LGR - Restoring & Exploring a 1985 Tandy 1000 PC
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Chris
The Tandy 1000a was a huge part of my childhood, such nostalgia from watching this. I had a lot of frustration as a kid learning to program on this not-quite-pc-conpatible, wondering why audio and graphics code I found in books didn't always work correctly.
Our Tandy ended up pretty much decked out in the end, though it never had a hard disk. We got the memory expander card and had 384k for a while, then later populated the empty dip sockets for the full 640k. We added a Game Blaster (simultaneously amazing, and disappointing.
The upgrade I still ponder over was the 286 processor upgrade board. An 8-bit ISA board, upgrading the computer to a 286. It wasn't as fast as the 286-12mhz computer I had later, but it was vastly faster than the stock Tandy 1000a, and made it possible to play games that simply wouldn't run at all on the 8088.
One difference that I found surprising while watching this video -- I lamented for years that our Tandy 1000a was not equipped with a serial port, and having all three ISA slots full, we had no means to add one. The computer only had the parallel, video and lightpen ports on the back, and the keyboard and joystick ports on the front. I didn't know until seeing this video that these 1000a machines were available with serial ports at all.
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The Tandy 1000a was a huge part of my childhood, such nostalgia from watching this. I had a lot of frustration as a kid learning to program on this not-quite-pc-conpatible, wondering why audio and graphics code I found in books didn't always work correctly.
Our Tandy ended up pretty much decked out in the end, though it never had a hard disk. We got the memory expander card and had 384k for a while, then later populated the empty dip sockets for the full 640k. We added a Game Blaster (simultaneously amazing, and disappointing.
The upgrade I still ponder over was the 286 processor upgrade board. An 8-bit ISA board, upgrading the computer to a 286. It wasn't as fast as the 286-12mhz computer I had later, but it was vastly faster than the stock Tandy 1000a, and made it possible to play games that simply wouldn't run at all on the 8088.
One difference that I found surprising while watching this video -- I lamented for years that our Tandy 1000a was not equipped with a serial port, and having all three ISA slots full, we had no means to add one. The computer only had the parallel, video and lightpen ports on the back, and the keyboard and joystick ports on the front. I didn't know until seeing this video that these 1000a machines were available with serial ports at all.
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Nate
OMG, that first game you showed on this I played SOOO much as a kid on our Tandy 1000 lol. Was it called Treasure Mountain or something? We had a newer model with maxed out specs, joystick, mouse, dot matrix printer, etc. I played a lot of Flight Sim, Ford Sim, that game from the beginning of the video, 3D Battlechess, Golf, some sort of Dinosaur themed educational game with a coloring book and stuff, a drag racing game, -Tandyman- (lol, and other stuff. I loved the computer so much that even when I had newer machines I always left this one set up in the study and played it regularly even into the late 90s. It wasn't until that room turned into my brother's bedroom that the system was put away. We still have two of these in storage at my parents house (and older one and the newer one. I may drag them out one day when I have room to play with one again.
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OMG, that first game you showed on this I played SOOO much as a kid on our Tandy 1000 lol. Was it called Treasure Mountain or something? We had a newer model with maxed out specs, joystick, mouse, dot matrix printer, etc. I played a lot of Flight Sim, Ford Sim, that game from the beginning of the video, 3D Battlechess, Golf, some sort of Dinosaur themed educational game with a coloring book and stuff, a drag racing game, -Tandyman- (lol, and other stuff. I loved the computer so much that even when I had newer machines I always left this one set up in the study and played it regularly even into the late 90s. It wasn't until that room turned into my brother's bedroom that the system was put away. We still have two of these in storage at my parents house (and older one and the newer one. I may drag them out one day when I have room to play with one again.
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PucsHero
My families first home computer, back in the early 90's, was a Tandy 1000. I'm not sure if it was the TX or an SL/SL2. I think it might have been the TX because I think it was running the 80286. It had the dual 5. 25- drives and got me into DOS and QBasic programming. I had a lot of fun on that machine, though I didn't have very many games for it, and it couldn't accomplish much, especially compared to the Windows 3. X machines my mom was running at her office at school. I had a lot of fun playing on those in the afternoon after school. Eventually we got a Windows 95 machine running an early Intel Pentium I believe and that was an amazing upgrade. Especially when I bought Planescape Torment and we had to get my first Voodoo 3Dfx card to play it. It's crazy how far computers have come since then.
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My families first home computer, back in the early 90's, was a Tandy 1000. I'm not sure if it was the TX or an SL/SL2. I think it might have been the TX because I think it was running the 80286. It had the dual 5. 25- drives and got me into DOS and QBasic programming. I had a lot of fun on that machine, though I didn't have very many games for it, and it couldn't accomplish much, especially compared to the Windows 3. X machines my mom was running at her office at school. I had a lot of fun playing on those in the afternoon after school. Eventually we got a Windows 95 machine running an early Intel Pentium I believe and that was an amazing upgrade. Especially when I bought Planescape Torment and we had to get my first Voodoo 3Dfx card to play it. It's crazy how far computers have come since then.
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Jovin
I had a Tandy 1000-TL that still had the original invoice, deskmate software pack manuals, game/productivity pack with discs and manuals etc. It had a 3. 5in floppy drive, 5. 25 floppy drive, and a 20mb hdd(a very hefty upgrade on the invoice. It had been shelved for years because it displayed an error and refused to boot, listing a -missing file DMVDA. res-. It had invoices from 3 different repair shops who could not get it to work. I got it for free and brought it home. Was messing with it and accidentally left the first disc of the program, First Publisher, in the 3. 5- drive. it booted to Deskmate. The file was found on disk 1 of First Publisher. A quick file transfer and off it went. First question it asked, CPU clock speed, 2 or 4mhz. Oh yes, POWER!
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I had a Tandy 1000-TL that still had the original invoice, deskmate software pack manuals, game/productivity pack with discs and manuals etc. It had a 3. 5in floppy drive, 5. 25 floppy drive, and a 20mb hdd(a very hefty upgrade on the invoice. It had been shelved for years because it displayed an error and refused to boot, listing a -missing file DMVDA. res-. It had invoices from 3 different repair shops who could not get it to work. I got it for free and brought it home. Was messing with it and accidentally left the first disc of the program, First Publisher, in the 3. 5- drive. it booted to Deskmate. The file was found on disk 1 of First Publisher. A quick file transfer and off it went. First question it asked, CPU clock speed, 2 or 4mhz. Oh yes, POWER!
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Arcadie
Oh my god, this is it! When I was a young kid my grandparents gave us our first computer and I remember my brother and I playing the shit out of it. I specifically remember King's Quest II and Ghostbusters. As I got older it eventually broke down and we got ride of it. A few years back I found myself thinking of it but couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. I even reached out to my aunt and she and I thought maybe it was a Commodore 64. Then now I watched this and the second I saw it I knew this was it. I remember the round red button, the single floppy drive, the spiralled keyboard cord. Man this is so nostalgic for me! Now I want to track one down myself, lol.
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Oh my god, this is it! When I was a young kid my grandparents gave us our first computer and I remember my brother and I playing the shit out of it. I specifically remember King's Quest II and Ghostbusters. As I got older it eventually broke down and we got ride of it. A few years back I found myself thinking of it but couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. I even reached out to my aunt and she and I thought maybe it was a Commodore 64. Then now I watched this and the second I saw it I knew this was it. I remember the round red button, the single floppy drive, the spiralled keyboard cord. Man this is so nostalgic for me! Now I want to track one down myself, lol.
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Justin
That was such a throwback for me. My very first PC when I was 10 or 11 was a Tandy 1000TX. Dad got it with 640k of memory and the optional 3. 5- floppy drive. My PC looked exactly like yours right down to the keyboard. I remember he bought a Panasonic 9pin dot matrix printer to go with it. I remember booting up on DOS 3. 1 and playing so many of the Sierra games such and Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest and Manhunter. I even remember getting a PC magazine that had code for writing a snake game. Thanks for posting that video and bringing back so many fond memories. FYI, I still love DOS.
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That was such a throwback for me. My very first PC when I was 10 or 11 was a Tandy 1000TX. Dad got it with 640k of memory and the optional 3. 5- floppy drive. My PC looked exactly like yours right down to the keyboard. I remember he bought a Panasonic 9pin dot matrix printer to go with it. I remember booting up on DOS 3. 1 and playing so many of the Sierra games such and Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest and Manhunter. I even remember getting a PC magazine that had code for writing a snake game. Thanks for posting that video and bringing back so many fond memories. FYI, I still love DOS.
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Tim
These were great machines and well made. I personally owned a 1000TX which was the fastest 1000 model and it had a intel 286 cpu. Still XT class but used the 286 like a speed booster. I believe it was runnning at 16mhz. I worked for Radio Shack at the time so got a discount on it. I played a lot of Sierra games on that system which was awesome due to the mentioned Tandy color/sound support. Of all the computers i've owned this and my Commodore 64 are the only ones I miss.
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These were great machines and well made. I personally owned a 1000TX which was the fastest 1000 model and it had a intel 286 cpu. Still XT class but used the 286 like a speed booster. I believe it was runnning at 16mhz. I worked for Radio Shack at the time so got a discount on it. I played a lot of Sierra games on that system which was awesome due to the mentioned Tandy color/sound support. Of all the computers i've owned this and my Commodore 64 are the only ones I miss.
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Weeping
It's been 3 years, so I doubt anyone sees this but towards the end LGR references a card that can give PC's Tandy sound abilities. Does anybody know if he ever did that video and what that card was? I know about the CVX4 being able to emulate the Tandy and the same guy who made that LPT device also made a Tandy LPT device in 2020. But this sounds like an actual expansion card. Any info?
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It's been 3 years, so I doubt anyone sees this but towards the end LGR references a card that can give PC's Tandy sound abilities. Does anybody know if he ever did that video and what that card was? I know about the CVX4 being able to emulate the Tandy and the same guy who made that LPT device also made a Tandy LPT device in 2020. But this sounds like an actual expansion card. Any info?
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Snu
oh man, this was our first family computer, i think it was an original 1000. problem was, we had a black and white monitor for it, and very little software. i had NO idea what it was actually capable of, and when we got an ibm pc at, it seemed WAY better with 16 color graphics and an actual hard drive. wish i had actually been able to utilize this machine to its potential when we had it.
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oh man, this was our first family computer, i think it was an original 1000. problem was, we had a black and white monitor for it, and very little software. i had NO idea what it was actually capable of, and when we got an ibm pc at, it seemed WAY better with 16 color graphics and an actual hard drive. wish i had actually been able to utilize this machine to its potential when we had it.
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Retro
Great video Clint. I recently picked up an original model Tandy 1000 and am in the process of sourcing things like the Keyboard, Monitor, etc. I look forward to getting it plugged in and to start messing around with it. I'm also thinking of doing a few upgrades to it like the 1MB Card (Set to 640KB, XT-IDE and a IDE-CF Adapter w/2GB CF Card (HDD Storage. Keep the videos rolling! :)
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Great video Clint. I recently picked up an original model Tandy 1000 and am in the process of sourcing things like the Keyboard, Monitor, etc. I look forward to getting it plugged in and to start messing around with it. I'm also thinking of doing a few upgrades to it like the 1MB Card (Set to 640KB, XT-IDE and a IDE-CF Adapter w/2GB CF Card (HDD Storage. Keep the videos rolling! :)
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