Floppy Days 144 - Interview with Don French and Steve Leininger, Co-Designers of the TRS-80 Model I

Floppy Days Vintage Computing Podcast

Episode 144 - Interview with Don French and Steve Leininger, Co-Designers of the TRS-80 Model I

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

• 8-Bit Classics

• Arcade Shopper

• FutureVision Research

Hello, and welcome to episode 144 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for October, 2024. I am Randy Kindig, your host for this audio ode to the home computers of the past.

This month I have a special treat for you. At the recent Tandy Assembly, which I will talk about in more detail later in the podcast, not only were there a lot of great people, exhibits, vendors, and camaraderie, but we were also blessed with having Steve Leininger as one of the guest speakers along with his partner in the development of the TRS-80 Model I, Don French!

I recently had an interview with Steve Leininger (episode 142: https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-142-interview-with-steve-leininger-designer-of-the-trs-80-model-i ), thanks to his willingness to be interviewed at the recent VCF Southeast in Atlanta. That was a milestone for my podcast, as I had always wanted to talk with Steve. I also had interviewed Don French several years ago, prior to his attending Tandy Assembly in 2017, in episode 53 (https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-53-interview-with-don-french-co-designer-of-the-trs-80-model-i ). This time, however, I was able to get an interview with Don and Steve together in the same interview! That in itself was amazing and I think you’ll really enjoy the back-and-forth between the two gentlemen who are obviously and correctly proud of the work they did to bring the TRS-80 to the world and Tandy into the computer business.

Next month, I will talk about another computer rescue that came my way recently, and which is also tied into Tandy Assembly and Radio Shack computers. I’ll not go into any further detail here as I don’t want to spoil the story for you next month. But believe me, it will be fun both to tell and to listen to.

New Acquisitions/What I’ve Been Up To

• Soldering kits from FutureVision Research

• The Soldering Basics Kit

• The BEAM Bot Soldering Kit

• The Demonstrator Soldering Kit

• Tandy Assembly 2024 - https://www.tandyassembly.com/

• Drive cable for the TRS-80 Model I from Ian Mavric - https://www.ebay.com/str/trs80universe

• RAM card for Tandy PC2/Sharp PC1500 from Jeff Birt - https://www.soigeneris.com/sharp-pc-1500-memory-modules

Upcoming Shows

• Retro Computer Festival 2024 - November 9-10 - Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England - https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/

• Silly Venture WE (Winter Edition) - Dec. 5-8 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-we

• Show list I maintain for the remainder of the current year - https://floppydays.libsyn.com/current-year-vintage-computer-show-schedule)