=== Introduction:

This archive is a snapshot of my Tandy 1000 TX (8MHz 80286) development box.
I'm making this snapshot available for anyone who obtains a Tandy 1000-based
machine (or anyone who has a suped-up PCjr) and would like to play around with
what I play around with.  Special support for Tandy/PCjr graphics and sound is
the focus of this archive; over half of the games included support enhanced
graphics and sound for Tandy/PCjr, and I've including my Tandy/PCjr graphics
and sound routines in the PROGRAM/CGA/LIB and PROGRAM/MT directories for
anyone who would like to know how they're programmed.

Of course, all of the games and programs included work just fine on 8088/CGA
up to 80486/VGA, but all of the games are pre-configured for Tandy/PCjr so if
you want to run them on something else you should reconfigure them.

Like my XTFILES snapshot from 2006, everything for tinkering is included,
including (but nowhere near limited to) tasm and a86 for assembler
programming, various sound and graphics programs, utilities for hard disk and
floppy disk formatting, troubleshooting, and defragmentation, FastLynx for
transferring files over serial/parallel cable, TSRs like nnansi for massivly
speeding up text screen updates and ncache2 for the "best disk cache in the
world", PC speaker sound programs that play multiple notes at the same time
like Music Construction Set, programs to help interface to the Internet (I
personally use Mike Brutman's mTCP tools to get files on and off the machine),
and of course games.  It's my hope that you will be able to spend hours and
hours exploring what's here and have a good time.

=== Snapshot Notes:

This isn't some archive or compilation, it's an actual snapshot of a running
Tandy 1000 TX.  This means everything in this archive works just fine on the
real hardware, as it wouldn't be in this snapshot if it didn't!

You've also probably noticed that all of this would never fit onto a 10MB MFM
drive -- heck, it won't fit onto a 100MB drive!  You are meant to uncompress
this archive on a modern machine and then move things over as needed.

I've also UNcompressed most if not all of the .exes and .coms if they were
previously compressed with exepack, lhexe, or pklite.  This was done for two
reasons:  1. They load a heck of a lot quicker on 4.77MHz machines, and 2.
some of the compressors had obscure bugs that crashed the machine -- unpacking
them made those problems go away.

=== Some of the more interesting Tandy/PCjr-specific tidbits:

MCS             Music Construction Set supports 3-voice sound
Fractint v20    Supports enhanced graphics
DeluxePaint 2e  All version of DeluxePaint II and DeluxePaint IIe that
		support enhanced graphics are included (run "ctmouse" if
		you need a small mouse driver)

=== Some of the more interesting generic tidbits:

MIPS		Benchmarking program.  Much more accurate than Norton SI.
NCACHE2		The best disk cache program ever made for DOS.
NNANSI		ANSI driver *and* massively speeds up text writes
FastTrax	The best disk defragmenter ever made for DOS.  Use "ftfaster"
		if the screen access is too slow for you (I patched it to
		remove unnecessary CGA screen "snow" checking)
FastLynx	The best serial/parallel cable transfer program ever made for
		DOS.
RAR v2.50	The last version made to run on an 8088 or 80286.  Extremely
		versatile and crunches smaller than ZIP every time (and ARJ
		too if you use Solid mode, but be prepared for longer
		compression times)
Respro		For managing TSRs (including disabling and unloading them)
cboot		For un-crashing crashed progams or gracefully rebooting.
		(respro and cboot conflict; load one or the other, not both)
Fractint v20	Fractal generation program.  One of the very best, and 
		fastest, for DOS.  If you don't have a math-coprocessor, don't
		fret; Mandelbrots are done with 32-bit integer code and are
		quite fast.
BASIC		Contains BASIC compilers
BP		Borland Pascal, the fastest development environment for DOS.
SnatchIt	For dumping copy-protected 5.25"/360K and 3.5"/720K
		copy-protected games to image files, and then back onto blank
		diskettes (please write-protect your originals to be safe!)
chunk		Program to break large files into pieces; great for
		transferring large files between machines via floppy disks

=== Games:

Most of the games are preconfigured for enhanced Tandy/PCjr graphics and
audio.  Furthermore, most of these games should run fine on any Tandy 1000,
although some may be sluggish on a 4.77MHz processor.

Games that *required* unreasonably fast Tandys to run at all, like a 12MHz
80286, have been removed.  This includes some of the more demanding 3D titles,
like Stunts.

There is a directory called GAMES/TECH which has a .zip of games that have
interesting programming or optimized special-effects.  They are included as a
curiousity.

=== Missing:

The only thing NOT included is my operating system and/or boot disks.  This is
for several reasons, the two most important being 1. Every machine has
different requirements that should be individually addressed, and 2. so you
don't inadvertently make your own machine non-bootable by restoring one of my
OS files over yours.  If you're curious what I personally run, my XT runs PC
DOS 2000 with "ndos" (the licensed version of 4dos that comes with Norton
Utilities) as a command shell.

-- Trixter, 20090510