Comments on: Get the Latest News! On Your TRS-80! Via a Dial-Up Modem!

By: Mr. Edison’s Kindle

Mr. Edison’s Kindle — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:05:24 +0000

[...] did the basic ideas become practical? In the 1980s and 1990s, more and more people began using electric screens to read news and transmit messages, although the screens usually weren’t built into walls and the [...]

By: Sharon

Sharon — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:57:57 +0000

I worked at one of the daily newspapers that joined the CompuServe experiment in either the 2nd or 3rd batch, and remember it well. In fact, it was just a short time later that I was inspired to launch what we nicknamed "Fred," a dial-in BBS service for the Middlesex News - one of the first dial-up information services at a daily newspaper. I remember being able to watch what people were typing in as they were typing, thanks to the rather unzippy 300-baud modem speed.

By: pond

pond — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:11:23 +0000

I see a lot of articles about how Internet is killing newspapers, but none of them talk about the effect that TV news had back in the 1950s and 1960s. The Evening News broadcast killed the afternoon papers, which either folded, or tried to compete as morning editions. Most towns ended up with only one paper, and this killed the competitive impulses of editors and publishers – which had always been fearsome.

This led to the decline in a lot of features that had nothing to do with news, but could’ve helped the papers stay healthy: like comics pages, which are now squeezed so tiny you can hardly read them, and added magazine sections. These kinds of features are not so timely that they can’t be just as enjoyable once a day – unlike breaking stories where the Internet has the best advantage.

It also led to a decline in investigative journalism and scandalous ‘crusades’ of the papers, sensational bits that were really only done to drum up circulation and beat out the other papers.

The decline in literacy among Americans must be a big part of it as well, unfortunately.

By: Tyler Lemke

Tyler Lemke — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:18:26 +0000

I use to have both a TRS-80 Model I and Model II, my dad had a Model III at work with the big 8 inch floppy disk drive. I remember connecting with a modem with my friends across town and play old text adventure games. I had another friend who had a Model III and we would play some Olympic game on it Friday nights. Those were wonderful days.

I consider the TRS-80s the first home computers. Didn’t buy my first Apple until the Classic II. Haven’t looked back since. Hated my Gateway in college. Oh ya, I had the first Commodore 64 and Amiga too. Sad to say I had a PC Jr., but took it back after two days and bought a normal IBM PC.