DPE101@psuvm.psu.edu (12/04/90)
Does anyone know anything about the TANDY 2000?? If so,please reply.
RFM@psuvm.psu.edu (12/04/90)
Tandy 2000 was produced (misproduced) by Tandy about 5-6 years ago. A real Orphan. It has an 80186 microprocessor, not sure about speed. An ALMOST-MSDOS machine. No MSDOS software will run on it out of box; Tandy got a few companies to wrtie 2000-versions of their software; Lotus was one, I forget others. It did great graphics. A dead-end machine. I always thought that the Tandy 1200 was the best machine they ever built-- a real truck. It was manufactired by Tandon. Tandy dropped it 'cuz it wasn't precularly Tandy -- you could drop any card in it. Tandq then opted for its 1000-series machines, which, if you bought one, pretty closelty tied you to Tandy for upgrades, etc. They wouldn't take full-size cards. Whay am I thinking about buying a Tandy? Bob M.
mdiehl@hydra.unm.edu (J. Michael Diehl) (12/04/90)
I have a model 2000HD with 256K ram, a 10M internal and 15M external hard-disk drive and a mono display. The a: drive is a 720K drive....that has died in recent months. I have looked everywhere for a replacement drive for it. RS has one for about $130 and someone says he has one for about $90. I'm wondering what I should do with this beast. ;^] I guess I could fix it up, get an external modem (my modem board won't work in it) and use it as a terminal Or I could sell it as a whole....or in parts. Any suggestions? BTW, I have the ENTIRE factory maintainance manuals....I could sell them separately if anyone is interested. Please respond via e-mail. Thanx in advance. +-------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+ | J. Michael Diehl ;-] | I thought I was wrong once. But, I was mistaken. | | +----------------------------------------------------+ | mdiehl@hydra.unm.edu | "I like children.....they bounce!" | | Thunder@forum | | | Thunder@Tiny* | +-------------------+ | | (505) 272-HaHa | |THIS SPACE FOR RENT| | +-------------------------+---------------+-------------------+----------------+
rlp@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Trouble) (12/04/90)
In article <90337.231316RFM@psuvm.psu.edu> RFM@psuvm.psu.edu writes: >Tandy 2000 was produced (misproduced) by Tandy about 5-6 years ago. A real First came out in 1983. I got mine in '84. >Orphan. It has an 80186 microprocessor, not sure about speed. An ALMOST-MSDOS Speed is 8 MHz. >machine. No MSDOS software will run on it out of box; Tandy got a few Minor quibble here. Some MSDOS stuff will run "out of the box" on the 2000 (eg, LeScript, a word processor, will run, from the same disk, on a 2000, generic PC clone, or genuine IBM hardware). Caveats: programs must be "well behaved" from the 2000's point of view, meaning no direct read or write operations to video, disk, keyboard, or memory. I believe the rule was, "If it goes through BIOS calls, it'll be compatible." Of course, how many programs are that well-behaved? Most games are not, nor "desk accessory" stuff like Sidekick. >forget others. It did great graphics. A dead-end machine. But those of us still using 'em don't have to worry about being confused by so many choices in hardware and software. Also, we don't have to worry about our machines becoming obsolete tomorrow -- they were obsolete (from the market viewpoint, not from usability) several years ago! Bob -- rlp@beach.cis.ufl.edu Air: PP-SEL AMA # 541283 Road: 750 Ninja DoD # 0068 Water: NAUI OW-I <=- -=>
garee@evax.arl.utexas.edu (Scott Garee) (12/05/90)
In article <90337.231316RFM@psuvm.psu.edu> RFM@psuvm.psu.edu writes: >Tandy 2000 was produced (misproduced) by Tandy about 5-6 years ago. A real >Orphan. It has an 80186 microprocessor, not sure about speed. An ALMOST-MSDOS >machine. No MSDOS software will run on it out of box; Tandy got a few >companies to wrtie 2000-versions of their software; Lotus was one, I >forget others. It did great graphics. A dead-end machine. >I always thought that the Tandy 1200 was the best machine they ever built-- >a real truck. It was manufactired by Tandon. Tandy dropped it 'cuz >it wasn't precularly Tandy -- you could drop any card in it. Tandq >then opted for its 1000-series machines, which, if you bought one, pretty >closelty tied you to Tandy for upgrades, etc. They wouldn't take >full-size cards. Whay am I thinking about buying a Tandy? >Bob M. Some inaccuracies... MS-DOS software WILL run as is on the 2000 if it is text only and does not write direct to screen. The 2000 was a 16 bit MS-DOS machine, with 16 bit slots before there was an AT, or for that matter, before there were PC clones on the market, COMPAQ was the only one at that time. I have used MACE utilities, Norton utilities, Professional Write, and others on a 2000. By the way, we have about 50 million (well maybe not that many) PC's, Tandy, Zenith, Clones, etc... in use in our dept. at UTA. Not ONE of these has a card that is longer than about 7", let alone 10"! RS is currently selling off the 2000's that were used for the last 5 years for the store computers. A sidenote: we upgraded last year to 16MHz 4000's with 4 Meg, SCSI HD's & tape, and from 2 - 8 terminals for the new POS's, I'm sure you've seen them. Cost: $34 million +!!! Back to the 2000's: the systems have 512k, a 10 Meg HD, 2 720k 5 1/4" floppys, 1200B modems, and color graphics and monitors. They are being sold for about $300, not a bad price, even if you use it as a dumb terminal! But just don't buy one as you're main machine, we'd be ashamed of ourselves for letting you. +------------------------------------------------+ + Mail to: garee@evax.utarl.edu or call Scott at + + Radio Shack 01-8323 Arlington, TX 817-649-2518 + + If I can't help you, you're in it really deep! + + ============= The Tandy Man Can! ============= +
ward@tsnews.Convergent.COM (Ward Griffiths) (12/05/90)
RFM@psuvm.psu.edu writes: >Tandy 2000 was produced (misproduced) by Tandy about 5-6 years ago. A real >Orphan. It has an 80186 microprocessor, not sure about speed. An ALMOST-MSDOS >machine. No MSDOS software will run on it out of box; Tandy got a few >companies to wrtie 2000-versions of their software; Lotus was one, I >forget others. It did great graphics. A dead-end machine. >I always thought that the Tandy 1200 was the best machine they ever built-- >a real truck. It was manufactired by Tandon. Tandy dropped it 'cuz >it wasn't precularly Tandy -- you could drop any card in it. Tandq >then opted for its 1000-series machines, which, if you bought one, pretty >closelty tied you to Tandy for upgrades, etc. They wouldn't take >full-size cards. Whay am I thinking about buying a Tandy? >Bob M. Actually, the 2000 was a damn fine machine well ahead of its time: a true 16-bit DOS machine that was introduced about a year and a half before IBM's PC/AT. The 80186 as 8 Mhz is faster than the original 6 Mhz '286, the graphics was far superior to anything available on "true" compatibles untill much later, and the keyboard had separate numeric/cursor keys, something IBM didn't think of for quite a while after that. The problem was that because of the different memory map of the '186, and the superior graphics, many programs which diddled with hardware directly to improve the pathetic performance of "true" compatibles rather than make documented system calls, especially just about anything with copy protection, would not run correctly. A lot of other programs worked fine right out of the shrink-wrap. The Tandy 2000 wasn't the only system that suffered from this, the TI Professional comes immediately to mind. But my T2K is running Wordstar 5 without a whimper. A lot of commercial software can also be made to run with fairly simple patches, many of which are maintained by an active bunch of users on CompuServe. Then again, I have a tendency to accumulate orphaned hardware. Besides my 2000, I've got a TRS-80 Model 16 running Xenix and an AT&T 3B1. The Tandy 1200, a "true" XT compatible was basically a piece of crap. Among other things, they had a 40% motherboard replacement rate during warranty. A big-time financial loser from the points of view of store managers, as warranty repairs are a black hole in the bottom line on which a Tandy store manager's bonus is based. -- The people that make Unisys' official opinions get paid more. A LOT more. Ward Griffiths, Unisys NCG aka Convergent Technologies =========================================================================== To Hell with "Only One Earth"! Try "At Least One Solar System"! "Let's get out of here. They've run out of meat. Funerals are a pain when there are more than twenty people. Never get enough to eat." Donald Kingsbury, "Courtship Rite": Gaet to Honey
fzsitvay@techbook.com (Frank Zsitvay) (12/05/90)
In article <90337.231316RFM@psuvm.psu.edu> RFM@psuvm.psu.edu writes: >Tandy 2000 was produced (misproduced) by Tandy about 5-6 years ago. A real >Orphan. It has an 80186 microprocessor, not sure about speed. An ALMOST-MSDOS >machine. No MSDOS software will run on it out of box; Tandy got a few ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Wrong!!! the Tandy 2000 machine is completely msdos compatible. it is, however, not IBM clone compatible. it fits in with machines like DEC's Rainbow, and TI's Professional. these machines were meant to one-up ibm at their own games, the 2000 being faster than the ibm, the TI having a better keyboard, and nobody is really quite sure was DEC was trying to do better than ibm, except be obnoxious. At any rate, Tandy's 8 bit machines were the best they every produced. when they became Just Another Clone Manufacturer is when they really went downhill in all areas, including support. -- fzsitvay@techbook.COM - but don't quote me on that.... American Oil Company motto - Bend over, We'll pump!!!
fzsitvay@techbook.com (Frank Zsitvay) (12/07/90)
In article <925@tsnews.Convergent.COM> ward@tsnews.Convergent.COM (Ward Griffiths) writes: >RFM@psuvm.psu.edu writes: > >Actually, the 2000 was a damn fine machine well ahead of its >time: a true 16-bit DOS machine that was introduced about a >year and a half before IBM's PC/AT. The 80186 as 8 Mhz is >faster than the original 6 Mhz '286, the graphics was far >superior to anything available on "true" compatibles untill >much later, and the keyboard had separate numeric/cursor >keys, something IBM didn't think of for quite a while after >that. Damn straight... it basically was designed to be better than the ibm, but tandy found out, like everyone else, that being better was not necessarily better. The problem was that because of the different memory >map of the '186, and the superior graphics, many programs >which diddled with hardware directly to improve the pathetic >performance of "true" compatibles rather than make documented >system calls, especially just about anything with copy >protection, would not run correctly. well, it wasn't the fact that the t2k had a 186 that made it incompatible. there were some systems marketed that were entirely compatible with the ibm, but used the 186. however, there weren't many, because interfacing an 8087 to it was a headache, and the cost difference (at the time, and in 50,000 piece quantities, too) wasn't great enough to warrant designing a system around it. they were faster than a similarly clocked 8088, by about 30% to 40%. rather, if everyone followed the rules of portable programming there would have been little compatibilty problems. but it was difficult to write much of anything on an ibm pc/xt without going to the hardware because the machine's bios was so bloody slow to do anything. heck, you couldn't write a term program that would go faster than 1200 baud on those machines using the bios routines, because even though the system supports interrupt driven IO, the bios didn't. it was the same story with the video. it was faster for an application to manipulate video memory rather than let the bios do it. most of the orphaned machines were produced slightly before the clone craze, before ibm clone programming became a serios problem for them. at that time, it was expected that programmers would make their applications portable, but in trying to do so the overall performance of the machine was, in many cases, worse than 2 mhz z80 systems these machines were supposed to replace. this made a $3005 pc system with one 160k floppy look awfully bad in light of 6mhz z80 boxes with gobs of mass storage (relatively speaking,) that could run rings around ibm. these 'sorta' clones did have their advantages. next to my desk is a DEC rainbow 100+. i often use it because it does something that my AT can't, which is having the equivalent of 896K of conventional memory. the extra headroom does come in handy... >Then again, I have a tendency to accumulate orphaned >hardware. Besides my 2000, I've got a TRS-80 Model 16 >running Xenix and an AT&T 3B1. > >The Tandy 1200, a "true" XT compatible was basically a piece >of crap. Among other things, they had a 40% motherboard >replacement rate during warranty. A big-time financial >loser from the points of view of store managers, as warranty >repairs are a black hole in the bottom line on which a Tandy >store manager's bonus is based. > >-- >The people that make Unisys' official opinions get paid more. A LOT more. Ward Griffiths, Unisys NCG aka Convergent Technologies >=========================================================================== To Hell with "Only One Earth"! Try "At Least One Solar System"! > >"Let's get out of here. They've run out of meat. Funerals are a pain when there are more than twenty people. Never get enough to eat." Donald Kingsbury, "Courtship Rite": Gaet to Honey -- fzsitvay@techbook.COM - but don't quote me on that.... American Oil Company motto - Bend over, We'll pump!!!
janm@dramba.neis.oz (Jan Mikkelsen) (12/10/90)
In article <90337.231316RFM@psuvm.psu.edu> RFM@psuvm.psu.edu writes: >Tandy 2000 was produced (misproduced) by Tandy about 5-6 years ago. A real >Orphan. It has an 80186 microprocessor, not sure about speed. An ALMOST-MSDOS >machine. No MSDOS software will run on it out of box; Tandy got a few >companies to wrtie 2000-versions of their software; Lotus was one, I >forget others. It did great graphics. A dead-end machine. I used to have one of these; they ran all MS-DOS software, it was just the IBM-PC hardware specific software that was a problem. The machine I had ran MS-DOS 2.11 without any problems. At the time it was made, it was expected that software developers would write programmes that would use the operating system and BIOS to do all the worl, and not go directly to the hardware. Tandy made the machine with all the same software interfaces, but with different underlying hardware. This was the problem. The machine was quite fast for its day, 80186 at 8MHz. 720K, not 360K floppy disks. The screen was great, much better than the NEC VGA I am looking at now. I regret getting rid of mine, I quite liked it. If anyone in Australia (preferably Sydney) want to sell theirs, let me know ... -- Jan Mikkelsen janm@dramba.neis.oz.AU or janm%dramba.neis.oz@metro.ucc.su.oz.au "She really is."
halkoD@batman.moravian.EDU (David Halko) (12/15/90)
I have heard alot of things about the good ol' 2000.... still some questions unanswered, though.... the 80186 came later, after the 8088 sometime... it is roughly 2 times as fast as the 8088/8086 cpu's.... running with a full 16 bit bus, in the Tandy 2000, that machine will fly! In other words, 2 times as fast as an 8088/8086 AT LEAST, then with the 16 bit bus, tack on another 50% or more... imagine, sort of like a 20 MHz 8088 in equivalent speed... Note, the PC bus only operates at 8 MHz, so even if you had a 20 MHz 8088/8086, the 2000 would still beat it since the bus speed would have to be slowed back down to 8 MHz.... yea, talk about a neat machine! I wonder if those speed up programs work with the good ol' 2000... hmmm.... you know, the ones which make the 8088/8086 based pc's go faster... ha ha... Now, your graphics.. those were quite nice... those CM1's were actually EGA class monitors... an old manager friend of mine is using it on his Tandy 4000 at home! Man, talk about a nice monitor.. one of the best Tandy ever released for any of its machines.... It had a few card slots internal, also... very nice... If I had the money, I would jump on a 2000 from Tandy almost immediately (but I am saving for a new OS9 machine to replace the CoCo3 that Tandy has dropped from its line... I was thinking about something along the lines of a 16 MHz 68030 based OS9 machine, but this should be on another news group...) There was once a time where Tandy was an innovative company (Tandy 2000, Tandy 6000, CoCo line, Model I,II,3,4, etc.) but those days have past and gone the way side.... David J. Halko (I used to be a sales person for them not so long ago! Most enjoyable 3 years of my life... )