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From: jpm@bnl.UUCP (John McNamee)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Tandy 2000
Message-ID: <321@bnl.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Jan-84 13:07:04 EST
Article-I.D.: bnl.321
Posted: Sun Jan 22 13:07:04 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Jan-84 04:25:54 EST
References: <740@bmcg.UUCP>
Lines: 75

>	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?

The 80186 damages the ability to make calls to the IBM BIOS
ROM. Somebody at IBM didn't bother to read the part about
"Reserved for Intel" in the 8088 specs. 

The graphics appear to be totally different. I would venture
a guess that any program that does graphics will need to be
changed to work on the 2000. Of course MicroSoft windows
should solve all of the graphic compatability problems, but
windows isn't available yet.

>	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?

The 2000 can and does read IBM PC disks. Just use the normal
COPY command. You may get some disks errors. Just open the
drive door, close it again, and retry the sector. Reading 40
track disks in 80 track drives has never been perfect. I
copied WordStar, r:base, and Lattice C this way from some
PC disks and had no major problems (p.s. All 3 programs seem
to work).

>	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?

Yes, the 2000 has an 8087 socket. My personal opinion is that
the 8087 is a marketing gimic. Unless you are writing your
own software you will find very little that will take
advantage of the 8087. Maybe this will change over time, but
that is how things are now.

>	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?

The 80186 is a faster chip than the 8088 even at the same
clock speed, and at 8Mhz it blows the PC speed away. This
will be a great help when running multiple tasks. Other than
the extra speed I don't see any other advantage to the 186.

>	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?

I doubt it. PC/IX is probably tied to the IBM hard disk and
the IBM BIOS ROM and as such will not work on the 2000. From
what I hear about PC/IX this is not a great loss.

>	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."

I got to read over the schematics, but that was all the info
the local repair shop had. Ask your local Radio Shack tech
if you can look at their copy.