Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!evax!utacfd!merch!cpe!hal6000!trsvax!uhclem
From: uhclem@trsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.tandy
Subject: Re: Advanced Systems
Message-ID: <193300255@trsvax>
Date: 2 Apr 91 04:42:05 GMT
References: <2428@pdn.paradyne.com>
Lines: 32
Nf-ID: #R:pdn.paradyne.com:2428:trsvax:193300255:000:1349
Nf-From: trsvax.UUCP!uhclem    Apr  1 12:54:00 1991


<>
>expensive but powerful machines.  Lets face it, Tandy had the Model 16
>long before I'd heard of the 80286. 

That is because the 68000 came out in quantity in 1979-1980, and the 286
became available in late 1983, two years after the Model 16 was designed.

>Also, TRS-Dos was written by MicroSoft before they 
>wrote MS-Dos, so who is compatible to who?

Sorry, but TRSDOS for the Model I was written by Randy Cook, Model II and
Model III TRSDOS were done in-house at Tandy, and Model 4 TRSDOS 
was done by Logical Systems.   TRSDOS-16 was done by Ryan McFarland.

Only applications for TRSDOS systems, including Model I Level II BASIC,
came from Microsoft.  The ROM BASIC on the Model III and disk BASIC on
the Model II were done by Tandy.

It might interest you to know that Microsoft generated all 8080/8085/Z80
BASIC from the same source files with conditionals for features specific
to one vendor or another.  To that end, they tried not to use any Z80-only
opcodes at all!  Want to compare two 16-bit numbers?  Microsoft BASIC
calls a subroutine to do this, when a OR  A, SBC  HL,DE  would do it in the
same number of bytes as the CALL instruction and be many times faster.


					"Thank you, Uh Clem."
					Frank Durda IV @ <trsvax!uhclem>
					uhclem@trsvax.tandy.com
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