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The next Trash 80?: The LG Phenom Express, shown closed at left and open for typing at right, is proving popular at the Houston Chronicle for its long battery life and ease of use.
Pioneering Model 100 survives as papers still seek a successor
In the beginning, Man created the Teleram. And Reporters saw it was good. And Reporters separated the Teleram from the Notepad.
On the second day, Tandy created the TRS-80. And Reporters separated the TRS-80 from computers that were below the TRS-80. And while they called the TRS-80 "Trash," they said it was heavenly.
The Tandy TRS-80 Model 100, or Trash 80 as it was often called, gained an almost mystical following, so pervasive that the laptop that came on the market in 1983 and left it in 1986 is still considered The Standard for many reporters and editors.
"We still have a couple, being used by sports reporters, and we just had one repaired," said Kate Gannon, systems editor at the 79,000-circulation El Paso Times in West Texas. "I haven't found anything that people are favoring that is just as handy the Radio Shack," she said, launching a refrain heard from newspaper technology people nationwide.
"There are still a few diehards around," said Val Cohen, systems editor at the 357,000-circulation Orange County (Calif.) Register, "mostly the sports reporters."
"Like every other paper," said John Hamlin, news systems director at The Oregonian, the 347,000-circulation all-day daily in Portland, "we have Model 80s that are slowly dying. But we have three or four guys in sports who don't want to give them up."
That attitude is simple enough to understand, Hamlin said. The Tandy didn't have much flexibility when it came to editing, cutting and pasting or otherwise moving type around, but that's not what sports reporters do. What they do, he said, is sit down at an event, start writing and file as soon as the event is finished.
But not every reporter is a sports reporter, and the Tandy, though great in its day, is not suited to many present-day tasks. Its adherents become harder to find as the laptops finally wear out, computing needs change and manufacturers seek profit in models with more features.
This is not to say that there is no room for a Radio Shack-style computer in the newspaper industry, but the chances of a Trash 80-style laptop sweeping the industry have come and gone. Just as in the consumer market, the needs for different types of computing power have led to a shift in the types of laptops that newspapers buy, with some going for high-end machines while others hunt for a stripped-down computer for writing and filing.
And in this day of economic belt-tightening, price becomes ever more important.
"We didn't want to pay $1500 to $1700 so reporters could just write and dump with a modem," said Gary Ward, publishing systems manager at The State in Columbia, S.C. "We've not really seen anything we've liked yet."
Ward would like a less-expensive laptop for State reporters to use. The 120,000-circulation daily requires about 20 laptops, so they can consume a significant chunk of his budget.
The quest for a standard
Newspapers are taking quite a few different tacks as they search uncharted waters for the perfect newspaper laptop. Some papers try to standardize on a single laptop across the board, some try to have a range of equipment available and some buy whatever is available when they need something.For some papers, pounds are paramount; others focus on features. Some want everything built in, some want peripherals that can be jettisoned. About the only thing everybody agrees on is that prices, however much they have dropped, are still too high.
There still are a few Tandys in Cohen's shop, though he says they're disappearing. Cohen needs the horsepower of an NT workstation because the Register is installing a new front-end system from Denmark's CCI Europe, which has U.S. offices in Kennesaw, Ga. Since he plans to use docking stations and laptops wherever possible, the laptops have to be powerful enough to hook into the CCI system.
Cohen said he would like to see something with the attributes of the Tandy, but with the horsepower he would need. "These days, you really can't get anything like that," he said. "And if you could, they would be so purpose-built they'd be pretty expensive."
The machines Cohen is using are not exactly cheap, though. He is buying Toshiba Tecra 8000 laptops, with 300-megahertz Pentium II processors, typically with 128-megabytes of random-access memory (RAM) and fairly large hard drives.
Cohen tries to save money by buying the second-best machine on the market, saying they are powerful enough. "Besides," he said, "they were top of the line just two months back."
Such high-powered laptops have several advantages, Cohen argues.
"The up side is, there is very little difference in the learning curve between a desktop and a laptop," he said. "Besides, we can't give everybody every gadget. We have a budget. When it comes to a choice between doing one thing or buying something different and doing everything, we go for everything.
"The downside is," he said, "they are nowhere near as lean and mean as a Trash 80, where you could turn the machine on and you were in the text editor."
Ward echoed that lament.
"One big issue for me is the speed at which a PC boots up. If I'm out at an interview, I want to be able to open it up and take notes," he said.
A simple machine
Bill Prewitt, systems editor at the 551,000-circulation Houston Chronicle, has found something he likes -- the LG Phenom Express, a diminutive laptop running the Windows CE operating system."It is about as close to a modern version of the old Tandy TRS-80 Model 100/102 as I've been able to find," he said of the Phenom, which he has been using since December. It's made by LG Electronics of Seoul, Korea, with U.S. offices in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
It's a "great machine for sending out with sports writers covering high school stuff or reporters on short jaunts," he says. "They can access our web-based photo and text archives as well as our intranet, get their e-mail, scan the wires and file stories."
Prewitt bought one a few months back.
He liked it so much, he bought 10 more.
"Basically it's a bureau in a box," he said. "Including the cell phone, handheld PC, power adapters, etc., it's under five pounds and under $1000."
The Phenom runs for about 12 hours on a charge, far longer than today's laptops, though a far cry from the 30 hours (or more) many reporters said they got with their Tandys. The Chronicle has had a mix of other laptops over the years, but Prewitt recently has standardized on high-end Toshibas, with the Phenom supplementing those machines.
Since the Phenom runs a version of Windows (Windows CE, often referred to as WinCE) and comes standard with stripped-down versions of the programs in Microsoft's Office suite, training is not much of an issue.
"These are handed to people who would be ordinarily checking out older '486s or newer Toshibas," Prewitt said. "What we normally buy is the most recent 440CDT, but they tend to be bulkier and heavier than a guy wants to toss in the briefcase. The Phenoms don't work everywhere, though. The [sports] guy who wants access to the CD that the team puts out, this won't cut it."
For those cases where the Phenom won't cut it, the Chronicle has Toshibas, a brand picked after trying several others. A strong selling point was the ready availability of parts and service.
"You can pretty much carry a Toshiba into any store in the country and get what you need," Prewitt said, an attribute that is dear to him, like most traveling reporters.
During a political convention in Chicago, the battery in a previous laptop needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, Prewitt said, they could not get a battery in Chicago, and the vendor would not send him one without a purchase order from Houston -- not exactly something he had time to deal with.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has not standardized on a machine, but has a good reason.
"Primarily we keep going through changes because the manufacturers keep going through changes," said Ron Birdwell, assistant manager of technical services for the Post-Dispatch. The 330,000-circulation daily uses several combinations of computers.
"For the average Joe, we're trying to buy nice machines. We're getting 4-gigabyte drives, 32-megabytes of RAM, Pentiums. For managers who need really juiced-up machines, we're going to 300-megahertz Pentium IIs with 32-megabytes of RAM and DVD (Digital Video Disc) drives standard," he said.
The paper typically bought laptops with all the pieces included, but external CD drives and floppies often ended up with pieces missing, making them useless. Birdwell prefers built-in modems over PC cards, freeing up a slot and being less likely to get lost.
The 759,000-circulation Washington Post likes the all-inclusive idea, too, according to Behzad Ilchi, director of newsroom technology. Ilchi has started replacing his 500 laptops with IBM Thinkpad 600s, a computer that weighs about five pounds, yet still contains such bells and whistles as a CD-ROM drive and full-size keyboard.
Ilchi had been buying Toshiba Satellites, but reporters -- especially foreign correspondents who were always on the road -- wanted something lighter. The Thinkpad fit the bill, but some reporters still weren't satisfied.
"One thing about buying these super-duper laptops," Ilchi said, "is that a lot of reporters still want to use XyWrite and ProComm for DOS on it. If they ask for it, we give it to them."
The Thinkpads don't come cheap, either.
"The laptop, spare battery, PC card modem, cellular modem and cell phones and a bag for it all run about $4000 for a national reporter," Ilchi said. "For a foreign correspondent, it can really add up."
But even with all that, some things stay the same.
"We still use some Trash 80s," he said. "They still work, so we give them to high school stringers."
The Meriden (Conn.) Record Journal doesn't have those sorts of problems, according to Doug Bevins, systems editor of the 28,000-circulation daily.
"We have half-a-dozen laptops, mostly Compaqs, with mid-life Pentiums and built-in modems," he said. "They're not getting as much use as I expected, but we don't cover that large an area."
Associated Press chooses Toshiba
An organization that does cover a wide area is The Associated Press. While the New York-based news cooperative has had a wide range of laptops, it too has settled -- for the most part -- on Toshiba."The AP has used one kind of portable or another since the '70s," said Tim Gallivan, AP's director of news technology, "starting with the PortaBubble."
The PortaBubble was followed by the Trash 80 ("I don't think there was a better machine made," Gallivan said) and then a series of other machines. He settled on Toshiba because of its sturdy case and widely available parts and service.
Rapid model changes have meant Gallivan does not stick with one particular laptop.
"Toshiba has about three or four new models a year," he said. "It's almost like retail clothes where you introduce new clothes for each season. The last batch we bought were the series 4010 satellite. But in early summer, if I go back to buy some more, there will be a substitute for that model.
"It doesn't matter to the user; they're all the same."
A few papers are using Apple PowerBooks for reporters, though they tend to be papers whose newsrooms are Mac-centric.
"Editorial is QPS (Quark Publishing System), so we converted to portable Macs," said Adrien Miller, technical services manager at the 52,000-circulation Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus-Leader. "The reporters mostly write and file, though they have (Quark) Copy Desk on them so they can write to size."
The PowerBooks Miller referred to were not the Argus-Leader's first brush with laptops. Like many newspaper computer users, he started with Tandy.
"I wish they wouldn't have quit making them," he said. "We'd still be using them. The TRS-80 was the perfect computer. We have problems with the newer computers physically falling apart."
Roger Holtman, director of technology at the 101,000-circulation Roanoke Times in southern Virginia, is another Mac user, replacing some of his laptops with new G3 PowerBooks. They cost about $1000 less than similar Dell laptops he has looked at, and will work well with his all-Mac newsroom.
Holtman also bought 10 eMates from Apple, a laptop based on Apple's Newton operating system and originally designed for schoolkids. The plug was pulled on the eMate just as Apple was starting to market it to journalists (Apple executives had figured that if a tyke couldn't break it, the eMate might be strong enough for a journalist, too).
"We have had some trouble," Holtman said. "The main problem was with (acoustic phone) couplers. Most used couplers with the Radio Shacks all the time, and never got used to the direct connection. And now most people don't get access to phone jacks and have to figure out couplers."
As far as the TRS-80s go, Holtman said, "We're actually still using the Model 100s, though we're doing everything we can to get people to stop."
The big problems now are training issues, he said, with people coming in at the last minute for a laptop, expecting it to work just like the last one they checked out did. Ward, too, has fought that problem, with reporters coming in to check out a new laptop on their way out the door.
The Times-Picayune in New Orleans has a handle on that problem, according to Tom Perrien, systems manager of the 259,000-circulation daily. Perrien said most reporters didn't have time to do all the fancy stuff when they borrowed a laptop.
"Ninety percent of the reporters, all they do is use them to write a story when they are out," Perrien said. "We have a proprietary program for writing -- it mimics the Radio Shack. Often, all we have to do is show them the power button is in a different spot."
-- Steven E. Brier
Apple Computer Inc., (408) 974-4611
CCI Europe Inc., (770) 419-1588, e-mail: edeasley@mindspring.com
LG Electronics U.S.A. Inc. (201) 816-2000, e-mail: bnorell@lge.co.kr
Tandy Radio Shack, (817) 415-3200, e-mail: rscusrel01@tandy.com
Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., (949) 583-3000.From THE COLE PAPERS, May 1999, Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved.