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I recently bought a 40MB hard disk system from Tulin Corp for my Tandy 1100
laptop. The hard drive is in a 7.1"x7.1"x2.2" case and connects to the
1100's printer port through a SCSI adapter that is about 2"x4"x0.5" in
size. Tulin offers a large number of hard disk systems for the 1100
computer. The one I chose cost $639 plus shipping and handling, has a fan
and internal power supply and weighs about 6 pounds. Tulin formatted the
hard disk with one partition of about 32 Mbytes and another of about 9
Mbytes. Although DOS 3.3 on the 1100 would permit using the whole 41
Mbytes as a single partition, the sector size would be doubled for
partitions larger than 32 Mbytes. The SCSI adapter, manufactured by
Trantor Systems, opens up enormous possibilities for the 1100 including CD-
ROMs and Bernoulli Boxes. The adapter comes with a 3.5" floppy disk and a
44-page instruction manual which details the software on the disk and
provides easy-to-understand instructions for formatting hard disks and for
setting up CD-ROMs for use with the interface/computer. The setup
procedure could hardly be simpler. Connect the disk power cable and SCSI
cable, plug the adapter into the computer (connections are clearly marked)
and connect the SCSI cable to the adapter. Turn on the 1100 and use
SETUP_11 to cause the computer to start from ROM, check for CONFIG.SYS and
AUTOEXEC.BAT on the floppy disk and start up in DOS (rather than DeskMate).
Then slip in the Tulin boot disk and power up the hard disk and the 1100.
In a very short time, you will learn that the SCSI interface is connected
and the size of the disk partitions. The Tulin boot disk has three files:
1) COMMAND.COM, 2) CONFIG.SYS, and 3) TSCSI.SYS. By leaving the 1100 in
the ROM mode, COMMAND.COM on the ROM (the "C" drive) is used and thus not
necessary on the boot disk. In addition, the system files are used from
the ROM so the floppy does not have to be a bootable disk thus saving
floppy space. The TSCSI.SYS file is loaded into system memory by the
startup procedure and takes about 17Kbytes. Since the hard disk is
accessed through the parallel port, DOS doesn't recognize it as a
conventional disk; therefore, this hard disk cannot be made bootable. For
this reason, I added an AUTOEXEC.BAT to the boot disk which sets the path
and prompt and then calls C:DESK to start DeskMate. The end result is that
I have DeskMate up and operating in my 1100 computer with the hard disk
available in about the same time that had previously been required to come
in DeskMate with only the floppy available. I would like to commend the
Tulin Corporation for offering a line of hard disk drives and SCSI adapter
combinations tailored for immediate use with the Tandy 1100 computer. In
my search for such a system, I found that MicroSense offers a hard drive
and parallel port system; however, they were not aware of its compatibility
with the 1100 at the time I called. Furthermore, their price of $795 was
substantially higher than Tulin's price. MegaHaus also had a hard drive
and parallel port system, but their understanding was that Tandy computers
had parallel ports that could only send data one way (to the printer) and
so were incompatible with their hard drive and parallel port system.
SPECIFICATIONS:
Tulin Model HJLT40B, $639:
Drive Interface:
Capacity: 42Mbytes Three connectors:
Data Surfaces: 2 DB25 to 1100 printer port,
Average Seek Time: 25 msec DB25 to printer,
Tracks/Surface: 1026 DB25 for SCSI cable.
Track Density: 1400 tpi Memory requirements:
Recording Density: 30,871 bpi About 17K of system memory.
Interface: SCSI Hardware requirements:
Data Transfer: About 1.6 Mb/s "Standard" parallel port
Manufacturer: Conner providing bi-directional
Model: CP 3040 information transfer and
Case includes power supply & fan including all ground lines.
TERMPOWER from SCSI device.
Properly terminated SCSI device.
OS: MS-/PC-DOS 3.0 or above.
BIOS: 100% IBM-compatible BIOS.
Manufacturer: Trantor Systems. Source: Tulin Corporation
2156H O'Toole Avenue
San Jose, CA 95131
(tel - 408-432-9025
fax 408-943-0782)