7 Jun
2023
7 Jun
'23
11:37 p.m.
> May I suggest compatibility is like pregnancy –
you either are or
> you are not.
On Wed, 7 Jun 2023, Yeechang Lee via cctalk wrote:
Agreed. This is why every non-highly compatible MS-DOS
computer, like
the Tandy 2000 and TI Professional, failed versus IBM. Even if a buyer
only intended to use Lotus—widely ported to various MS-DOS
non-compatibles—he would always have in the back of his mind "What if
I want to run something else? What if I need to give a disk with data to
someone with IBM?"
Agreed.
I ended up with a couple of Toshiba T300? machines. 80 track drives, and
it could read 360K disks, but not RE-write sectors properly, and its
native 80 track format was unreadble on PC without additional software.
It had CGA video, but with the CGA video memory at segment B000h, instead
of the usual B800h. Commercial software would not do MONO direct video,
bacause it saw that it was CGA, so it would try to write to segment B800h.
I easily configured PC-WRITE for the non-standard video address, and used
them for a few years as dedicated word-processing logging machines.
Then, Toshib NMRI in Silicon Valley needed to be able to handle Toshiba 80
track format disks for communication with home office, so I gave the T300s
to them.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com