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TRS-80 Initial Announcement Package

MikeMotta

Member
Joined
May 20, 2006
Messages
26
Hi folks:

I thought you might enjoy seeing this package. It was part of the initial materials distributed for the initial announcement for the TRs-80.

This package was distributed to company personnel.

Inside is a Fact Sheet by Lew Kornfeld, then-president of Radio Shack, wherein he states that Tandy is expected to build "maybe a couple of thousand" units. Little did they know at that time!

I've taken photos of the front, inside, and back of the package. There's also a poster of the TRS-80, which measures about 16x22.

Also pictured is the first draft of the service manual for the TRS-80. I had to go through quite a process to petition management people to get approval for obtaining this manual. It was a photocopy of the draft version of the manual that was to be used by the Service Centers.

I think I saw a post here where someone said that the technical information was included in the sale of each unit. In fact, no technical information of this kind was available to the general public at all, initially, and later when it was available, the only way to obtain any service information was to order it from Radio Shack National Parts. A service manual was ultimately made available in book form, but it did not come out for at least two years.

Any questions about this material, please feel free to ask!
 

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Very cool!

Where'd you come across this? Or did you have it from 1977 or so?
 
Hi Erik:

I have all this stuff from when it first came out. My "collection" consists only of items that I obtained at the time it was "new".

So, I got this folder in 1977.

I worked at Radio Shack at the time the TRS-80 was released, so I was there "at the beginning." I was very excited about being able to actually own a computer, and I kept every single piece of literature that came out, starting with this folder.

A short while after the TRS-80 was introduced, Tandy planned to open a Radio Shack Computer Store in my area, the first computer store around. I managed to get transferred there, to my "dream job", and thus had access to tons of information not available in the regular stores, and not generally available to the public. I was one of the first three employees there.

In my collection I have every TRS-80 Newsletter ever released, from issue 1 until they discontinued it a few years later. I've got the original TRS-80 BASIC manual, the first DOS manual, the first Service Manual, and other such gems.

I used to have a complete collection of 80 Microcomputing, but I stored it in the basement, and it got damaged in a water heater leak. I ended up saving some of them, but having to throw out boxes and boxes of water-soaked books, magazines, and manuals.

The "really good" stuff, like the folder pictured here, was kept in a safer place, and escaped the damage!

I found this forum earlier this week, and it has encouraged me to go through my stuff and share some of this information.
 
Great stuff, and great history too. Do you have any of the TSBs (Technical Service Bulletins)? I'm trying to build a library of them. I have several binders full.
 
Tsb

Tsb

Hi:

I don't recall what these look like. Are you thinking of the technical manuals for each product and accessory? Can you post an example?

I know I have (had?) tech manuals on such things as floppy drives and hard drives...
 
The TSBs were loose leaf pages sent to repair centers that described procedures to "fix" different issues. One for the 6000 series was how to upgrade a 16 b to a 6000 by installing two new PALs and a couple of jumper wires. I'll scan a few.
 
OK, great. Thanks.

I don't recall saving any of those. I believe I do have complete manuals, though.

At the Tandy Computer Store where I worked, we had a repair shop on-site, so I was always able to just access those docs whenever I needed to... I don't think I ever got any copies...
 
This Is Intersting. Would You Be Able To Scan Them For Us? It Would Be Much Better Than Just Taking Pics W/ The Digital Cam
 
Indeed. 3 years ago, I was thuroughly looking at Erik's site, & then when I got to the point of where he had the front panels of his Altair 8800 scanned, I was thinking "WTF? Why scanned!?"




...2 years later, I realized why. Greater Resolution, Greater lighting, etc...

Any ways, the moral of the story is: Scan them, or else... Or else what? Exactly! :p (Hopefully the smiley will symbolize that I'm not saying this in a rude tone, which seems to be a common assumption for my posts...)
 
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