The Trash80. I do miss them. I saw a CoCo the other day.
After the PDP died, our "computer science" department became one, then three, then eight Model I and III's, and the awesome IV. The "network" consisting of wedge boxes with rotary switches.....lol.... Okay, come on.. Who didn't have to cassette load a Tandy once or a thousand times? Who didn't play music and sound on the cassette tape control relay using BASIC and a bit of inline assembler from "Compute!"
Like I said, I bottom feed on ebay, often times I am the first buyer from a vendor, many times they are dumping low priced stuff in volume to build positive feedback ratings. In over a hundred such transactions, I have had only had trouble with purchases from two vendors. US vendors, sadly....
Total flashback there. Grew up in a tiny town of 1,500 in the "Northwoods" in Wisconsin... The nearest parts store for a nerdy kid was a significant drive, and it was Radio Shack. However, my grandma lived next to the town's TV repairman, a great old guy named Edmund. He would give me components, show me stuff he was doing and tinkering with (he was a HAM), lanky old guy and a shop full of the coolest collection of busted crap EVER. If there is a Nerd Norman Rockwell, it's me stopping at Edmunds after school, after I grabbed a glass bottle of Pepsi from my grandma's fridge. Me plopping down on the stool next to his at his bench, and him hunched over, the place reeking of solder and bakelite, showing off his freshly finished homebrew RF amp. Great image.
Anyway, I would order "rejects" of a follow-me type game called Einstein from a company called Poly Paks.. They sold bulk lots of components and weird things. I would buy a ten pack of the games, sit down, and from ten build seven that worked. Mostly soldering a battery wire. I paid two bucks each in the pack, and sold the working ones to friends for ten bucks. I then would buy one of Poly Paks famous Paks. Components, by weight. five pounds of cut lead resistors, mixed value. Small signal transistors. all kinds of stuff cheap. It was all just surplus on a job run. all good, just surplus.
This was maybe '76-'83 maybe?