Welcome to the Library of Technomadics
microship.com
microship.com
The article on the link can be read in the original on page 254 of
https://archive.org/details/80_Micro_1983-12_1001001_US
Page 255 is a single person software company selling $20 applications before "office software" existed.
Page 257 has ads for basically TRS80 GDB debugger for $40, a bible grep command for $50 or $200 sold using an Apple II picture in a TRS-80 magazine (WTF, guys?) and Radio Shack (may god rest their souls) sold computers with tin/lead corrosion connectors and this aftermarket gold connectors could be soldered on. Personally I never needed any of it.
Page 258 talks about the AppleII vs Franklin copyright loss. This was years before the PC Clone era, and AppleII clones were not legal.
Look at the silver bullet on page 262. Some things never change.
On page 264 notice how people have been complaining about display technology and trying to sell a profitable magic solution for roughly 30+ years now. Also check out the prices on page 265.
Check out page 314. My dad bought a floppy drive upgrade from those guys; worked perfectly. Those numbers are not inflation adjusted BTW and thats vaguely what he was paying for the mortgage back in those days.
There's some nice modems on page 316.
Come to think of it, the most interesting artifact of this era was 322 page long computer magazines. Think about that pagecount for a second. It truly was a different era.
Mr. Roberts' projects are seriously cool. Just think of all the dozens of different technologies that this guy understands intimately, from the highest to lowest levels.
Yes, Steve is indeed really cool. No contest.