Today in 1977, Tandy Corporation released the TRS-80, a desktop computer sold for $599.95 at Tandy’s Radio Shack stores.
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System was one of the first mass-produced and mass-marketed home computers. Harry McCracken:
The TRS-80, which began shipping in September, was one of 1977’s trinity of early consumer PCs, along with the Apple II and Commodore’s PET 2001…. [In 1978] I entered a high school whose rudimentary computer lab was outfitted with TRS-80s. I rarely left the lab except when I was supposed to go to class, and sometimes not even then. The fact that I was a TRS-80 user was a defining aspect of my identity until 1982, when I bought an Atari 400. And the TRS-80 helped to define things about the PC industry that persist to this day…
At first, Radio Shack kept its hopes for the TRS-80 in check. Legend has it that it originally planned to build just 3,500 units, figuring that if the product was a flop, the company could just use the machines for book-keeping purposes in its 3,500 company-owned stores. But it soon found that the computer was shattering its expectations, and just kept doing better and better.
According to one analysis, the TRS-80 was the best-selling PC from its introduction through 1982. The Apple II steadily gained on it, but even as late as 1980, Radio Shack’s machine may have outsold the pricier Apple II by more than five-to-one.