On Thu, 02 Oct 2014, Dave Drum wrote to Sean Dennis:   
      
    ml> hunh? was this for the coco or something else?   
      
    SD> More than likely for the CoCo.  I don't think any of the   
    SD> other systems had an external dual floppy setup.   
      
    DD> I think the Tandy 1000 used a dual floppy set-up.   
      
   it could, yes... the original Tandy 1000 came with one 5.25 inch floppy drives   
   and could be upgraded to have two of them... later ones came with a hard drive   
   and a single or dual 5.25 inch floppy configuration...   
      
   it also came with a flaw in the book on what to do when initially starting to   
   use the machine... they explained how to boot the machine with which floppy   
   diskette that came with the machine. then they said that the user should   
   create a backup of the DOS boot diskette(s)... ok... remember, on a single   
   floppy system, the single drive can be seen as both A: and B:... the   
   instructions said to format the disk but they never said to put a new blank   
   disk in the drive(!) and they didn't say to use "format /s b:" so that the   
   machine would tell them to change diskettes... i found this the one year i was   
   at my dad's store and we had a bunch of complaints about the systems not   
   booting after they had followed the book's instructions... we had them bring   
   their disks down, we copied the orignal DOS to them and then write-protected   
   them so this couldn't happen again... from then on, all original boot disks   
   that left the store were opened and had write-protect tabs put on them... dad   
   contacted the main office, explained the problem and a few weeks later there   
   were new manuals sent out which corrected the oversight...   
      
    DD> Family Video (an actual healthy video rental chain) based in    
    DD> Springfield, IL used a T-1000 running Unix to operate their whole    
    DD> shop back in the day.   
      
   are you sure it was the 1000? IIRC, the 2000 came with a *nix on it but i   
   don't know what *nix it was... dad's store had one in the back room for their   
   operations and reports... they did all their inventory control through it as   
   well as putting in their daily reports and transmitting them via modem to the   
   main office... i don't recall if they had started with the 1000 before the   
   2000 came out or not, though...   
      
    DD> People, especially Burroughs/Sperry/IBM geeks were gob-smacked by   
    DD> this.   
      
   i'm sure... there was also a *nix or similar for the coco... my brain keeps   
   wanting me to say OS9... we had some customers with some really tricked out   
   cocos...   
      
   NOTE: i never worked for Radio Shack... my father did and was the manager of   
   numerous stores... the year i came back from the mid-west, it was too late in   
   the season to go job hunting as all the high-school kids already had them so i   
   went with my dad to his store every day to help there... that's when i first   
   met the Tandy 1000 and that christmas season, i basically sold all of the   
   computers that were sold by that store... i was playing on them typing in   
   programs and when i finished coding in the thing i was coding and started it   
   running, i'd look around and realize that there were 30 or 40+ people behind   
   me watching what i was doing with that machine... the programs were pretty   
   simple BASIC things drawing random rectangles and later with some color in   
   them... they looked like a city skyline being built as new skyscrapers went up   
   and the blocks looked like lit windows... when i added color, they looked like   
   they had christmas lights in them... anyway, folks loved it and asked   
   questions which i answered... when it came time for the sale, i took the   
   customer and their plastic to my dad for the paperwork and i went to the back   
   room to get their brand new boxed machine, put it on the hand truck and take   
   it to their car when everything was ready to go ;)   
      
   not having a job at that time wasn't so bad because dad got the commissions   
   for those computer sales that he wrote up... he didn't mind that at all :)   
      
   )\/(ark   
      
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