Tandy Professional Forum   Section: T1000/1400/3000/4K
Subject: Tandy 1000 T/L   Total messages: 5
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#62571   3 Replies   10/20/96   12:26:11
From: John McPoyle, 72642,2772
To:   all

Please don't laugh but does anyone remember the Tandy 1000 T/L
computer?   I am trying to help a friend out who doesn't have any
money to spend on a computer but was given a Tandy 1000 T/L (286
- 8mhz) computer.  He only need to run an old DOS based
accounting program and this machine actually meets the hardware
requirements.

The problem is when this computer is first booted it goes right
into something called DESKMATE which appears to be loading from a
BOOT ROM or something in the BIOS and not from the hard drive.
MSD shows only 624K of memory instead of 640K like most machines
so something is being consumed somewhere.  The hard drive is a
42MB drive partitioned into two (C: & D:).  The computer does not
boot from drive C: but from the BIOS or BOOT ROM.  It then goes
into drive D: and loads DESKMATE.  We can press ESC at this point
to exit DESKMATE and have control of the system but is there
anyway to disable the way this is booting and make it behave like
a typical PC and boot from drive C:.

Thanks,

John


#62572   Reply to #62571   1 Reply   10/20/96   16:06:02
From: Kent Bolson, 103250,3545
To:   John McPoyle, 72642,2772

John,

   The 1000T/L has a CMOS setting to allow it to boot from either
ROM or Disk. In addition it can boot from DOS  or DESKMATE, each
from either ROM or Disk.

   To change the CMOS setting you will need to run the Setup
program on the MS-DOS, GW-BASIC disk provided with the system.
(If you don't have the original disks, it may be on the HD, or I
saw a post here recently that indicated where to get these Setup
programs for various models.)

   To do what you want the Settings should be to Boot to DOS from
Drive C.

      Kent

P.S. I'm currently working to revive a 1000TL/2 and have been
poking around here to try and figure these things out myself.


#62573   Reply to #62571   10/20/96   18:32:24
From: Robert A. Hengstebeck, 76417,2751
To:   John McPoyle, 72642,2772

John, run the setuptl program from dos.  It should be on the dos
directory, or on the dos diskette that came with the computer.
One of the options with the setuptl program, is to have the
computer boot up from the hard drive or failing that from a
floppy drive.  I suggest that you make a systems diskette prior
to doing this so that you will at least be able to boot up from a
disk.
 Hopefully the previous owner of the computer had setup the hard
drive as a systems drive.  If not you will need something like
pctools or norton to configure the hard drive as a bootable
drive.  By the way the drive C, that you are seeing is most
likely the rom on the conputer.  Another option that you have is
to disable deskmate from the setuptl program.

You can get the full 640k by installing video memory.  Won't cost
much. Tandy gets 16 colors by using some system memory.  At least
in the 1000TL series computer, you are able to get around this
problem with the memory chip.
 Other 1000 series computers such as the EX, the HX, the SL, the
SX, and the RL did not have this option available.


#62574   Reply to #62572   10/22/96   07:15:07
From: John McPoyle, 72642,2772
To:   Kent Bolson, 103250,3545

Kent / Robert,

Thank you very much for your prompt replies.  Sounds fairly
simple, I'll take a look to see if we have the setup utility and
if not, I'll be back here again looking for it.

Best regards,

John


#62677   Reply to #62571   11/28/96   06:54:24
From: Phillip S. Dreher, 102153,430
To:   John McPoyle, 72642,2772

John:

The set-up utility you are looking for is SETUPTL.EXE.

> MSD shows only 624K of memory instead of 640K like most
machines so something is being consumed somewhere.

Yes.  Unlike most PC manufacturers Tandy robs 16K RAM from base
memory for video.  Other manufacturers used seperate (not
built-in) video cards in their machines that had their own video
RAM which left the entire 640K base memory for use.

Phil


