More new toys

On a whim, I picked up a Commodore Plus/4.

This was Commodore's attempt at breaking into the business/productivity market, but it was too little, too late.

Only 64K max - when the IBM compatibles could go to 640K

40 column screen - when the standard was 80 in this market.

But they did correct some of the glaring issues that the Commodore 64 had: Mainly BASIC 4.0 that the Commodore PET had before discontinued (The C-64 had BASIC 2.0).  BASIC 4.0 had disk commands (like DIRECTORY and DLOAD).  But they enhanced it even further to allow you do to graphics and sounds from BASIC - as opposed to programming the SID and VIC yourself with POKEs.

Unfortunately, there was no SID or VID.  Meaning lower quality sound and no sprites.  So the Plus/4 wasn't a gaming machine.

And the market was moving to desiring IBM compatibility.  So the Plus/4 wasn't around long.

And I finally found my Holy Grail: A TRS-80 Model I.

I was able to pick one up locally at a reasonable price with working monitor!

No power supply, so I have those parts on order.  I hope I can get it working again.

But the hatch over the reset button was intact!  Usually these were lost over time.