Tandy 102, $99.00

alt text

Photo of a Tandy 102 Portable Computer in a glass case, surrounded by its letherette pouch, floppy disk with $99.00 pricetag, and manuals. The Tandy 102 is a single-piece computer with a full-size keyboard, chicklet-sized function keys, and an 8x80 character monochrome LCD display. The computer is significantly yellowed from age and probably sun exposure. With luck the battery compartment is not encrusted from corroding alkaline batteries.

I'm old enough to have wanted a Tandy 100 when they were new. The 102 version was lighter, slimmer, and had more installed RAM. Nowadays though an old iPad does all that and more with considerably less bulk.

The pricetag is a thing, too, this was in the ballpark of $1100 back in the mid-1980s, which is nearer to $4k in 2026 dollars. You can get an iPad and a lot of accessories for four grand. And these days Radio Shack effectively doesn't exist and nobody remembers when they didn't suck (or, at least, that they sold stuff that didn't suck in addition to the stuff that did suck).

Was tempted to buy this one anyway. This would probably be better for my creativity, ADHD-wise. I even have an old USB floppy drive for copying the data off to a modern computer. Can't justify having more crap around tho', I should be decluttering.

21 hours ago

ardgedee

20 hours ago

@MackReed I wasn't in journalism, but I was writing a lot and the idea of being able to do so anywhere I sat down (rather than at the desk where my C64 and nominally-portable manual typewriter lived) was so damned appealing. Compaq and Kaypro were shipping "portables" (that weighed upwards of 10 lb or more) but this was like a single-purpose ultraportable that just couldn't be beat for the basic task of writing. In some ways it still can't, it's way more efficient to use than a folding laptop or a two-piece tablet + keyboard set.

iirc this had a whole (by 1986 standards) built-in office suite of word processor and spreadsheet, it was a pretty serious piece of kit.

MackReed

20 hours ago

(Earlier posted above @ardgedee’s but delete-reposted to make an edit)
I’ve probably mentioned this before but this was the first company-issued computer I used in my newshound days. I’d sit through some interminable little township board meeting in rural Connecticut, bang out my story about whatever boring thing they decided and then hie me to a pay phone with a pocketful of quarters. I’d have to connect by dialing the filing line, waiting for the modem screech and then plug the ear-end of the handset into a rubber cup wired to the TRS-80. Minutes would pass while I waited for the LCD screen to confirm that the story was sent, and then I’d get on the phone with my editor to answer questions and confirm his edits.

MackReed

20 hours ago

@ardgedee ah yes, the “luggables.” My next portable was a Kaypro II, affectionately known as “Darth Vader’s lunchbox.”

nikkuneko

20 hours ago

i was a little too young to have seen these (and too poor to have had access to them) but in retrospect i always thought they were an aesthetically pleasing piece of hardware. also completely astounded that they could run on AA batteries.

related note, equally astounded to learn from your post text that radio shack still exists in ANY form. the other day, i made a joke to someone in the line of "run down to the radio shack and buy [a replacement component / capacitor / whatever]" and they looked completely befuddled.

nikkuneko

20 hours ago

well, at least you can flip through the manual for fun at the low low price of $0:

https://archive.org/details...

crazyunclejoe

18 hours ago

@MackReed - the Kaypro II was my first computer, if you don't count the Timex Sinclair 1000 I returned because I couldn't deal with the keyboard.

bezt

17 hours ago

> Was tempted to buy this one anyway. This would probably be better for my creativity, ADHD-wise.

If you haven't run into the whole 'writer deck' subculture/rabbit hole before, yup, it's a whole thing: https://www.writerdeck.org/