Programming on my TRS-80

Last year when I visited my parents I was getting something out of the attic’s walk-in closet and I noticed some writing on the wall. I cleared a few things out of the way and snapped that picture. It appears to be notes from a database program I was writing on my TRS-80 Color Computer to track my grades. Or maybe someone else’s grades. Apparently it was way too much effort for me to go to the other room and get a piece of paper, so I just wrote on the wall with permanent marker.

The I, Y and S are variables in the program. I is initials, Y is year and S is semester. Since it was ’87 it was either my Freshman year in high school or 8th grade. Wait, 4 semesters? Maybe I’m wrong about that one. No idea what FML means. I have no idea why I would want to track my grades with the computer, though. Maybe I was just looking for an easier project to tackle after my database of the entire phone book was such a failure. (I didn’t understand that 64k of memory wouldn’t hold the entire phone book, even if I had unlimited storage on my cassette drive.)

For a couple of years, this walk-in closet was my computer headquarters. I think I moved my stuff in there to get away from my brother who shared the attic room with me. HQ included the TRS-80, a car stereo with cassette deck, a CB radio, phone and television. I fit a lot into a closet. Best of all, it was located over the kitchen which meant I could stay up late harassing people on the CB and my parents couldn’t hear me.

5 comments

  • Did you stash anything in the house that still may remain unfound? That’d be cool.

  • I was just visiting Liz & John and they were telling me funny stories about your visit! We all agreed you are hilarious ;)

  • Do you remember all of the writing on the basement walls in our old house? As far as I know, it’s still there. Our extended family still owns the house. Just about everyone has lived there at one time or another. Currently it’s my aunt Marsha and uncle Reid. Last time I looked there it was all there, including some silly argument John and I had on the wall about whether or not Whitney Houston was great or completly retarded. At the time I loved her, now I’d have to say she’s a complete looser. She can go in the hole.

  • No, I don’t remember the writing in your old basement at all. You’d think I’d remember stuff like this since I spent as much time at your house as I did at my own.

    I also don’t remember you being into Whitney Houston at the old place, but I remember when I visited you guys at your new house a year or two later, you were listing to a Whitney Houston tape in your room.

    Do you even remember me visiting you when I was 15 or 16? John had apparently forgotten about that.

  • I was always jealous of your headquarters.

    In fact I spent hours designing my own headquarters which I was going to create when ever I got all the swell electronic stuff you had.

    I still hate you.

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