...Radio Shack was peddling the absolute cat's ass in computers. I was just looking for something in the garage and stumbled across my old 1983 Radio Shack computer catalogue. This 24-year-old document has become tattered and beaten, so I decided to scan the entire thing and upload it onto the internet for posterity. In short, I turned my scanner into a time machine.
You will be amazed at the specifications of these computers, but even more amazing was the prices they were commanding. Think somebody would be nuts to drop $5k on a top-of-the-line, quad-core gaming machine with the latest in dual video cards, gigabytes of RAM, Terabytes of HDD with RAID up the wazoo, Blue-Ray optical storage, and all the other goodies? Well, to paraphrase BTO: Baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
You can view the entire catalogue by visiting http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page1.jpg - simply replace the page1.jpg with page2.jpg and so-on up to page 64. I haven't actually put together the web page that will showcase this computing archeological gem, so you'll have to view the images manually by doing the above.
Of course, you'll need a preview:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page4.jpg)
Ain't she a beaut? And of course, no computer would be complete without external storage (note the specs for the above machine are in the image below, too - 6 MHZ, BEYOTCH!):
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page5.jpg)
And of course, you wouldn't be content with showing text only, so the graphical upgrade would be a must. Imagine being able to display high-resolution images at a bling-bling 640X240 resolution! Of course you're only gonna get green images (colour not available) but what do you expect for only $699?
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page8.jpg)
And of course those bulky 8" floppy disks are a pain to carry around with you and feed into the computer, so you'll want the external hard disk option with an amazing 8.4MB storage capacity (Think about it - a full-length MP3 of Inna Godda Davita encoded at 160KBPS would fill this sucker, but that doesn't matter because the thing couldn't output data fast enough to actually play the song anyway). Why at that amazing low price of $6299 you'll want two or three (you even get the secondary drives for the bargain of $4995!):
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page9.jpg)
Now with those snazzy graphics and that big ol' hard drive you'll need a printer (note the weight in the specifications):
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page20.jpg)
If that's too rick for your blood you can go with the affordable model:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page23.jpg)
But of course, as with many things, you can get a deal if you buy a package :
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page13.jpg)
Now, who could pass up a deal like that???
Now then, all of that computer ain't much good if you can't do anything with it, so you'll need software:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page17.jpg)
...and of course you'll need a modem to view your favourite forums:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page46.jpg)
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page47.jpg)
...And for the road warrior, you CAN take it with you:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page48.jpg)
And of course, all work and no play yadda yadda yadda, so you'll need games (PS3 eat your heart out):
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page52.jpg)
Wow!!
Naturally, you'll need something to keep all that hardware off the floor. The solution? Add the word "computer" to the word "desk" and charge seven times what it's worth (plus options):
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page45.jpg)
...And not everybody uses their printer for graphics, so we have an affordable text-only printer:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page24.jpg)
...But if you do need graphics, you can get yourself a nice colour plotter (not sure what use this would be with a computer that can't, y'know, display colour, but whatever:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page26.jpg)
And those mighty expensive disk drives aren't much good without media:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/radioshack/page30.jpg)
I got a TRS-80 Color Computer II for my sixth birthday.
Zaxxon ownz j00!!11!
Um....that scares me...I'm listening to that song right now :grinno:
Anyways yeah...512,000 character storage!!! WOW
i learned on a trash80:grinno:
remember casette drives? That was the big shabang for storage. Are they worth anything today? neighbor has one in the attic.
anyone remember COBOL or FORTRAN as well as doing BASIC?
hey, i had a trash 80 too...... radio shack used to be the shiznit!!!
"Deluxe Features: 12" green video display"
OoOoOoOoOoO haha
Almost makes me miss the ole commodore 64... almost
Scott
wow...and people NOWADAYS wanna piss an' moan about how expensive computers are..? :grinno:
Yes and yes...
They were still teaching FORTRAN when I was in college....
I remember back in HS having to use the cassettes for storage too.
Man that was a long time ago :p
I learned BASIC in high school, on a Commodore 64. We had cassette drives there. I bought a C64 for home to continue learning BASIC and some machine language. My buddy had the same setup except he had the cool 200-baud modem for his. Anyone remember that? It was like a cradle for a standard phone handset...really goofy. We used to browse our local bulletin board all the time.
For some reason I have semi-fond memories of all that...
I remember the PET computers in school
What was the next one better then the commodore 64 was it something like commodore 128.
The computer I used way back then was a Texas Instruments TI99/4A with the tape drive. It was around about grade four. We used a program called "Logo" to draw and animate things. I was entranced. We had no end of fun with the error messages the thing would put out, too - instead of Microsoft's bland "Bad command or file name" and "file not found" it would say "Tell me how to..."
We, being a bunch of fourth-graders, saw much humour in having the computer ask us to "Tell me how to (insert random disgusting bodily function here)".
In high school it was Apple II GS machines first, then 8086 DOS boxes, then 80286 DOS boxes. We learned PASCAL on all of 'em, and to this day the only PASCAL command I remember is "CLS"
Interesting...I'd love to have seen that. The first real "drawing" program I used was in college. It was loaded on the university's mainframe and was accessible only from one particular room in the building. It was called Dr. Halo (vII and III). Dr. Halo II had a whopping 16 colors...vIII had 64. We thought we were in heaven when we stepped up to that one LOL. But we had to draw things pixel by pixel in a blown-up mode. Really strange. But we did also have a wax-thermal color printer for output. I still have the Cougar drawing printouts from that. This was about fall 1987 and things were still sort of falling into place for designers. The next semester we had the Mac lab installed and, as they say, the rest was history. Even though they were black-and-white, they were a dream to me. Changeable fonts...woohoo! LOL
trivia,, where did that program get its name?
more trivia
the term "BUG" came from ?
Dunno about LOGO, but I do know "bug" came from, well, bugs. pen 15-a-rooches in a computer IIRC
To the wiki!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug#Etymology
Remember making cards for family on the computers at school. It was on a regular piece of paper then you would fold the paper in 1/4. Man I thought that was awesome back then.
mmm...dot matrix goodness!
Hey, I had a class on BASIC in the 6th grade, and I'm only 25. I also remember them printing off those big banners on the dot matrix computers back then...took all day to print one.
My, how times have changed.
I guess the term "Bug" came from Grace Hopper messing with a printer and getting nuts when they know a little bug interfering with the communication between a machine and the printer....
I started some years ago with basic. I guess it is the best programming languague for beginners-even for those dont like computers. Pretty simple...
Im still reading all the catalog, very interesting things. A printer weighting 79 lbs would kill a man. For an entire system, i guess you have a Superduty to carry all that heavy machinery....
For 17,999 bucks, you can buy now a G5 with 8 gigs of Ram, with the best of the best of the best technology....
The term "bug" came about from a moth getting crushed in a relay switch I believe it was? in one of the first computers.
I lurnded that from the history channel:dunce:
Wikipedia>History Channel
Sad thing is, I remember trading up TO a Trash80.:shoothead
How in the hell did they go to the moon with that tech? xD
O, to have a time machine.... *ponders*
Reminds me, I have a huge box of that endless printer paper, I have no Idea what to do with it. Maybe paper a house on halloween?
Scott
, an 80# printer!
THE "BUG"
some airforce woman named grace hopper or Harper,, was the first to dub the "bug" in association with her nick name "grass hopper".,,
Anyway, she found and fixed the first actual software bug perse'
been a while but that was one of the many things i remember from highschool computer class.
"LOGO"
The first internet message ,,,,,Which failed ,,so they say.
There were two computers networked together with what was considered a great distance between both terminals. There was a "server" perse and the other guy was on the other end. What ever he typed was instantly visible on the other end.
So,, dude man was getting ready to perform the very first "internet" or Web traffic ever done and typed "LOGON". A basic command prompt terminology which shold not have wrecked the system but did.
The only letters that reached the other end was "LOGO" and the system crashed.
and then gave birth to "LOGO"
I learned to type in 5th grade on an apple IIe. In 8th grade we got a whole new lab of beige G3's and the first run of imac's... oh the intarweb was heaven.
And to add to this. It always amused me to see classmates with dirt under there nails and horse shiznit on there bootshiznitting 60wpm in junior high.
more trivia
the term "BUG" came from ?[/QUOTE]
The "BUG" is from the first generation computers, where is a lot of mechanical parts like a relays, ect, when a REAL bug traveled on the computer, this was stop the computer or whatever, since when the new computer stuck or whatever, it called again BUG...
Right?...:dunce:
I guessed It's right because I see on TV 15years ago on first computer, and that was explaination...
:sorry:
My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 with 2k or 4k of memory (don't remember exactly) and a ****!n datasette, "press play on tape" wahahhaahhaha!...
My first IBM compatible was a TANDY EX with a 5.25 on the side, this TANDY was more than compatible with My toaster:grinno:
Funny to see these old ads from Tandy, Radio ShOck eheh!:dunce:
Hello fellow Commodorian. I also had the VIC-20 (still do at my parents house). Still also have a shoebox full of cassette tapes with programs on them. My friend had the more powerful Commodore 64. The graphics were so much better on it than the VIC-20. Did you ever get COMPUTE magazine? I used to subscribe to it and type in the programs at the end of magazine. Ah, the glory days.
In 6th grade, we had a Atari 600 (I believe). I used to use the Atari version of COMPUTE to type in programs (mostly games). It would take about 3 days to type it all in (hunt-n-peck).
On up to 7th/8th grade, we improved our BASIC skills on the Apple ][. This time we were creating pictures by setting each pixel. I went a step further and started animating my pictures and creating routines to 'move' my pixels around the screen. The one everyone liked was when I had created a 'mine shaft' and you were falling though it.
My high school years were on a Apple ][ e and Apple ][ gs. Ahh, extensive BASIC programming. I then went on to hacking into our school diskettes. We each had one in programming class that had a passcode you had to enter to access the disk. I finally figured out the POKE command to invert the screen and it would display in the top middle. I even found a way to pull up a program from one disk and save it to a different one. The program that was used prevented someone from changing disks.
Then I really stepped into changing times. I joined the Marine Corps and they taught me COBOL programming on the mainframe. What a freaking nightmare. To this day, I will be forever haunted by the missing . within a program! 4 months of training and I get to my first station......NO MAINFRAME!!!! From there a friend of mine taught me dBase programming, then Clipper, FoxPro for DOS, FoxPro for Windows.
That's where the saga ends. Now I do things other than sit in front of my computer all day looking at message boards. :grinno:
When I started grammar school in 91 we had Apple IIe computers that lasted us for a long time. I went to a catholic grammar school so they couldn't buy new computers because they couldn't afford it. Some of the computers had green screans, you were lucky if you got a color one :grinno: . They had a game called Oregon Trail on them. It was the best game ever :cool: ! When I got to the 8th grade (99-00) they finally got the same high tech computers that most of the students had at home: windows 98 machines with 56k modems woooohooo.
oh boy, i hate to do this and switchup subjects,, i have a working Phillco floor model radio. I also have a nifty source for tubes if anyone is interested.
It has a 78 turn table also. Dad sat infront of it and listened to germany bombing poland during wwII. Back then i guess radios were the internet, thanks to Marconi and the first wireless telecommunications in 1901.
OH MAN!! I remember that! Me and my friends played every chance. Oh the memories......
*You die of malaria*
From now on I will choose to "ford the river". Even if it leads to my demise.
And speaking of old things, there is a Rockola jukebox in my parents garage. Plays 45's and it's got a bunch of badass rock on it.
I want a garage of my own so i can claim it.
I'd always have my family die of disese because I didn't buy medicine. Instead I bought bullits to shoot those squirls. Every time I forded the river I would sink and someone would die. That game kicked ass :grinno:
i still have my apple ][e the lights dim when I power it up I used that thing all thru college to write up papers and the like all the while learing the joys of Dos and windows 3.1
just think of all the things like this that started out as a fad to most people or a rich persons toy and have become mainstream then think of all the other stuff that was supposed to revaltionize the world and never caught on
thank GOD that they invented Floam
*Susie has chicken pox*
*Susie breaks her leg*
*You run out of bullets*
*An oxe dies*
*A wagon wheel breaks*
*Bobby drownes while fording the river*
*Your family is hungry*
*again you die of malaria*
Ah what it would have been like to be on the oregon trail.
When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail, his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather, roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.
I remember when I was in sixth grade around '91 or so. They would let us go to the computer lab for thirty minutes once a week and play Oregon Trail on the Apples there.
I remember saying to my teacher once, "I'll never make it to Oregon in half an hour!"
Ah the innocent days of youth...
You ever get the *Bandits steel your food and kill Bobby* message?
We got 45 minutes to get to Oregon every Friday :grinno:
10 Do You remember basic Yes No?
20 If 10 equals yes then goto 30 If no then goto 40
30 Hell yeah i remember basic
40 end
Yes i remember basic.
this whole thread just goes to show how old some of us really are :D
hey, we bought WARGAMES for my son to see... he loves it.... talk about 80's "top tier" technology...... "would you like to play a game?"
Is VBA out dated or what? I was just took a class on VBA last semester and it sounds a lot like FORTRAN.
sticky this in the computer section please,, threads seem to get burried quickly nowadays.