gardner@rochester.UUCP (12/10/85)
From: Paul Gardner <gardner> > From: perl@rdin.UUCP (Robert Perlberg) > to use does not mean that it should not be included with a system. The > real answer to Hal's question of 'Why?' is more than obvious to anyone > who's had much experience with Tandy products -- they make it hard for > you to use non-Tandy stuff so you're forced to buy Tandy junk. Plain > and simple. > Robert Perlberg Yes, it is clear that Tandy wants you to use only Tandy products, isn't this true of most companies? Tandy just goes a bit beyond what others do by actually making it *hard* to use anyone else's product in conjunction with a Tandy product. I don't think this is an attempt to "force you to buy Tandy junk", but instead get the impression that they don't want to get involved in the headaches of Joe Blow trying to put a Speedo disk drive ($70 retail!) in his TRS computer and then crying to Tandy when the damn thing makes the motherboard smoke. My family owns a Model III so I've dealt first hand with "Tandycentricity". I have to admit that it does bother me a bit. I hope Tandy realizes that from the hobbyist-consumer point of view Tandycentricity is a negative vote for buying Tandy. Maybe they do and there's a better reason for it than my speculations above. It would be nice if a Tandy person stepped in and straightened us all out on the official policy if one exists. --------------- Paul C. Gardner UUCP: ..!{allegra,seismo,decvax,cmcl2}!rochester!gardner
john@moncol.UUCP (John Ruschmeyer) (12/14/85)
]From: gardner@rochester.UUCP ]Message-ID: <13850@rochester.UUCP> ]Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept. ] ]Yes, it is clear that Tandy wants you to use only Tandy products, isn't ]this true of most companies? Tandy just goes a bit beyond what others do ]by actually making it *hard* to use anyone else's product in conjunction ]with a Tandy product. I don't think this is an attempt to "force you to ]buy Tandy junk", but instead get the impression that they don't want to ]get involved in the headaches of Joe Blow trying to put a Speedo disk ]drive ($70 retail!) in his TRS computer and then crying to Tandy when the ]damn thing makes the motherboard smoke. It is true that Tandy does not want to have to get involved in the headaches of Joe Blow and his $70 disk drive, so they will do something like make the cable to short to use a non-Tandy drive or use some funny connector. But the real problem is in why Joe Blow even wants to consider the $70 drive in the first place- the equivalent Tandy drive is probably listed in the catalog at 199.95. (I did not pull these numbers out of a hat- a half-height DSDD floppy drive like the Teac 55B would run about $70-$100 mail order. The Tandy catalog lists the second drive for the 1000 (a Teac 54B) at $199.95.) Tandy's memory prices seem to be even worse. The 128K RAM upgrade kit for the Tandy 1000 (26-5162) is listed at $129.95. Though I have never seen the kit, it can hardly consist of more than 16 4164 (or equivalent) chips and a header block (one of those little pieces used to jump two pins). The 4164 chips can be ordered mail order for less than $1 a piece with the block costing a whopping nickel. Why, therefore, is Tandy making an 800% profit??!! (Tandy still also wants $119.95 for an 8K upgrade for the Model 100; several companies offer comparable upgrades for ~$30.) If Tandy wants to effectively assert itself, then they need to remember that parts/upgrades must be priced competitively with whatever the third party has to offer. ============================================================================ Personally, I've always thought that the real problem with Tandycentricity was when it came to software. The poor Tandy computer owner who happened to own a non-Tandy printer was often left in the cold when it came to getting drivers, etc. Now that Tandy is in the IBM compatable business, it is even worse. Buying a piece of software (such as Lotus 1-2-3) from Tandy, you get only the drivers for Tandy printers. Buying the generic MS-DOS version of the same software, you get drivers for most other printers. But what if you need both? "Both?" you may ask. Consider the businessman who uses Lotus at work on an IBM-PC with an Epson printer. Sometimes, however, he takes his work home and uses his Tandy 1000 with a DMP-200 printer. It seems ridiculous for him to own two copies of the program just to have all the printer drivers, so what does he do since he also can't buy a version with both drivers? Is it such a hardship for software companies to either include Tandy printer drivers in the generic versions or for Tandy to allow some non-Tandy drivers to be included with the Tandy versions of a program? (I should stop at this point and thank Quicksoft for including support for Tandy's DMP series of printers in PC-WRITE.) -- Name: John Ruschmeyer US Mail: Monmouth College, W. Long Branch, NJ 07764 Phone: (201) 571-3451 *** NEW NUMBER *** UUCP: ...!vax135!petsd!moncol!john ...!princeton!moncol!john ...!pesnta!moncol!john "I hate this beer. It has no taste." "And it's so filling." "No taste." "So filling."
msl5864@ritcv.UUCP (Michael S. Leibow) (12/17/85)
In article <582@moncol.UUCP> john@moncol.UUCP (John Ruschmeyer) writes: >... But the real problem is in why Joe Blow even wants to consider >the $70 drive in the first place- the equivalent Tandy drive is >listed in the catalog at 199.95. > > Tandy's memory prices seem to be even worse. The 128K RAM upgrade kit >for the Tandy 1000 (26-5162) is listed at $129.95. >The 4164 chips can be ordered mail order for less than $1 a piece with the >block costing a whopping nickel. Why, therefore, is Tandy making an 800% >profit??!! (Tandy still also wants $119.95 for an 8K upgrade for the Model >100; several companies offer comparable upgrades for ~$30.) I just bought, mail order, a model IVD with 2 drives, Deskmate and all the jazz that comes with it. It cost me $889.00 Tandy sells a new model IV for $1299.00. I also just bought 24K of ram for my model 100 for $87.00 where Tandy would have charged me $359.85 without installation. That is a 413% markup. (Doesn't the company that charged me $87 have to make money too?) The reason that I think that Tandy charges so much is because most people don't know how to install ram chips by themselves, and don't even realize that the same chips can be bought for much less through mail order. Also Tandy probably thinks that if just one out of *8 individuals buys their ram chips, that they have made just as much profit as the company that sold to the other 7. And, Tandy knows that more people would trust them for their own product than another company that operates through mail order. (* this is a random number) * PLACE YOUR THOUGHTS HERE *
jlh@loral.UUCP (Desperatly seeking happiness) (12/24/85)
The first computer I bought was a Radio Shack model I and I quickly grew to love the computer but to hate Radio S**t. As an example, the only thing about the Model 1 I could fault them on (remember, this was one of the first computers for sale) was it's lack of lower case. Dennis Kitsz in an early issue of 80 Micro told us that we could buy a character generator chip from radio shack for something like $4.95, and we could either let them install it for $60.00 or so, or install it ourselves with his easy to follow instructions (remove cover, remove old chip, install new chip, replace cover). Within a week of the article's publication, you know who had raised the price of their character generators to $64.00, but installation was now free!! Hows that for telling customers to bend over and grab their ankles? It was really kind of sad, I'd go to user group meetings on my TRS80 and hear lots of people say how much they liked their system but hated Radio Shack. BTW, when I went to buy a new system last year I didn't even bother looking at Radio Shack, oops, thats Tandy now. While I liked some of their hardware, I figured I didn't want to deal with a bunch of a-holes again.