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From: john@moncol.UUCP (John Ruschmeyer)
Newsgroups: net.micro.trs-80
Subject: Re: Tandycentricity
Message-ID: <582@moncol.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Dec-85 22:54:26 EST
Article-I.D.: moncol.582
Posted: Fri Dec 13 22:54:26 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Dec-85 00:20:43 EST
References: <13850@rochester.UUCP>
Organization: Monmouth College, West Long Branch, NJ 07764
Lines: 74

]From: gardner@rochester.UUCP
]Message-ID: <13850@rochester.UUCP>
]Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
]
]Yes, it is clear that Tandy wants you to use only Tandy products, isn't
]this true of most companies? Tandy just goes a bit beyond what others do
]by actually making it *hard* to use anyone else's product in conjunction
]with a Tandy product. I don't think this is an attempt to "force you to
]buy Tandy junk", but instead get the impression that they don't want to
]get involved in the headaches of Joe Blow trying to put a Speedo disk
]drive ($70 retail!) in his TRS computer and then crying to Tandy when the 
]damn thing makes the motherboard smoke.

It is true that Tandy does not want to have to get involved in the
headaches of Joe Blow and his $70 disk drive, so they will do something
like make the cable to short to use a non-Tandy drive or use some funny
connector.

   But the real problem is in why Joe Blow even wants to consider
the $70 drive in the first place- the equivalent Tandy drive is probably
listed in the catalog at 199.95. (I did not pull these numbers out of a
hat- a half-height DSDD floppy drive like the Teac 55B would run about
$70-$100 mail order. The Tandy catalog lists the second drive for the 1000
(a Teac 54B) at $199.95.)

   Tandy's memory prices seem to be even worse. The 128K RAM upgrade kit
for the Tandy 1000 (26-5162) is listed at $129.95. Though I have never seen
the kit, it can hardly consist of more than 16 4164 (or equivalent) chips
and a header block (one of those little pieces used to jump two pins).
The 4164 chips can be ordered mail order for less than $1 a piece with the
block costing a whopping nickel. Why, therefore, is Tandy making an 800%
profit??!! (Tandy still also wants $119.95 for an 8K upgrade for the Model
100; several companies offer comparable upgrades for ~$30.)

   If Tandy wants to effectively assert itself, then they need to remember
that parts/upgrades must be priced competitively with whatever the third
party has to offer.

============================================================================

   Personally, I've always thought that the real problem with
Tandycentricity was when it came to software.

   The poor Tandy computer owner who happened to own a non-Tandy printer
was often left in the cold when it came to getting drivers, etc. Now that
Tandy is in the IBM compatable business, it is even worse. Buying a piece
of software (such as Lotus 1-2-3) from Tandy, you get only the drivers for
Tandy printers. Buying the generic MS-DOS version of the same software, you
get drivers for most other printers. But what if you need both?
 
   "Both?" you may ask. Consider the businessman who uses Lotus at work on an
IBM-PC with an Epson printer. Sometimes, however, he takes his work home
and uses his Tandy 1000 with a DMP-200 printer. It seems ridiculous for him
to own two copies of the program just to have all the printer drivers, so
what does he do since he also can't buy a version with both drivers?

   Is it such a hardship for software companies to either include Tandy
printer drivers in the generic versions or for Tandy to allow some
non-Tandy drivers to be included with the Tandy versions of a program? (I
should stop at this point and thank Quicksoft for including support for
Tandy's DMP series of printers in PC-WRITE.)


-- 
Name:		John Ruschmeyer
US Mail:	Monmouth College, W. Long Branch, NJ 07764
Phone:		(201) 571-3451	*** NEW NUMBER ***
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						   ...!pesnta!moncol!john

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