• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

TRS-80 Trash Talk Podcast

pski

pski

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Nov 26, 2014
Messages
1,886
Location
New York
After a lot of effort, I'm happy to announce the first episode of a new TRS-80 podcast called "TRS-80 Trash Talk"

http://www.trs80trashtalk.com

For the first episode I'm joined by Randy Kindig, a TRS-80 enthusiast and host of the popular Floppy Days podcast, and fellow VCF member, @TRS-Ian aka Ian Mavric. In the first show we cover the history of the Models I/III/4 as a grounding in the TRS-80 for all listeners, including experienced TRS-80 hackers and those of you new to the TRS-80 community.

Going forward, we plan on presenting and discussing all topics related to the TRS-80 microcomputers including the Models I/II/III/4/12/16/6000. We'll present TRS-80 related news, in-depth computer reviews, accessories, software, programming, buying guides, etc. It's a community driven show so please let us know about topics you'd like us to cover.

Now, this is my first attempt at producing a show so it's not perfect. I have a lot to learn about the podcast medium so hopefully each show will get better, especially with your input.
 
I enjoyed listening to the podcast, thanks!

T-Bug and Debug were mentioned in the show. Both were Z-80 debuggers on cassette, T-Bug was the earlier version for the Model I and less capable (it could not single-step Z-80 code), but was better suited for 4K machines.

I was a little surprised to at the suggestion that debuggers aren't useful. I'll admit that loading them off cassette doesn't help matters and without any hardware support the really useful features aren't available, namely interrupting a program while it runs and protecting memory so bugs don't crash the machine. But if your program is complex enough it can be a lot easier to step through code to find the cause of a bug. Or inspect/change memory to see what's going on.
 
gp2000 said:
I enjoyed listening to the podcast, thanks!

T-Bug and Debug were mentioned in the show. Both were Z-80 debuggers on cassette, T-Bug was the earlier version for the Model I and less capable (it could not single-step Z-80 code), but was better suited for 4K machines.

I was a little surprised to at the suggestion that debuggers aren't useful. I'll admit that loading them off cassette doesn't help matters and without any hardware support the really useful features aren't available, namely interrupting a program while it runs and protecting memory so bugs don't crash the machine. But if your program is complex enough it can be a lot easier to step through code to find the cause of a bug. Or inspect/change memory to see what's going on.
Click to expand...

Thanks for listening and providing the updated info on T-Bug and Debug. Even though I have personally not yet found the value in using them, I'm sure many others have. I spend a lot of time tweaking and running the code through my head before assembling for the first time. Perhaps as I continue developing more complex applications I too will come around to appreciating their purpose.
 
Episode 2 of TRS-80 Trash Talk is now available! In this episode, we elaborate on a few items from episode 1, cover a bunch of news items and for the main feature, Peter Bartlett talks in-depth about voice synthesizer options on the TRS-80, including actual demos!

http://www.trs80trashtalk.com
 
Interesting perspective on the Radio Shack voice synthesizer. It wasn't common at all in my experience; I don't remember ever seeing it in a Radio Shack. Then again, that could just be a result of living in a small town in British Columbia at the time.

I wish I could fine a reference, but I've heard that Big 5 got the voice for their games by hooking a standard microphone to the cassette port and writing a small program to record the data. I tried that a bit once myself and didn't get a good result, but it certainly seemed feasible. Perhaps a Vogon might help (i.e., fix it with shouting).

Either way, it is amazing what they (and others) produced. The audio in Robot Attack is about 5 KHz and one bit per sample. I've not been able to convert an audio file to 1 bit/sample at much higher rates and get anything nearly so understandable and clear.
 
gp2000 said:
I wish I could fine a reference, but I've heard that Big 5 got the voice for their games by hooking a standard microphone to the cassette port and writing a small program to record the data. I tried that a bit once myself and didn't get a good result, but it certainly seemed feasible. Perhaps a Vogon might help (i.e., fix it with shouting).

Either way, it is amazing what they (and others) produced. The audio in Robot Attack is about 5 KHz and one bit per sample. I've not been able to convert an audio file to 1 bit/sample at much higher rates and get anything nearly so understandable and clear.
Click to expand...

Stay tuned for a future episode where we talk to Big Five's Bill Hogue about that!
 
Excellent Podcast .. The Ability to download the MP3 is especially of interest for me. I really enjoyed the first incarnation and Episode 2.
There is a wealth of valuable information discussed. The reference to the Don French interview allowed me to find another hour of listening enjoyment.
As someone just getting back into the TRS-80 world it's amazing how many new products are available.

Keep up the good work!!! :yell:
 
Episode 3 of the TRS-80 Trash Talk podcast is now available! In this episode I'm joined by special guest host Myles Wakeham as we discuss the Model II line of microcomputers from inception up to the current status of the Model II as a vintage computer collectable.

Resident Model II experts please kindly let me know what I got wrong.

http://www.trs80trashtalk.com

 
Last edited:
Episode 4 of the TRS-80 Trash Talk podcast is now available!

In this episode we talk about impressions of VCFSE, preparation for VCFE and introduce the first installment of our Buyer's Guide with a Model I Buyer's Guide lead by @TRS-Ian aka Ian Mavric.

http://www.trs80trashtalk.com/

Thanks for listening!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top