🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <89343.221624DSB100@PSUVM.BITNET> DSB100@PSUVM.BITNET (David Barr) writes:
>And it only had
>upper case letters.  (The full ASCII set was supported, except the
>lowercase letters came out uppercase)

I remember in one issue 80 Micro published an article stating that all you
had to do to get lower case was buy a new character generator.  The chip
was around $5, and they would optionally install it for $55.  The article
kindly gave instructions on installing the chip ourselves, something like
a couple of cuts and jumpers (hey, I built my own expansion interface.  Of
course I can do cuts and jumpers.)  I went running down to my local radio
shack to buy the chip and surprise surprise, now the chip was $60 but
installation was free!  A few months later an article was published indicating
some of us lucky ones didn't need new character generators, we just needed
a new ram chip to hold 1 bit.  I put that chip in and viola, lower case!

I quickly learned to love my TRS-80, but developed an extreme hatred for Radio
Shack.  Their philosophy was that if you weren't a corporate buyer looking
to get several units, you weren't worth their time.  I've got all sorts of
horror stories with the company, so much so I won't go into one of their
stores anymore.  And pre-TRS-80 I had their junior science kits, shortwave
radios, and bought all parts for my projects there.  Makes you wonder what
they were thinking of?

One other thing I should mention concerns their sales comissions.  When I
got my first computer (1979) I looked carefully at everything available.
About 4 different machines.  Radio Shack employees didn't know diddly
about their machines, when I went in to buy mine I was loitering around
their display unit waiting for a sales slime to show up.  The guy appeared
and I asked a few questions, more to delay spending the $1,000 than anything.
The guy didn't understand the questions, let alone know the answers.  So,
while filling out the sales slip he comes to the question "who convinced you
to buy this machine".  I pointed to the girl manning the cash register, who
had never even bothered to look in our direction the whole time, and said
"She did."  The moral?  Just because the teenage customer is in levies, a tee
shirt, and hasn't shaven, don't treat him like a nobody.  Especially when he
knows more about what your selling than you do.

jim
"Only dead fish go with the flow"