"Let's Play: Old Software" I'm genuinly surprised I've never seen this as a trend on YT, and that I've never thought about how enjoyable this would be. Great idea.
Hopefully you eventually found out that in DeskMate II you press Shift-F10 to cancel without saving. Also you can press Ctrl-F1 though Ctrl-F4 to change the lurid color scheme it comes with.
This really was pretty impressive for the time. If you think about how technology advanced into the mid-90s, people were still finding uses for this level of capability, it was just reduced into pocket computers and PDAs. Compared to contemporary and previous generation PCs at the time, this was pretty generous!
I miss my Tandy 1000HX!!! :-( I was the only one on my dorm floor in the year 2000 with that klonky thing on my desk. I just played games on it. DeskMate 2 was the bomb!
I grew up with the Tandy 1000 RL, had the ToeNail clipper mouse and that newer version of Deskmate plus it was also able to do the 640x200 high rez mode and the DAC/ADC. this was a nice trip down memory lane for me. Thank you!!
There was a TSR or driver program you could use, that'd let you use a joystick as a pointing device. I used to use a little joystick as a pointing device with the Deskmate I had with my 1000 EX. If you have a joystick port, and a joystick that'll work with it, might be another option to consider, if you don't have a mouse for the machine.
the excellent Tandy bootup menu reminds me that back in the 90s, i actually wrote a line into my autoexec that displayed a short text message listing the BAT file shortcuts i'd made for various programs - wp for wordperfect, tel for telix, games for a games listing, and so forth. this was on a computer i shared with my parents, and because i was a shitty little failenby who was still living at home at 20 or so, i added snarky little MOTDs such as Dead Kennedys lyrics to that startup message. i can't believe they put up with that crap, in retrospect. maybe they just appreciated not having to hunt around the subdirectories of our C: drive.
I loved Desk Mate with the Home Organizer 1992 on a 1000 RLX with 20 mb hdd, a 3 1/2" floppy drive. DOS 6.22, BASIC(Tandy Version), the Desk Mate graphical user interface (gui) was fabulous, and Win 3.1!
I am probably telling you something you already know but many computers of the time had their primary OS on ROM rather than disk, making boot times tens of times faster.... From a developer point of view they have to get the release pretty much spot on as any errors are a nightmare to redistribute. The 'open' OS model allows easier maintenance and updating.
The NEC PC8201A had a not dissimilar menu on a smaller LCD screen but with a combined file list. Got given one when I was in high school and it is the Telecom program that made me think of it, but mine also had a ROM with a similar spreadsheet called PSCalc that I had no manual for and failed to ever work out how to do formulas for.
A Tandy 1000HX was my first computer, and I was slightly disappointed when I upgraded to a 386, as it took much longer to boot off of the hard drive than the ROM.
2:28 They did. The Amiga had Kickstart in ROM most of the OS was there, that's why it booted so fast from floppy. The Atari ST range went even further it included a full GUI - GEM.
We used to use the first Deskmate for my Dad’s plain Tandy 1000, which was pretty much identical to what you showed here as Deskmate II. Somehow I remember F12 being for exit, maybe that was changed in II. Don’t know if your HX has it but another unique feature of the early 1000s keyboards was a PRINT key (distinct from IBM PRT SC) which in TEXT would start printing, and I mean IMMEDIATELY. Far as I know that was the only use ever for that key.
What you said about floppy disks isn't quite correct. Faking 720K disks on a high-density drive is hit-or-miss because the high-density drive's write head is narrower than the 720K write head, so overwriting old data is hit or miss. I haven't tried it, but I've heard one person suggest using a monitor degausser to properly wipe existing data first. Also, from what I remember, the difference between "original" and "double density" was just that "double density" referred to being QA'd at the factory for both sides of the recording medium. (Though, to be honest, I didn't even know 3.5" was ever *used* in a 360K configuration until I lucked into a free Atari 520STFM with high-res monitor and discovered its drive was single-sided while checking it over.)
"Let's Play: Old Software"
I'm genuinly surprised I've never seen this as a trend on YT, and that I've never thought about how enjoyable this would be. Great idea.
I'm so disappointed in myself for not having actually delivered on this any further in years, haha.
"Several of the things I just said on the camera were bullshit" you're my new favorite tech youtuber
Hopefully you eventually found out that in DeskMate II you press Shift-F10 to cancel without saving. Also you can press Ctrl-F1 though Ctrl-F4 to change the lurid color scheme it comes with.
you're fascinating. i'm so glad you're making these videos.
Right?! He's the kind of dude I'd love to just get a cup of coffee with: a curious mind, fascinating critical thinking skills, and hilarious.
This really was pretty impressive for the time. If you think about how technology advanced into the mid-90s, people were still finding uses for this level of capability, it was just reduced into pocket computers and PDAs. Compared to contemporary and previous generation PCs at the time, this was pretty generous!
I miss my Tandy 1000HX!!! :-( I was the only one on my dorm floor in the year 2000 with that klonky thing on my desk. I just played games on it. DeskMate 2 was the bomb!
RLX 1000!
Deskmate 3.0 was the first GUI I used on a home computer. I loved it.
I grew up with the Tandy 1000 RL, had the ToeNail clipper mouse and that newer version of Deskmate plus it was also able to do the 640x200 high rez mode and the DAC/ADC. this was a nice trip down memory lane for me. Thank you!!
There was a TSR or driver program you could use, that'd let you use a joystick as a pointing device. I used to use a little joystick as a pointing device with the Deskmate I had with my 1000 EX. If you have a joystick port, and a joystick that'll work with it, might be another option to consider, if you don't have a mouse for the machine.
the excellent Tandy bootup menu reminds me that back in the 90s, i actually wrote a line into my autoexec that displayed a short text message listing the BAT file shortcuts i'd made for various programs - wp for wordperfect, tel for telix, games for a games listing, and so forth. this was on a computer i shared with my parents, and because i was a shitty little failenby who was still living at home at 20 or so, i added snarky little MOTDs such as Dead Kennedys lyrics to that startup message. i can't believe they put up with that crap, in retrospect. maybe they just appreciated not having to hunt around the subdirectories of our C: drive.
postrodent fricking heck yeah
I loved Desk Mate with the Home Organizer 1992 on a 1000 RLX with 20 mb hdd, a 3 1/2" floppy drive. DOS 6.22, BASIC(Tandy Version), the Desk Mate graphical user interface (gui) was fabulous, and Win 3.1!
yes, i would use my modem as a dialer. ATDT2155550000 **pick up phone**
My dad used to buy the lower density disks and use a drill press to give them the high density window, bundles of 10 at a time.
I am probably telling you something you already know but many computers of the time had their primary OS on ROM rather than disk, making boot times tens of times faster.... From a developer point of view they have to get the release pretty much spot on as any errors are a nightmare to redistribute. The 'open' OS model allows easier maintenance and updating.
The NEC PC8201A had a not dissimilar menu on a smaller LCD screen but with a combined file list. Got given one when I was in high school and it is the Telecom program that made me think of it, but mine also had a ROM with a similar spreadsheet called PSCalc that I had no manual for and failed to ever work out how to do formulas for.
The first spreadsheet designed for a pc, VisiCalc, would update the entire spreadsheet automatically when one cell number was changed.
A Tandy 1000HX was my first computer, and I was slightly disappointed when I upgraded to a 386, as it took much longer to boot off of the hard drive than the ROM.
2:28 They did. The Amiga had Kickstart in ROM most of the OS was there, that's why it booted so fast from floppy. The Atari ST range went even further it included a full GUI - GEM.
...and the MacOS Toolbox routines were also in ROM... but none of these are MS-DOS compatible machines, which is what he's talking about.
The 2nd version of DeskMate is the one I'm familiar with from my Tandy 1000. I don't even know WTF that first one was :)
I had 256K on my 1000HX and I could run all of the deskmate programs just fine. Maybe the floppy was full?
Me2
Lo-tech now make memory upgrade cards through the ISA slots.
We used to use the first Deskmate for my Dad’s plain Tandy 1000, which was pretty much identical to what you showed here as Deskmate II. Somehow I remember F12 being for exit, maybe that was changed in II. Don’t know if your HX has it but another unique feature of the early 1000s keyboards was a PRINT key (distinct from IBM PRT SC) which in TEXT would start printing, and I mean IMMEDIATELY. Far as I know that was the only use ever for that key.
What you said about floppy disks isn't quite correct. Faking 720K disks on a high-density drive is hit-or-miss because the high-density drive's write head is narrower than the 720K write head, so overwriting old data is hit or miss. I haven't tried it, but I've heard one person suggest using a monitor degausser to properly wipe existing data first.
Also, from what I remember, the difference between "original" and "double density" was just that "double density" referred to being QA'd at the factory for both sides of the recording medium. (Though, to be honest, I didn't even know 3.5" was ever *used* in a 360K configuration until I lucked into a free Atari 520STFM with high-res monitor and discovered its drive was single-sided while checking it over.)
ahhhh, right! I had heard this at some point but forgot it - whoops
eBay has the Desk Mate software on 5 1/4 and 3 1/2" disks!!
Hope you eventually found a Tandy mouse. They plugged into the joystick port.
No when I was a kid I saw a lot of 8 inch floppy disks and tape drives
I'm really enjoy Your videos :) ...regards
My Tandy 1000sl was awesome in 87
Here in 2023: I used to use the tandy joystick as I did not have a mouse LOL
OSX would like to have a word about having the least intuitive shortcut ever. Just try figuring out how to take a screenshot of an entire screen
Filer is a database app.
Alt-F10 is a WordPerfect shortcut iirc
You should try a Tandy color computer.
And they talk about vim
In case you are still looking for a Tandy 1000 RAM Upgrade, Adrian Black made a PCB design some time ago: ua-cam.com/video/l3RWOZX58A8/v-deo.html
DOS came with EDLIN. It sucked, and literally anything else was better, but you *could* edit text with it.
Dude your a genius. Thank you. That is all.
You can't just put DeskMate on an unused AOL disk, that's defacing private property! 😅
Lol