The Tandy 10 Business Computer System was a short-lived product developed by

Radio Shack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

in the late 1970s as a business-oriented complement to their

TRS-80 Model I The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of ...

desktop computer. Released in 1978, the Tandy 10 was built for Radio Shack by

Applied Digital Data Systems Applied Digital Data Systems (ADDS) was a supplier of video display computer terminals, founded in 1969 by Leeam Lowin and William J. Catacosinos. Lowin simultaneously founded Solid State Data Sciences (SSDS). SSDS was one of the first developers ...

(ADDS), and was only sold by Radio Shack's dedicated computer center stores. The computer itself was about the size of a two-drawer filing cabinet, with a monitor and keyboard built into a desk-shaped console, along with two 8-inch

floppy drive A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined wi ...

s vertically mounted in the pedestal. Its features included: *

8080 The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibil ...

CPU * 48K memory * 24x80 video display * Two dual-sided 8" diskette drives *

Dartmouth BASIC Dartmouth BASIC is the original version of the BASIC programming language. It was designed by two professors at Dartmouth College, John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz. With the underlying Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS), it offered an inte ...

* ADOS Disk Operating System Optional: * Fortran IV language * Assembly Language program language The original ADDS machine, the System 50, was intended to be used as a data entry system and not as a standalone computer. The original "language" it contained was actually a

form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: * Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter dat ...

designer; data was then entered into the form and then "sent" via

RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' ('' data terminal equipment'') suc ...

to a mainframe. Since it had a microprocessor, Tandy matched it up with Peachtree Accounting software in an attempt to market it as a business computer. The system did not sell in large numbers. Radio Shack's next business system was an extension of the TRS-80 product line, the

TRS-80 Model II The TRS-80 Model II is a computer system launched by Tandy in October 1979, and targeted at the small-business market. It is not an upgrade of the original TRS-80 Model I, but a new system. The Model II was succeeded by the compatible TRS-80 Mode ...

, released in May 1979. The Tandy 10 was discontinued in late 1980.

References

External links

Tandy 10 at the Computer History MuseumADDS System 50 advertisement
''Computerworld'', Mar 27, 1978 {{TRS-80 and Tandy computers Early microcomputers RadioShack