A Home PC That’s Truly a Home PC

I think of computing at home as an extension of the computing I do at work. At home my computer is in my “office,” which once upon a time was a bedroom. And the software I use is often the same I use at work.

Tandy Corp.’s new 1000 RL is for a different kind of home computing. It is designed to sit in a more central location such as the kitchen, especially the kind of kitchen that has a little alcove with a small built-in desk for telephoning, reading recipe books and maybe even paying family bills.

This personal computer ($750 to $1,300) is really a household computer. Tandy has positioned it against IBM’s PS/1 home computer, which I reviewed two weeks ago. But Tandy’s approach is lower budget.

Two differences are immediately apparent. The Tandy 1000 RL is not as powerful nor as graphically sophisticated as the PS/1--to the Tandy’s great detriment in a side-by-side comparison. The Tandy also costs less, just 65% as much as the PS/1 for the top-of-the-line versions at suggested retail prices. (However, while the IBM model reportedly is not yet being discounted, it is more likely to be found at reduced prices in a few months than the Tandy, which is uniformly priced at all Radio Shack stores.)

The Tandy uses old-fashioned, low-resolution color graphics called CGA that IBM and nearly everyone else abandoned for their desktop computers several years ago because the text and pictures are so coarse and hard on the eyes.

It also uses an old-fashioned Intel 8086 microprocessor as the computer’s “brain.” Although Tandy runs the chip twice as fast as the old IBM PC and PC/XT computers and clones, it is still slow. The new PS/1 has a speedier 80286 microprocessor.

Another limitation stemming from use of an 8086-based system is an older-design 3.5-inch floppy drive that stores only 720,000 characters of data. Current technology, as on the PS/1, allows twice that much data to be stored.

What you get from Tandy in the 1000 RL is a small computer just three inches high, on top of which sits a large 14-inch diagonal color monitor. A monochrome model is available for $150 less. If you can get along with a single floppy disk drive, you can buy a monochrome model for $749 and a color model for $899. The 20-million-character hard disk for data and program storage adds $400.

The small computer system doesn’t generate much heat and thus has no fan. It is designed to be turned on and left on forever, using about the same power as a clock radio.

The screen will go blank after a few minutes--you can control how long it stays lit--but will pop instantly back on at the touch of a key. The hard disk also stops running after a period of inactivity, so when not in use, the Tandy 1000 RL maintains a silent presence wherever you put it.

Tandy has loaded the computer with home management software, some of it permanently stored in the computer’s memory and the rest either on floppy or hard disk. For instance, if you leave the computer tuned to the Information Center program, it stands ready with a monthly calendar, a list of emergency and other important telephone numbers, a schedule of the day’s events, a message for all to see and personalized messages addressed to various family members.

If you install the optional modem and connect the computer to a telephone line, it will dial any of those important or emergency numbers that you highlight on the screen.

I can see how a computer in the kitchen or some other central location at home could serve as a smart bulletin board if you always left it running, so that a touch of a key brought its information to the screen.

The Information Center is just one facet of Tandy’s Home Organizer software. It includes a meal planner with recipe book containing several dozen recipes and space to enter as many of your own as you wish. There also is a grocery list planner. You can instruct the computer to make out a grocery list based on the recipes that you select.

Another section is devoted to your finances with a checkbook register, expense itemizer and formulas for computing loan payments and the like.

Then there is a personal section where you can keep a password-protected diary or maintain a home inventory list, plan a vacation or keep track of a videotape collection.

For less specific needs, there is Tandy’s DeskMate software, which has word processing, an address book and a drawing program.

The Tandy 1000 RL has the ability to record and play sound, including speech. Both headphone and microphone jacks are installed at the rear of the computer.

A music program within DeskMate allows you to create and play your own compositions, imitating various musical instruments. The sound program gives you the ability to modify and even rearrange sounds, including spoken words that you have recorded onto the hard disk. A tutorial session shows you how to change the spoken phrase “I think, therefore I am” into “I am, therefore I think” by cutting and pasting the sounds recorded on the disk, much the same way that words can be moved around with word-processing software.

I’m not sure how you would use sound-editing software. Maybe to create unusual greetings for your answering machine.

Tandy has delivered some clever software loaded onto a slow computer that won’t provide much satisfaction to the most demanding computer users in any household--those who bring work home from the office and those who play games.

Both the extended office worker and the dedicated game player will be put off by the low-resolution screen and the slow system response.

The advantage of buying from Tandy is the convenience of shopping at a neighborhood Radio Shack store and being able to return there for repairs or accessories.

But notwithstanding the convenience factor, I don’t think that the Tandy 1000 RL is a bargain. Without high-resolution VGA graphics and an 80286 chip, it is a machine without a future. By the time you add a printer, you will have spent $1,000 to $1,600 for a 1000 RL system.

That kind of money, spent at a discount warehouse for a Packard Bell or Hyundai or the store’s own brand of PC clone, should buy you an 80286 chip, a VGA monitor, maybe color, and, at the upper end of that range, a larger hard disk and cheap dot matrix printer.

(For the same price as the IBM PS/1, you can buy at a discount store a much more capable computer with a 80386 microprocessor.)

You’ll probably also have to buy software for a discount house computer, but for about $150 you can buy Microsoft Works (which comes on the IBM PS/1) and Intuit’s Quicken, a great checking account management program, and be able to do most of the important tasks that people commonly do at home. Microsoft Works includes word processing, database, spreadsheet and telecommunications. It could store recipes, but I doubt that it would prepare a grocery list from them.

Choosing games is up to you, but I will say that once you’ve seen a game on a color VGA monitor, you’ll never, ever want to play one on an old-fashioned low-resolution CGA monitor.

Computer File welcomes readers’ comments but regrets that the author cannot respond individually to letters. Write to Richard O’Reilly, Computer File, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, Calif. 90053.