Task: Boot Tandy’s DeskMate 3 to Provide a Desktop GUI for Your DOS PC
Needed: Retro PC with an 8086, 286, or 386 CPU, DeskMate 3 Disks or Disk Images
Time: 15-30 minutes
Introduction
The Tandy 1000 personal computer (PC) successfully competed with IBM for several reasons including the failure of the IBM PCJr and Tandy’s understanding of what home computer users needed and wanted. In this vein, Tandy produced a graphical desktop environment called DeskMate that sat on top of MS-DOS and provided users easy access to apps such as a text editor, music player, calendar, and drawing program that fulfilled many basic home computer needs. This served an important function until Windows 3.1 came along.
Some version of DeskMate will only run on the Tandy machines. However, there are versions that are compatible with other PC compatibles. I was able to successfully boot and use DeskMate 3.05 on my IBM PS/2 Model 30 (NEC V30 CPU) from the 3.5″ floppy disk images provided here.
Instructions
The first step is to source the floppy disks for DeskMate. You can buy newly burned floppies on eBay. I opted for downloading the floppy disk images from here. Version 3.05 has 5 disk images labeled DISK1.img, DISK2.img, etc. There are several versions also available from archive.org.
Second, you will need a way to read the floppy disk images on your PC. I used a Raspberry Pi-based PicoMEM 2 card compatible with the ISA slot on my IBM PS/2. I put the floppy images on the SD card and transferred them to a hard disk image in DOS.
Third, I booted DeskMate 3 by running DESK.exe. You can find the manual here.
Fourth, have fun poking around and trying the apps! Note I configured my PS/2 mouse in the Setup screen (F10).
Comments
Here is a nice blog post about DeskMate. Worth checking out!
Below is the included Hangman game.
