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From: don@bmcg.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Tandy 2000
Message-ID: <740@bmcg.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Jan-84 01:47:57 EST
Article-I.D.: bmcg.740
Posted: Thu Jan 26 01:47:57 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Jan-84 23:00:13 EST
Organization: Burroughs Corporation, San Diego
Lines: 43

x  (munge me not)

Some questions have popped up regarding the Tandy 2000.  One of
the main ones is:  How much does the 80186 damage the ability to
run MS-DOS programs which were written for the IBM PC?  There's
an enormous pile of valuable software written for the IBM PC, but
the better performance and graphics abilities of the Tandy 2000
are very attractive.  This raises another question:  Does anyone
know just how "PC-compatible" the Tandy 2000 graphics are, aside
from the increased resolution along the verticle axis?

How about the disk drives?  The ability to hold 720K  (2 X IBM)
sounds neat, but how about the ability to read IBM disks?  I was
looking at a Tandy 2000 one night when a guy walked in with some
disks from his IBM PC.  We could do a "dir" on his disks and see
what was on them, but we couldn't figure out how to read in any
of the files...  Really frustrating.  Supposedly, the drives can
read IBM format files, but we never did figure out how to make
it happen.  Does anybody know?

Recent reading indicates that the 8087 can increase the IBM PC's
performance by as much as an order of magnitude in programs that
are number-crunching intensive.  Is there a socket deep inside
the Tandy 2000 just waiting for an 8087?  Will the 8087 device
even work with the 80186?

Supposedly, MS-DOS version 3.0 is due to be released soon.  Word
has it that it will support multiple tasking.  Does anyone know
if the 80186 or the Tandy 2000 hardware doesn't do anything that
is particularly important to MS-DOS 3.0?  Speaking of Operating
Systems, here's a hard question:  will it run the just-announced
"PC/IX" UNIX-like OS that's a derivative of System 3?

Hopefully, someone out there has access to a technical hardware
and/or software manual for the Tandy 2000.  The local Radio Shack
Computer Store tells me that they can't get any technical manuals
until "maybe in February."

Any and all information will be appreciated.  Please reply by
mail, unless you feel that your answers to these (and other?)
questions will be of general interest.

Don Deel        ...sdcsvax!bmcg!don