The TRS-80 Model 100 and PC 1

My first job was a summer job working for the School of Biochemistry at the ANU, writing a program for a Toshiba T-300 that controlled a Microplate reader, read the results from the plates, and plotted them.

All the code was written in Basic. Essentially, the researcher would fill a tiny sample plate that contained 12 rows of 8 wells with stuff, and the machine would robotically move each cell (under computer control) to an absorption measurement device that would record the transmission characteristics of the sample at a specific wavelength. The data would be shipped off to a computer, and the process repeated for 96 cells.

I don't remember the chemistry of what was occuring, but I do remember that the team ws trying to find a mechanism to seperate X and Y chromosome markers in Cow semen, so that a farmer could purchase a test tube containing only cows, instaed of bulls. Interestingly, this research was in 1986, and I saw on the news recently that a major commercial breakthrough had occurred and this technology is now commercailly viable.

As a summer project, it was pretty cool, and the most interesting part of the problem wasn't writing the serial code to do the controll, instead, it was writing the plotting software to deal with abritrary scales on the data.

The job was finished, and the final payment was a cheque to the value of a Shiny new TRS-80 Model 100 (with 32K of RAM). The ANU could not purchase a machine for me due to asset control problems, but they could make out a cheque. I remember depositing the cheque in mu parents bank, and marching into the Tandy shop, and having to attract the attention of the sales guy, as I surely wasn't really going to make a purchase.(Remember I wasn't 18 yet...)

It wasn't long before I discovered that the internal modem only worked in the USA (Using Bell 103 tones, instead of the CCITT standard we use here). I spent the time to understand how the op-amp based bandpass filters worked to calculate new resistor values for the CCITT tones. The mod to the modem chip was trivial (change the mode pin from Bell to CCITT, but the bandpass filters caused me grief for a couple of weeks.

The second mod was to allow the device to supply (or recieve power) along the serial cable (using pin 13 from memory), so I didn't have to carry around extra cables.

And finally, I modified the light pen interface on the side to accept an Atari joystick, and replaced the proprietary Expansion ROM connector to allow me to use normal JEDEC standard parts.

Those were the days - You could get the rom dumps, and make the changes yourself.

I have also found my TRS-80 PC1 - Never did any hardware hacking with it, as the doco wasn't available, but have found that he full doco is available now. Just don't have the time available now days!

TRS-80 Model 100

TRS-80 Pocket Computer 1

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If the opposition doesn't want a nuclear power plant, then they had better hurry up and get into government.

The bit that Mikal neglected to bring to the attention of the world in his post was that Our Labor party actually isn't a Labor party in the true sense of the word. They are closer to being conservative, and are probably breaking some Trade Practices law by operating under the Labor party sign. All of those good votes from those sheep who have ALLWAYS voted Labor.

Come to think of it, the current ALP here is operating under the same ethos, they are not the true ALP I know of the 1970's who would shut any public health fund without even thinking. They are, of course, happy to sell of any public infrastructure they can, as they believe that a buck in the hand is better than a hydroelectric scheme any day!!!

In any case, it is a moot point, because the opposition is so far in opposition, that they have started launching debates in the House of Reps in inappropriate places - such as trying to replace all of the words after 'that' in the phrase "we would like to vote that the bill be read a second time....". OMG! Anything to get airtime in the house. They certainly won't win any votes, because they dont have the numbers.

My point.... Well, I'm getting to that... Why do the opposition even bother talking, when it matters not? While they continue to meander down the path of enlightenment they are currently going down, all of the votes directed to them by the sheep who have always voted that way, are being negated by the votes being given to the ALP by the similar sheep. Until they do something that causes the voters who consider each parties issues on their merit to vote for them, then all is lost.

All is lost... All is lost!

On the whole nuclear front, it is very interesting to note the overall cost of developing a Solar Cell to the planet, is considerably higher than the amount of energy it will ever return. In spite of focused research over 30 years, this hasn't changed. It is about time we looked at alternative technologies. Just don't make it it my back yard!!!

How about we start turning off the lights in the kids rooms when they aren't there, and turning off the PC's when they aren't being used. Gosh...

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