.
It
has been gone for decades. Although I was an Apple / Commodore / IBM /
Atari
developer in the early 80's I was never asked to consider any products
for
the TRS-80 because , other than a few features that you mention, it was a
miserable piece of trash. I believe it earned the nickname Trash-80
rather
quickly.

RS sold a bunch of machines. They had the Z-80-based Model I, III, and
IV,
which ran TRSDOS, their proprietary OS. You could also get a third party
OS called NEWDOS-80. These were single-threaded machines with an OS that
was about on the same level as CP/M although without the easily
reconfigured
BIOS (since it never needed to be ported to other hardware).

They also had the Model II, which was a standard CP/M machine that could
run everybody's CP/M code. It was basically sold to small businesses
rather than as a home machine, after RS realized that a lot of the I
machines
were going into small businesses and that there was a market there. It
also had a Z-80.

Then they had the Color Computer, which was a 6809-based machine. It ran
only an interpreted BASIC without any real OS (much like the Apple and
Atari), but the 6089 was surprisingly powerful and had a multiply.

For larger small business applications, they sold the Model-16, which was
a real 16-bit computer with a 68000, running Xenix and able to support a
number of terminals. It was pretty cheaply built by DEC standards, but
it was a lot cheaper than the comparable DEC product, and a lot of them
got
used in things like point of sale applications, small press publishing,
etc.

Yes.. I remember the model line.. all history now as they failed to create
computers, operating systems and applications that could compete with
Microsoft. You were apparently quite taken with them. We used to think of
them as the nerd's computers.. And from the look of things you may have been
a nerd! Which in my mind is a good thing.







--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Jona Vark wrote:

Yes.. I remember the model line.. all history now as they failed to create
computers, operating systems and applications that could compete with
Microsoft. You were apparently quite taken with them. We used to think of
them as the nerd's computers.. And from the look of things you may have been
a nerd! Which in my mind is a good thing.

No, actually I made fun of them at the time, like I did most of the
microcomputer industry. Remember if you aren't running 36 bits,
you're not playing with a full DEC.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article ,
Bob Cain wrote:

Anyway, I'm looking for a good history of MS and Gates that
might persuade me that he is something special rather than
just lucky for being in the right place at the right time.
Recommendations appreciated.



Of course he's special. He's an incredible and ruthless capitalist who
has, quarter after quarter, year after year, shown his ****.

He was known at Harvard for being a great poker player. I think that
says it all.

Bill's sure got one big stack o' chips now, eh?? ;





David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com

Scott Dorsey wrote:

When your operating system is being compared unfavorably with a Radio Shack
product, something is really wrong.

Yeah, buddy, it means you got bad batteries!

--
ha

"Jona Vark" wrote in message


Regarding multitasking and virtual memory being 60's and
70's technology.. Well it is preposterous to claim that
the first PC OSs _should_ have had those features.

Agreed. Even IBM's OS/360 arrived on the market in 1967
without multitasking.

They only arrived with 64k!

Proper multitasking computers of the day of the first IBM PC
had megabytes or big fractions thereof. Even the PDP-11/45
which was Unix's first fully competent mult-tasking host had
256k.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Jona Vark" wrote in message


Regarding multitasking and virtual memory being 60's and
70's technology.. Well it is preposterous to claim that
the first PC OSs _should_ have had those features.

Agreed. Even IBM's OS/360 arrived on the market in 1967
without multitasking.

They only arrived with 64k!

Proper multitasking computers of the day of the first IBM PC
had megabytes or big fractions thereof. Even the PDP-11/45
which was Unix's first fully competent mult-tasking host had
256k.


true.. I was referring to the personal computers.. I remember paying $300
for 16k of static ram for my SYM1 in 78