Tandy Disk Drive
- Vic Gerhardi
XOB Tandy Portable Disk Drive 2
Manufactured in 1986, over 200 units of this disk drive were sold for use with the Z88. It is battery powered and saved 200K (non standard format) worth of data on Single Sided 3-1/2" disk. They will work now with 720K disks.
The first Disc Drive to be used with the Z88. Designed for use with the Tandy 102, 200 and Radio Shack Model 100.
The manual, software, cable details and circuit diagram are available here. Acknowledgementsto Michael J Simms - the author of DISKMGR, Mike Ryan, Richard Boam, Tony Firshman, Jack Lawrie, Christopher Catotti for information and permission to publish this on the web.
Programs
There are two BBC BASIC programs complete with manuals that were written to allow this disc drive to be used with the Z88. They are available here, but are no longer supported,.
DISKMGR software and manual was written by Michael J Simms for XOB who supplied the drive.
DISC-RPB software was written by Richard Boam and the manual was written by Jack Lawrie.
Both these programs have been tested against two working drives using a 720K 3-1/2" disk.
Found problems.
DISCMGR
The LOAD command returns an 'Unexpected reply' in the Status window, (instead of 'Done, OK.') at the end of the operation. In spite of this, the file correctly loads.
I am not a BBC BASIC programmer, so if you want to correct this, feel free and let me know what you have found. There is a PDD2 Command Reference guide in the Internet links section.
Should you find any mistakes, please contact the webmaster.
