The Worst PCs in America

Nineteen machines you're really glad you don't own.

Posted by  | Monday, October 19, 2009


Worst PC in America--TRS-80 Model 12

“Trash-80” may be too kind

“Ugly even for a TRS-80” is a really insulting thing to say about a computer, but in the case of Alan Sisk’s TRS-80 Model 12, it fits. The dual 8-inch floppies were obsolete technology even when the Model 12 was released in 1983; it originally had a white case, but Alan’s example appears to have been toasted to a golden brown.



Slides: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

10 Comments For This Post

  1. Mike Says:

    Look on the left side, towards the bottom. There is a sort of beige piece with a broken fragment of a CD on top of it. That looks suspiciously like a Mac floppy drive from the 90s, unless Packard Bell also used that exact same floppy sled design, and I doubt it.

  2. Relyt Says:

    You said 19 machines – but it’s actually only 18, since two of the pictures were of my computer (I’m Tyler H!). Good (or should I say bad?) stuff though!

  3. Cody Pahr Says:

    @Mike
    Yeah… that was a mac floppy drive holder… We filmed another thing that day called electronic baseball and I had a few old mac zip drives laying around…

  4. John Dodge Says:

    Let’s be fair…The Trash 80 was a trailblazer if you go back nearly 30 years. The control key had to be pressed just right in concert with another key for certain commands to work.

    It was the second computer I used after the Apple II. Or maybe, I used the Apple II first….can’t recall exactly. But I used them to send page copy to the company producing proofs for printing. It was magic in 1982-83.

    I used a Teleram portable newspaper terminal (svelte at 30 pounds) in 1977, but it was not a personal computer.And who can forget Atex? I can.

  5. Amanda Says:

    The last one is great, so Office Space-esque!

  6. Gerald Says:

    If one can afford a PS3, and choose to stay with a 13″ CRT, and not buy a cheapo 20+” LCD… Sorry, that’s a lifestyle choice…

  7. Kevin Says:

    I’m honored to make the slideshow LOL!

    I was going ti fire up the Dell Optiplex GX1 with this contest on the screen but didn’t want to wait the 5 minutes it takes to make it to the Internet ;). Once online it does OK until about every 6th or 7th click. Then it has to “think” about what it’s going to do next. Which isn’t always what it should do…

  8. lil'guin Says:

    lol, and he wrote a comprehensive review of it here:
    http://benford.bluhelix.com/touch-screen-computing-is-the-future/

  9. BadBender Says:

    Very useless article – though mildly entertaining. The title sucks – makes it sound like a Consumer Reports review kind of thing. Should be titled “The Most F’d Up PC’s Not In The Landfill”.

  10. ali Says:

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