TRS-80 Fragmentation

[Geoffrey Oltmans]

On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 7:18 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
> D'ya mean like an automobile company making more than one model?  Surely
> there is no need for Toyota to make both a Corolla AND a Camry!
>
>
Hmm... not really sure about that comparison. After all, it's not like the
Corolla and Camry need different fuel and/or travel on separate roads.
Plus, I expect that despite their many differences there are probably quite
a few fundamental similarities (similar stereos, HVAC controls, brake
components, etc).

The Model 1 was a wild venture into a field that they knew little about,
> and didn't know what to expect.
> Ask Allison about what they expected.
> It turned out that what they made was surprisingly close to correct for
> people like US.
> Well, other than 16 lines by 64 characters of B&W, and a memory map that
> was not compatible with CP/M.
>

I guess they fixed that by the time the 4 came along.



> But what about pocket computers, PDAs, calculators?  Have to come out with
> some offerings there.
>

Well, like I said before. I think you could easily dismiss the calculators
and PDAs, since they were more of an appliance (i.e. create text documents
that are easily interchangeable with other machines). Heck even a lot of
the early PDAs could create spreadsheets that were compatible with Lotus
1-2-3, even moreso in some cases they were built in applications.


>
> Would they have been more successful if the model 2000 had been a PC
> clone, instead of "better than"?
>

Well, in some respects they eventually managed to do that with the Tandy
1000s... some incompatibilities aside.