MSGID: 1:18/200.0 542e9740
-=> mark lewis wrote to Dave Drum <=-

 ml> hunh? was this for the coco or something else?

 SD> More than likely for the CoCo.  I don't think any of the
 SD> other systems had an external dual floppy setup.

 DD> I think the Tandy 1000 used a dual floppy set-up.

 ml> it could, yes... the original Tandy 1000 came with one 5.25
 ml> inch floppy drives and could be upgraded to have two of
 ml> them... later ones came with a hard drive and a single or
 ml> dual 5.25 inch floppy configuration...

The only one I ever saw had a dual drive set-up.
 
 ml> it also came with a flaw in the book on what to do when initially
 ml> starting to use the machine... they explained how to boot the machine

 --- SNIP --- 

 ml> write-protect tabs put on them... dad contacted the main
 ml> office, explained the problem and a few weeks later there
 ml> were new manuals sent out which corrected the oversight...

 DD> Family Video (an actual healthy video rental chain) based in
 DD> Springfield, IL used a T-1000 running Unix to operate their whole
 DD> shop back in the day.

 ml> are you sure it was the 1000? IIRC, the 2000 came with a
 ml> *nix on it but i don't know what *nix it was... dad's store
 ml> had one in the back room for their operations and
 ml> reports... they did all their inventory control through it
 ml> as well as putting in their daily reports and transmitting
 ml> them via modem to the main office... i don't recall if they
 ml> had started with the 1000 before the 2000 came out or not,
 ml> though...

I was told it was a 1000 - and had no reason to doubt the veracity of my
informant - who was working for Burroughs at that time - and was the SysOp of
the first multi-line BBS I ever experienced - on a Burroughs B-20
mini-computer. He is also the current factotum of /user/group@springfield.il
the local Unix Users Group. We (still) get together every month for pizza and
beverages at a local place. 
 
 DD> People, especially Burroughs/Sperry/IBM geeks were gob-smacked by
 DD> this.

 ml> i'm sure... there was also a *nix or similar for the
 ml> coco... my brain keeps wanting me to say OS9... we had some
 ml> customers with some really tricked out cocos...

OS9 is correct. The Amiga OS was very *nix-ish without being actual *nix. If
you understood *nix syntax and CLI stuff you could get along very easily with
the Miggy.
 
 ml> NOTE: i never worked for Radio Shack... my father did and was the
 ml> manager of numerous stores... the year i came back from the mid-west,
 ml> it was too late in the season to go job hunting as all the

 --- SNIP --- 
 
 ml> for the paperwork and i went to the back room to get their
 ml> brand new boxed machine, put it on the hand truck and take
 ml> it to their car when everything was ready to go ;)

I never worked for Tandy either - but, I did own stock. Heck, I bought 10
shares and it gave me enough of a discount on my first Trash-80 set up that the
stock was essentially free. Never paid any $$$ dividends. But, it kept going up
and splitting, and going up and splitting and then I got 10 shares of something
that they spun-off and that split a couple times. When I finally sold it all
and bought a car with the proceeds I was very pleased ... even though the bulk
of the business I did with Tandy Corp after dumping the TRS-80 was done with
Tandy Leather.

It's sort of a shame that Radio Shaft seems to be circling the drain and may
spiral into oblivion sooner than later.
 
... AMIGA: Colour Display, Multitasking, GUI, full Plug & Play - since 1985
___ MultiMail/Win32 v0.49

--- Maximus/2 3.01