05.24.99
Geek Retro-lust
May 24 Mon (07 AM)
As I get ready to head off to SF for the Macromedia UCON this week, I’ve gotten a little friend ready for me to take along for notes: my Tandy Model 102 Portable Computer. I’ve dubbed him: Slim.
Oh yes… Manufactured in September of 1985, this little machine is quite the show piece. I picked Slim up from an ad I saw about 5 years ago. Built-in Basic, a Text editor, a terminal program and schedule and address book are just a few of the features built-in to take advantage of the whopping 16k of RAM. I can achieve up to 1200 baud straight out of the serial port for when I’m transfering files out of it into my Mac.
I just picked up the serial cable for it yesterday from The Computer Store, and am typing this directly on the little machine and having it dump directly into ZTerm–just ’cause I can.
Hopefully I can find a real practicle purpurpose for this thing down there. I know I can take notes with it and such but I’m hoping to basically use it as a conversation piece. I’m not good at making lots of initial contact (though better than some, I suppose) so this will be a great way to meet people at this conference (which is 75% what this conference is for.).
So I’m typing away at my little Model 102, enjoying the hell out of it.
Now if I can just find the manual…