Tandy Model 2000 Harddrive

From: Ward D. Griffiths III <gram_at_cnct.com>
Date: Tue May 25 21:03:31 1999

The Tandy 2000 external hard disk cable was a 50-pin header cable
that matched those from the Model 2/12/16/6000 series machines and
the Model 1/3/4 machines. Do not confuse the cables or compatible
drives with the (technically inferior) IBM st506 interfaces of the
time. External drives had a board that matched the Model 3/4 bus.
THAT was the controller -- board in the 2000 was a bus adapter
with some logic. A lot of wasted space on that board.

Back in those days I could low-level format a 15Mb drive with a
Z-80 on a TRS-80 Model 4 in about 20 minutes, as opposed to about
an hour and a half with an XT. Oh yeah, the Mod 4 had the OS and
utilities installed after that and the boot floppy set up, on the
IBM (or compatible) the "high-level" format and actual installation
of the operating system had yet to go.

Oh, the 2000 matched the performance of the Model 4, no surprise.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Tandy 2000 - better than the AT that
showed up a year later and killed it by introducing a "standard"
16-bit bus. It died because it was not "100% IBM compatible",
since the company had tried and succeeded at superiority, but
couldn't match the (at that time) magic name. And people wanted
100% IBM compatibility. Simply better wasn't good enough.

On Wed, 26 May 1999, Sipke de Wal wrote:

> >From interface to drive, Because that might help me identify the drive
> for you. I thin it could be a ST506 or ST412 type interface with either
> a MFM of RLL controllercard. ESDI could also be posible but they were
> only used in high-end systems.
>
> ST506 has 1 controller cable (34wire) and a data cable(20wire). ESDI to
> but the controller would look very sophisticated.
>
> Sipke de Wal
>
> Arfon Gryffydd wrote:
> >
> > The interface cable between the unit and the machine is a LARGE ribbon
> > cable haeder plug (like IDE connectors but much bigger). Or did you mean
> > the actual cable from the interface board to the drive itself?
> >
> > >Tell me some more on the type of cables that (should) connect to it
> > >
> > >Sipke de Wal
> > >
> > >Arfon Gryffydd wrote:
> > >>
> > >> I snagged a Tandy 2000 30Mb harddrive this weekend!!! The actual drive is a
> > >> Quantum Model (?)204(?). It is stinking huge (not mainframe huge but
> > >> desktop huge)!
> > >>
> > >> Can anyone tell me about this drive? Is there an easy way to connect a
> > >> newer HD to this machine?
> >
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Ward Griffiths
"the timid die just like the daring; and if you don't take the plunge then
you'll just take the fall" Michael Longcor
Received on Tue May 25 1999 - 21:03:31 BST

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