Very good video. I have the Sharp PC-1401 pocket computer, that was made in 1983/84. Still use it once in a while. Those old pocket computers are rather sturdy, fit in your jacket and are fun.
I bought one of these as soon as they were announced. None of the local Radio Shacks had them yet, so I had to place an order and wait a week or two. I had also ordered the cassette interface, which actually arrived before the PC-01 did.....the store called and said that my order had arrived, and I recall being pretty miffed that only the interface was there when I got to the store. My boss at the time thought I was nuts for spending about one entire paycheck for this, when I had a Commodore PET in my office. Of course, no sooner than I got the PC-1 and the interface working, Radio Shack announced the printer/cassette interface model, and I needed to have that....the ability to print was important. I was rather cheesed off that they did not just sell the printer/interface from the get-go. But Radio Shack seemed unable to actually get one in the store, even after a couple of months. Then I found out that the PC-1 and the interfaces were brand labeled versions of a Sharp product, and that apart from some cosmetic changes, they were the same inside. I found that I could easily obtain the Sharp version of the printer/interface, so I did so. But it would not work the the PC-1. Radio Shack was useless for troubleshooting, since they would not support the non-Radio Shack branded equipment. Sharp would not help because by their contract with Radio Shack, they were not allowed to admit that they made the products for them. I kept badgering the Sharp USA office until they finally admitted that yes, they made these products, and that the only really knowledgeable person in the US office was an engineer from Japan, who spoke limited English and did not want to be put on the phone. He finally relented, and I put him at ease with my very limited Japanese I had learned while living there for a few years a couple decades earlier. Then his broken English and my even more broken Japanese allowed us to communicate enough for him to reveal one (apparently deliberate) difference between the Sharp and the Radio Shack versions......this seems to be explainable only in the context of Radio Shack NOT wanting their branded units to be compatible with the Sharp version. The Japanese engineer told me how to bypass that...I can no longer recall if it involved a jumper on a circuit board, or a special command on the computer, or what.....but then the two worked together just fine. I used mine for work stuff, pre-programming commonly used electronics engineering formulas, each assigned to one of the letter keys in DEF mode. It was nice that these were all kept in memory even when the power was off. But my proudest accomplishment was to adapt the commonly encountered Lunar Lander program in BASIC, which could be found in versions for all personal computers of the time, from the Altair to the Commodores, Apples, TRS-80s, etc; to fit in the PC-1 and work with its single line display. I had to be clever and shrink the program, and use every trick I knew to waste no space. It took all of the program memory, so when I was done using that, I had to re-load my engineering programs from cassette, something that was twitchy and unreliable, and often took several tries. This discouraged me from using the Lunar Lander program very often. I eventually traded the PC-1 and accessories to my boss for his Texas Instruments programmable calculator and his RC airplane. Only recently did I reacquire a PC-1 and the regular (no printer) cassette interface on eBay. Like Jeff Trantor's example, mine works fine except the LCD display has some bleed and does not look as clear as my original PC-1 did when new.
Replacement displays are available in limited numbers. Robert Baruch made them and sells them on Tindie, with full demo for replacement here on youtube. www.tindie.com/products/halfbakedmaker/lcd-replacement-for-trs-80-pc-1-sharp-pc-1211/
Awesome story. You should make your own TH-cam video with this story! I'm sure there's a lot of peoples' stories about being stymied by Radio Shack, but persisting and getting a Japanese guy from Sharp to share the secret sauce! That was when "open source" was sometimes just professional courtesy. Back in the day, if you met a fellow computer or electrical engineer: of course you'd share knowledge! Radio Shack represented all the companies where they didn't do this right.
in the early '90 I used it to pass my algebra exam. It was required to perform big polynomial (mod N) divisions, so I borrowed the unit from a friend, programmed the division algorithm in BASIC and then used it in the actual exam. When the professor discovered it he was shocked but allowed me to use it since "calculators" were allowed.
I had a TRS-80 Model I as a kid, but I had played with the PC-1 at a Radio Shack store. I found it fascinating at the time that you could program such a tiny computer in BASIC.
I just bought two of these off ebay, and am awaiting their arrival. I had one in high school and used it to store formulas for my physics and calculus tests, as my teachers just thought it was a calculator. Thanks for the tutorial.
I programmed a variety of formulae into mine... but I found that the act of storing them on this machine provided me with all the revision I ever needed. I never forgot a formula after that.
I was in my first computer programming course as a Junior in high school and the instructor at the end of the term pulled out one of these and let me play with it for a few hours. I was in heaven. He had bought it just to see what it was, and had no real plans to do anything with it. But YEA he wanted it back...I reluctantly returned it.
Thank you for the very nice and comprehensive review. In the 80s the equivalent SHARP PC-1211 was my first pocket computer, the one on which I started to learn programming in BASIC. My previous machine was a Texas Instruments TI57 programmable calculator with the awesome capacity of 49 steps.....!!! From there I progressed to the SHARP PC 1500A, with its amazing tiny plotter (4 colors pens) and later to the CASIO PB-700 and PB-770 attached to a wider 4.5" plotter. With the Casios I went on to create some complex programs quite useful in my job in oil refineries, one of which was even published on an Italian computer magazine in 1985. I am looking forward to watch your other videos.
I bought one of these for my first real job of keeping a running inventory in 5 buildings of a chemical production facility. It was a real time saver. It still works.
I had one of these, and used it in the Navy while attending MK-117 school at US Naval Submarine Base, Groton, CT. It was a great device at that time. I keyed in a lot of programs on that small alphanumeric keypad!!
@@VroodenTheGreat If you really want it that much and your wife is reluctant to spend any money fur more useless stuff, pay the postage and it's yours. I'd rather you had it and used it than it sit on my shelf. I used to use it at work but I'm several years retired now. If I want to write BASIC - which I very occasionally still do - I can do it on a PC. Email me at stevebell (at) gmail(dot) com if you'd like it. 😊
@@StephenBell what's your e-mail? The wife already pissed me off by givin me a hard time about it. I will happily pay shipping just to show her who is in charge. My e-mail is on my facebook, which you will get if you look at my link... I'm pretty sure the one on youtube is right, considering that I logged in here w/ FB.
I had one of these, received one as a Christmas present in 1980 from my mom when I was a sophomore in high school. Didn't have the printer/cassette interface (was on back-order at the time) but I still got a lot of use out of it. I was able to get the interface later. I know these seem like (relatively) cheap toys now, but in 1980 to a guy in 10th grade, it was the bee's knees!
We learned BASIC on it around 1986. There was a game with targeting canon. Another was memorizing random numbers displayed briefly on the screen. My elder brother used it to store phone numbers during his high school. Later, I wrote a program for truss Bridge forces calculation in engineering class. Nowadays, I use many other languages to program, thanks to this Sharp PC .
this reminds me of programming games on calculators now. We can only use calculators with number display and a small "text" input. You have to try to make it small as it only had 680 instructions max
Still have mine, only use it to show early computers to friends - but used to use it at my job for various uses that calculators could not do. But try to find new printer rolls now -
I wrote a flight sim on this, would calculate airspeed, altitude, course vectors, dme, all in real time, would run the equivalent of 1 fps, but I thought that was pretty cool at the time. Had to number lines as 1, 2, 3 etc rather than 10, 20 ... just to save an extra bit or two.
Thanks for the informative video. Just today I bought one of these for $5 in a yard sale. Came with the cassette interface. It is interesting. It isnt in great shape, but I cleaned it up and will put new batteries in it tomorrow.
Excellent bit of retro tech! I remember seeing the sharp version and it was the gadget to have if you were into Basic programming and computers. I basically saved up for a sinclair spectrum home computer, which were a fair bit cheaper! But many years later in the late 1990s I bought one off ebay very cheap! I still have it and have done a recent video, after 10 years if no use, sat in my garage it powered up just fine and works great. Nice bit of retro tech ;)
I enjoyed your video completely. I have the exact setup you have. I had to replace the Ni-Cad Batteries in the Cassette interface as well. I re-ink my ribbon using a "2000 PLUS" dropper bottle. Works muck better than WD40. I mounted my Cassette interface on a piece of 1/4" plywood and built a wooden fixture to hold a much larger paper spool. I bought my unit in 1980 and use it every month to balance my bank statement. The program I wrote can determine if your check book balance is either too large or too small and by how much, as well as just right.
Interesting video. I bought one last year after 30 years of waiting! Printer seems dead on mine. Check the inside of yours as the batteries are prone to leaking onto the PCB. A couple of searches on a well-known auction site reveals some ink ribbons that should fit. Must have been a standard printer mechanism because they have a long list of compatible models.
I was able to replace the rechargeable batteries on my printer and found the exact ribbon it needed. The replacement battery requires a little soldering. Here are the Amazon links: battery: a.co/7Y4lXhQ and for the printer ribbon: a.co/cutg4QT
I believe this was manufactured by Sharp, who continued to make multiple lines of "pocket computer" that they sold under their own brand for many years. I had a later model that compromised on the wide display in favor of a full set of scientific-calculator function keys for use in its immediate "CALC" mode. It was kind of a chimera, like two largely unrelated devices in one case, but as such it was very flexible.
I have learned that it's very hard to get gear like this in useable condition. I suspect the printer ribbons might be hard to find at this point, maybe even the paper. And internal batteries (especially Ni cads) are likely not only bad, but leaked, destroying the device. If you're an EE (I'm not), you can often resurrect them. I wish someone out there fixed old computers/calculators, especially old TI59s. Thanks for the video!
@@davidrichter9164 Yes, there are things that SUCK about Apple. For example, while the Swift IDE is totally free, Apple make you pay dearly for MFi certification, which allows you full access to the USB port
This was great for getting your BASIC crackhead fix to school when you'd rather be back home hacking and school was a nuisance and inconvienence that interrupted your hacking. I wrote a hangman program on it where one person enters a clue sentence and the word, passes it to the next, and they get asterixs displayed for the word letters... they have to push keys to guess the letter. If they get 6 guesses wrong they are "hung" and it would show them or count them. Frequently my PC-4 was passed around so much ruinning my hangman game I had no idea where it was and had to get it back for Chem Class. Unfortunately it was cumbersome to use in run mode for math, so I broke down and bought a finger puncher calculator like everyone else had to compute Moles and junk. It's still around here, but it froze in a barn once I'm sure and the screen is ruined from screen bleed. Still have the programming manual too. I think it was bought for $69 from under the Radio Shack glass display. Those freezing temps ruin a lot of the LCD displays or LCD powerbooks or ancient handheld videgames or of the vintage computers we have had... but who cares.. nobody cares much about this old junk anymore. Sad but true.
That was where some later models like the Sharp PC-140x/EL-5500 improved on it--they just added a finger-puncher mode you could switch it into, with a sweet set of scientific-calculator functions.
I wonder if (In theory) one could hook up a Desktop PC to save programs through the Mic/Phone port. I had such great memories programming my pc-1250a in High School, but I would lose the programs in order to make others. Have games I made on some old sheet of paper that I had. Would be nice if this worked, being I'd be able to just back them up VS typing them in every time I wanted to mess around with them. lol Buying a Sharp CE-123P on EBay right now. I'll find out once it arrives.
I'm going to give it a shot. I got one at a thrift store for $7. Paid a bit more for a cassette interface on eBay, I got a good deal, because it was Sharp branded version, advertised for the Sharp PC-1211. The TRS-80 Pocket PC was basically a rebadged Sharp, for the American market. They had two 4-bit chips not an 8-bit CPU. I have have no idea how compatible either it or the CE-123P is to the PC-1250a. The different TRS-80s after all had NO compatibility, they were fundamentally very different computers. Maybe Sharp was more consistent.
@@squirlmy I posted somewhere that it does indeed work. I'm at work now but I used my computers mic and I believe audiovox. I'll look up how i did it at home
@@squirlmy I found it. Here's what I did: It for those, like me, who had fond memories of making little games on these things and now have a way to keep backups. :) I can say with 100% that the CE-123P printer and cassette interface can not only save program files to a Windows 10 PC but can also read. Just with these instructions: To Save: Connect Red to Mic, grey to head phones Start Audacity Set as Follow: 1 (Mono) Recording Channel Under Preferences set: Sampling (Default Sample Rate: (11025 Hz)) (Default Sample Format: (16-bit)) Start Recording in Audacity Start the CSAVE"(File Name)" on the Pocket PC After the Pocket PC has stop displaying the 'BUSY' indicator then stop Audacity Recording Double Click to WAV display to Select it. Under Effects: 'Normalize'. DO NOT mess with defaults and hit 'OK' Export the WAV and under 'Export as Save as type' select 'Other uncompressed files' Format Options: Header "WAV (Microsoft)", Encoding "Unsigned 8-bit PCM" That Should do it. To Load : FIRST: Make sure no other sounds are playing in the Background. Type CLOAD"(File Name)" then run WAV file that was saved. Hope this helps some of you.
Yes, I had one of these. I even had the cassette interface, and then the printer interface. One of the perks of working for Tandy back then. Of course, John Adriaanse was a prick then.
When it came out I thought wow, but on learning you couldn't directly access the internal ports etc with peek & poke, and that assembly language was out, I soon lost interest. I have a TRS-80 M1 and was into making my own hardware etc, something near impossible on any of their pocket computers.
yep, closed hardware is a bitch, especially for a slow 80s basic calculator. to this day there's still no emulator for this thing, simply because nobody knows anything about the sharp 4-bit mcu's in there.
See Robert Baruch videos on PC-1 display replacement. His goal is to fix all extant PC-1 computers with "rotted" LCD displays. Mine is in the mail already.
My display is kind of dim. The characters are only visible at an angle. Should I clean the battery connections or is there a way to adjust the display?
+525Lines Make sure it has fresh batteries and the connections to the battery are clean. Other than that, there is no contrast control. The displays often degrade over time, so there may be anything you can do about it.
+Jeff Tranter I did try to clean the leads though there were old batteries still installed. I'll try again with fresh batteries and give the battery connections another quick cleaning. Hopefully, that will help. Thanks.
That was my first computer. I was getting into programming and my dad bought it for me. I remember typing in my programs and saving them on cassette tapes. I remember buying books with BASIC program printouts and typing them in by hand. The machine had very little memory, I believe 1k of RAM, so it was very limited in the types of programs it could run. Later, we bought a TRS-80 Color Computer with 16K of RAM, but I will always have fond memories of my first Pocket Computer.
I was able to replace the rechargeable batteries on my printer and found the exact ribbon it needed. The replacement battery requires a little soldering. Here are the Amazon links: battery: a.co/7Y4lXhQ and for the printer ribbon: a.co/cutg4QT
It used MR44 1.35 V Mercury button cells, NOT lithium. Purpose-made substitutes should be used, like the WEINcell MRB675. Alkaline and lithium batteries of the proper voltage will fit, and work at first, but they are designed for always-on applications and will die in a month or two. Actually there are five possible replacements for the MR44 cell: genuine Mercury cell, the PX675, PX76 or MR44 - but they are rare and hard to find. the equivalent alkaline cell, the LR44 or PX76A. the equivalent silver oxide cell, the 357 or SR44. the equivalent zinc air cell, the WeinCELL MRB675. a voltage reducing adapter, the MR-44 adapter and a silver oxide 392 cell
+AngryHammerite Yeah the internet and people able to get their stuff real cheap from china on our own kinda made it to where we didn't need a radio shack middle man.
Your statement about 1970s programmable calculators is oversimplified: there were programmable calculators that used algebraic notation in the 1970s, but not many had a merged programming model if they were not designed in Japan.
+ilcool90: Not at all! It was an exciting time. Computers were developing quickly, and I was lucky to have been a part of it through working for Data General Corp. I assisted in the development of one model of the Eclipse computer. And yes, there were lots of video arcades, and I frequented all of them! I lived and worked in Colorado Springs, Colorado back then. For a time during the 80's and early 90's, Colorado Springs was known as "Silicon Mountain."
The early 80's were a very exciting time. Learning about computers and writing programs was great. In many ways I wish we could go back to that era: computers performed their functions quickly and efficiently. They were not full of bloat-ware designed to spy on you. And speaking of spying, America was not the police state it is now.
Very good video. I have the Sharp PC-1401 pocket computer, that was made in 1983/84. Still use it once in a while. Those old pocket computers are rather sturdy, fit in your jacket and are fun.
I bought one of these as soon as they were announced. None of the local Radio Shacks had them yet, so I had to place an order and wait a week or two. I had also ordered the cassette interface, which actually arrived before the PC-01 did.....the store called and said that my order had arrived, and I recall being pretty miffed that only the interface was there when I got to the store.
My boss at the time thought I was nuts for spending about one entire paycheck for this, when I had a Commodore PET in my office.
Of course, no sooner than I got the PC-1 and the interface working, Radio Shack announced the printer/cassette interface model, and I needed to have that....the ability to print was important. I was rather cheesed off that they did not just sell the printer/interface from the get-go. But Radio Shack seemed unable to actually get one in the store, even after a couple of months. Then I found out that the PC-1 and the interfaces were brand labeled versions of a Sharp product, and that apart from some cosmetic changes, they were the same inside. I found that I could easily obtain the Sharp version of the printer/interface, so I did so. But it would not work the the PC-1. Radio Shack was useless for troubleshooting, since they would not support the non-Radio Shack branded equipment. Sharp would not help because by their contract with Radio Shack, they were not allowed to admit that they made the products for them. I kept badgering the Sharp USA office until they finally admitted that yes, they made these products, and that the only really knowledgeable person in the US office was an engineer from Japan, who spoke limited English and did not want to be put on the phone. He finally relented, and I put him at ease with my very limited Japanese I had learned while living there for a few years a couple decades earlier. Then his broken English and my even more broken Japanese allowed us to communicate enough for him to reveal one (apparently deliberate) difference between the Sharp and the Radio Shack versions......this seems to be explainable only in the context of Radio Shack NOT wanting their branded units to be compatible with the Sharp version. The Japanese engineer told me how to bypass that...I can no longer recall if it involved a jumper on a circuit board, or a special command on the computer, or what.....but then the two worked together just fine.
I used mine for work stuff, pre-programming commonly used electronics engineering formulas, each assigned to one of the letter keys in DEF mode. It was nice that these were all kept in memory even when the power was off.
But my proudest accomplishment was to adapt the commonly encountered Lunar Lander program in BASIC, which could be found in versions for all personal computers of the time, from the Altair to the Commodores, Apples, TRS-80s, etc; to fit in the PC-1 and work with its single line display. I had to be clever and shrink the program, and use every trick I knew to waste no space. It took all of the program memory, so when I was done using that, I had to re-load my engineering programs from cassette, something that was twitchy and unreliable, and often took several tries. This discouraged me from using the Lunar Lander program very often.
I eventually traded the PC-1 and accessories to my boss for his Texas Instruments programmable calculator and his RC airplane.
Only recently did I reacquire a PC-1 and the regular (no printer) cassette interface on eBay. Like Jeff Trantor's example, mine works fine except the LCD display has some bleed and does not look as clear as my original PC-1 did when new.
Replacement displays are available in limited numbers. Robert Baruch made them and sells them on Tindie, with full demo for replacement here on youtube. www.tindie.com/products/halfbakedmaker/lcd-replacement-for-trs-80-pc-1-sharp-pc-1211/
Awesome story. You should make your own TH-cam video with this story! I'm sure there's a lot of peoples' stories about being stymied by Radio Shack, but persisting and getting a Japanese guy from Sharp to share the secret sauce! That was when "open source" was sometimes just professional courtesy. Back in the day, if you met a fellow computer or electrical engineer: of course you'd share knowledge! Radio Shack represented all the companies where they didn't do this right.
Cool story! Enjoyed reading it. I really liked the Shack back then!
This story is awesome! Especially the bit with the Japanese Engineer. Thank you so much for telling it.
in the early '90 I used it to pass my algebra exam.
It was required to perform big polynomial (mod N) divisions, so I borrowed the unit from a friend, programmed the division algorithm in BASIC and then used it in the actual exam.
When the professor discovered it he was shocked but allowed me to use it since "calculators" were allowed.
I had a TRS-80 Model I as a kid, but I had played with the PC-1 at a Radio Shack store. I found it fascinating at the time that you could program such a tiny computer in BASIC.
I just bought two of these off ebay, and am awaiting their arrival. I had one in high school and used it to store formulas for my physics and calculus tests, as my teachers just thought it was a calculator. Thanks for the tutorial.
Same thing for me, but with a TI-55 programmable. The teachers then didn't know about programming calculators.
I programmed a variety of formulae into mine... but I found that the act of storing them on this machine provided me with all the revision I ever needed. I never forgot a formula after that.
I was in my first computer programming course as a Junior in high school and the instructor at the end of the term pulled out one of these and let me play with it for a few hours. I was in heaven. He had bought it just to see what it was, and had no real plans to do anything with it. But YEA he wanted it back...I reluctantly returned it.
Thank you for the very nice and comprehensive review.
In the 80s the equivalent SHARP PC-1211 was my first pocket computer, the one on which I started to learn programming in BASIC.
My previous machine was a Texas Instruments TI57 programmable calculator with the awesome capacity of 49 steps.....!!!
From there I progressed to the SHARP PC 1500A, with its amazing tiny plotter (4 colors pens) and later to the CASIO PB-700 and PB-770 attached to a wider 4.5" plotter.
With the Casios I went on to create some complex programs quite useful in my job in oil refineries, one of which was even published on an Italian computer magazine in 1985.
I am looking forward to watch your other videos.
I bought one of these for my first real job of keeping a running inventory in 5 buildings of a chemical production facility. It was a real time saver. It still works.
I had one of these, and used it in the Navy while attending MK-117 school at US Naval Submarine Base, Groton, CT. It was a great device at that time. I keyed in a lot of programs on that small alphanumeric keypad!!
I bought this and used it to work out what times nd settings needed for gold plating. This machine was awesome and i loved the limited basic it had.
wow I was here 1 year ago. know bought a sharp branded one. they have better layout and cheaper.
I still have mine, on a shelf here beside me, and it still works fine.
Do you wanna sell it? This was my first computer, and oh... what a ride it's been.
@@VroodenTheGreat
Make me an offer! :-) Just checked - still works fine.
@@ElectrAA what did it cost? like $250?
EDIT: well I just talked to the wife and she said "More useless crap"? I was unable to argue that point.
@@VroodenTheGreat If you really want it that much and your wife is reluctant to spend any money fur more useless stuff, pay the postage and it's yours. I'd rather you had it and used it than it sit on my shelf. I used to use it at work but I'm several years retired now. If I want to write BASIC - which I very occasionally still do - I can do it on a PC. Email me at stevebell (at) gmail(dot) com if you'd like it. 😊
@@StephenBell what's your e-mail? The wife already pissed me off by givin me a hard time about it. I will happily pay shipping just to show her who is in charge. My e-mail is on my facebook, which you will get if you look at my link... I'm pretty sure the one on youtube is right, considering that I logged in here w/ FB.
I had one of these, received one as a Christmas present in 1980 from my mom when I was a sophomore in high school. Didn't have the printer/cassette interface (was on back-order at the time) but I still got a lot of use out of it. I was able to get the interface later.
I know these seem like (relatively) cheap toys now, but in 1980 to a guy in 10th grade, it was the bee's knees!
We learned BASIC on it around 1986. There was a game with targeting canon. Another was memorizing random numbers displayed briefly on the screen. My elder brother used it to store phone numbers during his high school. Later, I wrote a program for truss Bridge forces calculation in engineering class. Nowadays, I use many other languages to program, thanks to this Sharp PC .
this reminds me of programming games on calculators now. We can only use calculators with number display and a small "text" input. You have to try to make it small as it only had 680 instructions max
Still have mine, only use it to show early computers to friends - but used to use it at my job for various uses that calculators could not do. But try to find new printer rolls now -
Amazon Alexa can't tell me how to work out the area of a circle.. but you can program this to do the job.
I wrote a flight sim on this, would calculate airspeed, altitude, course vectors, dme, all in real time, would run the equivalent of 1 fps, but I thought that was pretty cool at the time. Had to number lines as 1, 2, 3 etc rather than 10, 20 ... just to save an extra bit or two.
I remember doing the same! That 4K RAM filled up fast.
Thanks for the informative video. Just today I bought one of these for $5 in a yard sale. Came with the cassette interface. It is interesting. It isnt in great shape, but I cleaned it up and will put new batteries in it tomorrow.
I have the PC1500A and used it to write a program to do my father's annual account back in 1980. I hope I can get the printer interface.
My first computer.
Thanks for the UL.
Lovely video. Had to crack a smile when the frequency result popped up :)
Very clear presentation! Thank you, Sir!
This should have been used for intro to programming classes.
Excellent bit of retro tech! I remember seeing the sharp version and it was the gadget to have if you were into Basic programming and computers. I basically saved up for a sinclair spectrum home computer, which were a fair bit cheaper! But many years later in the late 1990s I bought one off ebay very cheap! I still have it and have done a recent video, after 10 years if no use, sat in my garage it powered up just fine and works great. Nice bit of retro tech ;)
I enjoyed your video completely. I have the exact setup you have. I had to replace the Ni-Cad Batteries in the Cassette interface as well. I re-ink my ribbon using a "2000 PLUS" dropper bottle. Works muck better than WD40. I mounted my Cassette interface on a piece of 1/4" plywood and built a wooden fixture to hold a much larger paper spool. I bought my unit in 1980 and use it every month to balance my bank statement. The program I wrote can determine if your check book balance is either too large or too small and by how much, as well as just right.
Interesting video. I bought one last year after 30 years of waiting! Printer seems dead on mine. Check the inside of yours as the batteries are prone to leaking onto the PCB. A couple of searches on a well-known auction site reveals some ink ribbons that should fit. Must have been a standard printer mechanism because they have a long list of compatible models.
I was able to replace the rechargeable batteries on my printer and found the exact ribbon it needed. The replacement battery requires a little soldering. Here are the Amazon links: battery: a.co/7Y4lXhQ and for the printer ribbon: a.co/cutg4QT
Remember having one of these as a kid wrote a small simple number game on it,forgot all about it
I believe this was manufactured by Sharp, who continued to make multiple lines of "pocket computer" that they sold under their own brand for many years. I had a later model that compromised on the wide display in favor of a full set of scientific-calculator function keys for use in its immediate "CALC" mode. It was kind of a chimera, like two largely unrelated devices in one case, but as such it was very flexible.
I have one of these and it still works. I only take it out of it's cage for show and tell :)
I loved this when I was a student.
I had the Sharp original.
My current handheld can do Calculus.
I have one, got it in 1981. Not sure what happened to the printer/cassette interface but the computer has the sleeve. Batteries lasted 30+ years.
日本人なので、日本語でのコメント失礼申し上げますが、Radio Shack TRS-80ポケットコンピュータを見て思ったこととして、これは日本のシャープ製ポケットコンピュータPC-1211のOEM機種なのでは？と思いました。
日本ではポケットコンピュータ(Pocket Computer)を略してポケコン(Pokecom)という場面もありますが、コメントするために日本語固有の略語は敢えて書きません。
姿格好及び、キーボード及び液晶の機能表示を見てもPC-1211とほとんど同じであること、電卓感覚で計算を行う上での手順がシャープ製ポケットコンピュータのほとんどの機種と同じ手順で行えることからPC-1211のOEM機種と思ったのですが、20年位前に読んだポケットコンピュータ専門誌を見て覚えていたこととして、PC-1211は関数電卓の延長線程度のBASIC命令セットしか持っていないらしいです。
Yes, it was made by Sharp for Radio Shack and I have heard that it was the same as, or similar to, the Sharp PC-1211.
A blast from the past. Got one when it first came out. Love it to death, quite literally. LOL!! After 3 years of usage the unit died on me.
Fascinating. Thanks for this.
I have learned that it's very hard to get gear like this in useable condition. I suspect the printer ribbons might be hard to find at this point, maybe even the paper. And internal batteries (especially Ni cads) are likely not only bad, but leaked, destroying the device. If you're an EE (I'm not), you can often resurrect them. I wish someone out there fixed old computers/calculators, especially old TI59s. Thanks for the video!
I learned to code BASIC on a TRS-80 Model 4. Today, I'm coding iOS Swift for Apple mobile devices. Technology has come a long way!
Too bad Apple sucks.
@@davidrichter9164 Yes, there are things that SUCK about Apple. For example, while the Swift IDE is totally free, Apple make you pay dearly for MFi certification, which allows you full access to the USB port
Tear that puppy apart. I want to see what’s inside! In all seriousness, amazing video. Thanks for sharing!
Great review. Still have the PC-1 on tap :-)
This was great for getting your BASIC crackhead fix to school when you'd rather be back home hacking and school was a nuisance and inconvienence that interrupted your hacking.
I wrote a hangman program on it where one person enters a clue sentence and the word, passes it to the next, and they get asterixs displayed for the word letters... they have to push keys to guess the letter. If they get 6 guesses wrong they are "hung" and it would show them or count them. Frequently my PC-4 was passed around so much ruinning my hangman game I had no idea where it was and had to get it back for Chem Class.
Unfortunately it was cumbersome to use in run mode for math, so I broke down and bought a finger puncher calculator like everyone else had to compute Moles and junk.
It's still around here, but it froze in a barn once I'm sure and the screen is ruined from screen bleed. Still have the programming manual too. I think it was bought for $69 from under the Radio Shack glass display. Those freezing temps ruin a lot of the LCD displays or LCD powerbooks or ancient handheld videgames or of the vintage computers we have had... but who cares.. nobody cares much about this old junk anymore. Sad but true.
That was where some later models like the Sharp PC-140x/EL-5500 improved on it--they just added a finger-puncher mode you could switch it into, with a sweet set of scientific-calculator functions.
@@MattMcIrvin I still got mine, but time and being left in a barn ruined the screen with screen bleed.
That's a Sharp computer. "Radio xxx" is just some kind of rebranding.
These were not manufactured for RadioShack by Sharp, these were Sharp products rebranded as RadioShack.
I wonder if (In theory) one could hook up a Desktop PC to save programs through the Mic/Phone port. I had such great memories programming my pc-1250a in High School, but I would lose the programs in order to make others. Have games I made on some old sheet of paper that I had. Would be nice if this worked, being I'd be able to just back them up VS typing them in every time I wanted to mess around with them. lol
Buying a Sharp CE-123P on EBay right now. I'll find out once it arrives.
I'm going to give it a shot. I got one at a thrift store for $7. Paid a bit more for a cassette interface on eBay, I got a good deal, because it was Sharp branded version, advertised for the Sharp PC-1211. The TRS-80 Pocket PC was basically a rebadged Sharp, for the American market. They had two 4-bit chips not an 8-bit CPU. I have have no idea how compatible either it or the CE-123P is to the PC-1250a. The different TRS-80s after all had NO compatibility, they were fundamentally very different computers. Maybe Sharp was more consistent.
@@squirlmy I posted somewhere that it does indeed work. I'm at work now but I used my computers mic and I believe audiovox. I'll look up how i did it at home
@@squirlmy I found it. Here's what I did:
It for those, like me, who had fond memories of making little games on these things and now have a way to keep backups. :)
I can say with 100% that the CE-123P printer and cassette interface can not only save program files to a Windows 10 PC but can also read. Just with these instructions:
To Save:
Connect Red to Mic, grey to head phones
Start Audacity
Set as Follow:
1 (Mono) Recording Channel
Under Preferences set:
Sampling (Default Sample Rate: (11025 Hz))
(Default Sample Format: (16-bit))
Start Recording in Audacity
Start the CSAVE"(File Name)" on the Pocket PC
After the Pocket PC has stop displaying the 'BUSY' indicator then stop Audacity Recording
Double Click to WAV display to Select it.
Under Effects: 'Normalize'. DO NOT mess with defaults and hit 'OK'
Export the WAV and under 'Export as Save as type' select 'Other uncompressed files'
Format Options: Header "WAV (Microsoft)", Encoding "Unsigned 8-bit PCM"
That Should do it.
To Load
:
FIRST: Make sure no other sounds are playing in the Background.
Type CLOAD"(File Name)" then run WAV file that was saved.
Hope this helps some of you.
i now own one.. complete with case, accessories etc.
Is there any info I can get on more ink for the printer part?
I spent some time today searching for a source for printer ribbons, and was not able to find anything.
Jeff Tranter Darn, I see. Thank you for the vid though, gave me a pretty good introduction to the device.
Yes, I had one of these. I even had the cassette interface, and then the printer interface. One of the perks of working for Tandy back then. Of course, John Adriaanse was a prick then.
LOGIN Noticias Can I buy it now?
I am old computer and calculator lover but it's difficult to find products...
Thank you for this trip down memory lane! Makes me want to take my pocket computer out of the closet and write some code. :)
Peace.
I recently found one of these at a thrift store for $1. I meant to buy it, but I think I inadvertently left it there
The Casio series of that nature made me open for running into Psion. Would have bought a pocket ZX-something if it was invented.
These were promoted as mini-microcomputers, smaller than desktop PC's. 💻
When it came out I thought wow, but on learning you couldn't directly access the internal ports etc with peek & poke, and that assembly language was out, I soon lost interest.
I have a TRS-80 M1 and was into making my own hardware etc, something near impossible on any of their pocket computers.
yep, closed hardware is a bitch, especially for a slow 80s basic calculator. to this day there's still no emulator for this thing, simply because nobody knows anything about the sharp 4-bit mcu's in there.
See Robert Baruch videos on PC-1 display replacement. His goal is to fix all extant PC-1 computers with "rotted" LCD displays. Mine is in the mail already.
My display is kind of dim. The characters are only visible at an angle. Should I clean the battery connections or is there a way to adjust the display?
+525Lines Make sure it has fresh batteries and the connections to the battery are clean. Other than that, there is no contrast control. The displays often degrade over time, so there may be anything you can do about it.
+Jeff Tranter I did try to clean the leads though there were old batteries still installed. I'll try again with fresh batteries and give the battery connections another quick cleaning. Hopefully, that will help. Thanks.
There is a contrast control, but I do not remember now.
I miss my little trash 80 pocket computer
Have you a pb-1000?
😊
No,
It's nice to see obsolete technology just to remind me how far we have advanced. ⌨️
4:22 That page moved !
That was my first computer. I was getting into programming and my dad bought it for me. I remember typing in my programs and saving them on cassette tapes. I remember buying books with BASIC program printouts and typing them in by hand. The machine had very little memory, I believe 1k of RAM, so it was very limited in the types of programs it could run. Later, we bought a TRS-80 Color Computer with 16K of RAM, but I will always have fond memories of my first Pocket Computer.
I programmed mine to do my college electronics 5 page final exam in 1984. Walked out with an "A" in 20 minutes.
I have one of them :)
i have the sharp pc-1500
I was able to replace the rechargeable batteries on my printer and found the exact ribbon it needed. The replacement battery requires a little soldering. Here are the Amazon links: battery: a.co/7Y4lXhQ and for the printer ribbon: a.co/cutg4QT
It used MR44 1.35 V Mercury button cells, NOT lithium. Purpose-made substitutes should be used, like the WEINcell MRB675. Alkaline and lithium batteries of the proper voltage will fit, and work at first, but they are designed for always-on applications and will die in a month or two. Actually there are five possible replacements for the
MR44 cell: genuine Mercury cell, the PX675, PX76 or MR44 - but they are rare and hard to find.
the equivalent alkaline cell, the LR44 or PX76A.
the equivalent silver oxide cell, the 357 or SR44.
the equivalent zinc air cell, the WeinCELL MRB675.
a voltage reducing adapter, the MR-44 adapter and a silver oxide 392 cell
why is it that to me you sound like Alan Alda?
Too bad that RadioShack just went bankrupt :(
+AngryHammerite Yeah the internet and people able to get their stuff real cheap from china on our own kinda made it to where we didn't need a radio shack middle man.
Your statement about 1970s programmable calculators is oversimplified: there were programmable calculators that used algebraic notation in the 1970s, but not many had a merged programming model if they were not designed in Japan.
Well nowadays we just call it “calculator”!
You can't program a calculator in BASIC. :-)
It really must have been horrible living in the early 80s.
No, it was great. Video arcades and shopping malls everywhere.
Heh, heh! Not many years earlier and a slide rule was the prestige computing device. My Picket aluminum slide rule was a hot item.
+ilcool90: Not at all! It was an exciting time. Computers were developing quickly, and I was lucky to have been a part of it through working for Data General Corp. I assisted in the development of one model of the Eclipse computer. And yes, there were lots of video arcades, and I frequented all of them!
I lived and worked in Colorado Springs, Colorado back then. For a time during the 80's and early 90's, Colorado Springs was known as "Silicon Mountain."
The early 80's were a very exciting time. Learning about computers and writing programs was great. In many ways I wish we could go back to that era: computers performed their functions quickly and efficiently. They were not full of bloat-ware designed to spy on you. And speaking of spying, America was not the police state it is now.