Behind RadioShack’s Cheapest Computer

June 30, 2025 by Bryan Cockfield 30 Comments

In the 1980s, there was a truly staggering amount of choice for a consumer looking to purchase a home computer. On the high end, something like an Apple Lisa, a business-class IBM PC, or a workstation from Sun Microsystems could easily range from $6,000 to $20,000 (not adjusted for inflation). For the time, these mind-blowing prices might have been worth the cost, but for those not willing to mortgage their homes for their computing needs, there were also some entry-level options. One of these was the Sinclair ZX-80, which was priced at an astounding $100, which caused RadioShack to have a bit of a panic and release this version of the TRS-80 computer to compete with it.

As [David] explains in his deep dive into this somewhat obscure machine, the TRS-80 MC-10 was a commercial failure, although not for want of features. It had a color display, a chicklet keyboard, and 4K of RAM, which were all things that the ZX-80 lacked.

Unfortunately, it also had a number of drawbacks compared to some of its other contemporaries that made consumers turn away. Other offerings by Commodore, Atari, Texas Instruments, and even RadioShack themselves were only marginally more expensive and had many more features, including larger memory and better storage and peripheral options, so most people chose these options instead.

The TRS-80 MC-10 is largely a relic of the saturated 80s home computer market. It’s drop in price to below $50, and the price competition between other PC manufacturers at the time was part of the reason for the video game crash of the 1980s, and even led to Steve Jobs getting fired from Apple. There’s not a huge retro scene for these machines either, although there is at least one game developer you can see in the video below from [Spriteworx]. If you want to experiment with some of the standard TRS-80 software, there are emulators that have everything you need.

Thanks to [Stephen] for the tip!

The Math Behind The Music Of The 80s

December 11, 2024 by Bryan Cockfield 51 Comments

Although there might have been other music produced or recorded in the 1980s, we may never know of its existence due to the cacophony of all of the various keytars, drum machines, and other synthesized music playing nonstop throughout the decade. There was perhaps no more responsible synthesizer than the Yamaha DX7 either; it nearly single-handedly ushered in the synth pop era. There had been other ways of producing similar sounds before but none were as unique as this keyboard, and for ways beyond just its sound as [Kevin] describes in this write-up.

Part of the reason the DX7 was so revolutionary was that it was among the first accessible synthesizers that was fully digital, meaning could play more than one note at a time since expensive analog circuitry didn’t need to be replicated for multiple keys. But it also generated its tones by using frequency modulation of sine waves in a way that allowed many signals to be combined to form different sounds. While most popular musicians of the 80s used one of the preset sounds of the synthesizer, it could produce an incredible range of diverse sounds if the musician was willing to dig a bit into the programming of this unique instrument.

There were of course other reasons this synthesizer took off. It was incredibly robust, allowing a musician to reliably carry it from show to show without much worry, and it also stood on the shoulders of giants since musicians had been experimenting with various other types of synthesizers for the previous few decades. And perhaps it was at the right place and time for the culture as well. For a look at the goings on inside the chip that powered the device, [Ken Shirriff] did a deep dive into one a few years ago.

80s Function Generator Is Both Beauty And Beast

April 23, 2024 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

You know how the saying goes — they don’t make them like this anymore. It’s arguably true of pretty much any electronic device given the way technology changes over time, though whether or not it’s objectively a bad thing is going to vary from case to case.

As a practical example, take a look at the insides of this 80’s vintage HP 3314A function generator shared on the EEV Blog Forum by [D Straney].

With multiple PCBs stacked on top of each other, it’s hard to imagine that more components could possibly be crammed into it. One board in particular appears to be an entire Motorola 6800 computer, something which today would likely be replaced with a single microcontroller.

Which is actually why [D Straney] shared this with us in the first place. After seeing our recent post about a modern waveform generator that’s basically an empty box thanks to its modern components, they thought this would be a nice example of the opposite extreme.

So, is it a good or a bad thing that test equipment isn’t made this way anymore? Well, it’s hard to argue with the improved capabilities, smaller footprint, and reduced cost of most modern gear. But damn is the inside of this HP 3314A gorgeous. As one of the commenters on the page put it, hardware from this era was really a work of art.

The Apple They Should Have Made, But Didn’t

April 2, 2024 by Jenny List 31 Comments

Whenever there is a large manufacturer of a popular product in the tech space, they always attract tales of near-mythical prototypes which would have changed everything on the spot had they just not been cancelled by the bean counters. The Sony-Nintendo PlayStation prototypes for example, or any of a number of machines inexplicably axed by Commodore.

Apple is no exception. They brought the instantly forgettable twentieth anniversary Mac and the pretty but impractical G4 Cube to market, but somehow they rejected the Jonathan, a razor-sharp modular machine from the mid-1980s.

It’s easy after so long associating Apple with the Mac to forget that in the mid-80s it was simply one of their several computer lines, and not the most successful one at that. The 16-bit machine was something of a slimmed-down evolution of the Lisa, and it thus it doesn’t necessarily follow that every other Apple machine of the day also had to be a Mac. Into this would have come the Jonathan, a high-end modular machine bridging the gap between domestic and business computing, with a standard bus allowing processor modules for different operating systems, and upgrades with standard “books”, hardware modules containing peripherals, not all of which would have come from Apple themselves. It would have been Apple’s first 32-bit machine, but sadly it proved too adventurous for their management, who feared that it might tempt Apple users into the world of DOS rather than the other way round.

What strikes us about the Johnathan is how out of place it looks on a 1980s desk, it would be the mid-1990s before we would come close to having machines with these capabilities, and indeed we’ve never seen anything quite as adventurous hardware-wise. It’s certainly not the only might-have been story we’ve seen though.

Reviving An 8-Inch Hard Drive From The 1980s

August 8, 2023 by Maya Posch 17 Comments

As part of the eternal quest within the realm of retrocomputing, storage devices can be one of the most challenging, especially when it comes to firmly obsolete hard drives, such as the CDC Finch drive. This compact 8″ HDD replaced the previous 14″ models with a form factor that was decidedly more portable. These Finch drives being 1980s technology that got run pretty hard before their retirement, it’s little wonder that they’d end up on the repair bench over at [Usagi Electric]

A CDC Finch hard disk drive, available in 8 to 32 MB for all your data storage needs. (Credit: Usage Electric)

Introduced in the early 1980s, the CDC Model 9410 Finch drive was unlike its 14″ predecessors in that it is a sealed unit, with maintenance-free air filtration. With the 14″ models you’d have both fixed and swappable platters, with far less consideration for dust exposure. This makes these Finch drives more touchy to work on, not unlike HDDs today, and adds to the excitement when repairing one of these old drives.

In this video, two differently broken Finch drives are discussed. Both appear to have an issue on the controller board, with one not responding to communications on the interface, while the other featuring a dead short on the interface pins. The first drive was brought back to life by replacing a dead SN75110 line driver IC, as well as a dead 7818 voltage regulator that was only outputting a sad 0.3 V.

Unfortunately, after half an hour of uptime and in the process of dumping data the drive errored out with a Not Ready, indicating that there are further issues on the controller board to fix. The good news here is that the platters appear to be pretty robust, but the controller boards on these old drives tend to develop issues over the years, something which will be further explored in upcoming videos.

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Building The Cheapest MIDI Home Studio From 1988

July 19, 2023 by Lewin Day 7 Comments

These days, there is a plethora of cheap hardware and software which you can use to make digital music. Back in the 1980s, though, this was still a nascent field, with new gear changing the game for musicians. In his latest video, [cTrix] puts together a guide to building a budget MIDI home studio like it’s 1988.

The original Atari ST is the star of the show, which sold for around £300 back then. Unlike most contemporary computers, it came with MIDI ports built-in, and it quickly became a popular platform for music sequencing and controlling external synth hardware. It was often spotted in posh studios being used by big-time musicians, but [cTrix] wanted to look at how it was used by more humble users.

While the Atari ST could output some passable chiptunes, it was most powerful when paired with off-board gear. Industry magazines would readily talk up “DIY” setups worth thousands, but [cTrix] aimed for a budget in the low hundreds. In 1988, that might get you something like the 16-channel Yamaha PSS-580, which rocked full MIDI support and a ton of sounds and drumkits built in. It ran an OPL soundchip, and could play multiple instruments at once under MIDI control from software like Dr. T’s MIDI Recording Studio.

Of course, if you’ve ever played a keyboard like the PSS-580, you’ll have noted that the sound output can be more than a little chintzy. A cheap way to level up was to get yourself something like the Roland MT-32, which rocked a far higher-quality sound module. Everything from slap bass to solid electric pianos could be blasted out from the Roland, which also included a decent reverb unit, too. [cTrix] also dives into other budget heroes, like the rich and expansive Kawai K1 and the Yamaha EMT-10.

If you want to make music like it’s 1988 and you’re hunting for your first gold record, you’ll learn a lot here. We can’t wait for Part 2, that explores the next level of sophistication in this era. His previous lessons on how to make 90s dance bangers on the Amiga are a treat, too.

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Faux-Retro “Tape” Player Runs On ESP32 And 80s Vibes

June 23, 2022 by Tom Nardi 31 Comments

At first glance, this gorgeous retro-styled audio player built by [Max Kern] could absolutely pass for the genuine article. But then you take a closer look and realize that the “tape” it’s playing is actually an animation running on a 320 x 240 IPS display, and the Play and Rewind buttons on the front aren’t the chunky electromechanical affairs of yesteryear but actually cleverly repurposed MX keyboard switches.

By now you’re probably realizing that this player is quite a bit smaller than you first imagined, which in turn, means that it even its case is a modern fabrication. While it might perfectly encapsulate the look and feel of a piece of 1980s consumer electronics, it was squirted out on a thoroughly modern desktop 3D printer.

Even so, [Max] made sure to include draft angles in the CAD design and and a distinctive separation line so the case looked like it was injection molded. Following similar logic, he decided against using a modern rechargeable battery pack to power the electronics, opting instead for a more era-appropriate set of AA batteries.

In terms of hardware, the custom PCB is home to an ESP32 WROOM, a MAX98357A I2S audio amplifier, a FT231XS USB-to-serial chip, with enough passives and regulators to keep them all well fed and happy. The ESP32 has more than enough computational horsepower to chew through MP3 files, which are conveniently loaded via an SD slot built into the side of the player. As the player was actually intended for audio books, onboard playback is limited to a mono speaker; though there is a 3.5 mm audio jack to plug in a pair of headphones for when the built-in speaker isn’t up to the task.

Check out the video after the break to see how the player is assembled, as well as a demonstration of its simple three-button user interface. It looks like a joy to use, though the lack of fast forward and rewind sound effects took us a bit by surprise given the otherwise impeccable attention to detail. We’ll assume there’s some technical limitation that makes this particularly difficult to implement, and that their absence is currently keeping [Max] up at night.

As impressive as the final product is, we can’t say it’s a surprise. Frankly, we wouldn’t expect anything less from [Max] at this point. His adaptive OLED macro pad wowed us back in 2020, and his ZeroBot is still one of the slickest designs for a DIY two-wheeled robots we’ve ever seen.

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