PC Ephemera

[Fred Cisin]

On Wed, 26 Oct 2005, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Not AFAIK.  It was very difficult to buy the "bare" PC retail, what with
> demand being as strong as it was.  Most units were sold with at least one
> 160K floppy.

prob'ly mostly because they were charging about $500 for a Tandon TM100-1!
(and a few hundred $ for each row of 16K RAMs)

In fall 1981, I was able to buy a bare 5150, plus FDC and CGA.
I had plenty of RAM and floppies in stock for TRS-80s.

I wasn't able to get another bare one until summer 1982.

By 1983, the college where I teach was buying that configuration a dozen
at a time.

> I can recall trying the interface out and saying "yes, it works", but the
> most useful aspect of it was the motor control relay.

Yep!
I used it just long enough to confirm that it would not be a good way to
distribute software.