lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (05/07/85)
Greetings. Does anyone out there have any experience with the new Tandy 200 portable? It appears to resemble the 100 but have twice the number of 40 char display lines. While I'd rather have an 80 X 24 or 25 char screen, they are still far too expensive to be reasonable, as far as I can tell. The 200 is listed at $999 with 24K--presumably it could be expanded up to the seventy-something K max less expensively by buying the chips from someone other than Tandy. Does anyone have any info about low level programming for the unit? I'm not interested in their included BASIC, of course. In general, any information about the functionality and programmability of the 200 would be appreciated. Thanks much. --Lauren--
lacasse@rand-unix.ARPA (Mark LaCasse) (05/08/85)
There is an article in Creative Computing, April '85, pp. 64-66 reviewing
the 200. There are only a few technical details in the article. About
all it says about programming is that it is almost completely software
compatible with the 100 (same CPU, same capabilities), only that you
have to change the poke locations in Basic and such. Both use an 80C85.
The 200's maximum of 72KBytes is made up of 3 24KByte address spaces.
These can not interact, except for "copying" files between them.
I programmed a model 100 for Rand for a couple of days. I wrote three
programs for it, all in Basic, and calling assembler routines in the ROM
for the hard stuff. There is no support (that I could find) for anything
but Basic, (or, of course, hand assembled assembler). All the hardware
and file interface (get an ls output) is done this way. It was a pain
to find the assembler locations in the ROM. There was no real doc on this.
It just so happened that the locations I needed were also used in some
of the example progams in the manual's appendix.
To the extent it is the same as the model 100, I would say it is "hostile"
to substantial software development.
Mark LaCasse qantel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!randvax!lacasse
c/o The Rand Corporation cbosgd!ihnp4!sdcrdcf!randvax!lacasse
1700 Main Street lacasse@Rand-Unix
Santa Monica, CA 90406
213/393-0411 ext. 7420esfraga@watmath.UUCP (Eric S Fraga) (05/13/85)
In article <10510@brl-tgr.ARPA> lacasse@rand-unix.ARPA (Mark LaCasse) writes: > > >I programmed a model 100 for Rand for a couple of days. I wrote three >programs for it, all in Basic, and calling assembler routines in the ROM >for the hard stuff. There is no support (that I could find) for anything >but Basic, (or, of course, hand assembled assembler). All the hardware >and file interface (get an ls output) is done this way. It was a pain >to find the assembler locations in the ROM. There was no real doc on this. BTW, Radio Shack did publish the ROM calls available in the Model 100 in two different publications: Model 100 ROM Routines (700-2245) Radio Shack and TRS-80 Microcomputer News Volume 5 Issue 11 November 1983 Both lists are approximately the same, inluding descriptions of the ROM routines (minimal descriptions) with caling sequences and returned values. -- Eric S Fraga [Dept of Computer Science, U of Waterloo]