tandy 1000 Archives - The Silicon Underground

The IBM PS/1 (or IBM PS1)

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 11:00:30 +0000

The IBM PS/1, sometimes called the IBM PS1, was a line of 1990s personal computer systems, not to be confused with the Sony Playstation video game console that’s also often called the PS1. The PS/1 was IBM’s second attempt at a

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Radio Shack computers

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 25 May 2017 11:00:13 +0000

Radio Shack released one of the first home computers, the TRS-80 Model I, in 1977. Between 1977 and 1979, it sold 100,000 units. Radio Shack sold them just as quickly as Tandy could make them. You can count Radio Shack and

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Commodore 64 vs 64c

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 09 May 2016 11:00:55 +0000

The Commodore 64 went through a number of revisions throughout its long life. The most outwardly visible of those revisions was the transition from the tan, boxy C-64 to the thinner, lighter-colored 64c. If you’e wondering about the Commodore 64 vs

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Building DOS gaming PCs

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:00:48 +0000

The ultimate DOS gaming PC is a topic that I’ve seen come up in forums frequently, and that I’ve been asked directly a number of times. I guess since I published advice on running DOS games on Windows PCs on

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IBM PCjr and Tandy 1000

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 11:00:20 +0000

On January 29, 1984, two computers hit the market. One was Apple’s Macintosh. It needs no introduction. The other was the IBM PCjr. It was a little less successful. We’ll talk about what this has to do with the Tandy

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How the IBM PC became the de facto standard for desktop computers

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 04 May 2013 11:00:31 +0000

I saw a question on a vintage computing forum this week: How did the IBM PC become the de facto standard for PCs, and the only desktop computer architecture from the 1980s to survive until today? It’s a very good

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Dinosaur hunting

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:06:01 +0000

Today I slipped over to Laclede Computer Trading Company for the first time in many years. I was in search of an ISA parallel card. They're not easy to find these days, mostly because they aren't particularly useful to most people these days, but I figured if anyone would have one, it would be them.

No dice. But man, what memories.

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The rise and fall of Shack, and how to fix it

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 12 May 2010 01:13:45 +0000

Wired has a nostalgic piece on the not-quite-late, not-quite-great Radio Shack. I think it's a good article, but it glosses over part of the reason for the store's decline.

It blames computers.

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How IBM and DOS came to dominate the industry

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 19 Feb 2003 23:27:30 +0000

Revisionist historians talk about how MS-DOS standardized computer operating systems and changed the industry. That's very true. But what they're ignoring is that there were standards before 1981, and the standards established in 1981 took a number of years to take hold.

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