CCR-81 (26-1208)

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Home / Hardware - CCR-81 (26-1208)

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Radio Shack TRS-80 Cassette Recorder CCR-81 (26-1208)

The TRS-80 CCR-81 was a cassette player and recorder from Radio Shack. The "CCR" in the name stood for Computer Cassette Recorder. While a fully functioning audiocassette player and recorder, the CCR-81 was also a computer data input/output device.

Design

Color Scheme and Branding

The first CCR-81 had the silver or "battleship gray" color scheme, matching the color of that era's cassette-capable TRS-80 computers, including not only the CoCo 1 but also the Model I and III. Later CCR-81s had a white case to match the shift to a white theme across the TRS-80 lineup, including the 64K CoCo 1, the CoCo 2, the Model 4, and the Model 100. Still later, the CCR-81 was given Tandy branding, dropping "Radio Shack TRS-80" from the label, to match the shift to Tandy branding by the CoCo 2, Model 4D, and the Model 200 and 102 laptops.

Features

Desktop

Like many tape recorders of the day, the CCR-81 was a full-sized desktop model, with a large speaker, intended to permit multiple users around a table, such as participants in a business meeting, to hear the sound. It came bundled with not only the cable needed to connect it to a cassette-capable TRS-80 computer, but also with the AC adapter needed to plug it into a wall power outlet.

Portable

As was also typical of the era's cassette recorders, the CCR-81 was additionally capable of portable use, having an internal bay for four "C"-sized batteries and a slide-out handle enabling it to be carried more easily. When Radio Shack introduced the Model 100 laptop, it intended owners to use the already-existing CCR-81 with it, showing the 100 and the CCR-81 together in advertisements and even releasing a briefcase specifically designed to have room for both the Model 100 and the CCR-81. However, the CCR-81's size, and especially its weight when loaded with four size C batteries, likely caused complaints by Model 11 owners, because Tandy soon introduced the much smaller CCR-82, which used much lighter AA batteries and, while having an AC adapter port, did not come bundled with an AC cable. However, the CCR-81 outlived the CCR-82, continuing in production after the CCR-82 was discontinued. Non-laptop users likely preferred the 81's bigger, easier-to-use buttons, and the 82 has acquired a reputation as less reliable, frequently needing a belt drive change.

The Role of Tape Drive in the CoCo Market

At first, Radio Shack preferred to release CoCo software in its proprietary Program Pak cartridge-based system, using the tape format only rarely by comparison, and even then often merely to enable cartridge programs to load and save data. But third-party developers embraced tape as a standard software format from the start, only rarely using cartridges and usually only as hardware expansions or controllers for disk drives.

Later, Radio Shack released CoCo programs on tape more often, especially educational titles 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and ports of TRS-80 text adventures that were only on tape (Pyramid, Bedlam, etc.) In fact, sometimes TRS-80 games that were available on both tape and disk (such as the authorized ports of the games Zaxxon and Pooyan) were only given tape versions when ported to the CoCo.

With the introduction of disk drives, Radio Shack would release more sophisticated versions of standard Radio Shack software titles such as SCRIPSIT, Spectaculator, or Color LOGO only on disk, bypassing tape altogether.

Usually, for programs released on both tape and disk, the price was the same whether on tape or disk, or at most only a little higher for the disk version, but the cost of the drive hardware was much higher for a disk drive. In the European market which had less discretionary income per capita, CoCo users stuck overwhelmingly with tape drive, while use of the disk drive was much more prevalent in the US. This situation also occured on competing platforms such as the Atari 8-bit line and the Commodore 64.

External Links

• From the Color Computer Archive: User Manual
• From the Color Computer Archive: Service Manual