TRS80 Model 5

[danielbooneamerica]

I think it goes understated what a business and engineering genius Bill at Logical Systems was.
And a driving force behind LS/TRSDOS development.
In fact I think roots of his business empire still exist today.

 

[krebizfan]

I am sure that Tandy would have incorporated color if color CRTs had fallen in price to close to what monochrome CRTs did. After all, the 4D was released when half-height double sided drives were cheaper than full height single sided drives.

I think the window for an improved TRS-80 would have been for a higher end variation on the Model 3 but without the integrated CRT. That could have had color and 80 columns if the customer was willing to spring for an improved display. The problem would still be getting software to support the new features or the hypothetical Model 5 would fall into irrelevance like the Amstrad B models.

 

[danielbooneamerica]

On Tim Mann website or one of them out there they talk about someone whom had seen specs for SVCs etc to be developed for color support.

You know not every machine would need color tube, just if they ordered that option.

Back then most us bought mono PC and bought color monitor later on when price dropped or you found an extra.

But yes, I don't think there is any doubt color functions for video was under planning.

 

[danielbooneamerica]

This has became a very long thread and I did want to mention that principally this discussion is about a hardware TRS80.

It has been noted that almost every legacy system has some hardware version today based on modern technology. TRS80 is one of very few which does not have some way of building new. Lots of great software emulator but no hardware.

Model 5 name is used just because that would be next logical step. What makes a true Model 5 project hard is it needs run all model 1/3/4 software unmodified just as model 4 ran 1 and 3 unmodified.

But we do this not because it's easy but because it's hard.

 

[animekenji]

Looking at it thru today's glasses of back then has advantage. All of those systems you listed were proprietary property back then also. There were no open systems as we know it today. In fact Tandy was making it easy to design and add cards while IBM and Mac was trying kill that idea. Two of them developed into a standard after many decades of reverse engineering, courts, markets and things I cannot imagine.

If commodore was still finding a market or Atari then I am sure you could sell a TRS80. The MODEL 4s filled a gap between businesses that were too small for a Xenix system but did not want to be seen running their business on a Commodore. TRS80 line did appear business like and had one big plus, sales and service in most cities across USA and beyond.

In this thread I think we are dreaming that a decision has been made at Tandy let's roll. Top secret development team has been assembled and rumors in market are flying. Now what would this machine have?

Color I think for sure as example.

As far as obsolete before built, well all the machines fit that definition. They all obsolete by time released and relic by time I can afford.

Of course you are right, later in life standard was IBM PC architecture and no business would be seen without it except what at that time the guys they thought odd for using mac.

Look how that became a whole new chapter in our evolution to a single architecture (pretty much).

You are right RS pushed CoCo on home market and made a good margin on them.

Those days. I suppose we are pioneers same way others pioneered auto, air and space. It's fair to say someone somewhere used a TRS80 to help solve many important problems.

My point was that the industry was already coalescing around the PC clone back then, even by the time the Model 4 was released, without as many outliers as in previous years. Proprietary systems were a dead end once the PC clone makers got rolling and flooded the market with cheaper and cheaper systems. If they hadn't gone big into the PC compatible market, Radio Shack would have been pushed out alongside the rest of them.

 

[danielbooneamerica]

I wanted to show anyone wanting to look new OS I am working on. Some assembly programmers have asked to peek at a listing.

Below link will take you to a simple website that will allow you to download a listing. It is a listing of some early versions several revs back but, intention is to give a peek to those curious.

MVS like scheduling will add ability to time jobs that run, history of runs, set jobs to run at date/time after predecessors finish then allowing dependents to run etc.

Remember Misosys double duty? Well it had limits because there were only 2 extra banks of memory. What if we had many more? Using techniques similar to double duty, we could switch to one of many instances. What if our scheduler could switch to these instances on its own unassisted? Limit of jobs on a 64k machine is it has 64k linear memory window. We could have multiple instances of 64k and break job into smaller tasks etc.

Of course it still has limits but using eZ80 we can pretty much have a system on one chip.

My website will be growing as this project grows. Calling on all who can build SBCs with specific memory maps. Boards will be based on Z80, eZ80 & Z180.

Its all for fun, I guess. Except I have interest of veering toward machines that control other machines.

Daniel

https://www.danielpaulmartin.com/home/page-2/

 

[cuvtixo]

Lisp is software. Yes lisp software was available for trs80.

When refering(sp) to lisp board i am talking about eZ80 boards advertised today.

I have to point out that you missed the reference to MacIvory LISP card from Symbolics, original makers of LISP Machines, which had LISP hard-coded on chip. It wasn't just software. They had competition from Lisp Machines International, where Richard Stallman wrote software of the same quality as all the Symbolics PhD computer engineers together coded. He gave up and started the Free Software movement, instead and GNU, and the doomed Hurd. Xerox came out with their own Lisp Machines with Lisp chips. It was an entire industry. As Symbolics saw their hardware line fail, they ported "Open Genera" Lisp OS to the only 64-bit chip of the time, the Alpha. Not only did they feel 64 bits was needed, but they introduced speed increases with microcode, which made it unportable to later Alpha computers.
All the Lisp Machines were high-end computers which we might call "servers" today. They were used in nuclear plants in France, for example. They spun off Macsyma, which also died in the 90s, Its predecessor from MIT was sold to Department of Energy, and became the Open Source, and still thriving, Maxima. Specialized LISP chips were also put into boards for 386 PCs. Putting MacIvory card in was like putting a supercomputer into the lowly 68k Macs. This is important computer history, and I think you're vision has to be extremely limited if you don't know about them.
And Zilog Z280s and Z380s could definitely be put into a cheap FPGA. Frankly, if you're looking into retro hardware, you might as well get a RC2016 or Commander 16X, or one of many other Z80 retro "SBC" projects. You should port TSR-80 stuff to those. Your hardware wishlist is actually very underpowered, even for a retro project, and many of the supporting chips from TRS-80s probably aren't available anymore. Commander 16X ran into this problem for graphics and compromised with an FPGA setup for graphics, an FPGA which is probably more computing power than the rest put together! Also the MiSTer FPGA project is a better area for simulator/emulators, especially if you're looking for things like "TRS80 style bank memory & lots of it". And no HDMI? That's a no-starter for people wanting to just re-live the games, or introduce them to their kids. That's a market that can't be ignored, if you're actually looking for a sell-able project.
Sorry for being a bit upset and dismissive, but I'm personally a little insulted you don't know of Symbolics Lisp and Lisp Machines. Even die-hard old-sckool Free Software people who might direct hate towards Symbolics, at least know the history.

 

[danielbooneamerica]

Wow that's a long one paragraph post. Thanks for lisp update.

Not knocking lisp. Just it don't come up much in TRS80 world, today anyway. I am guessing compiler is still available somewhesomewhere, I have not looked.

And I think for TRS80 it was software. There is a modern eZ80 board claiming lisp hard coded into hardware

Well not really.

Thanks for all the updates if I have anyone wanting to execute that legacy compiler on my hardware I will sure help them get it going.

Yes I use HDMI but TRS80 model executing thinks of it as a 24x80.

Hard to get legacy code to see colors and high resolution.

Surprised I didn't rattle a CP/M developer.

Cheers

 

[danielbooneamerica]

You know now I think about it, when I worked at storagetek in Louisville Co. our NEARLINE storage controller used LISP.

After SUN Micro bought us out they changed all that.

But StorageTek considered the controller for robot using LISP to have AI.

 

[danielbooneamerica]

Also the MiSTer FPGA project is a better area for simulator/emulators, especially if you're looking for things like "TRS80 style bank memory & lots of it". And no HDMI? That's a no-starter for people wanting to just re-live the games, or introduce them to their kids. That's a market that can't be ignored, if you're actually looking for a sell-able project.
Sorry for being a bit upset and dismissive, but I'm personally a little insulted you don't know of Symbolics Lisp and Lisp Machines. Even die-hard old-sckool Free Software people who might direct hate towards Symbolics, at least know the history.

I decided to spend some time this morning over coffee and try to decode what you’re saying here and wanted to offer this comment.

Any regarding about LISP was only about Z80/Zilog LISP products. Sure history and development of bankrupt Symdolics did happen and existed but it didn’t have much to do with TRS80. Mention of LISP in post was in regards to how many different compilers, languages etc were avaiable for a simple home/small business computer like TRS80. This little box had all the big names available and LISP.

As far as being a non-starter; project started and mainly nearing completion. My objective was to run applications and compilers that were written correctly (portable) for TRSDOS. I did that. I don’t post here about it as I realized I was in wrong forum. Mainly I think folks here are exchanging information on repair, maintenance and restoration of existing machines. Maybe adding new products to enhance old machines has more interest here but I think most are content to leave TRS80 line as it was and no next mode.
I have realized with time this forum is not for R&D. There are better places for development of new machines.

There is a great wealth of knowledge in a forum like this for preserving what we already have. Each forum type serves a different purpose.

I may make boards available that will run most old TRSDOS software but I am still working that out and if anyone really be interested in a new board. For me a production of 5 was all that was needed.

 

[whartung]

I have to point out that you missed the reference to MacIvory LISP card from Symbolics, original makers of LISP Machines, which had LISP hard-coded on chip. It wasn't just software.

That's not quite how it was.

The Lisp Machines were microcoded to better support the Lisp implementation built on top of it. These features included hardware support for garbage collection, tagged memory, stacks, list representation, etc. The primitives of a Lisp machine was not a "tiny lisp" in itself. Just a friendly environment for a Lisp. The vast bulk of the Lisp was software. When modern general purpose architectures made the representation of Lisp primitives more efficient, the Lisp machines faded away as they didn't have a real advantage over Lisp implemented on to of a general purpose CPU.

This is in contrast to, for example, Forth CPUs where the instruction set indeed was a low level Forth, notably having hardware registers for the fundamental Forth registers, a NEXT in hardware, the two Forth stacks, along with stack operations like DROP, DUP, SWAP, etc.

 

[danielbooneamerica]

That's not quite how it was.

Correct. None of these machines have language built in hardware. They all still work onJohn von Neumann principal. Nothing new. Just new names or acronyms for same devices. It does not matter if you compile directly to microcode, you are still doing fetch/decode/execute.

Programming directly in microcode is not a new idea. We had access to this in Navy for PDP 11/45 (programming directly in microcode). Great debates went on why we didnt develope code in high level, compile to assembler then convert directly into micro instructions that could feed control and decode circuits directly (thus faster).

Its a great idea but outside specialized jobs it just didnt catch on. LISP in all these decades has done nothing that is not done in other ways with other languages.

LISP folks are dedicated however and that is good to expand research in this language and field. You never know what may be discovered/developed.

Grace Hopper said always try new things and dont do it this way just because it has always been done this way.