What I wanted for Christmas #2: TRS-80 color computer

From the time we had an Apple II in our school, I wanted a computer. I would build cardboard computers at home to pretend I had a computer. Around 5th grade, I guess good ol’ dad got a little too worried about his son staring at cardboard. He decided to take action.

We moved during Christmas 1982 from Iowa to Alabama, so technically I didn’t get it then. Instead I got it a couple months later for my birthday. But it was still something I wanted for Christmas.

Back then, the choice of a computer was much different. You had the upper tiers of IBM and Apple. In the middle range you had Radio Shack and Commodore. Then there were the Atari models and the TI. At least in my world this was the spectrum.

I didn’t really care about that though. The real question was: “What did Ricky Schroeder use to hack into the pentagon”? (go to about 3:30).

No, I’m not kidding. This is why I liked the TRS-80 Color Computer.

Plus, radio shack was a staple visit in any trip to the mall. So there was constant exposure to that machine.

As luck would have it, TRS-80 knowledge would come in handy later on. In the 80′s it was a symbol of educational advancement to have a room full of computers at your school. Never mind that very few of the teachers knew anything about them or what they could do, much less how to educate with them. But they needed a room full of computers and our middle school was not going to be caught without such a room.

Most people have no idea how Radio Shack is even in business. Their business model seems to be overcharging for batteries then selling you a 3 year service plan with them. So how they convinced our school buy 15 or so TRS-80′s for their educational showroom…I have no idea. But they did, and by the time we had lab time a handful of us knew more about them than anyone….especially the teachers.

In lab time, we basically had an online multiple choice quiz. At then end of the quiz, it would print out the score for the teacher to view. We edited the program to do all sorts of things…from displaying a random message (that would quickly disappear)…to automatically giving us a good grade on the quiz. It was never a perfect grade. It would pick a random number and subtract it from the perfect score, so as not to arouse suspicion.

We probably learned more through the hackage than we did from the quiz. However these days I’m sure we would have been kicked out and charged with federal computer terrorism or something. Such is life.

But there it was…Christmas 82/83!