Welcome back to part 3 of my fifth SepTandy Spectacular. In the last post we took a The TRS-80 Model II, Tandy's first succesful buisness computer. In this post we'll have a look at the successor to the verneable Tandy 100 which was one of the first to use the modern design of a laptop: The Tandy 200.
Released in 1985, the Model 100 was one of the first portable computers to use a filp up display. It boasted all of the features f its predacessor, but had better graphics, more RAM, and was an overall more capable machine. But it never matched the success of its predacessor and became relativly forgotten.
It wasn't the first commercially available portable computer to have a "clamshell" case, that honor would go to the Grid Compass 1101, which debuted 4 years prior to the Model 200, in 1982. However the Grid was extremely expensive at $8,150 dollars and was mainly sold to Fortune 500 compaines and goverment agencies, while the Model 200 was much cheaper and was designed as a machine for the consumer market.
Much like the Model 100, It was based on the design of Kyotronic 85 by Kyocera in Japan which Tandy Liscenced from them for use thier own designes in the US.
Also Like the Model 100, they werent alone. Olivetti sold their tiltable screen varient of the Kyotronic 85 as the Olivetti M10 in Italy and the rest of Europe, and NEC sold a similar clamshell case sucessor to its NEC PC-8201 in the US, Europe, and Japan as well, known as the NEC PC-8401A Starlet.
As previously mentioned, the Model 200 was released in 1985 for $999.00 dollars for the base machine with 24K of RAM, with a 24K RAM upgrade availible for 249.95.
On the front of the machine, lies LCD display, the Power Button, a low battery light, a row of function keys, 4 cursor keys and the keyboard. The keyboard is overall pretty much exactly yhr same as the Model 100, with the main differences being the placement of the power button, the battery light, cursor keys, and of course, the flip up screen.
On the right side, there is the display contrast adjustment wheel, and 6V DC power jack to power the device from a wall outlet.
On the back, there is the reset button, a 25-pin RS-232C serial port, a system bus port, a Centronics compatible printer port, a port for the internal 300 baud modem, and the cassette port.
On the left side, a port for the optional external bar code reader and two switches, one that toggles between the internal modem and an optional acoustic coupler modem, and the other for selecting whether you want to send or receive information through the modem.
And finally on the bottom, there is the battery compartment, a Memory Power switch So you could use a CMOS battery to save data if the batteries are either dead or not installed, and a ROM expansion slot to add additional software.
Powering on the Model 200 is much like its predacessor, you're droped straight into a menu of built in programs. It includes the same 4 built in programs as the Model 100, the BASIC interpreter, a simple text editor, a telcom program (to make use of the built in modem), an address book, and a scheduler. But it also includes a 5th program, A version Of Microsoft's Multiplan Spreadsheet Program.Ill go through these in order starting with the BASIC interpreter. It's of course identical as the one included with the model 100, but it includes more screen area to work with.
The Text Editor is exactly what you would expect, its a basic Text Editor allowing you to write any type of text you want. It provides some basic features like cut, copy, and paste and word search, but other than that all you can really do is write text, its not really a word processor. Though supprisingly most users actually did use it as a word processor, probably just because it was already in the machine and provided the bare basics. However one feature that is different from the Model 100 version is the LIST command, which allows you to search through records of matching words in each of the text files, allowing you to have some simple Database Management capability.
TELECOM allows you to take advantage of the built in modem and either access online services, or connect to another computer and transfer data remotely. Alongside the text editor, this was probably one of the most commonly used programs with the Tandy 100 line and what made it so appealing to journalists to have effectivly a word processor and a comuniacation tool in one for writing articles and transfering them to the publisher via phone.
The Adress book and Sceduler are more on the wonky side. You first need to create 2 text files for them to access: ADRS.DO and NOTE.DO respectily using the text editor. then you type in the Name, Phone Number, and Adress one line at a time. Aftward you use the LIST function to find the name, adress ornumber your looking for. It works, but its not exactly the most user frendly thing in the world.
But where things get really interesting is the built in version of Microsofts Multiplan. This is a full fledged proper spreadsheet program on par with Visicalc, complete with cell formating. formula entry, and numeric functions. Though one key difference between Multiplan and other spreadsheets is that it uses R1C1 adressing rather than the more common A1 Adressing. Although R1C1-style formulae are more straightforward than A1, most spreadsheet users prefer the A1 addressing style introduced by VisiCalc.
Multiplan itself has an interesting story behind it, Microsoft first introduced the program in 1982, as a response to the success of Visicalc on the Apple II. It was initally released for CP/M computers, but it was part of a special development system at Microsoft, being that it was developed using a Microsoft proprietary p-code C compiler as part of a portability strategy to allow it to be ported to multiple computers at the same time. so it also received numourous ports to the Apple II, the Commodore 64, the TI-99/4A, the IBM PC, the TRS-80 Model II and 4, some UNIX based Systems, The MSX, and even the French Thomson TO7. It was also availble as a ROM add on for the Model 100.
The problem was, Multiplan just didn't preform well, mainly because of the overwhelming number of ports, the fact that it targeted 8 bit systems instead of newer 16 bit systems, and the fact that it was released just 7 months before Lotus 1-2-3, which outpreformed both it and Visicalc.
But Microsoft didnt just throw in the towel. To address Multiplan's falling marketshare, Microsoft began developing a new, advanced spreadsheet program in 1983, codenamed "Odyssey." The project was led by Jabe Blumenthal, who worked on its design, and Doug Klunder, the primary developer of Multiplan. Originally intended for IBM PCs running CP/M and MS-DOS, but soon the project shifted focus in early 1984 when Lotus began developing Jazz, an integrated program for the Apple Macintosh, and Lotus 1-2-3 maintained its dominance on IBM PCs. In March 1984, Bill Gates redirected Odyssey's development to the Macintosh platform, which required supporting the system's 512 KB memory.
After a 9 month delay the program was finished and soon named Excel. It was announced on May 2, 1985, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates held a joint press conference at Tavern on the Green in New York City, and was officially released for sale on September 30, 1985. It proved to be very popular on the Mac, and was followed by a port to Windows 2 years later. Soon Excel displaced 1-2-3 as the leading spreadsheet program for personal computers and helped Microsoft achieve its position as a leading PC software developer. This accomplishment solidified Microsoft as a valid competitor and showed its future in developing GUI software.
In fact Multiplan still lives on through Excel today as it has the option to use the R1C1 cell addressing system Multiplan did. So the Tandy 200 technically has a built in version of the ancestor to Excel. Neat!
But Back to the Tandy 200, Storage wise, the Tandy 200 can use all the same periferals as its predeacessor, from cassette recorders, to the Tandy Portable Disk Drive and Tandy Portable Disk Drive 2, to the Disk/Video Interface expansion box for both 80 KB 5.25 inch Floppy Disk storage and 40 or 80 column video on an external monitor or a standard tv set.
You can also backup data by transferring files to a desktop computer, via either the modem connected to a telephone line, or the RS-232 serial port connected to a null modem cable by using the built-in TELCOM software to communicate between the Model 100 and a desktop. TRSDOS 6's included TAPE100 utility could also be used as well for allowing you to read and write tapes created by a Model 200 from the Model 4's cassette port, and save the data in TRSDOS disk files.
For hardware, the Model 200 uses very similar harware to its preddacessor. It uses an Intel 80C85A CPU clocked at 2.4 MHz, 24K to 72K of RAM, and 72K of ROM, with 32K for the Multiplan program and 40K for the system, BASIC and the other applications.
The LCD screen that's capable of displaying text at a resolution of 80 Columns by 16 rows as well as bit mapped graphics at a resolution of 240 by 128.
And much like the 100, it has a small beeper speaker for sound, and can run off 4 AA batteries (with an Approximate 120 hour battery life) or the previously mentioned 6V power adapter.
Softwarewise, the Model 200 is is mostly software compatible with the Model 100, other than certain software like games and graphics programs that were designed to address the Model 100's display
Much like the Model 100, the Model 200 was used for industrial applications and science laboratories as a programming terminal for configuration of control systems and instruments, as well as for schools, businesses slall retaill, and of course journalists. But it never shared the same success the Model 100 did and was discontinued by 1988 while the 100 continued to be sold until 1991.
So why wasn't it as popular? Well there were 2 main reasons: 1). it was very expensive $999.00 dollars and was the same price as the 24K Model 100 as well, making it difficult to justify the price, and 2). By the time the 200 was released IBM Compatible portable computers were starting to come into their own with the venerable Compaq Portable leading the market.
And those were luggables, even if Tandy wantend to make the 200 an IBM compatible machine, they couldn't due to 2 problems: Screen Technology and battery life. Remeber, this was 1985 and bitmaped LCD displays were still relativly new. while LCD were developed in the 1960s and were on the market by 1972, Bitmaped LCD's only had began their development just 7 years before the 200 was released, the basis for the character based LCD's that drove both the Pocket computer line and the 100 and 200 only began development in 1977!
Even by the early 80's, when early color LCD screens started showing up in handheld portable TV's, their displays were very low contrast and very diffiult to see, probably even worse than the character LCDs, and thats why in the Luggables tended to be the norm in the portable computer market as it was just easier to make an IBM compatible machine that used a standard CRT and ran off a power cord than a battery powerd LCD Based Machine.
Though LCD based portable IBM Compatibles were on the cards by that point. Sharp Electronics had debuted their PC-5000 in 1984 which was an laptop that used a TFT based LCD Display rather than a character display. It managed to be mostly IBM Compatible, despite having a small 1 line display.
This was followed up by the Sharp PC-7000 in October of 1985 which boasted an EL Backlit LCD Display and full 5.25 Floppy drives.
Sharp certainly wasn't alone, other manufacturers like HP, Panasonic, and of course Grid were all making laptopsusing LCD based technology. Tandy also noticed this and used this new LCD technology in their next successor to the 100.
But for now, that concudes my look at the Tandy 200, a well design yet poorly executed sucessor to the Model 100 that never quite mactched its success and remains a collectable today. It may not have been as successful but much like the 100, it has its charms and is certainly worth a look. This concludes part 3 of my fifth SepTandy Spectacular, tune in next time as we have a look at the 200's successor: The Tandy 600.