Vintage Computer and Fond Memories

by Roger
(Weston, Vermont)

Some people look for those bargains that the seller doesn't know about.

For example, a masterpiece artwork that the unsuspecting owner sells for three dollars, and ends up worth a small fortune.

Great for the buyer, but the seller ends up feeling like a schnook. A kind of win/lose scenario.

Well, some people are happy with that. But sometimes you find a situation when the seller appreciates something as much as the buyer does, and they have an interesting shared experience.

I like antique computers. A strange word to be using, that the day should come when computers are thought of as antiques.

But I went to college just around the time that stores like Radio Shack started selling computers for the first time. The first laptop computer was sold by Radio Shack, the TRS-80 Model 100. A rather generic name, but truly a classic machine. Runs on four AA flashlight batteries (a laptop that runs on flashlight batteries!) for over 20 hours of use, built in communications modem, and programmable. That was in a day when if a computer wasn't programmable by the user, it wasn't particularly useful.

Back then, the computer sold for $1000. As a college student, I didn't have $1000 to spare. But I always wanted one of those, even after they were no longer for sale.

So, at a garage sale, I found a TRS-80 Model 100 for sale, for $35.

I had to have it. It was almost an afterthought to ask if it still worked.

Even if it didn't, I considered it an art object, even if one that few would appreciate. But yes, it worked. Was it worth more than $35? Not really. This was before the days of eBay, where anything could be bought anywhere any time, but even on eBay these days, $35 is considered reasonable for this machine.

And the owner appreciated it as much as I did. He had enjoyed it a great deal over the years, and just felt it was time to move on. He wanted it to have a happy home, even if as a child's toy. We talked about the history of the machine.

This was, as it happens, the last computer for which Microsoft founder Bill Gates personally wrote the operating system. And the seller demonstrated some of his favorite games and other programs on this computer.

We got his price. No haggling from me. I wouldn't have had the heart to walk away from that computer.

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