Who remembers Tandy, the electronics store? There was one in the Grays shopping centre, when I was kid, as there were in many other towns around the country, and I bought stuff from them. Although the free battery card never really did work out. Radio Shack was the US parent company of Tandy.
Anyway I came across some images of Radio Shack promotional comics produced in the 1980s and ’90s to promote their TRS-80 computers and shops. The issue above was printed in 1981 and features Superman and Supergirl, both of whom are aided by the Whizz Kids equipped with TRS-80 computers.
However even with the blatant commercialism and super hero endorsements there was a degree of education included in the comics, for example the guide to computer terms, below.
There were a couple of interesting things in this list:
Cassette tapes as data storage. This I remember from my Sinclair ZX-81 computer, listening to that distinctive noise as the program loaded, then the software would not start and you would need to rewind and try again! Then there was saving your data – sometimes that failed and then all was lost – now can you see why I am obsessed with back-ups, it is early computer trauma!
I have previously written about my cassette tape data storage experiences on Octagon’s blog.
The other is the Information Retrieval System, which looks like a forerunner of the internet. I did have a modem for my ZX-81 but it was homemade and was only used for transmitting and receiving RTTY (radio teletype) between Radio Amateurs – no internet yet and the Radio Amateur and public BBS systems were off in the future.
I can even link this to cyber security.
Sheldon Cooper is bought a Tandy 1000 SL computer from Radio Shack in the “Young Sheldon” episode “A Computer, a Plastic Pony, and a Case of Beer” When we get to the episode “A Virus, Heartbreak and a World of Possibilities”, Sheldon cannot afford an expensive computer game, so he uses a bootleg copy, on a disc from an unknown source. This disc is infected with a computer virus, which wipes his PC.
And there is the moral of today’s “Because It’s Friday” post!
Just one more thing…
I wrote this post early Thursday, before heading out for a walk, then in the evening I saw this about the James Webb Space Telescope:
Now I’m done.
Clive Catton MSc (Cyber Security) – by-line and other articles
Further Reading
James Webb Space Telescope at Smart Thinking Solutions
