Inside the TRS-80 Model 100

enalbro writes "What wouldn't you give for a laptop that starts instantly, weighs 3 pounds and gets 20 hours of battery life? That's the TRS-80 Model 100 in a nutshell. Granted, it displays only 8 lines of text and has just 28 kilobytes of memory, but it's a classic, the first truly popular portable in the U.S. At PC World we have a teardown that'll show you the guts of this featherweight champ." And, like many of the best things in life, it's powered by AA batteries (as is the Apple eMate).

keyboards

[Tumbleweed]

Laptop makers could learn a thing or two from that keyboard - WAY better feel than those stupid flat keys that so many laptops use today (Apple, Sony, etc.). If you can't do something better than they did 20 years ago, just don't even try, m'kay?

Re:GK Chesterton

[Applekid]

With the new crop of machines like the EEE PC it seems that we're moving back to small, power-efficient machines as opposed to huge hulkers.

People have been predicting the death of the hulker desktop now for what, 10 years? Sure the move to smaller and efficient is what's going to make computing truly ubiquitous by hiding them everywhere (well, that and economics), but full-sized machines will always have more power and reflect the state-of-the-art computing muscle the industry has to offer.

But muscle isn't everything? Lalalala, I can't hear you. ;)

Re:GK Chesterton

[bsDaemon]

I plan on experimenting with Pico-ITX, or perhaps ARM systems this year, trying to see if I can't power a reasonably useful system on solar or so. I probably wouldn't want to be doing a buildworld every week on one, but it'd be nice to have something power efficient to idle IRC...

there is always going to be a place for hulking, massive systems -- however, we should try and make them as power efficient as possible.

Re:I still have mine

[fishbowl]

>20 hours, on 4 AA batteries. No proprietary battery.

Do not underestimate the impact of this, on its popularity.
One big reason the Model 100 was so popular among journalists was
the extremely good (even for now) battery life, together with the
fact that the AA battery is something that you'd be able to get in
even some very remote places.

Re:It's like a 3 lb CASIO watch.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not from 1995, you idiot. And they were awesome for their time, heavily used by journalists in particular. Christ, I hate how stupid children have infected Slashdot.

Not a laptop

[Reality Master 101]

What wouldn't you give for a laptop that starts instantly, weighs 3 pounds and gets 20 hours of battery life?

I'd give a lot for that, but this wasn't it. This is more accurately described as a PDA that fits on your lap. What it did, it did well (for the time), but it was very limited. And modern PDAs get a lot more than 20 hours of battery life.

In other words, if you want a modern Model 100, get a PDA with one of those fold-up keyboards and go to town. Instant-on, long battery life, and destroys the Model 100 in usefulness.

Re:Why not standardize batteries for mobile device

[British]

Could it not be narrowed down to about 10 different standardized rechargeable batteries?

But that would mean numerous companies could make the one battery type that covers numerous laptops, thus increasing competition and lowering price. Sadly, that means your favorite PC mfg couldn't gouge you for replacement batteries.

And that's why it won't happen.

Re:Still have one.

[jmorris42]

> I know just what you're looking for...

Looks interesting. But it does have a few obvious downsides after a few minutes of looking.

1. It is bigger on two dimensions and about the same 2" depth vs a Model 100. After two decades I'd have expected a little improvement. :)

2. The keyboard LOOKS like the weak link, your statement that this actually IS a problem just confirms that the most important attribute of the Model 100, the wonderful keyboard, isn't replicated here.

3. No indication of battery life is given when using AA batteries, but since modern Li-ion rechargables have better energy density vs off the shelf AA Alkalines.... Again, it has been two decades and things like battery life are worse?

4. $350 for the base model seems a little much for what you get. Yes it has a bigger screen than my ancient Visor but it is just as monochromatic. Seriously, take my old Visor, double the RAM to 16MB, give it a bigger display and bolt on a keyboard and you get this product. Paid $99 for the Visor years ago.

For $350 you can get an Eeepc, smaller on all dimensions, similar chicklet keyboard but get a color screen and WiFi. Runtime is the only selling point for the AlphaSmart.

If they could either drastically reduce the sticker price or get a kick ass keyboard on it they would have a winner in my book.