Talk:Tandy 2000

Request
could s.o. please add the year(s) during which this model was produced? thanks in advance! &mdash; MFH: Talk 20:09, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yo uber-geeks, someone HAS to know the years for this thing. Come on. One update in 2 years isn't a lot to ask. ;( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.30.8.92 (talk • contribs) 15:17, January 19, 2007

I have a BUNCH of old Tandy documentation, but it's squirrelled away in storage. I'll see what I can do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Acidophilusrex (talk • contribs) 12:34, May 9, 2007


 * Not exactly an encyclopedic source, but: I remember that it was "teased" on the front cover of the December 1983 issue of one of the computer mags (maybe PC WORLD?), for their story about this "Windows" thing that Microsoft was going to be doing; there was a picture of various systems that would be able to run Windows when it finally came out, including an upcoming computer from Radio Shack . So I'd peg its release as early '84 (about the time I left my gig working at an RS Computer Center).  No idea how long they sold it.--NapoliRoma (talk) 20:21, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Not the first "Tandy"
In today's edit-o-rama, I removed the line

The Tandy 2000 computer was the first to have the "Tandy" logo on it.

The first "Tandy" branded computer was the Tandy 10 Business Computer System, which really ought to have a WP page of its own. Maybe I'll stub one up...--NapoliRoma (talk) 19:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I recall my Radio Shack Tandy 2000, my mom got me for Christmas, having an external mini cassette tape to store data, no hard drive installed. 166.181.89.172 (talk) 17:55, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

"Token-Ring" -- actually ARCnet?
The article mentions that the Tandy 2000 was "used with Tandy's Token-Ring network card"—could that actually have been ARCnet instead? The first network technology Radio Shack marketed was ARCnet; I don't recall them ever doing anything with Token Ring.--NapoliRoma (talk) 19:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure if this corroborates what you're talking about, but my Tandy 2000 (actually TRS-80 Model 2000) has an ARCnet card in it. dreddnott (talk) 11:44, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

ALERT! Vetusware site down
FYI: the link I put in to the abandonware site, Vetusware, has been taken down.

I put this link into the article so people looking to download the T-2000 version of MS-DOS could get it. Now somebody has crapped in our cereal bowl, so I poked around the web and found another d/load at the WinWorld site.

Anybody who might have need for the T-2000 version of DOS might want to pre-emptively get this d/load because it's entirely possible whoever screwed us got the idea from this article.Wikkileaker (talk) 12:53, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Previous Tandys using the 68000?
I don't want to delete this straight off the bat, but I have to say it's the first I've heard of it. Z80 maybe, and I think something like the 6809 in certain models, but not the 68k. If anyone knows of a particular example, I'd be interested to learn. Might be worth putting a small link into the article text with a single example of both the Z80 and 68k models or something, or just to a list of Tandy machines. 46.208.118.185 (talk) 22:12, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Monitor compatibility
Two or three things which make the situation slightly rosier than the article text currently suggests, which might be worth editing in (I'm a bit too tired to make a good job of it right now) -

1a/ Whilst LCDs that are compatible with scanrates below 31kHz aren't super common, there are a certain set of them out there; it may be worth cross referencing with fansites for e.g. the NEC PC98xx line, or arcade preservationists dealing with 1990s models, many of which either top out at or default to a 24kHz scan rate (640x400 for the PCs, 480~512x384 for arcades) - and also make quite a bit of use of 15.8kHz so they've got a list of LCDs that are compatible with that too if you have other old equipment that might benefit. A number of TVs (particularly Japanese brands) and particularly video projectors also sync down to 24 and 15kHz ranges as well. And as these devices are almost universally multisync in the first place, they should be good for 26.4kHz (...or the 28~29kHz of Amiga "dbl" and "super" modes, ~21kHz of EGA and some other old computers via a TTL to analogue converter, etc).

1b/ On the other hand, there is a growing population of scan converters, (up)scalers and video capture devices which are compatible with "medium resolution"/"enhanced resolution" modes, specifically for arcade and ~24kHz Jap systems to enable them to run on whatever convenient main-standard screens are available (or at least through a PC without actually emulating them), whether standard def 15kHz, VGA 31kHz, 720/1080 line HD or the various SVGA/XGA/etc PC monitors. Whilst some of them only accept a few, more popular preset modes, on the whole they're also multiscan and should be able to deal with whatever you throw at them, though the pixel sampling clock will need to be manually adjusted (presumably to 24MHz, for the Tandy, if its system clock is generated by an i8242 dividing down to 1/3rd).

2/ The Hsync rate sounds very similar, although maybe not identical, to that of the 640x400 hi-rez mode used on the AT&T 6300/Olivetti M24/etc (which also used a 24MHz pixel clock... not out of the realm of imagination that they might share some suspiciously similar circuitry in the display board). Given the slight tolerances for signal drift built into even fixed frequency monitors (certainly a couple hundred hertz difference on the horizontal should be accepted), and that the M24/6300's video was RGBI TTL itself, it may well be possible to use an orphaned AT&T/Olivetti monitor (left behind by a broken base unit) on a working Tandy 2000 with a busted monitor. Maybe even the opposite way round, too. 46.208.118.185 (talk) 22:33, 11 July 2018 (UTC)