Pro's & Con's of a Tandy 200...

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
Date: Sun Jan 31 22:38:03 1999

On or about 08:51 PM 1/31/99 -0500, Ward Donald Griffiths III was caught in
a dark alley speaking these words:

>The Model 200 showed up in 1985, I'm pretty sure the first half -- I
>didn't pay that much attention as it didn't impress me the way that
>the original 100 did (though it didn't underwhelm me the way the 102
>did about the same time). There was a printer port built into the
>200 from before its birth, no add-on card was required.

Dunno when they were *released* but the serial numbers on the 200 reflect
when they were built - and the earliest one I've seen is January 1985.

As the Tandy 200 was the first Model 'T' I owned, I am partial to it... but
for more than just that reason. Having the arrow keys in a '+' arrangement
and being "real" keys instead of the in-a-row chicklet keys to me is a
*lot* easier to work with, the extra LCD real estate is nice, as is the
fact that the screen is faster than the 100 as well... and the fact you
don't need to crane your neck around on a flat table to see the screen.

At least in my experience, the T200's screen is very sturdily made... mind
you, mine's been thru the military, all over the US, and a trip to Germany
on a military transport -- they're not gentle about luggage.

I've seen very few that actually broke... and the ones that did were
repairable. (I should know; I repaired them for others, but mine is still
running strong). Typically what breaks on a T200 if it gets dropped is not
the clamshell hinges, or the ribbon cable, or anything else; it's the 4
posts in the corners of the housing around the LCD. The LCD itself is very
tough. Just rough up the posts and the post connection points with a dremel
tool (if you can cut shallow notches in the plastic, it will help the
bonding process), apply a decent amount of 5 minute epoxy (no, superglue is
*not* an option) and hold steady until the epoxy starts to cure.

Allow the epoxy ample time to fully cure (~24 hours), reassemble the 200,
and you're on the road again!

The main bummer about the T200: not able to handle 32K contiguous memory in
at least 1 bank, to make it easier to save large proggies to disk if
necessary. (still haven't figured out how to xfer Romulus Chess from tape
to TPDD2... proggie & DOS won't fit at the same time! :-/ )

Just my $0.02,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
=====
Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- zmerch_at_30below.com
SysAdmin - Iceberg Computers
===== Merch's Wild Wisdom of the Moment: =====
Sometimes you know, you just don't know sometimes, you know?
Received on Sun Jan 31 1999 - 22:38:03 GMT