Time to start the Challenge!

It's time to start the next retro-challenge! Unfortunately my retro-challenge won't be official, because there isn't one going on right now. However, it's the 25th Anniversary of my favorite retro computer, and I think now is a great time to give it some coverage.

It's called the Tandy 102, and it's an upgrade of the very famous and popular TRS-80 Model 100 laptop. I bought mine about a year ago off Ebay, and at the time I paid about $25 for it.

And of course, it's retro- the first Model 100's rolled off the production lines back in March of 1983. My model was introduced in 1986.

The main difference between a Model 100 and the Tandy 102 is mainly cosmetic. The 102 is slightly smaller, thinner, and also more durable. The 102 also has (IMHO) a much nicer keyboard, which is not nearly as noisy as the ones on the Model 100's. The unit only weighs a couple pounds, a mere feather compared with any modern laptop.

The 102 is also built like a tank. I have dropped mine down flights of stairs, spilled boiling liquids on it, exposed it to temperatures of nearly 35 below zero in the depths of the frigid Minnesota winter, and even accidentally squashed it underneath a pile of heavy books and a couple of loaded suitcases. It still works. In fact, the thing not only works, but still looks great too!


The displays on these beasts are very nice. They aren't very big, but they are readable in almost any light, and have an easy adjustment knob which can make them readable from nearly any angle as well. This picture is a close-up of the display, which as you can see is black and white only.

These machines are also the last machines on which Bill Gates actually wrote any operating system code, and it shows. The software boots instantaneously on power up, and I have NEVER had anything crash. Ever. Take that Windows! Of course, the software is also very gracefully simple, and does alot of thing without needing to install a single piece of software. There is an address book, scheduler, text editor, a Telecom software with a simple terminal, and of course, a realtime BASIC interpreter. I use the text editor on a daily basis to take notes for all my classes. If you look closely at the picture above you can see the programs I mentioned on the menu. I have two documents displayed there too, the files that end with the extension ".DO" The file called "TEENY.CO" is my uploading software, which lets me link to a regular computer with a serial port and transfer data back and forth.

The data transfer is critical if you plan on using this machine for more than a few days, because the best the machine can handle is 32Kb of data. (yes, that's KILOBYTES, not megabytes) The data storage is in a battery-backed RAM, which can power itself for roughly a few months without being powered on. Since all you data is in RAM you never have to save- it simply stays put until you move it or delete it. So, if I'm typing away and by batteries die I don't have to worry; all my data is perfectly safe.

Furthermore, this computer is the only one I know of which can run for a full 20 hours off it's batteries. No joke. And it only uses 4 AA's. Of course, for all you green people out there you can use rechargeable batteries which are easy to recycle that way. And of course, you can also use a wall adaptor.

Of course, it also comes with everything else you'd expect from a computer of its era and lineage. It can save to a cassette drive, or an optional Tandy Portable Disk Drive, which also runs off AA batteries. It has a printer port, an RS-232 port, a 'blazingly fast' built-in 300 baud modem, and even an expansion port for a barcode reader. And of course, no laptop would be complete without an awesome leather slipcase.