Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/22/raspberry-pi-but-its-a-trs-80.html
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“Grandpa, tell me about the old days of computing?”
“Well kid, the cheapest desktops at first came from a company best known for selling leather stamps, punches, and patterns to people who wanted to make their own wallets and comb-holders”
“uhh, ok”
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And they also owned Radio Shack which had batteries so cheap that they gave you a free one every month. Sadly the free battery didn’t work very long.
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And it happened twice! Not only was Tandy a leather company, but Coleco, maker of the Colecovision games console and the ill-fated Adam computer, was originally the Connecticut Leather Company.
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Clearly they saw the buggy whips weren’t going to be around forever…
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Depends on the bedroom. 
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“What buggy?”
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I did a little digging a while back & figured out why (Cost Plus) World Market reminded me so much of Pier 1 Imports: the latter copied the former. Tandy (the person) arranged to open more CPWM stores himself, but called them Pier 1 Imports. It wasn’t otherwise part of Tandy Corp. but does explain why both companies were based in Ft. Worth.
Back to the subject:
They should clone the Model 4 so that, like the original, the serial port is in the bottom of the enclosure, ensuring that it is compatible only with a special Radio Shack computer desk, which had a hole drilled thru the top for this purpose.
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It is fine to put the TRS-80 logo on this reboot, but that was the branding for Radio Shack’s entire line of early computers before they replaced it with Tandy in the late 80s. They had multiple different architectures and operating systems, e.g. the TRS-80 Color Computer and OS-9.
Cool toy, but it could use a smidge more authenticity.
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No, it didn’t have a Radio Shack!
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For a second there I thought Joe Pasquale had taken up retrocomputing as a hobby.
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I’ve discovered my favorite way of playing old Infocom text adventures:
Put it in fullscreen mode, and bask in the warmth of the electron beam.
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But does it have a cassette recorder interface?
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