[colug-432] Tandy 1000

[Steve VanSlyck]

Richard's email brings back some memories.

If you had a Tandy PC in 1976 and tried to hook up a modem you quickly found you needed something called an "RS232" interface, which you then located, brought home, and connected up to the computer. You then plugged in your phone and tried to connect with your friend's computer across town. But after a bunch of whistles and wheezes while the two modems connected, all you got was a bunch of static. Modem didn't work at all!

Well, not at least until you figured out that that the sound of a bit stream over phone lines is not, obviously, supposed to be silent.

I learned shortly thereafter that technical writers cannot write, and when they do write, they LIE. How was *I* supposed to know that

     function(string)

really meant

     function("string")

if the Radio Shack people who wrote the manual couldn't bestir themselves to type in two little quotation marks! Caused me to give up a potentially lucrative career as a "computer operator" or even "coder," and remembering that afternoon still jams my geers today.

A year or so later my dad reverse engineered Scripsit and (after pumping yards of paper through tour pinwheel Omni printer) published an article in PC Magazine on how to hack Scripsit to make it variable-space the output. My friend across town did not throw away his commercial-grade Varityper. He had, after all, to make a living.

We were all loyal LDOS customers back then. And, later, loyal customers of eSoft, who wrote the best BBS software there was, 255 levels of security and all.

Ah, thems were the days.


----- Original Message -----

Subject: Re: [colug-432] Tandy 1000

> On 02/14/2012 02:03 PM, Thomas Cranston wrote:
> > Any body interested in a Tandy 1000?
> >
> > Ran last time I used it.
> >
> > Comes w/Tandy:
> > Keyboard
> > Color Monitor
> > Periperals
> > Large Box O Software
> >
> > The original owner was a NASA scientist
> >
> > His daughter inherited it, and then gave it to me. Pretty much in
> > original condition.
> >
> > I do not want to see it get trashed.
> >
> > Won't bring to Columbus for many moons. Will bring to interested party
> > next time I come.
> >
> > Tom
> > _______________________________________________
> > colug-432 mailing list
> > colug-432 at colug.net
> > http://lists.colug.net/mailman/listinfo/colug-432
> 
> 
> Wow ... now ... the Tandy 2000 (TWO thousand) had the distinction of an
> 80186 processor, the only 80186 PC that I ever encountered.  Not sure if
> the T1K had the 186 or not.  Check.  These were fun machines, not to be
> confused with TRS-80; they're real PCs (ie: INTeL/IBM class stuff).
> 
> The Tandy 1000 looks (to me) rather like a PC jr.  I don't mean that in
> a negative way.  More like "what the IBM PC jr wanted to be when it grew
> up" kind of way.
> 
> If that's an SX/TX, then it probably has a 286 instead of just an 8086.
> 
> -- R; <><
> 
> 
> 
> 
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