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Showing posts with the label Tandy 1000

The Pessimism Aversion Trap

In this episode, The Pessimism Aversion Trap Picture this: a room full of bright minds nodding in agreement as a bold new strategy is unveiled. The slides are polished, the vision is grand, and the future, we're told, has never looked brighter. Everyone beams—because who wants to be the one to say, "Um… this might not work"? Heaven forbid someone spoil the mood with a dose of reality. Better to smile, add a buzzword or two, and march confidently toward disaster. That's how the Pessimism Aversion Trap works. Even now, I can still hear the sound—a high-pitched shriek and a digital hum, followed by the slow, rhythmic clatter of data pouring from a 5¼-inch floppy disk. It was the late 1980s, and my makeshift home office (our living room) was dominated by what felt like a marvel of modern engineering: a used Tandy 1000 PC with not one, but two floppy drives. To top it off, we purchased a 'blisteringly fast' 300-baud modem—which, for the uninitiated, could downloa...

Welcome 2020

It's a New Year once again! 2020 how can that possibly be? The Y2K (2000) computer scare was just yesterday, wasn’t it? Impossible . . .  No matter who you are, what you do, where you go, or what you plan - time simply slips away. Don’t believe me, let's take stock in what you may or may not recollect, as a reader of this blog and count the years. High School, remember those days? August of 1970, I became a freshman (50 years ago)! Songs always make an impact, “So tonight I'm gonna party like it's nineteen ninety-nine," 1999 by Prince. That song was released September 24, 1982 (38 years ago). Or maybe for you, it was Stairway to Heaven , by Led Zeppelin (1971). Greg LeMond is the only American to win Le Tour de France, in July 1986 (34 years ago). After moving to Los Angeles in 1985, I met my hero at Two Wheel Transit Authority in 1987. Radio Shack launched the Tandy 1000 computer in November 1984. This was my first personal computer. A 7.16 ...