Tandy Silver

[Bill Vermillion]

On Wed, Aug 25 08:34 , Bill Campbell, showing utter disregard for 
spell-checkers gave us this: 

> On Wed, Aug 25, 2004, GCC Consulting wrote:
> ...
> >> Which chips were these?   There certainly weren't many standards in
> >> the early days.  I remember some of the best serial cards for the
> >> PC didn't use the brain-dead 8250 Intel chips.   Those were such a
> >> pain, particularly for those who integrated them into 
> >> multiport serial cards, as they could get into a state where 
> >> only a complete power cycle would clear those.

> >I'm having a "senior moment here" but I think instead of using
> >the 286 processor, they use a 186. It was something akin to
> >this. Tandy used a slightly different version of the processor
> >everyone else was using.

> If I remeber correctly the Tandy 2000 used an 80186, and had
> enhanced video capabilities that were (a) very nice, and (b)
> incompatible with anything non-Tandy. The Tandy 3000 was the
> first non-IBM Microchannel box (and 8MB of RAM for the Tandy
> 4000 cost close to 10 grand :-).

Now who's having a senior moment.  The 3000s were 80268 machine.
Standard AT style bus.  The 4000's were 80386 machines also
with the standard AT architecture.  The 5000's were 80386 with
MCA architecture.

I know where I can put my hand on three 3000s' right at this
moment.  All running Xenix when they last fired up.  At least one
has had the additional memory boards pulled to put the memory
in something else.  That was when if you wanted more than 1MB
of memory you went into add-in memory boards.  That was one reason
for the 5.25" muffin fan in the front of the 3000s' - to put the
cooling right through the spaces beween the add-in memory boards.

The 3000's are in my back bedroom, along with two 6000's that I
need to get running to Xfer about 100 8" disks - and then I think
Ward has first call on one of them.  And there are two Max80's
along with a pair of 8" thin-lines.  Those need to have the diodes
on the power supply replaced.  Failed easily but were readily
replaceable with parts from RS that were much better.

And upstairs in the attic is an old S-100.  I built a 32K static
RAM memory board with 64 21L02 memory chips and about a dozen glue
chips.  I don't recall the last time I picked up a soldering iron,
and I have no plans to ever do so in the future.

If I can't do it from the keyboard it's almost not worth doing.

But I did lose and IDE drive yesterday - 6 months in - and it gets
exchanged with Seagate this next week.  120GB - 7200 RPM Baracuda.

That's the second IDE in a year. I must may bite the bullet next
time and go back to SCSI.

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com