Tandy Deskmate Overview

This is a sort-of-in-depth review of Tandy Deskmate 2 and Personal Deskmate 2, both for the Tandy 1000. I had some stumbles as I figured out this highly odd software, but overall I'm very pleased with what I found and I hope you'll get the same impression I did: this is a really neat set of tools for the time and place it was released!
Patreon is... on hold, because Patreon sucks right now.
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[@WrinkleRelease]

"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.

[@CathodeRayDude]

I'm so disappointed in myself for not having actually delivered on this any further in years, haha.

[@vwestlife]

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.

[@LocalAitch]

"Several of the things I just said on the camera were bullshit" you're my new favorite tech youtuber

[@lishd]

you're fascinating. i'm so glad you're making these videos.

[@WrinkleRelease]

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.

[@nickwallette6201]

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!

[@woodrochristopherwood1578]

Deskmate 3.0 was the first GUI I used on a home computer. I loved it.

[@DaiAtlus79]

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!!

[@scotthartman8390]

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!

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

RLX 1000!

[@Meshamu]

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.

[@shirobane]

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.

[@postrodent]

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.

[@CathodeRayDude]

postrodent fricking heck yeah

[@moonrock41]

The first spreadsheet designed for a pc, VisiCalc, would update the entire spreadsheet automatically when one cell number was changed.

[@ljmleonard881]

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.

[@ChrisLincoln]

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.

[@stevenjlovelace]

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.

[@TechToTunes]

Lo-tech now make memory upgrade cards through the ISA slots.

[@icepee9252]

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.

[@ssokolow]

...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.

[@MrGencyExit64]

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 :)

[@laureven]

I'm really enjoy Your videos :) ...regards

[@stonent]

I had 256K on my 1000HX and I could run all of the deskmate programs just fine. Maybe the floppy was full?

[@cjsaretto1953]

Me2

[@jazzshow]

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.

[@lishd]

yes, i would use my modem as a dialer. ATDT2155550000 **pick up phone**

[@ssokolow]

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.)

[@CathodeRayDude]

ahhhh, right! I had heard this at some point but forgot it - whoops

[@cjsaretto1953]

Hope you eventually found a Tandy mouse. They plugged into the joystick port.

[@alfulton5946]

No when I was a kid I saw a lot of 8 inch floppy disks and tape drives

[@alfulton5946]

My Tandy 1000sl was awesome in 87

[@stereo_future]

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

[@atlanticx100]

Here in 2023: I used to use the tandy joystick as I did not have a mouse LOL

[@thomasfuchs78]

Alt-F10 is a WordPerfect shortcut iirc

[@dougware]

Filer is a database app.

[@meldridgereedjr2842]

You should try a Tandy color computer.

And they talk about vim

[@da1l616]

In case you are still looking for a Tandy 1000 RAM Upgrade, Adrian Black made a PCB design some time ago: kzbin.info/www/bejne/omS1iIKQjZprd5o

[@Just.A.T-Rex]

Dude your a genius. Thank you. That is all.

[@bitwize]

DOS came with EDLIN. It sucked, and literally anything else was better, but you *could* edit text with it.

[@j2simpso]

You can't just put DeskMate on an unused AOL disk, that's defacing private property! 😅

[@0714will]

Lol