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[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Tandy Laptop Trio

July 18th, 2011 by Benj Edwards

Tandy Laptops - Tandy 1100FD - Tandy 1500 HD - Tandy 2800 HD - Tandy 102 Advertisement - 1990The Tandy 2800 HD, Tandy 1100FD, Tandy 102, and Tandy 1500 HD

[ From Byte, October 1990, rear cover ]

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever owned a Tandy brand computer? What model(s)?



This entry was posted on Monday, July 18th, 2011 at 1:08 pm and is filed under Computer History, Regular Features, Retro Scan of the Week, Vintage Computing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

6 Responses to “[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Tandy Laptop Trio”

  1. TheSaintOfPain Says:
    July 18th, 2011 at 1:27 pm

    The first and only Tandy computer my family ever owned was an old Tandy 1000, on which I also played my first video game, which was Hunt The Wumpus.

    I have only owned two other brand-name computers since: An IBM XT that I had for almost 10 years, until the motherboard died in 2001, and a cheap Dell Dimension B1100 that I only bought because I needed a computer quick. Otherwise, I have only owned either build-my-owns for regular use, or old and cheap ones I’d find in thrift stores to play around with.

    However, that Tandy has always held a special place in my heart, because it was where my love for both computing and video gaming came from, both hobbies that have been very big parts of my life.

  2. PWP Says:
    July 18th, 2011 at 6:17 pm

    The very first TRS-80, bought new in 1977 for $400 ( a lot of money in 1977). It had 4k (!) of RAM and I used my own cassette recorder to load software, mainly backgammon, which I really enjoyed. I also used a spare B/W TV as the display.

    I was very excited with the machine when it was new, but soon lost interest in it due to the various unreliabilities that it suffered. I didn’t stick with the Tandy line, but moved on to the Atari 400/800 later.

  3. Sir Fatty Says:
    July 19th, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    couldn’t afford one, so I used to go to RatShack, get my free battery (with my battery card) and play on the floor model. When I was old enough to have a job, I bought a c64.

  4. Donn Says:
    July 20th, 2011 at 10:24 am

    Never owned, but had a bank of TRS-80s, with the screens and vertical floppy drives on the side, in high school physics class. This was ’92-’93, so they were already pretty much dinosaurs, but they ran some simulations and statistical analysis programs in BASIC that we used for class. The more clever among us ported them to our TI-85s; already we had more computing power in our pockets than the behemoths on the table. And history repeats…

  5. Jake Says:
    August 23rd, 2011 at 10:58 am

    I have a few TRS-80 Model 100s lying around. Fantastic machines. Instant on, instant off, saves every letter you type as you type it, 32 magnificent kilobytes of battery-backed memory, monochrome LCD screen, and a fantastic keyboard.

    I also own a REX2 and a NADSBox for it, which lets me back up the 32k to flash, experimentally run CP/M, and save my lame little BASIC programs and nonsense to an SD card.

    Even 20-some years later, still an amazingly capable machine.

  6. TentativelyTandy Says:
    March 31st, 2017 at 8:43 pm

    So I have never owned a tandy. I think my first laptop ran a thin version of windows xp, and that was somewhere around a decade ago; but I ran across a 1500 hd laptop at the antique shop the other day. I was thinking of buying a battery and charger for it as an entry into retrocomputing. For $10 I don’t think there’s much to lose. My question is what might I expect to do to get it working? Maybe not the right place to be asking questions, but any push in the right direction is greatly appreciated.

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