In 1973, my daughter who had been my office manager, decided to go back to college to work on a postgraduate degree. Classical music record production is a highly specialized job, so rather than go looking for such a needle in an nonexistent haystack, I decided to fill the vacancy with a non-human: a computer! I'd been reading about these newfangled marvels, and now was the time to try one out. At the time, Radio Shack was touting its new TRS80 Model 1. The store offering the device was conveniently located in Santa Monica. I was pressed for time, so without futher ado, I bought one. $3,000 and change got me the monster, that consisted of a CPU and B&W monitor of moderate size, 2 outboard 5-1/4" floppy drives (one for the operating system, the other for running programs). For storage, a cassette player, operating at 1-7/8 ips was provided. The ribbon printer - if I'm not mistaken, it was made by IBM - occupied half of my good-sized desk and weighed a ton. The entire house resonated with its clatter when it ran.
So far, so good. I was excited: on the cusp of new technology, as befits a progressive-minded fellow. Little did I suspect that behind the humorous, cartoon- and banter-filled pages of the instruction manual lurked a red-eyed monster. The learning curve for this system, deceptively written in BASIC (something-or-other Instruction Code) was steep. As in the Himalayas. Either that, or I was hopelessly stupid. I became deeper and deeper immersed, filling in pages of my notes to explain their notes. I learned to forgo my favorite late-night 'Dragnet' (goodbye, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan!), and would wake up groggy-eyed in the mornings, none the wiser. It turned out that Radio Shack did not stand behind the product they sold: how to use it was up to the unsuspecting buyer. The only help offered was a recommend- ation to consult some people out in the San Fernando Valley who "wrote software".
Come again?
Software. You know, the code that tells the computer what to do.
Was'nt that supposed to come with the computer?
Noooo...that's a whole different ballgame.
That is how I was initiated into the zeros and ones world of software: I called the number they gave me at RS, and two fellows showed up for a consultation. They examined the computer, ran a few checks and test- programs, and took notes. The programs that came with the computer were declared invalid and unuseable. New software - far better - would have to be custom-made for me. One for inventory, one for accounts, another for correspondence, et cetera. With the abundance of such soft- ware available now (much of it free!), it's hard to believe, but that is how it was back then. Giving up was not an option, so we forged ahead. It would take a "couple of weeks" to put the programs together, I was told. In the interim (having made copies), I made the best of what I had on hand, and even learned some tricks that were not included in the manual. For diversion, I tried the bouncing-ball type of games that were built in. They worked flawlessly! Amazing how much 32 bytes(!) of memory can do.
As I feared, the new programs (to the tune of I forget how many hundreds of $) were not perfect. They'd often hang up, freeze the computer, and otherwise elevate my blood pressure. The path to my software gurus in the Valley became so familiar I could drive it in my sleep. I'd drop off the discs and go shopping while my friends would "debug" them. All this while, I was learning - the hard way - how to get around the pitfalls of this inadequate equipment, and make the best of a bad situation. If Radio Shack ever came out with a Model 2, I did not want to hear about it, since they took no returns or trade-ins. At that point, whenever the subject of The Beast came up, the missus would shake her head sadly. To make light of the matter, I joked that TR might hint at Tar-Baby. No, she smiled: TRash is more likely the answer. In short, I was ready for a change.
Through the grapevine I'd heard of a portable(!) self-contained and powerful computer made by Osborne. This model was all the rage at the time, so I went to have a look. The machine - about the size of a large typewriter - weighed in at 35 lbs. Hardly a laptop, yet it had more memory (64 kb!), 2 two built-in floppy drives, and came with a ready-to-run suite of programs. The tiny 5-inch monitor (with an unattractive orange background) was an invitation to myopia, so an outboard ten-inch monitor ($100) was a prerequisite extra. The Osborne was still no panacea, and had its own unique set of chronic problems.
