[Coco] Another Radio Shack Article

Richard E Crislip rcrislip at neo.rr.com
Sat Jan 4 12:36:50 EST 2014


ANNNDD you had better NOT plug a Tandy printer into a non-Tandy 
computer! Or visa/versa 8-/.

On 01/04/2014 12:17 PM, Frank Pittel wrote:
> I remember when Tandy started selling the PC compatibles. The problem was that they
> weren't completely compatible. There were a lot of issues with running a lot of "pc"
> software and didn't offer any additional functionality.
>
> The Other Frank
>
> On Sat, Jan 04, 2014 at 09:50:48AM +0000, Nick Marentes wrote:
>> Mark J. Blair <nf6x at ...> writes:
>>
>>> I don't know what they might have done differently once the Wintel cancer
>> metastasized. How could they have
>>> stayed in the computer business once PC clones were cheap, fungible
>> commodity items?
>> No. The Wintel cancer was inevitable.
>>
>> But Tandy were the number 1 home PC computer seller for a short while back
>> in the later 80's with their Tandy 1000.
>>
>> If I were Mr. Tandy back then, I would have continued with the PC range
>> (because I knew the 8-bit computer era was going to end) but still showed
>> support and recognition to all the existing CoCo customers by creating a
>> CoCo plug in board for the Tandy 1000 PC.
>>
>> This way, Tandy had a better chance of encouraging CoCo users to switch to
>> the Tandy PC range while not abandoning their CoCo.
>>
>> Late 80's/ early 90's was still too early for a capable software emulator so
>> a card would have been the way to go. It should have been cheaper to create
>> than a full CoCo (no case/power supply/keyboard).
>>
>> Apple did this for their Mac's with the Apple 2e card. Commodore did the IBM
>> bridgeboard card for their Amiga. There were cards for the Amiga to create a
>> MAC within an Amiga.
>>
>> Heck, they could have created a CoCo4 on a PC card that utilized some of the
>> PC's hardware resources to keep the CoCo4 card costs down. MS-DOS and OS-9
>> sharing resources.
>>
>> Oh well, lost opportunities.   :(
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>>
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