Harry McCracken:

Gadget-retailing giant Radio Shack unveiled the TRS-80 Model I at a press conference at New York’s Warwick Hotel 35 years ago today, on August 3, 1977. (The company didn’t call it the Model I at the time: Like Apple’s Apple I, it only became the I after a II was introduced.)

Lots of great info about the TRS-80’s place in personal computer history. How it got started, how Radio Shack configured it, and its enduring legacy.

Harry’s valentine to the TRS-80 strikes a chord with me. I’m a few years younger than he is; I was 7 when the TRS-80 went on sale. The man I knew through our local Big Brother program introduced me to his a year or two later, and when I asked whether it could play games, he told me, “Sure, if you write them.”

So I learned how. (Boy, I wish I’d maintained that ability to program.) I’ve loved computers ever since.

So yeah, for many of us of a certain age, the TRS-80 will always occupy a spot in our hearts. And as Harry says, please don’t call it a Trash-80.