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Don French’s Story
Don started working at Radio Shack in 1966 when, at 16 years old, he was hired as a salesman in the San Diego store – the youngest salesman ever hired. At 18 years old he became Radio Shack’s youngest ever store manager and in 1973 he was moved to the corporate office.
In his new role, Don was project manager, although Radio Shack used the term “Buyer” to describe the position because the project manager was the first one to buy the product. Radio Shack had 7 buyers at the time, spanning about 2,400 products but of those 2,400 products, 1,200 were Don’s. Resistors, transistors, capacitors, processors, and project boards were all under Don’s purview. As the buyer, he could do whatever he wanted with the project board line – it was new, and it wasn’t rocking Radio Shack’s boat.
The project boards were printed circuit boards for various small electronics. It was just important that whatever parts were going to be used for the project boards had to be available for purchase from Radio Shack, but everything else was up to Don. This was a big win because it caused orders for certain items to be increased by orders of magnitude.
![[Radio Electronics]](/images/webpage/webpage-don-french-radio-electronics)
In his personal life, Don was always very interested in computers. When the July 1974 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine had an article on the Mark-8 computer designed by John Titus, featuring the first 8-bit microprocessor – the Intel 8008 – Don immediately bought Mark-8 “do it yourself” board and built one. It had a nice case, a lot of blinking LED’s, and 128 bytes of RAM. Don was so intrigued that he contacted John, who told Don that he had sold around 8,000 units. This gave Don an idea.
![[Radio Electronics]](/images/webpage/webpage-don-french-popular-electronics.jpg)
Don would discuss computers with his semi-conductor customers and in 1975, Don got his second computer – an Altair 8800. The Altair 8800 was designed in 1974, and used the newer 8080 CPU, but didn’t really catch on until it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics.
Don bought the complete system and took a little advantage of his position with Radio Shack and brought the board in to have it wave soldered. Don’s system was complete with S-100 connectors, a lot of memory, a Pertec/ICOM Floppy Drive, a Lear Siegler ADM-3A, and ASR 33 Teletype. Don used the teletype to get BASIC onto his system, but ultimately upgraded that to an IBM Decwriter.
With this system, Don wrote some software to try to make managing his 1,200 products at Radio Shack a little easier. At the time, each buyer was responsible for a “one of a kind gross-margin” report every quarter. The report basically was a 4 column sheet which listed the stock number, the wholesale cost, the retail price, and the difference between them (the “margin” – the profit to Radio Shack for selling a single unit), on each row, for each product. Corporate would use this as a rough way of deciding whether products should be kept or not.
Don taught his then-wife, Beverly, how to use the system, and together they got all of Don’s products into the system. He printed out the report and gave it to his re-buy manager. She looked at the report, handed Don a columnar pad, and told him to prepare the report “the right way.” Don spent quite a bit of time copying over the report by hand, using the worst handwriting he could muster.
Don kept thinking about how computers were going to be a big market and that he wanted Radio Shack to sell them. To get to that level, Don needed buy-in from basically the entire company. Don decided to start with John Shirley (who ultimately became the president of Microsoft) was a VP of Marketing Merchandising for Radio Shack and was currently in Europe. John was the same level as Don’s boss. Don sent a telex to John saying that Don was working on computers, and it would be Radio Shack’s next big project. John’s response was something along the lines of “Don’t waste my time – we can’t sell computers.”
It turns out that this response was absolutely correct, but for the wrong reasons. Radio Shack had no possible way to sell a computer. They didn’t understand them, they didn’t want to sell them, and they certainly didn’t plan on selling any. But that didn’t mean that people ultimately didn’t want to buy them!
Anyway, just because the entire corporation had no interest in computers and Don’s re-buy manager wasn’t interested in Don using one in regard to his job, Don still had a computer hidden behind his door in his office that he could use to assist with his job on the sly.
Some people, however, knew it was there.
In those days (early fall 1976), Radio Shack expected its people to work a 5 and one-half day week. Since the retail stores were open 6 or 7 days a week, they wanted people in their offices on Saturday mornings in case the stores needed anyone. One Saturday morning word came down that Charles Tandy was on his way up and was on the war path. He brought everyone into a conference room and was livid — why can’t Radio Shack be more innovative? He was angry that Advent had just released a high-tech speaker and Radio Shack had nothing to complete with it. People were tossing out ideas on innovation but Don didn’t say a word. Desperate, one of the people ratted Don out – “Don has a computer in his office.” Charles, however, responded along of the lines of ‘so what.” You see, Don was not as appreciated as the other buyers. Sure, Don’s product lines was a good percentage of Radio Shack’s business, but in their eyes, it took 1,200 items to reach that. The CB market was 40% of their business in 1976, and that was with only a few items.
During this time, Don’s job took Don to Silicon Valley often – after all, Don was the project manager for all the parts and pieces. Don had to go in person since Radio Shack always bought surplus – parts that didn’t otherwise meet mill minimum specifications, under the view that these parts were still good enough for hobbyists. While Don was out there, though, he was always on the hunt for new products.
Don had been talking about computers with Radio Shack’s vice president of manufacturing, John Roach. John had Silicon Valley in his route as well, as he was in charge of calculators and watches, and John was always going up to speak with his semi-conductor vendors, including a vendor he shared with Don – national semiconductor, one of Don’s and John’s main vendors. Don was building a project and was weighing using the National Semiconductor PACE chip as a CPU, or possibly their SC/MP chip. Of course, at a price point of $100 and $150 each, he was unlikely to be able to use either under Radio Shack’s cost-centered approach. But with so much overlap, Don would discuss computers with John.
Don started to schedule his Silicon Valley trips to coincide with the West Coast Computer Fair, which had recently started. At some point in 1976, Don and John Roach were both in Silicon Valley at the same time, and Don invited John to attend one of the fairs with him. John agreed to go with Don, but when they got there the line stretched around the block. Don thought this was the end of that – but John was fine waiting in the line and they attended the fair. When John returned to the office, he wrote a memo to Charles Tandy saying that there must something about this computer thing.
When John went to Silicon Valley on his next buying trip to visit National Semiconductor to listen to a talk about calculator chips. One of the presenters was Steve Leininger, an employee of National Semiconductor and a member of the Homebrew Computer Club.
After a meeting, John asked Steve what he knew about microprocessors in computers. While Don wasn’t there, Don was told by both John and Steve that they talked about the National Semiconductor SC/MP and Steve had told John to stop by Paul Terrell’s Byte Shop if he wanted more information. That evening, Don went to the Byte Shop, and there was Steve behind the counter. While Don has no idea what transpired during their meeting, Roach returned to Texas and gave Steve’s information to Don for Don to interview, as John had no idea how to interview someone like Steve.
Don called in Steve and they hit it off, as did their wives, Susan and Beverly. Steve was hired. He was moved to Fort Worth and seated in the semi-engineering area, to do customer support for the higher-end tech products. Since Steve saw that Radio Shack had no commitment to computers, he was tinkering with other little projects including a PC board. Steve thought that perhaps he could merge the two interests and that the only possible way to facilitate that was through Don’s product line – after all, do-it-yourself project boards and the parts that go on them, were all under Don. A kit was the way to go.
One Saturday, however, a very heavy box came in to tech support from a customer. Inside was a non-working semi-built digital clock project board. The customer had apparently dutifully followed the instructions which came with the board, including the instruction to ‘solder everything to the bottom of the board.” So, presented with a project board that had a solid block of solder coating the entire bottom of the board, they quickly decided that their computer, whatever it was, could most certainly not be in kit form, and a major re-think was needed.
Working as a team, they started preparing for a pre-built machine. Steve did the physical design based on Don’s concepts.
One day Don was working with Steve in Steve’s area and Don received a call from Don’s boss, Bernie Appel, by way of Bernie’s secretary. The message was “If you are working on that G-d damned computer, you”re fired.” Don proceeded to list everything ELSE that he was working on at that moment in Steve’s area, but failed to mention the computer. You see, Bernie did not want a computer, but Steve had an ally in John Roach was interested in Steve if for no other reason than Steve knew more about watches and calculators than anyone else.
In late 1976, Don and Steve had built a mock-up of a working computer. They had decided to go with the Zilog Z-80, partly because there was no way that the PACE or SC/MP pricing could work and partly because the S-100 interface was Z-80 based, and Don already had a complete 8080 development set up. Since Don and Steve developed the system using Don’s Altair running Percom CP/M and all of Don’s development tools, Radio Shack never spent any development money.
To round out the mock-up, they took a RCA monitor that was lying around, put a keyboard in a mock-up case, and under the table they had a wire-wrapped rack that had everything else, incorporating a modified version of the BASIC language written by Li-Chen Wang, a fellow member of the Homebrew Computer Club. Li-Chen Wang’s BASIC, called Tiny BASIC, could only handle 4K and integer math only. This would be Level 1 BASIC. Under these constraints, and to demonstrate the computer, Don had written a simple 1040 tax program he called “H&R Shack”.
When Charles Tandy arrived smelling of his trademark cigars. Don invited him to sit in front of the computer, and loaded up H&R Shack. The first question was “Annual Salary” and Charles Tandy entered 100,000. The program immediately crashed, since 32,767 was the highest number that Tiny BASIC could use. Don told Charles to “take a pay cut” with a maximum of 32,000, and that they would of course fix this limitation later.
Charles picked a more appropriate number, and the program worked flawlessly. Charles, Steve, Don, Bernie, Lewis Kornfeld (the President of Radio Shack), and a whole lot of other executives then started talking around a conference table. “How many can you sell,” Charles asked. Don and Steve had never thought about that question before, but somehow both answered “50,000 units”. Everyone in the room laughed,
After a lot more discussion, Charles agreed to make 1,000 units. It wasn’t that he believed in the product at all, and he certainly had no interest in computers, but he wanted innovation, and a home computer certainly fit that bill. Don and Steve didn’t care about the why or the how many – they got their computer – which would ultimately be the Model I.
With that initial 1,000 unit go ahead, the 26-0000 series of products was born, and placed into Don’s care.
Of course, a computer would need a manual. Don called everyone he could think of, but ultimately settled on his old College professor, Dr. David Lien. Dr. Lien jumped at the chance, and his manual was exceedingly popular. Dr. Lien eventually opened a computer book publishing company.
So now they had a complete computer with Level 1 BASIC, a manual, and a modified RCA TV. They decided on 4K of RAM because the design goal was to make a $99 computer (not including the monitor) and that is what had been approved. That’s why it had Tiny BASIC (which was free) and had no lower case (a savings of 97 cents in production cost). When it hit market, though, it was $199 so they were off a bit.
Don’s passion was always with the S-100 so they incorporated an expansion port into the computer which was similar to the S-100. It turns out, though, that the addition of that expansion bus prevented the computer from having a sealed case, making the radio-frequency interference it emitted less mitigatable. That RFI eventually caused the FCC to require that the Model I be discontinued, but that is a whole other story.
At some point during this process, still showing how little they thought of the computer, John Roach told Don that they were upping the number from 1,000 units to 3,500. Why? Radio Shack had 3,400 stores, and they figured that WHEN (not if, WHEN) the computers wouldn’t sell, they could at least use them for inventory control in the stores. 1,000 is better than 3,500 so this was all fine with Don.
With 3,500 units in play, Steve decided that Tiny BASIC (a/k/a Level 1 BASIC) wasn’t going to be good enough and wanted something better. Don reached out to Bill Gates and started negotiations to have Microsoft write a BASIC for the computer. For Microsoft to do that kind of development, they wanted a price based on the number of units. Don knew he could not pay per-unit, as the price would be too high, and offered a flat fee of $X (Don doesn’t want to say how much $X was) for 3,500 units. Bill Gates felt that the fee was not enough to justify the work, so they settled on a flat fee of $X for 10,000 units. This would then be the BASIC they could use no matter how many units they actually sold. The BASIC Bill Gates wrote would turn out to be Level II BASIC.
Bill Gates put in everything to make the BASIC work for the Model I. The BASIC he wrote because the BASIC he sold to many others, including IBM. Getting the Radio Shack contract, combined with the number of Model I’s sold over the first 4 years, made the BASIC quite popular and helped move Microsoft into the big league because that BASIC became the standard – everyone wanted the same basic with the same commands. If they could have the same BASIC (more or less), other hardware vendors would want to buy it.
Don and Steve knew that some specs would have to change under the Microsoft BASIC, including the amount of RAM. Microsoft’s BASIC just wouldn’t work with only 4K, and so the 16K Level II Model I was born.
The TRS-80 was announced on 8/3/1977 at the Warwick Hotel in Manhattan. There was no much press coverage at the event. There was also much bigger news – two bombs went off in Manhattan, which ultimately shut down the press conference.
Fortunately, the Boston Computer Show was scheduled for the very next week. Don rounded up the entire production run – 3 computers, and brought them to the show. The booth was swamped 5-10 people deep. All 3 TV networks wanted to talk about the new Radio Shack home computer.
At the time, the Commodore Pet had just come out (using concepts which were Don’s) and the Apple II had just come out in July. At that point, Apple was nearly bankrupt and was trying to create an industry with no money. Apple had sold only 7,900 computers in the same 1 year time frame that Radio Shack sold 100,000. If a company the size and reputation of Radio Shack had not come out with a home computer, Don believed Apple would never have gotten any interest and ultimately would have disappeared. There weren’t many (or any) companies that size and reputation so that really means Radio Shack. Allied Electronics was big at the time, but Radio Shack had bought them. Lafayette Radio was still in business, and had tried to hire Don at one point, but they were still one-tenth the size of Radio Shack.
Don got back to Forth Worth from the show on a Monday and was supposed to then go to Japan the next day on a routine buying job. Something was up, though. None of the phones were working. It seems that back in those days, every phone needed its own copper wiring which ran through a trunk, and the trunk was complete full with all the people calling to inquire about the TRS-80.
Since the only 2 people at Radio Shack that were at all knowledgeable about computers were Don and Steve, and since Don was a customer-support type, dealing with all those calls quickly fell to him. He was immediately (i.e., that day) Don was moved from his office into a conference call. He was given an administrative assistant, Leslie, and they had to handle this onslaught.
The main problem, Don discovered, was that everyone was calling to get a computer NOW. But Radio Shack hadn’t actually been making them. They had made a few, but were otherwise dragging their feet so that they wouldn’t lose too much money WHEN the computer failed. But Radio Shack also wanted those orders, and it would take until March 1978 to actually finally get around to having any shippable quantity.
So Don’s strategy was to give the customers a choice. He said that they could wait 90 days until the machines were ready, and they were going to be prioritized based on order date, or people could buy an Apple or a Pet. Since the Apple was selling for $2,100 and the Pet was selling for $899, the customers ultimately elected to stand by for their chance at the $599 Level II Model I.
With all these orders coming in, Radio Shack decided they wanted to open storefronts which were devoted solely to computers. All other product lines were taken away from Don and he was assigned 100% to computers. All of this was still on that Monday. Don never did get to go on that Japan trip. Day in and day out, Don and Leslie had the same call, thousands and thousands of times.
Since Tandy Center had retail space at the bottom of the tower, Charles Tandy decided that the first Tandy Computer Center would open there. Don worked with other executives to open the center, which would include other S-100 product lines, as well as the TRS-80.
To be a formidable computer, however, the TRS-80 needed more than 16K and a cassette recorder for storage. Steve designed an expansion interface which could house up to 32K additional memory, a RS-232 port for communications, a second cassette recorder port, and most importantly, a floppy drive controller. For the floppy drive, they went with Shugart SA400 drives.
Don needed a DOS for those drives. Don really wanted CP/M, but the TRS-80 used the low interrupts to keep the costs down, and a computer designed that way just couldn’t run CP/M. So Don hired Randy Cook to write the first DOS for the TRS-80, called TRSDOS, under Don’s and Steve’s concepts, which borrowed heavily from their knowledge of CP/M and what was really needed in a DOS.
Charles Tandy passed away in November 1978, before the Level II or TRSDOS was finished. Don left Radio Shack shortly thereafter, to be replaced by Charles Tandy’s nephew (who had no computer knowledge). Steve stayed on and ran the Research and Development department, but when the IBM PC was introduced, Radio Shack decided that they were not going to follow IBM’s lead, and as the incompatibilities between the PC and the line of Tandy computers grew, Tandy’s share of the computer market shrank – until they were out of the computer hardware business entirely.
Why was Charles Tandy’s death a catalyst for Don’s leaving? Well, on one of those Saturdays, Don had gone to Charles” office on the top floor to talk to Charles. No appointment, no permission – just went. Don said “You know, I saved Radio Shack,” to which Charles responded “You”re full of shit.” Don then pointed out that CB’s used to be 40% of Radio Shack’s business and by 1977, it was down to near zero, and in 1977 computers was 0% of Radio Shack’s business and it was 40% in 1978, which kept Radio Shack from experiencing a massive drop in revenue when the CB market died. Don said “I want something for this.” Charles really couldn’t argue with that, and they spoke. Don ultimately said that he wanted a Vice President title in charge of computers and a “large bonus” (but gave no specific numbers). Charles agreed, as Don knew both the technical side and the market. But Charles didn’t live long enough to honor his promise, and when Don went to Lew Kornfeld to collect, Kornfeld gave him a resounding “no.” Don, holding his tongue, said that they could discuss later, and then promptly went and cleaned out his office.
Don reached out to Bill Gates to tell him what had happened. Bill called Don “ruthless,” referring to the deal he got from Bill Gates for the BASIC to be used on so many units. Don responded that he wasn’t ruthless, but rather he closed a deal which he believed was win-win – after all, he only had an ok for 3,500 units but agreed to pay based on 10,000 to give Bill the deal he wanted. He had no idea how many would sell at that point, and had only one goal, assigned to him by Radio Shack – no per unit royalty. Ultimately did get a job offer but decided not to take it. Don, instead, opened his own business
A request from Don
Don is considering writing a book with far more background and detail than what is presented above. For the book, he would like to hear from TRS-80 owners out there to hear their TRS-80 related stories, including how the TRS-80 changed their lives. If you are ok with his publishing your story, please enter it in the comments box below, including your email address. I will augment the existing TRS-80 Personal Stories Page with those stories as well.