TRS-80 (Tandy Radio Shack Z80) | TechMuseum
Year of manufacture: 1977-1981
Technical Specifications:
- Processor: Zilog Z80, 1.7 MHz
- RAM: 4-16 KB
- FDD: –
- HDD: –
- Audio: no buit-in speaker
- Connectors/Ports: external, expansion interface box (parallel printer port, cassette connector)
- Case: Keyboard type
- Monitor: Monochrome
- OS: TRSDOS, LDOS, NewDos/80
The Tandy TRS-80 features a Zilog Z80 processor at 1.77 MHz and memory of 4-16kB. It ran with the operating system of TRSDOS, LDOS, NewsDOS/80 version.
Tandy Corporation was one of the first manufacturers – among Commodore and Apple – to introduce the pre assembled microcomputer back in 1977. The company’s best selling product line was from the computer division market, the infamous TRS-80, until the IBM PC became commonplace. Many early computers had a design and manufacture according to the TRS-80.
During those decades, Tandy Radio Shack became very competitive and after meeting the grand commercial success, started banning non Tandy products from the Tandy-owned stores. That slowed the company’s growth, that once reached as high as 60% market share. Even some models of Tandy adopted the IBM PC architecture, while others had the Kyocera platform, like other rivals.
That was just a snapshot on the presentation of the techmuseum series. Indulge more into the history. Continue reading more about the present model, the TRS-80 here.
PC.GR
The history of personal computers
Explore this exhibit with the video guide, which opens the PC.gr presentation in a video window.
