The TRS-80 was a good Z80 system, but once the world’s greatest 8-bit micro of all time, the BBC Micro (which destroyed the Apple II that had come out years earlier), it was all over in the UK for the TRS-80 for “serious” 8-bit users, whom I suspect mostly ditched their TRS-80’s for the BBC Micro. probably something that generated the tape sounds needed for the Spectrum to get the data). I believe they had a high-speed method involving some homebrew hardware to download the code to the Spectrum (i.e. I suspect in the UK, the TRS-80’s biggest claim to fame was being the development system used by a lot of Sinclair ZX Spectrum programmers to develop for the (frankly awful to code on) Spectrum. It still amazes me that a clone like that could be sold (Wikipedia doesn’t make it clear if the Video Genie was a licensed clone or not). I remember going around to a friend’s house in the early 80’s and messing around on his Video Genie, which was the European name for a clone of the TRS-80, which could run pretty well all TRS-80 software out there at the time.
