> Read this BYTE article from two years after the TRS-80's release <https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1979-08/1979_08_BYT...>, which a) discusses how to implement machine language graphics and b) complains about the complete lack of Tandy documentation that motivated the author to write the article in the first place.
Looking at archive.org, it appears that Tandy/Radio Shack published extensive user-facing technical documentation (not just the service manuals) from 1978 onward that not only included information on the character set, memory map, assembly language programming, etc. but also full schematics for the system. In addition to the Z-80 machine language monitor described in the article, they shipped a full editor-assembler in 1978. The Z-80 (perhaps not as popular as the 6502 is on HN but it appears from time to time) was itself well documented (and also ran 8080 code.) Documentation notwithstanding, it does seem like Tandy didn't understand how important third party software was becoming and mistakenly viewed it as competition.
But that LISP-focused issue of BYTE from 1979 is still phenomenal. I wish we had computer magazines like that now that covered such a wide range of interesting things. At least we have the MagPi which tries to do that a bit for the Raspberry Pi platform.
I also love the Apple ad copy on page 17:
"Apple's the one you can program yourself. So there's no limit to the things you can do."
Technically that's still sort of true (Swift Playgrounds, for example, or just hacking javascript in the browser), but in the "there's [already] an app for that [would you like to buy it?]" era, programming the machine yourself seems like an afterthought.
Looking at archive.org, it appears that Tandy/Radio Shack published extensive user-facing technical documentation (not just the service manuals) from 1978 onward that not only included information on the character set, memory map, assembly language programming, etc. but also full schematics for the system. In addition to the Z-80 machine language monitor described in the article, they shipped a full editor-assembler in 1978. The Z-80 (perhaps not as popular as the 6502 is on HN but it appears from time to time) was itself well documented (and also ran 8080 code.) Documentation notwithstanding, it does seem like Tandy didn't understand how important third party software was becoming and mistakenly viewed it as competition.
But that LISP-focused issue of BYTE from 1979 is still phenomenal. I wish we had computer magazines like that now that covered such a wide range of interesting things. At least we have the MagPi which tries to do that a bit for the Raspberry Pi platform.
I also love the Apple ad copy on page 17:
"Apple's the one you can program yourself. So there's no limit to the things you can do."
Technically that's still sort of true (Swift Playgrounds, for example, or just hacking javascript in the browser), but in the "there's [already] an app for that [would you like to buy it?]" era, programming the machine yourself seems like an afterthought.