[ Retro Scan of the Week ] TRS-80 Model 100 Video
April 2nd, 2012 by Benj Edwards
You can’t tell from the photo, but this table is actually 200 feet wide.
Since I bought my first Model 100 over a decade ago, I’ve always wanted the TRS-80 Model 100 Disk/Video Interface (a device we see here in this 1984 advertisement) to go with it. The interface not only allows you to hook your Model 100 to a TV set or monitor (80 x 25 text display!) but it also provides two floppy disk drives on which you can store your data.
In other words, that’s quite an expansion for a computer with an 8 x 40 character display and minimal RAM-based user storage that loses its contents with battery failure. It essentially converts the Model 100 — which is a light, portable machine — into a desktop PC.
Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever set up a desktop computer on your kitchen table? Tell us about it.
April 2nd, 2012 at 11:17 pm
Have I ever set up a desktop computer on my kitchen table? Yes, yes I have. During a LAN party many years ago, there were several on my kitchen table. Some on the dining room table and coffee table in the living room, as well. 😀
April 3rd, 2012 at 8:54 am
I like how the guy is still wearing his solid brown tie knocking out his work at home. It’s NEVER casual day when you’re an uber- Trash80 user!
April 3rd, 2012 at 9:51 am
Why sure! Any time gove got something strange and new to check out, first power-up is usually on the kitchen table, pending a final place for it to live. Over the many years, I’ve had compact Macs, PCs in various states of repair, and even an SGI Indigo box on my table.
April 3rd, 2012 at 11:34 am
I actually have a new PC I just finished building on my kitchen tablet right now while I wait for the new desk its going to go on.
April 5th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
My Bondi Blue iMac, which serves as my music server, has been sitting on my kitchen table for three years now…
April 8th, 2012 at 9:03 am
Let’s see… My kitchen table has been host to a Mac Pro, a PowerMac G5, a blueberry iMac G3, three different PowerBook G4’s, a PowerMac G4 Cube, two different iMac G4’s, a PowerBook G3, a Twentieth Anniversary Mac, two Centris 610’s, a Mac Classic II, a 128k Macintosh, a NeXTstation and a NeXTcube, two Commodore 64’s and a 64C, an Amiga 3000 and three Amiga 500’s…
Most of these machines I still own.
Whenever I need to set up part of my collection or to do work on a machine I head straight to the kitchen table (and the wife groans every time she sees me carrying hardware into the kitchen). 🙂
April 9th, 2012 at 5:38 am
Having a computer in the kitchen has been a dream of mine since I was a kid in the 1980s. The closest thing I have done to achieve this was to have a laptop on my kitchen counter while I cooked.
Eventually, I would like an all-in-one, touch screen PC sitting in the corner of my kitchen counter.
April 9th, 2012 at 9:09 am
I thought those all-in-one touchscreen PCs they make kind of for kitchen purposes would be neat. Especially if they had some kind of food/dirt-proof case and screen. Just mount it under the cabinet and drag it down when you need it, no more printing out recipes.
April 9th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
What kitchen table? We prep food on a table, but we eat at the computer table. where all the action is. It’s been like that since about 1990. 🙁
April 19th, 2012 at 5:01 am
well the method of having a portable computer and hooking it up to Firewire and a display at home is pretty much normal for me since 2008. I read correctly they offered it in one convenient interface? Mmmm 1985 Thunderbolt XD
Kitchen-table-computing is pretty much normal since we have laptops in the family, i think since 2003, and even before we had LAN parties all over the house, so … nothing we were even scared of with the big boxes and bulky monitors. Were fun times. Now we play via web, and i miss the company when playing games sometimes.