This article follows Part 1 of the Tandy Corporation’s history, which covers the company’s founding and the lead up to and launch of the TRS-80, and Part 2, which covers the TRS-80 Models I, II, III, CoCo, and Pocket Computer.
When the TRS-80 Model I was released in 1977, the microcomputer market was small, centered around hobbyists, and many computer owners had built their machines from off-the-shelf components and/or kits. Tandy, Apple, and Commodore completely changed the market, but even their earliest customers had been hobbyists. After the release of VisiCalc, the market changed. Office workers, small business owners, people with complex finances, these all had VisiCalc as reason enough to own a computer. With WordStar, dBase, and CP/M, a new software standard had emerged, and sales increased further still. Oddly for Tandy, that VisiCalc was released first on the Apple ][ caused them an initial market share loss while overall increasing the size of the market over time and thereby having an overall positive effect on Tandy’s sales.
In 1980, Philip North promoted John Roach to the position of COO, and in 1981, Roach became CEO. At the start of 1981 as Roach was taking control of the company, Tandy’s market position was excellent, with TIME Magazine having stated on the 2nd of March:
In 1981 about 75% of the personal computer industry’s estimated $1 billion in sales will be controlled by just three companies. They are: Tandy. The Fort Worth-based Tandy Corp. has the broadest reach of any computer manufacturer through its 8,012 Radio Shack stores. The firm introduced its first small computer, the TRS-80, in 1977. A newer version of the the TRS-80 (popular models now cost $999) has become the largest-selling computer of all time, and Tandy now commands 40% of the small-computer market. Tandy recently introduced the first pocket computer, which shows only one line of information and sells for $249. Apple. The story of Apple Computer has by now become part of American folklore. The business was officially founded in 1977 by Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, two college dropouts who scraped together $1,300 from the sale of a Volkswagen to build their first prototype. In 1980 Apple’s revenues topped $184 million, and the public offering of its stock in December was one of the biggest and most successful stock launchings in the history of Wall Street. The company is now aiming its sales effort primarily at the educational market, under the assumption that children who are raised on Apples are likely to buy Apples for themselves when they get older. A basic version of its hot selling Apple II costs about $1,435. The firm recently introduced the Apple III model, which is expected to help push sales this year to $250 million. Commodore. The PET computer (cost: $995), which is manufactured by Commodore International, based in Norristown Pa., is the bestselling personal computer in Europe. The company has not been a major factor in the U.S. market but Commodore President James Finke says: “We’ve got 60% of the market in Europe and we’re now ready to compete head on with anyone.” This month it started running full-page ads in leading U.S. newspapers that read: COMMODORE ATE THE APPLE. This spring the company will introduce the VIC 20 computer, aimed at the home market and selling for $299.95. Commodore sales this year are expected to grow by 40% to $185 million.
The article went on to mention that Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, Zenith, Atari, and IBM were all expected to enter the market, and then mentioned the warning from Jack Tramiel: “Gentlemen, the Japanese are coming.” And further, from Jon Shirley, the VP of Radio Shack at the time: “The Japanese are bound to be competitive, and I worry about the Japanese much more than IBM.” With the benefit of history, you and I know that both IBM and the Japanese manufacturers were going to be competitors that would end many companies, change the market forever, and raise an entirely new software standard. The author of this article, Alexander Taylor, ended with a note that the battle for the market would determine whether or not Panasonic and IBM would become as common as Radio Shack and Apple. There’s then a small insert about VisiCalc selling better than games, and as a sign of the primitive state of the market, the article had to explain the importance of software, how such a program could be used, and why one would want it. That insert then ends with a statement: “VisiCalc is obviously one of the compositions that is in no danger of fading from the charts.”
TRS-80 Model 16, image from the homecomputermuseum.nl
Announced in January of 1982 and released in February, the TRS-80 Model 16 was an improvement to the Model II; though, it was one that departed strongly from its predecessor in technology while staying the course in market segment. The Model 16 was based around a Motorola 68000 at 6MHz with a Zilog Z80 serving as an I/O processor unless or until 8bit Model II software needed to be run. This model also introduced half-height eight inch floppy disk drives, and could be ordered with either one or two. At the time of introduction, the computer had only TRSDOS-16 available, and there were exceedingly few native applications meaning that owners would have to use Model II software and therefore wouldn’t need to spend $4999 (around $16,618 in 2025 dollars) for the Model 16. This particular problem was solved when Tandy began offering XENIX on the Model 16 along with Scripsit 16, Multiplan, and Profile 16. For programmers, XENIX obviously brought C with it, but Tandy had COBOL and BASIC available as well. For software like VisiCalc, the Model 16 still offered an advantage: more RAM. CP/M could be loaded on the Z80, and the greater memory capacity of the Model 16 (from 128K up to 1MB) could be used via banking.
Around the same time, Tandy launched the Pocket Computer 2 (or PC-2) initially at a price of $279.95 running on four AA batteries yielding around 75 hours of run time with its 1.3MHz LH5801 processor. The machine had a 16K ROM offering a BASIC with 42 statements, 32 built-in functions, two dimensional arrays, and strings of up to 80 characters. A key benefit over the PC-1 was the expansion port on the back of the unit which allowed both RAM and ROM expansion, and an RS-232C interface. The machine expanded the printer and cassette functionality as well. This model corresponds to the Sharp PC-1500.
TRS-80 Color Computer 2, image from kernelcrash.com
The Color Computer 2 was released in 1983 at a price of $159. The discrete circuitry within the CoCo was replaced by ICs and the motherboard was redesigned, the case and power supply were made a bit smaller, the keyboard was improved, and the overall styling was changed.
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