Can I Get DeskMate Running on a Dirty Tandy 1000 TL   #SepTandy 2020 (Part 1)
Channel: Jerry Travis Smith
Date: 30/09/2020

A former student gave me a Tandy 1000 TL a few years ago. I decided to see if it worked for #SepTandy 2020.  

I waited for 3 weeks for a VGA video card to arrive (thinking it was a Trident 8900D) only to have it end up not working on 8-bit systems (because it is actually an 8900D-R). So, I robbed the Paradise'88-based 8-bit VGA card from my IBM 5150 so I could actually get started on getting this baby up and running! Without robbing the 5150, I would have missed out on this year's #SepTandy.

I got it cleaned up pretty well, using copious amounts of compressed air and alcohol wipes. I'm pretty sure I killed the 5 1/2" floppy drive by not inserting the floppy cable far enough into the motherboard. It's not a big loss, but it would be nice to have it working as well.  

I used my IBM PS/2 Model 25-286 to make the DeskMate disks from some disk images I found online. I FTP'ed into the Model 25 and copied the files from the image, then wrote those to the disks.

With the created 3 1/2" disks I was able to launch DeskMate from some disk images I found online. As of right now, it won't play SNG files. It plays a couple notes then stops. (It will play SND files just fine. 🤔)  I think maybe if I make a Tandy 1000 TL bootdisk (using a proper raw disk writing utility) and boot into that instead of the ROM that it may fix the issue. To see if that works or not, like and subscribe to have Part 2 show up in your feed.