Tandy Unveils an Improved Home PC
Tandy Corp. has introduced the 1000 RLX, a $1,600 upgraded version of its 1000 RL home personal computer. With a more powerful microprocessor, better graphics and increased disk storage, the new Tandy is my idea of a viable home computer.
The new model uses an Intel 80286 microprocessor instead of an 8086 on the older Tandy model, high-resolution VGA graphics versus low-resolution CGA graphics, a high-density 1.44-megabyte floppy drive, compared to a low-density 720-kilobyte drive and a faster, larger 40-megabyte hard drive in place of a slower, smaller 20-megabyte drive.
However, it will cost consumers an extra $400 for those more powerful features. Tandy has lowered the cost of the comparable color 1000 RL with 20-megabyte hard disk to $1,200 from its $1,300 initial tag last summer.
Other than those differences, both are the same compact three-inch-tall computer with lots of features that are especially nice for home users.
The Tandy 1000 RLX is really for the household in which parents want to bring work home from their IBM PC or compatible computers at the office. It will run most of the software commonly used in the business world, all of the PC games and comes equipped with some useful and educational software for home use.
It is not powerful enough to qualify as a real business computer, however. It will run Microsoft Windows, one program at a time, but significantly slower than the 386-class computers that such software really demands. Also, the 40-megabyte hard drive is too small to store many Windows programs, which tend to be disk storage hogs.
However, programs such as Lotus 1-2-3 version 2.3 or less, Quattro Pro, WordPerfect, Microsoft Word and even dBASE IV, Paradox or Rbase will each fit and run on the Tandy 1000 RLX. (But large database applications need faster computers.)
One of the most attractive features of Tandy’s new computer, and also of the 1000 RL, is the absence of a cooling fan and the addition of built-in screen-saver software that blanks the monitor after a period of inactivity. You decide how long you want to blank the screen, in increments ranging from five minutes to four hours.
Those two features make it practical to leave the computer on all the time so that a touch of any key brings the screen back to life. While it is sitting idle it draws only about as much power as a radio.
That makes it reasonable to use the machine as a kind of family bulletin board and scheduler, using the built-in DeskMate software. Such uses would be impractical in computers that you turned on each time you wanted to use them because they take too many seconds to load their software.
The Text word processing software that is part of DeskMate is very good. It is much easier to learn and use than either WordPerfect or Word, yet it is quite powerful. It includes a very nice spelling dictionary.
If you need to send form letters, names and addresses can be automatically inserted from entries in your Address Book list, which is another DeskMate program. You can also insert pictures drawn with the Draw software that is provided.
What Text lacks is the ability to change type sizes and fonts and other sorts of desktop publishing tasks.
The DeskMate Home Organizer software includes programs for financial management, recipe storage, menu planning and shopping list preparation, and for organizing lists of collections, planning trips, keeping a password-protected diary and maintaining a home inventory.
The magazine-style User’s Guide and on-screen tutorials are generally excellent, making the machine quite easy to learn to use. Information on how to install other software is hard to find, however, and may be confusing to many.
On the entertainment side, Tandy has given the 1000 RLX three voices and software for making music and sounds, weird and otherwise. The program that plays Bach’s Two Part Invention in F Major is amazing. But another, that plays Pachelbel’s Canon in D, serves more to illustrate the limitations of the computer’s sound capabilities than to stir one’s soul.
Because the 1000 RLX, and the RL, come with headphone jacks, would-be composers can entertain themselves without annoying everyone else.
There is also a microphone jack. You can plug in a microphone, talk or sing to the 1000 RLX, record the sound, edit it and play it back.
Two other important connectors for home use but seldom found on business-oriented PCs are a pair of joystick ports. These are a virtual necessity to play most of the fast action games available today.
And, because the 1000 RLX has VGA graphics, you will see those games in their highest resolution.
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