Tandy Tech Track
Tandy Tech Track is our special Friday event which consists of a set of highly-technical and informative classes taught by some of the leading figures in the vintage Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 community. The Tech Track classes will be held in the speakers room. There is an additional cost to attend Tandy Tech Track on Friday.
Fees
- Tandy Tech Track Attendee: $30 includes one entry fee for all 3 days
- Tandy Tech Track Exhibitor: $50 includes one exhibitor table and one entry fee for all 3 days
- All proceeds pay for the costs of running the event.
Please pay via PayPal to tandyassembly@gmail.com
The Classes
TTT101
Title: Soldering, Desoldering and Welding Electronics
Instructor: Jeff Birt (Hey Birt!)
Home: Rolla, Missouri, USA
Abstract: Invariably when working on our vintage computers, we’ll all run into the need to solder, desolder or weld electrical connections. We’ll first take a quick look at how our precious circuit boards were originally produced and then look at various methods for rework when replacing components and/or doing upgrades. Topics include: original production methods, avoiding unnecessary rework, reworking tools and techniques, welding electronics
Bio: Jeff grew up in central Ohio about 30 miles from Springfield where Tandy Assembly was formerly held. The past 31 years he has lived in the Missouri Ozarks. A jack of all trades, he has repaired computers, fax machines, worked in industrial automation and electronics manufacturing before finally settling in for the last 23 years at Missouri University of Science and Technology as an engineer designing and building machinery and apparatus for research projects. An interest in vintage computing sprang up about 15 years ago in an effort to recover childhood C64 disks and replace a long-lost Tandy PC-6.
TTT102
Title: The XLR8er
Instructor: Scott Toenniessen
Home: Buzzards Bay / Cape Cod, MA
Abstract: The XLR8er gave the TRS-80 Model 4 a serious performance boost, and Scott traces its full story—from its roots in Steve Ciarcia's SB-180 single-board computer (Byte Magazine), built around an 8MHz HD64180 CPU and 256K of RAM, through its takeover by Misosys and later efforts to revive the board. He covers the hardware (RAM upgrade requirements, NGA vs. GA differences, his own install in a Model 4P with a Graphyx card and clock chip), but the heart of the talk is the software: original and enhanced Misosys utilities, community LS-DOS patches exploiting the HD64180's native multiply and DMA instructions for gains well beyond the clock bump, fixes for TRSDOS 1.3 and Model III booting quirks, and high-res graphics tools that dramatically sped screen draws. Drawing on six years of daily use in his own 4P and patches he contributed via the Misosys Quarterly and CompuServe's LDOS forum, Scott offers both a history and a practical guide for anyone wanting to pursue the board.
Bio: Scott became a TRS-80 enthusiast as a small child the first time he saw a Model I sitting near the entrance of his local Radio Shack store. As an eighth grader, he had saved up enough to purchase a used Level 1 4K system and then later was happy to acquire a brand-new Model 4P. All the learning and experimenting on those systems inspired him to earn a degree in Computer Science and pursue that as a career. Along the way he has been employed by Eastman Kodak Company and Fidelity Investments, among others. He is currently employed as a site reliability engineer at Advisor360 in the greater Boston area. Now that his five kids are grown, TRS-80s have come back to the forefront taking over part of his Cape Cod home with his original two systems having been joined by a few others. He has used an XLR8er board in his TRS-80 Model 4P since 1988 and was active in that community when many advancements were being developed using the board’s capabilities.
TTT103
Title: TrashBoy - TRS-80 Games in your Pocket
Instructor: Sascha Haeberling and Arno Puder
Home: San Francisco, California, USA
Abstract: We've been working on a Game Boy-like version of the TRS-80 that has been optimized for playing the catalog of TRS-80 games, plus it has a few extra features :-). We will show how we designed and built this (hardware and software) and how it ties into some of the other tech we have shown before at TA, such as TRS-IO and RetroStore.
Bio: Sascha Haeberling is a Software Engineer whose career includes 18 years at Google, a stint at an early-stage startup, and his current role at Meta. While his professional focus remains on modern software development, he occasionally dabbles in the vintage computing world. This intermittent dive into TRS-80 hardware and software is almost entirely fueled by the influence of his co-presenter Arno Puder and the Tandy Assembly community.
TTT104
Title: Getting Started with Color Computer (6809) Assembly Language
Instructor: Tim Halloran
Home: Pittsburgh, PA
Abstract: Tim is still working on this but expect an introduction to cartridge and disk versions of EDTASM+, LWASM (LWTOOLS) and more.
Bio: Tim Halloran has a Ph.D. in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, a M.S. in Computer Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in Computer Science from the Air Force Academy. He has 30 years of experience in the software development industry. Tim is a TRS-80 enthusiast of both the Z80 and the CoCo computers.
TTT105
Title: TBD
Instructor: TBD
Home:
Abstract: TBD
Bio: