TRS-80 Pocket Computer

[stevep]

I was in a thrift store today and found a TRS-80 Pocket Computer (PC-4) for $12.00. It has it's pouch so it's in good shape cosmetically and appears to work.

 

[Dan 7.1]

oooh awesome. got any pics?

 

[mboconnell]

Is that anything like the pocket computer John Connor had in T2?

Maybe you could hack some ATM's with it...

 

[Temetka]

This thread is useless with pics....

 

[Aoresteen]

RS had a series of them. You could program them in a BASIC like language. They were popular with engineers at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Pocket_Computer

I always wanted one but never did make the plundge. When RS closed them out I was too late and all had been snapped up in my area.

 

[stevep]

Guys, here is a picture of my TRS-80 Pocket Computer. Sitting on top of my MacBook

 

[Bunsen]

John Connor was packing an Atari Portfolio.

 

[Aoresteen]

John Connor was packing an Atari Portfolio.

And if you have ever worked with an ATM, you know that it is impossible to 'crack' one the way John Connor did.

When a card is inserted into an ATM, it reads the mag stripe on the card. It does not do multiple reads (as in hundreds) and the card reader can NOT accept the card PIN. The PIN comes from the keypad. There's no way an ATM could ever accept a PIN from the card reader.

After three tries with a PIN the card is disabled.

But it looked good on the screen!

I did ATM projects for NationsBank in the 1990's. We used to joke about cracking our ATMs a la John Connor.

 

[Dan 7.1]

man they just do not make calculators like they used too! my Ti-84 feels positively cheap. the buttons are way too loud, too.

 

[quinterro]

I have used one of those way back in high school. Between my Junior and Senior year I bought a Tandy PC-7 pocket computer. Really limited in comparison to yours - no tape interface, 1.5 Kb RAM, a tiny display and a keyboard that really sucks.

 

[Unknown_K]

I have a pc-6 purchased new in the 80's, still works.