Asshole

Enrico Tedeschi <e.tedeschi(a)ndirect.co.uk> wrote: OK Enrico, you asked for it. I'm going to say something. The recollection I have of what happened (from reading the original flamefest on the list) is that you and Cord were swapping computers, with you expecting a TRS-80 with Level I BASIC. And that is what you got, only when you got it you found that it had a numeric keypad, unlike the original stock TRS-80. So...no, I don't understand what you're so upset about, except that you got something that didn't look like what you expected based on your preconceived notions of what a "TRS-80 with Level I BASIC" should look like. Well, as it happens I don't know whether Radio Shack ever took to manufacturing all Model 1 TRS-80s with numeric keypads after some date, or whether the numeric keypad was included with the Level II BASIC upgrade (don't think so, at least not always), or whether it was available without a Level II BASIC upgrade. So I'd have been surprised by that keypad too, but for all I know it could have come from the factory like that or been upgraded by its original owner, who wanted to do lots of numeric data entry on a Level I BASIC system. Really I think there's a valuable lesson to be learned here, namely when trading in old computers it's a good idea to do some research and have some idea what the scope of possible configurations is, so that if you are buying you will have some idea what sort of questions to ask to find out just what the seller is selling. Or if you are selling, so you will have some idea of what you are selling. Don't count on the seller knowing what's important to you, or even where what he's got fits in that scope of configurations -- he may not. Even if he's another computer collector and/or familiar with that manufacturer's equipment, he may not know -- the sorts of questions I read (and even some of those I write) tell me that most of us have a lot to learn about these old machines, and none of us know everything about all of them. And even with all that in mind, expect some surprises! For example, a while back I bought a couple of HP 9825s from some guy in Southern California. Looking at the HP Calculator Museum web pages and some of my old HP test/measurement catalogs, I expected that one of them (the 9825B I think) would have a "computer" keyboard with full-travel keys. I didn't bother asking. Surprise, when it arrived both had the older clicky desktop-calculator keyboard of the 9825A. I pointed this out to the seller and he didn't know, though he has seen 9825s with the full-travel keys. Maybe it was an A that got field-upgraded to a B? We don't know, and I didn't really see any point in getting bent out of shape about it -- I got what I wanted, learned something, and now I have a good excuse to get another one! -Frank McConnell