If I recall correctly, the TRS-80 didn't even need a "Tandy/RS" cassette drive. Any old cassette player would do, as long as it had standard connectors for phono/mic. This is unlike the Atari 8-bits (and probably others) which required a dedicated cassette "drive" to load programs. This makes the "audio amplifier" you possess for the TRS-80 seem very easily plausible in concept. And as you clearly demonstrated, it was more than plausible, it was a reality.

I can't help but wonder if the engineers of the TRS-80 even conceived of the computer outputting sound, due to the fact that it had no speaker, and there were no obvious sound capabilities of the system. I do recall that there was a way to send "clicks" to the tape recorder's speaker via Tandy/RS Basic's "OUT" command, but only my later experiences with the TRS-80 (which was my first PC experience) had sound. My first personal computer gaming experiences were dead silent. When I first heard the first TRS-80 sound, my jaw dropped!!!!! I thought "Holy crap, the computer made a sound!!!"

I can't swear it was the first, but the first time I heard digitized speech was in the TRS-80 game "Robot Attack" by Big Five Software. It was an excellent knock-off of the arcade game "Berzerk." It said "Player One," "Player Two, " and "Chicken." I thought "Holy crap, the computer spoke!!!"

The awe is gone now. 3d, FPS shooters with licenced MP3 music, voiced actors, cinemas, and whatever. There's little or nothing that drops my jaw anymore, but the humble TRS-80 rocked my world.

Keep in mind that while I heard simple sound effects, I NEVER heard music on the TRS-80, nor did I see such cool graphics such as Zaxxon. Those seemed so cool that I have trouble believing that they were done on the same TRS-80 platform that I experienced!

(P.S. the first time I heard digitized speech on the Apple II was in the game "Dung Beetles/Tumble Bugs.")

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