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Rick Hanson's Club100 — A Tandy / Radio Shack Model 100 User Group (tandy radioshack nec usersgroup rip) (club100.org | ia)
5 points by Lammy 476 days ago | 7 comments
  • ddingus 476 days ago
    I have one of these. Great little computers!

    Back in the 80's, I wanted one of these computers to write and carry around manufacturing related programs. Was too much money, so I settled on the PC-6. Pocket computer with 2K RAM, just enough!

    I would have done more with the Model 100!

    There is a 64 character driver floating around that I have lost track of. If you find it, it makes the display more dense, better.

  • bmonkey325 475 days ago
    What an awesome machine. Mentor of mine had one, used it a few times. great keyboard. LCD (for the era) was sharp and crisp. Also has distinction it was the last project at Microsoft for which Bill Gates was an Individual Contributor (IC).
    • zxm 474 days ago
      lcd was a wonderful display tehnology. so much better to my mind than modern screens in outdoor use. i often find i have to turn around or shade the screen to get bright light/sun off the screen before i can read it. with lcd it made it easier to read.

      my fave was the screen of the olpc which could be b&w lcd or colour screen depending on config. which also saved a lot of power in b&w mode.

  • bxparks 475 days ago
    I wanted one of these as a kid, but I recall that it was something like $1000, which was an outrageous amount of money to be begging of parents with no money. When I see articles like this, I feel a tinkle of temptation. But I always ask myself, "What would I do with it?" And the answer is always: "Not much".

    I currently use the MacBook Air 11" (2013) as my non-programming daily driver. The MBA11 is actually smaller, lighter, cheaper, orders of magnitude faster, with orders of magnitude more memory and storage, with far larger screen, a 100% sized keyboard, and wifi internet access. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the MBA11 ran the Model 100 emulator (https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualt/) faster than the real Model 100.

    So a real Model 100 doesn't make any sense for me. But these little gadgets from the 80s are always tempting...

    • bmonkey325 474 days ago
      I am sure someone has made a cyber deck that emulates this form factor. Knowingly or unknowingly. Plenty of dedicated word processors have this style.
      • bmonkey325 474 days ago
        I knew I had seen one of these someplace

        https://www.clockworkpi.com/home-devterm

  • zxm 475 days ago
    i've loved the of the model 100 since i first saw them. have always kept an eye out for similar form factors. not carrying around a huge fragile screen. not having to power said screen when a small one would be enough for my simple needs.

    the cambridge z88 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Z88

    the alphasmart dana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart

    the clockworkpi devterm https://www.clockworkpi.com/shop

    some day i'll just have to bite the bullet and buy one of them :-)

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