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The Tandon Corporation was an American
The PCX computer was made in 1986. It came normally with 256 KB of RAM, 80 column monitor, 2 x 360 KBs 5 diskette drives, 1 x 10 MBs hard disk drive,
disk drive
Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is ...
and PC manufacturer founded in 1975 (incorporated in 1976 as Tandon Magnetics Corp.) by Sirjang Lal Tandon
Sirjang Lal Tandon also known as "Jugi" Tandon, was born in India . He is chairman and CEO of Celetronix, Inc. He is known for leading his company, Tandon Corporation (originally Tandon Magnetics) in the disk drive industry, creating what became ...
, a former mechanical engineer. The company originally produced magnetic recording
Magnetic storage or magnetic recording is the storage of data on a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetisation in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The information is ac ...
read/write head
A disk read-and-write head is the small part of a disk drive which moves above the disk platter and transforms the platter's magnetic field into electrical current (reads the disk) or, vice versa, transforms electrical current into magnetic fi ...
s for the then-burgeoning floppy-drive market. Due to the labor-intensive nature of the product, production was carried out in low-wage India where production costs were lower. This was the key to the company's competitiveness. In the late 1970s, Tandon developed direct equivalents to Shugart floppy drives, and is credited with the invention of DS/DD (double-sided, double-density) versions which became its primary product in the early 1980s.
In 1979, Tandon introduced the TM-100 diskette drive, a 5.25" unit with 40 track support as opposed to the Shugart SA-400's 35 tracks. When Tandy introduced the TRS-80 Model III in 1980, they equipped the computer with TM-100s. The following year, Tandon obtained an even more lucrative contract when IBM released its Personal Computer. Until 1985, Tandon were the sole supplier of floppy drives for IBM PCs, initially the same single-sided unit used in the TRS-80, then the newer double-sided TM-100-2. Tandon would become the world's largest independent producer of disk drives for personal computers and word processors.
In the mid-1980s, Tandon introduced a line of hard disk drive
A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with mag ...
s, making several models of the same basic design with a P shaped top cover and a pinion rack stepper motor
A stepper motor, also known as step motor or stepping motor, is a brushless DC electric motor that divides a full rotation into a number of equal steps. The motor's position can be commanded to move and hold at one of these steps without any posi ...
off to the side. They also introduced portable hard disk drives that could be easily removed from personal computers. A major decline in North American computer sales during 1984–85 as well as competition from Japanese and Taiwanese manufacturers proved difficult for the company. Tandon in April 1987 purchased hard disk drive maker Atasi Corporation for $5 million in stock. This was done so they could improve the capacity of their disk drive lines, as Atasi offered up to 170 MB while Tandon only did 50 MB. Tandon sold its original data-storage business to Western Digital
Western Digital Corporation (WDC, commonly known as Western Digital or WD) is an American computer drive manufacturer and data storage company, headquartered in San Jose, California. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology produ ...
for nearly $80 million in 1988.
The company then brought in former IBM and other computer industry executives in an attempt to remake the company as a leading producer of personal computers. By 1989, nearly all (90 percent) of its personal computer sales were in Europe, and its stock price had fallen from a 1983 peak of $34.25 to $0.50.
PCX
The PCX computer was made in 1986. It came normally with 256 KB of RAM, 80 column monitor, 2 x 360 KBs 5 diskette drives, 1 x 10 MBs hard disk drive, MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
and GW-BASIC
GW-BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language developed by Microsoft from IBM BASICA. Functionally identical to BASICA, its BASIC interpreter is a fully self-contained executable and does not need the Cassette BASIC ROM found in the ...
.
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