I cut my teeth on a TRS-80 Model 1 with 4K of RAM. I was like 13 or so and got one in the late 70s. I learned BASIC on it, but quickly ran out of CPU and memory with the interpreted BASIC and switched to Z-80 assembler. I didn't have an assembler however, so would write out all of the Z-80 instructions by hand on paper, then, when I thought I had debugged it enough on paper, I would convert it to the hex OpCodes. At that point I would either use a small BASIC program to POKE the hex into memory and run it, or after I got a hex editor, I would use that to type in the hex values. Of course, all of this was saved to cassette tapes! If there was a bug I would go back to the paper and figure out where I went wrong. I still remember some Z-80 OpCodes to this day from the countless hours of converting assembler to hex.
One really cool way I would use to debug programs, or at least know if they were running, was to keep an AM radio next to the computer. The TRS-80/Z-80 would give off enough RF so you could "hear" the program running on the radio. In fact, you could devise loops and delays in your assembler such that you could "play" music on the radio. :-)
I did pretty much the same, although I managed to get the 16k RAM version. I've still got my old TRS-80 in the loft, eventually with the expansion box and couple of disk drives. Each single-sided 5.25" floppy held a massive 90k, then someone worked out that if you punched a timing hole in the cover in the right place you could put the floppy in upside-down and use the other side too.
Like you, I cut my teeth on the TRS-80 and wrote my first commercial program around 1982, a graphics drawing tool (written in Z80). It sold maybe a dozen copies, but was a start. I've got fond memories of EDTASM and T-BUG, the assembler and debugger.
I'm also have a similar background (although the first computer I used was my school's PDP-8i via a teletype). I still have my Model I and all the assorted accessories. I remember moving from EDTASM to Microsoft's Macro Assembler for the Z-80 assembler I write.
I didn't have an assembler however, so would write out all of the Z-80 instructions by hand on paper...
I'm glad I'm not the only one who hand-assembled like this! :) Only for me, it was several years later, on a C64 with 6502 assembly, and I had the extra step of converting the hex values to decimal for DATA statements. Assemblers cost money. And my friends were more into playing games, so none of them had an assembler I could "borrow".
I was blessed/cursed to use Radio Shack's standard cassette player/recorder with my TRS-80 Model I. You had to use the proper volume settings when loading and saving data. The settings were different for BASIC and machine code, and the volume controller was very imprecise. I enjoyed typing in programs from BASIC Computer Games but I was really happy to upgrade to a C-64 with a dedicated tape drive...
Also my dad had recently gotten into HAM radio and we had to negotiate our hobby times because of the Trash-80's RF interferance.
That's almost exactly my route to coding too - though I used the ZX Spectrum in the UK. I started with BASIC, then "assembled" programs by hand, looking up the opcodes in the back of the manual.
Even now I remember a lot of Z80 opcodes, largely as a result of hacking and patching games to get infinite lives.
I'm slowly working on building my own computer at the moment, with a real Z80 processor and an arduino to drive it. Fun stuff, but I've stalled for the past few months.
My first computer of any sort was a Tandy Color Computer that I got in the early 90's on clearance at Radio Shack using birthday & Christmas gift money.
I think it cost $75, and I paid an extra few dollars for some old Basic programming books & a few cartridges with games. It was my first experience with programming, and I remember this fun sense of excitement when learning very simple "hacks" like the infinite loop:
10 print "Name"
20 goto 10
I had no storage, no disk drive, everything was lost when I powered off, and the games were awful (compared to NES & SNES) but it was a foundational experience for me. Good times.
It was even better than that, if my recollection is correct. Those computers came with a very readable BASIC tutorial book at no extra charge (at least for the CoCo 1 and 2). I still remember the cartoon computer character that was your teacher in the illustrations. Those books are how I first learned to program.
Much better for me because I had a cassete tape drive where I could save my programs. It had a counter. I kept a piece of paper with the counter numbers so I could fast forward/rewind to get to specific programs I'd saved on tape.
I made games on it. When BASIC wasn't fast enough for what I wanted to do I looked into Assembly. I sent snail mail to Motorola asking where I could buy the 6809E assembler manual, and they sent me one for free.
I never had a TRS-80, so I didn't know that absolute craziness with the lower case characters. I get that someone wanted to save money by not adding the chip for bit 6, but to add that note that you were intended to magic that bit out of thin air seems absolutely insane.
My 5th grade teacher had a TRS-80 in class and we would occasionally learn a bit of programming or (I think) take quizzes on it. This was approximately 1981, talk about ahead of his time!
Around that time I got a VIC-20 for Christmas with cassette drive, a great time to be alive.
Funny, almost a decade later in high school, I took a programming class and they were still using the same computer, a TRS-80 all-in-one. Talk about behind the times, haha.
(Recently I've found out that writing assembly on both computers was a thing, a shame no one ever told me at the time.)
I went to high school in Mississippi, my sophomore year in 1989 they still had all-in-one TRS-80s in the computer lab. They were actually good enough for learning some programming at the time.
Yes, if you had never used a computer it was probably fine, but I was disappointed I didn't get to learn anything new. Although as a teenager I appreciated being able to slack off with an easy class.
But again, no one told me assembly language (or C) even existed. Didn't learn about it until I got to college many years later. Same old 10 PRINT, 20 GOTO 10. Sheesh.
Well, my first computer was an Osbourne back in 81, and we had an PC XT at home, so I wasn’t really impressed either. But for most of the kids, even BASIC was really new to them, not to mention Pascal. I would say those kinds of barebone computing experiences would even be valuable today, especially today, no distractions. I’m thinking about getting an 8-bit computer for my son’s bedroom :).
The teachers knew less than people like us did anyways, I’m not sure what they could have taught us.
Cool, we do have a R-Pi with a simple Linux distro on it. Fewer, although not completely zero distractions. Maybe a terminal-only machine has just the right amount?
> The teachers knew less…
Generally that's the case, but it's possible these were pretty sharp, the first teacher was decades ahead for example. It was his computer he brought in. The second teacher, was also my Physics teacher, although I don't have strong memories in that class.
Just remembered—did ask him why I couldn't copy music from my compact discs to the computer, since they were digital? And he gave me a "should be theoretically possible" answer, haha. Many years before multimedia.
That’s one beautiful case. Really impressive documentation too. I have some Tandy nostalgia: my first computer was a “Sensation” from RadioShack. 486sx processor that we needed to add an after market math co-processor to for floating point so I could run Calagari TrueSpace.
The TRS-80 Model 1 was the first computers the local community college had. I was in HS and my dad was teaching the computer classes. They did earn their name Trash 80, but they were for the most part good, solid machines. I think we got them because someone else didn't want them anymore. It would interesting to find out how learning on those machines affected the students.
(I could go for a modern clone of the Model 100)
[edit: also the parallel (or serial? haven't looked in a while) port switcher so everyone could print is still in the equipment room, older than many of the current students]
There were around 6 different incompatible lines of computers sold under the TRS-80 brand. Within each line there were multiple models with varying degrees of compatibility with each other.
Yes, I found that out the hard way when I got a Tandy on clearance with a few Basic books, and would type out example programs for an hour or so only to have some of them not work due to some incompatibility. It was probably still a good learning experience though.
My first "real computer" (not counting the "computer" in the Milton Bradley Big Trak - though it was a form of Logo programming, I suppose) was a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 - in 1984.
My parents got it for me after I showed an interest in the Apple IIe computer that was wheeled around my elementary school at the time (yes - one computer for the whole school, each teach got it "checked out" once a month - it ended up being so popular, that the teachers later gave up their break room for the kids to have a "computer room" to learn in, completely outfitted by Apple and donations).
Anyhow - I had a TV for a monitor, cassette tape for storage, and a few cartridges (Canyon Climber and Reactoid were my favorite - though later in my teenage years I would discover Dungeons of Daggorath).
I typed in tons of BASIC programs from magazines and books, and yes - finding things incompatible was both frustrating, but informative. I took to learning how to convert between BASICs - GWBasic, PCjr BASIC, and AppleSoft Basic were all fairly easy - for the most part - to convert from so as to run on the Color Computer.
Forget anything for the C=64 or Vic-20, as most of them used tons of POKEs and the special sprite hardware to get anything done, and were (for a kid) impossible to understand what was going on or being done.
I also learned how to convert some code from Fortran to BASIC - I had found a book of graphics code in Fortran, and wanted to run the programs myself...so I learned.
Later, I found a book that detailed how to convert BASIC programs from one system to another; that also assisted me. But ultimately, it was a case of trial and error, tons of reading about the different systems graphics modes, etc.
I still own all of my old computers; I'll keep 'em until I die, I suppose.
I wonder if there's a modern equivalent to this discovery process? I mean that low level systems that require diy and exploration are more thin on the ground. Even a $35 raspberry pi has layers of abstraction many layers higher, and the fact that tablets and phones are much more frequently the first personal computer a kid may own means they don't even need to be exposed to diy systems like the pi, whereas a few decades ago there was no choice.
Don't get me wrong, access to tech is much better, and that's great. I just think it's a different experience than in the past. Not necessarily bad, just... Different
The 'color computer' was not sold as a business machine as much as the rest of the TRS80 line was. It also had 64K of RAM out of the box but you had to pull some tricks to release the upper 32K (copy the ROM to the upper part of the RAM). I owned a Dragon and worked for 'Tandy', the name Radio Shack used in Europe. Good times!
I cut my teeth on a TRS-80 Model 1 with 4K of RAM. I was like 13 or so and got one in the late 70s. I learned BASIC on it, but quickly ran out of CPU and memory with the interpreted BASIC and switched to Z-80 assembler. I didn't have an assembler however, so would write out all of the Z-80 instructions by hand on paper, then, when I thought I had debugged it enough on paper, I would convert it to the hex OpCodes. At that point I would either use a small BASIC program to POKE the hex into memory and run it, or after I got a hex editor, I would use that to type in the hex values. Of course, all of this was saved to cassette tapes! If there was a bug I would go back to the paper and figure out where I went wrong. I still remember some Z-80 OpCodes to this day from the countless hours of converting assembler to hex.
One really cool way I would use to debug programs, or at least know if they were running, was to keep an AM radio next to the computer. The TRS-80/Z-80 would give off enough RF so you could "hear" the program running on the radio. In fact, you could devise loops and delays in your assembler such that you could "play" music on the radio. :-)