Nostalgia (AKA remembering my old Tandy.)

slvr_phoenix · Jul 30, 2003

Okay, I know that we had (somewhere) a discussion going about old stuff that was primarly spawned by memories of the C=64. But then I got to remembering my first 'IBM Clone'. (And you have no idea how hard it was for me to type that ... ICBM kept wanting to come out and that's just not the same thing. Heh heh.)

Anywho, my first x86 computer was actually an old Tandy. It had a whopping 80088 processor, 640KB of RAM (after an upgrade), PC speaker sound, Tandy Color graphics (Anyone remember Tandy Color?), a 3.5" drive, and no hard drive. Since it had no hard drive it had onboard MS-DOS2. Strangely enough, this version of DOS didn't even have a format command so I had to buy pre-formatted floppies.

Oh those were the days. So many QBASIC programs, so little processing power.

Sadly my C=64 was a much better gaming machine...

"Let's see what Paragraph 84-B has to say about it." - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030724" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

pIII_Man · Jul 30, 2003

dos 2 had no format comand? i know dos three the earliest of dos i used had one... Couldn't you just put a format.com from a newer version of dos on there so you can format?

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz... 😎

slvr_phoenix · Jul 30, 2003

Couldn't you just put a format.com from a newer version of dos on there so you can format?

Nope. As I said there was no hard drive. DOS was loaded from an onboard chip. (In theory I might have been able to flash or replace the chip, but since there was no information available on how to do this, the theory was only a theory.)

"Let's see what Paragraph 84-B has to say about it." - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030724" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

pIII_Man · Jul 30, 2003

if you put that command on a disk and went to the A: directory and typed format...i am pretty sure you could format anything you wanted...

Shame though because back then formated disks were more pricy...

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz... 😎

pIII_Man · Jul 30, 2003

btw...the way that your computer was setup...your c: drive was a ROM chip? So if you did a dir of C: you would see command.com, ibmbio.....

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz... 😎

ChipDeath · Jul 30, 2003

The First PC I got to seriously use wasn't actually mine, it belonged to my brother, and was quite advanced compared to yours :tongue: ...
8086 < wha-hey!
Had some graphics card (can't remember the make/model) which was fully CGA compatible, but also had a high-res, 2 colour mode that was... 640x400 I think (as opposed to the CGA standard max of 640x200).
20Mb Hard Drive
640Kb of RAM

I do recall playing double dragon on it.. that was fantastic fun... and 'outrun' too... *ahh nostalgia*

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$hit Happens. I just wish it would happen to someone else for a change.

pIII_Man · Jul 30, 2003

was double dragon that karati game where you would fight zombies and stuff? Cause i think i remember that one...

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz... 😎

NateKingCole · Jul 30, 2003

Double Dragon, California Games, Scortched Earth, hmmmmmm games..... I even had a flight simulator, although i don't think you could even call it that today. This computer is LONG gone and I only had it from about age 5-10 so I havn't the sligtest clue what it was. But I did like to frisbe the old 3.5"

pIII_Man · Jul 30, 2003

i don't think i will ever throw away a computer...they are just so fun to find in your closet...remember the memories and fire it back up...hehe

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz... 😎 Edited by pIII_man on 07/30/03 01:33 PM.

shadus · Jul 30, 2003

My first "computer" was a tandy, but a bit older... a Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 2.

Took me a while to figure out the gwbasic stuff on it... but it was cool, i still remember programming the kalidiscope and the tape (as in cassette) drive... rofl. God I'm glad computers have advanced. DO NOT TOUCH THE VOLUME CONTROL FOR GODS SAKE DONT.. ARGGG...

Shadus

slvr_phoenix · Jul 30, 2003

if you put that command on a disk and went to the A: directory and typed format...i am pretty sure you could format anything you wanted...

Tried that once. Not so good when the only drive you have is drive A. Oops, formatted my format command floppy. :O

Shame though because back then formated disks were more pricy...

Not by much though. And I had a friend with a PC too, so sometimes I'd just get blanks and have him format them for me or format them at school.

btw...the way that your computer was setup...your c: drive was a ROM chip? So if you did a dir of C: you would see command.com, ibmbio.....

The funny thing is that there was no C drive, at all. I've no idea just how they set it up, but basically the DOS commands worked, but no actual drive existed to even do a dir on. **shrug** It was weird. Leave it to an OEM to find solutions like that.

"Let's see what Paragraph 84-B has to say about it." - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030724" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

pIII_Man · Jul 30, 2003

thanx for putting up with my questions...arn't old computers great?

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz... 😎

slvr_phoenix · Jul 30, 2003

The First PC I got to seriously use wasn't actually mine, it belonged to my brother, and was quite advanced compared to yours...
8086 < wha-hey!
Had some graphics card (can't remember the make/model) which was fully CGA compatible, but also had a high-res, 2 colour mode that was... 640x400 I think (as opposed to the CGA standard max of 640x200).
20Mb Hard Drive
640Kb of RAM

I do recall playing double dragon on it.. that was fantastic fun... and 'outrun' too... *ahh nostalgia*

Actually, the video solution also supported MGA, MCGA, CGA, and VGA besides the 'Tandy Color' option. No SVGA or XVGA or any of them though. At least it worked great on my C=64s monitor.

At least you had a hard drive though. I'd have killed for one back then.

I wonder though, what was the difference between an '86' and an '88'? :\ For the life of me I don't know. Obviously whatever it was the whole '88' thing didn't catch on since we did the whole x86 thing...

"Let's see what Paragraph 84-B has to say about it." - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030724" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

NateKingCole · Jul 30, 2003

hehehehe, and don't forge the TURBO buttons!!!!! Maximum speed please!!

ChipDeath · Jul 30, 2003

I think it was something like an '86 was fully 16-bit, but an '88 actually only had an 8 bit bus or something (but still a 16-bit proc tho)

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$hit Happens. I just wish it would happen to someone else for a change.

TknD · Jul 30, 2003

I had a tandy. No hard drive or 3 1/2 floppy but it had two 5.25 floppy drives. You had to load dos off the floppy and the floppy had format on it.

I'm sure you could've just copied someone's format and use it off a disk.

Also my tandy could only read the 360kb or so floppies, not the 1.2mb. We didn't get a new computer till the first pentiums were out which is approximately the same time when the internet started to get big.

slvr_phoenix · Jul 30, 2003

thanx for putting up with my questions...arn't old computers great?

Yep. It took a real geek to use a PC back then.

So many limitations and non-GUI OSs... It's a wonder that PCs ever caught on. What is really amazing though is to look back at old code written in that era and see just how many tricks they used to squeeze the absolute most out of that 640KB of RAM. It's just scary. No one optimizes their code like that today.

"Let's see what Paragraph 84-B has to say about it." - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030724" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

ChipDeath · Jul 30, 2003

'Turbo' buttons... hehe.. all because some stuff written for an 8086 didn't use proper timers, and ran too fast on a 486SX25... I had a friend whose dad had a 486 with a turbo button, and his dad insisted on leaving turbo off all the time.. like he thought he was gonna break the pc if he used it.... I always thought it should've been called a 'run like a slug' button or something, as TURBO gives people the wrong impression....

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$hit Happens. I just wish it would happen to someone else for a change.

slvr_phoenix · Jul 30, 2003

hehehehe, and don't forge the TURBO buttons!!!!! Maximum speed please!!

Yeah, I remember that. With my 486 and my first Pentium though, not with my Tandy. The Tandy was so slow that they didn't even give it a turbo option. 🙁

The funny thing though was that pressing the button to switch back and forth never seemed to make a difference except for the LED display. So it makes me wonder if it even did anything.

"Let's see what Paragraph 84-B has to say about it." - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030724" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

slvr_phoenix · Jul 30, 2003

I think it was something like an '86 was fully 16-bit, but an '88 actually only had an 8 bit bus or something (but still a 16-bit proc tho)

I guess that sounds reasonable enough. **shrug** I've no idea. Heh heh. I just know that mine was slower than sh__. Actual games (I had Megaman on a floppy) ran in slow motion. It actually helped though since that made it easy to dodge and aim. :O

"Let's see what Paragraph 84-B has to say about it." - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030724" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

slvr_phoenix · Jul 30, 2003

I had a tandy. No hard drive or 3 1/2 floppy but it had two 5.25 floppy drives. You had to load dos off the floppy and the floppy had format on it.

I'm sure you could've just copied someone's format and use it off a disk.

Maybe if I'd had to floppy drives I could have. I only had one though and the format command (at least the one that I'd copied) never paused to ask you to insert a new disk so it'd wipe out the floppy that I was running the format command from before I could do anything.

"Let's see what Paragraph 84-B has to say about it." - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030724" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

pIII_Man · Jul 30, 2003

thinking back...when i was young...before i new much about computers my dad used to have a 286... he got a military spec (mil-spec) processor cause his brother worked at roame national labs (contracted work from ibm)....anyhow he used a little device that would connect to your clock generator which had a dial on it so that you could change the frequency from 6mhz all the way to 12mhz! The great thing was this processor could hit between 11mhz and 12mhz depending on the day (some days 12mhz would cause graphics anomalies because the cpu and fsb speeds are synched).

Now that is what i call a turbo buton!

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz... 😎

NateKingCole · Jul 30, 2003

Yeah it was probably something like that. Like I said we threw it out long before I knew what it was even. I do remember out VGA monitor though. And an old ass operating system. Maybe you guys could help me, it was blue and yellow and started with an 'A'. Using the number keys to navigate through the menues.
I think the VGA and OS came into the picture after our first upgrade, before that it was always DOS.

pIII_Man · Jul 30, 2003

Hmm...dunno

Anyone remember a file manager called "xtree gold"

I still use that to this day...very powerful program...

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz... 😎

NateKingCole · Jul 30, 2003

No kidding! I wish I had one of those right now.
But yeah, I'm pretty sure the old turbo buttons were for running older games that simply didn't have the forsight to use real world timmings. Their thinking was more "run it as fast as the computer will let us."

edit:
Like think about running an original version of Double Dragon on your PC today. Blinding speed.

Edited by NateKingCole on 07/30/03 01:59 PM.

Nostalgia (AKA remembering my old Tandy.)

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