T3000.THD --- Copyright 1987 by Phil Wheeler An original compilation of Compuserve Model 100 Forum messages for use by Forum members only. This thread addresses advertising practices, with Tandy's advertising of the Tandy 3000 as "OS/2 Ready" taken to task by one of our more active members. There is some interesting give-and-take on what is fair and normal in advertising. I remain a skeptic -- still trying to collect on one of my many "lifetime guarantees" (well it died, so the guarantee is void, isn't it?). Message range: 153381 to 153718 Dates: 7/26/87 to 7/30/87 Sb: #Tandy 3000 False Advrt Fm: Mark Lutton 73106,1627 To: All Perhaps this isn't the right forum for this message but I can't find the Tandy 3000 forum, if there is one. Today's Boston Sunday Globe, 7/26/87, has on page 79 a Radio Shack ad -- probably your local paper has one too. The ad features an "OS/2 Ready" Tandy 3000 HL for $1299. The Tandy 3000 HL as advertised for that price will NOT run OS/2. OS/2 requires at least 1 megabyte of main memory. The advertised machine has only 512K. OS/2 requires a hard disk. The advertised machine has no hard disk. A hard drive and controller are available for $799 and $399.95 respectively. And of course OS/2 requires a monitor and display adapter which are not included in the $1299 price. The small print next to the price says that the monitor and display adapter are not included, so I guess I shouldn't complain about that. Tandy has demonstrated a 3000 HL running OS/2, but I am certain it must have been one with a hard disk and more than 512K memory. OS/2 is a new operating system being developed by Microsoft for 80286 and 80386-based machines. It will not be available to the general public until 1988. An interim version is available to developers. Microsoft will not sell OS/2 at retail but will sell it through computer manufacturers. My complaint is that the ad says "The 512K Tandy 3000 HL ... is ready to run the upcoming OS/2 operating system", which is not true, because of the memory and disk requirements of OS/2. Fm: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 To: Mark Lutton 73106,1627 Mark, the Tandy 3000 is supported on the TRS80PRO forum (GO TRS80PRO). Many manufacturers use the term "ready" to mean that the product can be expanded. TV sets are "Cable Ready", although they may need a convertor to pick up all the special or subscription channels. Pickup trucks are "Mountain Ready", although you probably have to add heavy-duty shocks, bigger tires and roll bars before you take it to the mountains. Such claims are usually viewed with a grain of salt. What you are pointing out, really means that the 3000 has to be expanded to where it can use OS/2. In the same line of thinking, the line of thinking that advertising agencies follow, the Model 100 is "Hard-Disk Ready". Not that one is available for it, but the system buss is there, and the capability to add extra RAM is there, and the capability to use a different operating system is there.... See what I mean? In fact, since the Model 100's use bank switching of the entire ROM bank, 32K, it could even be called "Fortran Ready" or "MS-DOS" ready; providing someone wanted to write a Fortran or MS-DOS option ROM that fit in the ROM socket. I understand what you're saying about the misleading claim of being "Ready", but believe it's part of what has become advertising "license". I think your complaint lies with the advertising world's ethics, rather than with Tandy, who, after all, simply wants to sell as many (whatever) as possible. The alternative to such "license" is, of course, regulation. Shall we bring the government in to regulate the advertisers? I think that had best not be mentioned. Fm: Mel Snyder 70136,1007 To: Mark Lutton 73106,1627 I saw the same ad, and read it differently (as I calmly purchased our second Tandy 3000HL). I saw it as an assurance to the propsects who know less than you, whp've read all the hulabaloo about OS/2, and think they'd have to buy a whole new computer to take advantage of it. Seeing the number of people willing to pay nearly $2000 to perform a 386 "brain trans[la transplant on their XT and ATs, I don't see the ad as misleading, unless read more literally than most of us read these ads. Fm: Mark Lutton 73106,1627 To: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 Well, they should advertise the Tandy 1000 as "OS/2 Ready" then! All you gotta do is replace the motherboard with an 80286 one, chop off the side of the case so you can put in long boards, add 2 or 3 megabytes and a hard disk, and voila! Why not advertise a desk as "OS/2 Ready -- just add a computer"? No worse than saying "XYZ Consulting Company has 250 years of experience in computers [125 employees times 2 years each]". Of course, by the time OS/2 is available for sale, the ad will be long forgotten and the 3000 will be out of warrantee. Fm: Mark Lutton 73106,1627 To: Mel Snyder 70136,1007 By the time OS/2 comes out Tandy will have an 80386 machine that will run rings around the 3000 HL. It won't cost much by that time either -- probably about half what the operating system costs. Fm: Mel Snyder 70136,1007 To: Mark Lutton 73106,1627 Tandy's 386 machine will be announced on August 3, along with an MS-DOS laptop. The price of the 386 machine will be $2995; the price of the laptop will be $1595. Again, Tandy is just trying to explain the gobbleygook. For what most people need to do desktop tasks, the best investment is a closeout Tandy 2000. We have 8 -- one purchased in 1984 for about $4000 including color monitor, one purchased for $1400...5 purchased for $700...and one bought 2 weeks ago for $599. We run Wordperfect 4.2 and Lotus 1-2-3 and Telecommuter on them...and we get more bang for our computing buck than anyone I know. Support? Last month Tandy released an enhanced DOS, 2.11.03 -almost 3 years after the last production run -- and a driver for Microsoft Windows! So...I regard OS/2 with a degree of distance... Fm: Mark Lutton 73106,1627 To: Mel Snyder 70136,1007 I'm surprised that you're having such good luck with the Tandy 2000. We had one at Mark of the Unicorn when I worked there; at random times it would format the hard disk automatically. (A "reserved" 8086 interrupt that Microsoft had used turned out to mean something to the 80186.) Maybe the problems got ironed out or perhaps they patched the operating system. As for OS/2, it will be a great system -- in about 3 years. That's how long I think it will take to really penetrate the market, and it will probably be 10 years before people use it on home computers.