Category Archives: Tandy / TRS-80

A Look at the Short-Lived 3-Inch Compact Floppy Disk

Posted on February 25, 2019 by Blake Patterson

I was recently listening to the latest episode of Retro Computing Roundtable podcast during which there was mention of a 3-inch floppy disk. No, not 3.5-inch, but 3-inch. These disks are known as Compact Floppy Disks (also “CF2”) and were … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple II, Atari, DOS / Win PC, Multi-Platform, Tandy / TRS-80 | 7 Comments

‘Twas No Post, But Poetry! (At 300 Baud)

Posted on February 25, 2019 by Blake Patterson

It is not every day that BBSing moves a man to poetry…. But, there are occasions where it does, as reddit user u/droid_mike proved this past weekend as r/Retrobattlestations‘ BBS Week IV competition drew to a close. The competition rules required … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple II, BBS, r/Retrobattlestations, Tandy / TRS-80 | 2 Comments

My First Taste of CGA “Composite Color”

Posted on January 6, 2019 by Blake Patterson

As a long-time Apple II users I am quite familiar with the technique of generating color video by way of NTSC “artifact color” (also sometimes referred to as “composite color”). The 8-bit Apple II series is incapable of outputting any … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS / Win PC, Tandy / TRS-80 | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Enjoying High-Res Graphics on a Text-Only TRS-80 Model 4 from 1983

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Blake Patterson

The TRS-80 Model 4, like the Model 3 which preceded it, is a curvy, all-in one computer with a 12-inch monochrome text-only display flanked on the right by two full-height 5.25-inch floppy drives, one atop the other. As a kid, … Continue reading →

Posted in Tandy / TRS-80 | 4 Comments

A Review of “CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy’s Underdog Computer”

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Blake Patterson

I love spending time sitting down and using the various vintage computer systems I’ve collected over the years, but more than that I enjoy learning new bits of history about these  systems and how they came to be. While my vintage collection … Continue reading →

Posted in Tandy / TRS-80 | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Fun with the Tandy CoCo 3

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Blake Patterson

This past week was “Radio Shack Week” at /r/RetroBattlestations, what with the bankruptcy, store closings, etc. For my contribution, I pulled out the Tandy Color Computer 3 and did my thing in the NitrOS-9 shell. (It’s a little bit more … Continue reading →

Posted in r/Retrobattlestations, Tandy / TRS-80 | 2 Comments

The Tandy CoCo to Get Its Own ‘Soul of a New Machine’

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Blake Patterson

Ever since reading The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the creation of a 32-bit minicomputer, I’ve been a hound for any such works offering behind-the-scenes looks at such periods of silicon genesis. They are, to me, … Continue reading →

Posted in News, Tandy / TRS-80 | 2 Comments

Liber809 – The Motorola 6809 Gets a New Platform

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Blake Patterson

Regular readers might recall a post a few months back that I revealed my acquisition of a Tandy Color Computer 3 system in order to spend some time with a platform I knew only through fun, long-ago sessions fiddling around … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, Tandy / TRS-80 | 1 Comment