Posted on: Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Wired In
Looking back on the PC's early days
By Edward C. Baig
USA Today
"Amazing Telephone Breakthrough! Cordless Handset Gives You 'Walk & Talk' Convenience Without Tangling Cords!"
Don't worry, this isn't a report about decades-old technology. It's a headline from a 1981 RadioShack catalog. With the PC turning 20 this month, now is a ripe opportunity to take a spin down memory lane.
Indeed, RadioShack's 1981 catalog provides a fascinating snapshot of the stuff that had gadget lovers licking their chops 20 years ago.
Here's how the catalog actually explained computers: "Can be programmed to repeat the same function over and over."
"It is to the mind what the lever is to the arm — a machine capable of multiplying effectiveness." RadioShack's famous line of TRS-80 computers already was a leader in a growing market. It was introduced in 1977 as the company's first product to cost more than $500.
Which points out that this 20th birthday is bogus. While the first IBM personal computer came out in 1981, Apple, Atari, Commodore and RadioShack had been making home computers for years before that. And IBM, which designed and defined what we know today as the PC — with a vital contribution from Intel and Microsoft — ultimately lost out on the franchise to swifter competitors.
In 1981, the new TRS-80 Model III cost $699 and included a capacious 4K of RAM (yes, that's 4,000 bytes, as compared with today's typical 100 million or more). The "Trash-80," as it was affectionately known, was built around a programming language called BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), which promised to allow users to "talk" to the machine "using simple English commands and statements."
The 6-ounce, $249 TRS-80 Pocket Computer, the personal digital assistant (PDA) of its day, featured a standard typewriter-format keyboard, let you read 24 characters on its single-line LCD display, and — "gosh!" — could handle 15 arithmetic functions.
Computers, of course, weren't the only thing the RadioShack catalog offered in 1981.
Reel-to-reel tapes and 8-track cartridges both got decent play. You could buy an 1,800-foot, 7-inch reel of all-purpose polyester stretch-resistant "Concertape" for $2.19, which would get you 45 to 90 minutes of music a side.
Though cassettes were gaining stature, the LP phonograph record was still king. The book devoted three pages to turntables and changers, and many more were built into compact systems elsewhere in the catalog. (The 2001 edition offers three turntables.) The top-of-the-line cassette deck handled "metal" tapes and commanded $600.
What couldn't you find in the '81 catalog, at any price? No camcorders, no mobile phones, no satellite TV or VCRs (though Betamax and VHS had been introduced about five years earlier). And it would be a couple of years before CDs made a splash.
