The Difference Between Apple ][ and TRS-80

[TronixGuy93]

There's one primary motivating reason behind this problem of standardization, can anyone guess it?

[xxXCalculatorXxx]

is the women the same person who played on royal canadian airfarce?

[someonezmom]

@xxXCalculatorXxx Luba Goy

[prestonnevins]

Do you realize how über expensive all the state-of-the-art hardware in that room must have been? Billy's in proto-geek heaven!

[DancingMadRB3]

Switch on... TV screen on!

Ha!

(though my monitor for this computer is also a flat panel TV with a VGA port)

[FraeStudios]

at first i though his clipboard was a laptop, then three secons later i laughed

[WebVMan]

Standarization:  Thank you Microsoft!

[dajwilkinson]

Now we know what Mrs Cholmondeley-Warner looks like!

[bxxks]

it's a pity that 30 year later, there is no definite and mainstream way to run programs cross-platform (without having to switch partitions)

[quaxk]

it's hard to take this seriously, when I saw luba goy I though it was a parody

[NuGanjaTron]

"TRS-80... what does that mean?" TRASH-80, IIRC... :^D

Thankfully not everyone was as illiterate as this dork back in the day.

[tiberianfiend]

Hate Microsoft for whatever you will, they did bring standardization to personal computers.

[therandomdialer888]

@tiberianfiend It was IBM. Microsoft was the next step and only gained dominance after the IBM PC (and *compatibles*) flooded the market with standard hardware. We're seeing the same problems with smart phones now, and the similarities are uncanny. Hopefully Apple wont make the same mistakes, with Google following the Microsoft model - though open source and advertising revenues certainly make the situation more interesting.

[resurgam44]

Well, they sure try their darndest to standardize these days.

[WarpedTrekker]

0:30 Flap up, flap down? and TV screen? I always called it a Monitor, even back in the 80's.

[summer20105707]

Ahh sagansociety and nakedmambo you guys are too much. Really people there is plenty of room in today's marketplace for computers and languages of different types. The internet has bridged that gap and made it possible for windows and Mac computers to use the same resources as Amigas or other older machines. Consider the fact that don't even need things like floppy disks anymore. Unless you have old 8 bits like me? Lol :-)

[SandraBullcocked]

i r 1337 h4xz0r, ur fl00py won't work in apple lol n00b.

[zaoerbek]

I could have made a 2 seconds commercial out of this one.

"OMG, n00b, STFU and RTFM"

[jvmarcel]

This show brings back so many memories..and one of the main reasons why I fell in love with computers! Couldn't find this on DVD as I'd love to watch this series in its entirety. =(

[explodingbeefilms]

At the beginning of this video they are using an early prototype of Face Time :-)

[ClassicGarth]

@explodingbeefilms We're going to miss the days when you didn't need a make-up artist and dramatic lighting to make a phone call.

[ZXRulezzz]

oldskool lamer, lol

[wickedtothemisty]

The apple ii was not a locked in system.

[ClassicGarth]

@wickedtothemisty I'm not sure where this conversation is going, but you're right about that, the Apple II had published schematics and even source code for the firmware. I think it was Atari who tried to keep it all secret.

[Dms12444]

Correction, the first true microcomputer as it was defined at the time came out in 1975; it was called the IBM 5100 and ran APL and/or IBM BASIC.

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

@Dms12444

Did IBM actually call it that? The also called the 8088 a 16 bit chip, which amused Intel engineers greatly.

[pelletey]

youd think microsoft would have learnt after 30 years - long live cross platform languages ie java and python

[ObiWanBillKenobi]

TRS stood for Tandy Radio Shack? So that's it! In my family we've always pronounced it "Trash Eighty."

Although there is no single computer programming standard (probably there shouldn't be), transferring programs from one computer OS to another is now possible via emulation! Ta-dah!

[emilygrae]

@ObiWanBillKenobi I always called it the Trash 80 as well! =) Emulation is great, eh? I can run most of my old Atari 800 programs on my Mac now! 

[jruddock]

I like her, she is dirty.

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

Standardization killed competition. After 1985, progress slowed to a standstill.

[nakedmambo]

@SaganAppreciationSoc

No, it allowed people to develop for more platforms and opened it up. There's little sense in having it all locked into isolated little systems. You're so drunk on capitalist ideology pumped into from an early age it's warped you're mind.

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

@nakedmambo

Nonsense. This has nothing to do with capitalism per se (and you don't even know my political or economic leanings). I was there, you weren't. "Standardization" on the craptacular x86 IBM platform ruined computing.

[nakedmambo]

@SaganAppreciationSoc

Competition has nothing to do with capitalism? Really?

And how do you know I wasn't there, I've had a computer since the late 70s and before the IBM clones there were too many locked-in systems with proprietary software (like Apple-types) and curious designs. Standards don't disqualify different manufacturers, just creates compatibility - like engineering standards, and there's no law stopping anyone adding to a standard with an innovation. You're an amateur.

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

@nakedmambo

Face it, we live in a capitalist model, and computer technology has been in a virtual standstill since 1985. We've had no real innovations since then. Multi-core chips being the only minor exception.

I find it ironic that you are anti-capitalism (which I have no opinion on) yet prattle the usual rhetoric about standards, with self-serving notions of being "locked in" to "curious designs".

I don't believe you've had a computer since the 70's unless you count the Atari 2600.

[nakedmambo]

@SaganAppreciationSoc

We live in a model that has corporate monopolies, the very thing making you rail here against 'standards'. What did all those great pre-1985 (why 1985?) models have that was so great? You go off and fire up your old PET (or perhaps you have the original GUI setup from Xerox PARC?) and tell me all about it.

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

@nakedmambo

[eyeroll]

Two significant things happened in '85.

1) The Amiga was released.

2) Compaq won its court-case (and IBM lost) for creating IBM compatible computers. This is demonstrably the worst thing that ever happened to computing. (It's also a very odd ruling that runs counter to other rulings in similar cases).

[nakedmambo]

@SaganAppreciationSoc

I'm confused. Why was Compaq's win a disaster? It only allowed them to clone IBM machines, it never stopped anyone from designing something else, it never stopped Apple. Could it be that the IBM 'pc II' (1984) actually made computers modular and inexpensive, allowing endless third-party expansion?  Intel and their chips actually dominate, not the IBM legacy, and no-one can say there hasn't been innovation there. That they are a monopoly is another matter.

[gmdinformation]

@SaganAppreciationSoc "Compaq won its court-case (and IBM lost) for creating IBM compatible computers. This is demonstrably the worst thing that ever happened to computing."

In some ways I agree, but it DID go a long way toward making computing affordable for the masses. I remember when the feeble (but lovable) TRS-80 was selling for nearly $2,000, meaning that even very basic computers were incredibly expensive before IBM clones and cloned parts started coming out.

[doritostheking]

@gmdinformation There were far cheaper and more capable machines than IBM clones. Sinclair ZX Spectrum laughs at your CGA graphics.

[gmdinformation]

@doritostheking Huh? Ever hear of color clash? That's what Spectrum was famous for back then. Their color machines were terrible. I don't know what they sold for, and I don't know much about their commputing power. But I do know that they were mainly just used for games. IBM and Apple had all the office software in those days, and Compaq winning its court case meant that people could build much cheaper clones that would be able to run IBM software. The same thing happend with Apple clones.

[doritostheking]

@gmdinformation Referring to Sinclair as "Spectrum" shows how much you know. "Spectrum" is the name of the good guys in Captain Scarlet, not a computer company.

At the end of the day, it was a £130 computer with the same amount of ram as an IBM PC (16K) and better colour capabilites, as well as identical sound. The IBM had a nicer keyboard but not £2000 nicer.

[gmdinformation]

@doritostheking You do realize that their flagship computer for years and years was called the Spectrum, right? And it's color was dismil. End of story. Oh, not to mention the fact that the only programs you could find for it were stupid games.

[doritostheking]

@gmdinformation About two years. And it's colour was better than the PCs since a PC could only do four colours at a time. Given that two of those four were called "black" and "white" I'd say that's pretty embarrasing!

[gmdinformation]

@doritostheking They made the Spectrum for ten years. Amstrad kept the name (along with the basic design other than the keyobard layout). Give me a chrome monitor any day over the worst 4-color system on the planet where the colors all bleed into each other. It was a pathetic attempt at color as everyone agrees. Apparently you've never seen one as you're the one and only person I've ever witnessed who was foolish enough to say anything good about that lousy display.

[doritostheking]

@gmdinformation Ahahaha. Your argument is literally "the spectrum's colour is bad, i'll ignore the PCs was worse because I bought a monochrome monitor and upgraded to MDA". I liked the part when you confused me talking about CGA's colour limitations as me talking about those awful IBM monitors that look like you pulled them out of nasa's dumpser in 1967. Get mad bro.

[gmdinformation]

@doritostheking "Ahahaha"

As long as you're putting on your villiage idiot act don't forget those all imortant "LOLs" and "ROFLs."

Looking at the warden...I mean wife, "Oh look honey, there goes an IQ waiting to happen."

Best wishes playing kid games on your Spectrum.

[doritostheking]

@gmdinformation Same to you, swapping out graphics cards to play games.

[gmdinformation]

@doritostheking And actually, the PC monitors were shades of green--not B&W.

[Buzzerifier]

The beginning of Helpdesk...

[Lachlant1984]

Some months ago, I bought a portable hard disk thinking it would work on my new HP PC, I bought it home and pluged it in, nothing happened. I took it back to the shop saying the drive was faulty, the non English speaking person at the shop took the drive away and fixed it, then I read the label on the box. Apple Mac HFS formatted. I felt like an idiot, the drive was meant for use with an iMac, but it works on my Windows PC now, so I'm happy. This is a lesson to us all.

[ericmcbride]

Seriously?

[Lachlant1984]

Yes, seriously, no joke. Of course after all this happened I did what I should have done at the start and went to the Wesern Digital website and found very detailed and technical instructions on how to re-initialize a hard disk formatted for Mac to make it work under Windows. I'm not new to computers, but I was ill advised and clearly wasn't thinking when I bought the hard disk.

[kd1s]

And now, software pretty much runs on all platforms. Look at the OSS community. Firefox, Thunderbird, MySQL, and a plethora of other applications run on Windows, OS-X, Linux, et al.

[sonick808]

"maybe one day we'll be able to use disks between machines!". Oh i love it. /fires up the catweasel writes in any of 50+ formats......

[sonick808]

aw man i miss the days of the microcenter

[Keruaran]

lol at her comments about standardization being possible someday... it was possible back then (but wasn't going to happen), and possible now...

[trishfred]

The lady speaking is that Luba Goy from Royal Canadian air farce?

[mfranzusan3014]

yes it is... she was kinda hot then wasn't she?

[NLS87]

LOOOOOOL

The first micro only come in 1977!!!

ONLY!

[sundhaug92]

Apple I, 1976.

Altair ca. '75.

[BurtonReingold]

That's great they wanted to standardize form the start. These old videos are real insightful.

[Chubachus]

micro, lol

[nwajoe]

I think I actually remember watching this show on PBS as a kid. It's at least eeriely familiar.

[ClassicGarth]

It's possible. The show was produced in Canada but sold to other markets too.

[ClassicGarth]

I was finally able to identify the computer on Luba's desk. It is a Xerox 820. There is another episode of this show on YouTube where you can see a better look at it.

[stewart080]

thats totally the girl from this hour has 22 minutes!

[Borin81]

and the computer next to Luba seems to be somesort of IBM, its too fat to be a VIC-20.

[Borin81]

i see a Commodore PET!:D

[Hydrocram]

SWEET....That's Billy Van from Hilarious House of Frightenstein.

[Lachlant1984]

That was one of the problems back then, no standards for all manufacturers to use. These days we can take a word document and load it in Windows Mac OS, and Linux. We can work on a single document on a desktop, notebook, or PDA. That wasn't possible back then, this is one thing that Microsoft got right.

[NicolXIX]

yeah they've had 30 years now and still haven't standardized anything, just lame emulators! lol

[thomashome05]

Actually they nearly have architecture wise. Any PC software will work on a Macintosh and that's the same with GNU/Linux software.

[ThrilloVanHouten]

Lol...no

[thomashome05]

Lol...yes, using the same software architecture even though develops might be using different tools to create there outcome they are still making a program that any computer can understand. All consumer computer's are the same CPU wise so they think the same and therefore run the same programs.

[Doyubi]

And how lucky we are that everything is standardized these days. (assholes)

[ClassicGarth]

By the way, does anyone recognize Luba's computer? I can pick out the Apple ][, Commodore PET, Atari 800 and TRS-80 but not the one that's sitting next to Luba.

[blueeyesm2k4]

I think its a Compaq.

[MaverickLSC]

To me it looks like a Commodore Vic 20, looked like a C64 but was white instead of Brown.

[MaverickLSC]

The one beside Luba that is...

[compudude86]

well, this woman was right. "someday". look at the modern mac.

[VivaZweiFan]

'switch on. TV screen on!. Blue screen of death!'

[pizzaforeveryone]

it might be possible some day...

[guyvf]

naughty billy put his fingers on the disc slot!

[Trance88]

It's kinda funny when she talks about being able to use software on different types of computers may be possible one day.

[polyex]

That old man is missing more than a few IQ points putting that TRS-80 floppy into the Apple ][. I like how they are talking about the coming standardization in micro computers like it is going to be a good thing --- Windows,ugh.

[Petrander]

I wouldn't call Windows supremacy standardization, rather I would call it "weeding out". Or the getting rid of other standards in favour of only one or two...

In the video they were hinting at that different types of computers would converge support the same software. Rather naive of course. Although, in a way that has happened with Java software of course...

[ClassicGarth]

You could say that the Internet is a truly universal platform. It allows computers of all types to communicate and run the same software (web sites). And apart from Java, we also have Javascript, Python, etc. that can be run on just about any computer out there.

[Godgotron]

Well you can run a Mac-OS on Windows and vice versa, same with Linux so in a way it has happened. Its just that the others didnt survive and expand, Homebrew dev's do stuff with old hardware and Pc's.

Also my External Hard Disks (Ximeta) can be used in USB as a mass storage on all computers individualy. But it can also work like a server if you use the Network connection instead of USB it can run on a network with different versions of Windows,Apple OS,Linux at the same time on the same network

[Godgotron]

Oh also i just remembered that the Gemini Game console made by Coleco back in 82-83 i think could play all the other console games: Atari,Intellivision, and of course Coleco cuz they made the Gemini. I bought one again at a flea market a few years ago still works. I have a bunch of cartridges from different systems. But its not a computer.

[ClassicGarth]

The homebrew programmers who work on Atari VCS/2600 are real masochists. I understand that you have to continually draw the graphics on every line, in real time, so if your program isn't fast enough, the screen flickers or goes blank. Pretty crazy even for its time. I guess they saved a few bucks by using less chips that way.

[RabidDawg2]

"the most memory was like 30 kbs, i dont think they even had physical memory then, it was all ram"

I guess you didn't see the floppy disk in this video, then? Unless you don't count that as "physical memory", of course. And they also had cassette data storage, as an option to floppy disks.

[kross10c]

wrong thr trs-80 model 3 was 16k

[RabidDawg2]

"wrong thr trs-80 model 3 was 16k"

Who are you responding to? I know it had 16k. But it was upgradeable to 64k. And also supported floppies and cassettes.

[unix]

ANDDDDDDDD nothing much has happened since then

[splatwacker]

dude... dude, what are you doing right now?the people in this vid are most likely dead, the the most memory was like 30 kbs, i dont think they even had physical memory then, it was all ram,

[unix]

uhh....LUBA GOY ??? hello? guess u dun live in canada she stars in the Royal Canadian Air Farce comedy series. what are YOU doing right now?

[splatwacker]

lol... nope i dun live in Canada, accually near it though, Mount Vernon Wa, by Vancouver. but the old man... is he still kickin? also Amon Tobin is my fav song artist he resides CA, if your unfimiliar with him you should check him out, Im listening to him right now, fyi.

[ClassicGarth]

Billy Van died a few years ago, he was a sort-of famous comedian here. Why two comedians hosted this completely serious show, I don't know.

Not sure what you mean by "physical memory". Hard disks were available at the time but only 10 MB (which is 1% of a GB) and probably $5,000 or more. So everyone made do with floppies or even compact cassettes. And some software was on ROM chips in cartridges.

[dadburnde]

TRS-80s are awesome

I mean I am only 12 but I love

to basic program

I have a model 3,model 100,and coco 2

[ClassicGarth]

It's great to hear about kids who like programming. At your age I was also into BASIC on 8-bit machines. It is a good way to exercise your brain and think logically even if you're just making games. (Which aren't that easy to make actually)

[dadburnde]

yeah

I thought of making a grandtheftauto game for it,but I lost intrest of trying to make it

now I mainly make sounds and graphic displays

[Craptron2000]

The acting in this show is so damn patronizing. It's like they can't work out if their target audience is adults or 2 year olds.

[spooniep]

brilliant.

[tajnarabota]

Isn't that woman from Royal Canadian Air Farce?

[ClassicGarth]

Yes, it's Luba Goy. The student is the late Billy Van who is also a (somewhat) famous Canadian actor/comedian.

[TupolevTech]

Man, my first computer! The mighty Apple ][ with all those 48kb of memory, it was fast as hell! My dad got it for my 13th b-day from Sears...23 yrs ago, geez.

[corebore13]

so your 30 something what was the old computers like back then a bit boring...or was it like wow this is awesome!

[TupolevTech]

well, can´t compare to today´s stuff, but they weren´t boring at all. we used to go crazy for hours, it was really an ordeal to load a single program, but we loved it. they lasted much longer too, in those days a 5, 6 yr old computer was still ok.

[eximod]

I have an Apple II and a TRS-80 just like the ones in the video. Luba Goy is doing an excellent job of speaking in that old skool broadcast industry voice. It makes her sound like an android! A perfect voice for computer commentary!

[Brutice]

I use to love that show. That thing about standardising isn't quite right cause I think CP/M was around back then. Anyway thanks for the memories.

[maddogmcrae]

@Brutice Actually, even CP/M wasn't completely standardized. Color, sound and graphics didn't always work.

[stevenup7002]

RTFM = Read the fucking Manual!!! XD

[newguy98]

LOL!

I miss the feel of The Old Stuff. Loved the TRS-80 keyboards. And, the apple // keyboards.

[shorty1k]

I friggen love air farce! It's weird seeing her outside of it.

[nagaflas]

Boy, how emulation has changed the landscape. I can run TRS-80 AND Apple ][ stuff on my PC...

[jeopardy60611]

Now, we would see him trying to load a PC CDROM on a  Mac.

[guyvf]

Great stuff! I want more! Please tell me you have more!

[videogameknowitall]

I love the box are on those old computer programs!, so original! :-)

[videogameknowitall]

That's why people got confused was that were was so much stuff out there, and all of it was incompatable, and it was very easy to buy the wrong thing. But yes a huge "Radio Shack" logo would for most people be a big hint.

Thanks for posting! :-)

[sergiomon]

My God... I wish I could get stuck down this memory lane for some time longer!

[Intersonus903]

The old man better learn how to properly handle those floppies. A couple of times, it looked like he managed to touch the media opening that allows the drive heads to make contact with the magnetic media of the disk.

[wisteela]

Love it! That about standardising is a classic.

[jci10]

It would be great if one can purchase all these old episodes on DVD. They use to run these in the early eighties under, "Bits N Bytes" ...

[indianhead66]

Thanks to the lack of foresight by the upper management at TVO at that time, they do not have the rights to release their own material now for the most part.

[jci10]

Geeez, its not like these shows are worth millions of dollars like the bealtes songs! I don't even think these old shows can make a few thousand. Just release them in the public domain already!!

[mfnickster]

"They haven't had time to standardize." Meanwhile, 30 years later... :)

[greenfishoutofwater]

What a flashback for my compu-geek hubby!

[Larynxa]

I've known Luba since I was a kid.  She was such a youngster when she did this show!

[grecomic]

She looked even younger whe she appeared on King of Kensington!

[firesmile01]

Larynxa ... do you actually know her personally? If so, tell her how much her work is appreciated by us all.

[cpowers94]

Didn't he see the big Radio Shack logo on the box?

[Toledo1837]

Glad to see an early lesson in the format wars! Being a WinXP PC user, I only wish I had a clue about a Mac (and I've learned the basics on those machines back in school)!