rb@ccird1.UUCP (Rex Ballard) (05/07/86)
Appearantly, there are some Tandy people reading this net over here, but missing some of the glorious fumes in net.micro.6809! Since about 85% of the traffic over there concerns hopes, speculation, and ideas for current and future Tandy products, it would be nice to get some information directly from the source. One of the major questions/hopes is whether Tandy will pull the "grand coup" by capitalising on their OS-9 experience with a 68K based OS-9 machine. It's interesting that while the "IBM-clones" makers have been complaining about "The Great Fallout", the Atari ST and Amiga have been capturing major market share in new sales. Tandy has one of the best distribution networks around. Not only can you get software and support without driving more than a mile or two, but you can shop for computer hardware, software, and peripherals 7 days a week, including weekends and evenings. On the down side, Tandy seems bent on sticking with the MS-DOS standards, with little attempt to improve the compatibility situation. This wouldn't be so bad if MS-DOS were really a standard, complete with all the bells and whistles, but only the text portion is truely standard. Adding GEM or Windows to the basic package would lend credibility to a long term standard, but then there's that 640K limit (GEM eats HOW MUCH?). Tandy, in the form of OS-9 has the potential to set a standard that IBM can only wish for at the moment. Multi-tasking, VDI graphics, and virtually unlimited storage (RAM and DISK) are only a few of the potential benefits which serious Business users may consider more important than "Almost compatible with IBM". Good networking, Remote File System, and CD-ROM compatibility are other pluses to support OS-9 68K.