Old Tandy laptops

The problem I always ran into was the schools would have these new-fangled console phones, and the sleek handset would never fit into the couplers. Of course, with these phones we couldn't use the direct-line connection because you had to be able to dial a 9 or something for an outside line.

One of the worst situations I ran into was a late-season football game. The high that day was about 28 degrees and the home team's coaching staff spent most of the day clearing eight inches of snow off the field. The chicken coop that passed for a pressbox had one little electric heater (the PA guy brought it from home). The rotary-dial phone they left in the pressbox all year was unusable; the dial was frozen. I had the pleasure of dictating that night.

I got real good at finding out where each school had it's fax machine because those were dedicated lines, hence no need to dial 9. Still, there were a couple of places where people couldn't understand why I had to get into the principal's office after a game, even on my third or fourth trip to their school.

After 18 years in the business, I splurged this spring on a cell phone that doubles as an aircard. Now I just have to be where I can get a cellular signal.

 

"I need to get into the coaches office to send my story." (or in a hotel lobby, or a convenience store)

"Why?"

"To use his phone line for my computer."

"Oh. Is it long distance? Because I don't know if we can do that."

"Yes, but I have an 800-number, won't cost you anything. I just need it for five minutes or so."

"Well, OK. This is all we have."

(black rotary phone tied into the school system, unusable, and no fax machine)

"Nevermind. Thanks."

(nearest convenience store, while holding the laptop)

"Uh, can I use your phone for a minute to send a story to the Daily Bugle? I'm on deadline."

"You need to do what?"

(sigh)


Or, how about tearing apart a hotel room bed and nightstand to get to the hidden phone jack, or unscrewing the telephone body from the plate so you can splice the wires to make the line work? That always was fun.

 

Those were the days. I can still remember the rain pelting me, the 10-minute cursing rants, and the taste of those joe-joe potato logs from the convienience store on the ride home. What fun.

 

My first week at a new job about 15 years ago i was given a TRS-100. Took it to a prep fb game so i could do some writing at halftime. Interviewed coaches after game, then took a short cut to my car by hopping a high cyclone fence. But first i decided to throw my backpack over fence, forgetting i had tandy inside. As the bag flew through the air i remembered the tandy and uttered some expletive. It hit the concrete hard and i scrambled over the fence to retrieve it. I shook it and could hear loose parts. Not good. But when i turned it on, it still worked.
Filed from some bars and a Taco Bell. Convenience store workers never grasped why you wanted to use their office phone, so i stayed clear of them.
By the late 1990s you were hard-pressed to get cords for these things, as radio shack stopped making them. But i found a guy in NorCal, Rick Hanson of Club 100, who sold Tandys, refurbished them and sold parts for them. He's still in business.
I'm sentimental about the old machines, but now i have a Dell Inspiron and Verizon card and life's much easier.

 

How about the swearing that would ensue when it looked like the transmission was going OK, only to have garble and interference pop up about three minutes in?

And, yeah, it was fun moving all the furniture in a hotel room to try and get to the wires to get the thing hooked up.

 

The thing I always think about when I remember these is that little
(c) Microsoft that came onto the screen when you turned it on. Do you realize how many rich, retired sportswriters there would be if we'd all bought a couple hundred shares the first time we saw that word?

 

The couplers were round, and the fit over the earpiece and mouthpiece of a phone handset. About the time they started really being useful the phone companies started making their handsets with square earpieces and mouthpieces. Square peg, round hole, as it were.

Then, it was use of an RJ11 phone cord, and you'd get to the coach's office and the phone would be modular and have an RJ45 cord. That happens enough times, and you're looking for razor blades.

 

Besides Jocko, is there any writer at a major metro *still* using these things?

 

Great stories! I just wonder how many hotel beds I moved back in the day to send a story via those ultra-sleek modem cords. Let's put it this way: I found out how dirty most Marriotts were.

The Trash-80s I had were not programmed to show me the lines of type as the story was being transmitted -- only the "up" (short for upload) panel was in black. I can't tell you how many times I stared breathlessly at that "up" panel, hoping the connection would hold until the screen gave me a confirmation that the story made it. Remember that?

 

I'm not sure if this is a trip down memory lane or a thread conjuring up all the bad memories of when these things didn't work.

I remember being the guinea pig for our tech department and taking four different machines to four consecutive tournaments (ACC, first/second round, Sweet 16 and Final Four) to test them out. Man, were those quick learning curves.

And what about the old Texas Instruments Porta-a-bubbles???? that kept stuff in bubble memory and printed out on thermal paper?

 

This has been an extremely interesting thread. I think laptops were pretty widespread when I came in to the biz, but my paper was cheap and provided us with no such luxuries (never saw a TRS-80 in that building either).

So, wicked, I'm not sure if this counts, but I did see someone using it in the late '90s at The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa. (doubtful it could be considered a major metro). It pisses me off I can't remember his name, but the guy who covered wrestling forever. We were at some summer league baseball game.

 

Most definitely. Aggravating little bastards. Glad we had them, though.