<While I agree, I kinda doubt that Allison has EVER plugged in ANYTHING
<before she "opened the box and added a bunch of stuff/mods". So, she
<might not see that as quite the negative that you do :-)
Not quite true. I'd make sure it works then mod it if needed. :)
the first mod I ever did to a trs80 was the add a ram and wire to get
lower case.
<open. But it is true that RS had a very bad attitude about it. They
<actually had anti-tamper paint on one of the screws! One of the local RS
<technicians had an interesting slant on that: Since RS's policies
<apparently didn't explicitly mention modifications, only that the tamper
<seal must be intact, he would happily do the various warranty mods (there
<were SEVERAL for the early EI), IFF you provided him circuit sketches for
<all mods, and put a dab of the anti-tamper paint (he would provide it) on
<the screw after you made the mods. He said that if the store manager
<balked at seeing additional stuff through the slots of the "unopened"
<case, just start talking about "building boats in bottles". Apple's
<attitude of "go on in!" was much more refreshing.
Most of the techs (me too, back then) held that the worst part of fixing
TRS80s was first correcting the messes customers made. Often with soldering
tools better suited for fixing pipe. We didn't care the mods existed and
later Tandy would even sell a few as options.
<> IBM really performed only one major service to the microcomputer world:
<> They lent it its own trade name, which was its legitimacy.
<"PC" was in moderately common usage around here before IBM's entry.
<IBM always considered "PC" to be a shortened description, NOT a trade
<name! They did NOT trademark "PC". They never even trademarked
<"PC-DOS"!! OTOH, "MS-DOS" IS a registered trademark.
The upside is a lot of other systems got in where before computers were
not taken seriously beacuse if they were IBM would be doing it.
<One fellow referred to Compaq's "challenge" of IBM as "a mouse running up
<the elephant's leg with intent to rape".
Looking back... I bet the elephane didn't even scream. ;)
Allison
Received on Sun Apr 11 1999 - 17:28:08 BST