It's Tandy 1000 Time (Part 2) | #SepTandy

In this video, we're comparing the Tandy 1000 HX and TL models! Please like, subscribe, and stay tuned for fresh content and all the latest information about the Vintage Geek museum.

Hosted and produced by Aaron Ishmael.
Technical work by Joseph William Lewis.

[Love-One-Another]

The plus cards on the Tandy 1000 HX/EX were actual cards that pushed into the slot and stacked one upon another if you had more than one card. Memory card (640k upgrade), Modem card and Serial card. External sound output is on the right (headphone jack). The Tandy 100 HX is my favorite of the Tandy line.

[dougware]

I remember my Tandy 1000 TL/2, it was my first DOS computer. There was nothing like buying a 10 pack of 3 1/2" floppies and then spending 30-45 minutes formatting the whole box.

[kpirkle]

I've really enjoyed your videos! I started out with the TI99/4A and moved to the Tandy Color Computer 2 and 3. I worked at a Radio Shack Dealer from 1988 to 1996. I sold a lot of Tandy 1000's in those years and owned a Tandy 1000TX. In my opinion the TX and the TL series (1/2/3) were the best 1000s and the best value for the money. A great feature they had that the 1000 EX/HX and SX/SL series didn't was the ability to add an extra 128K of RAM for video RAM, freeing up the 640K for the system. With the 320x200 16 color graphics and 3-voice sound the Tandy 1000 series was the best bridge from the "home computer" world to the MS-DOS world. The RL/RSX series came out when VGA and Sound Blaster was common in clones and no longer provided the value that the earlier 1000 series did. That was when Tandy computers became much harder to sell and it wasn't long until Tandy sold the computer manufacturing to AST and got out of the business entirely. I look forward to visiting your museum when it opens!

[rubyvolt]

my first PC was a 1000TX. I have several of those now. VGA cards, CF/IDE adaptors. Still working great after all these years.

[mattalki]

I bought a Tandy 1000TL new in 1989 when I was 16 years old (I saved from a summer job to be able to afford it!). I still have it in my office, as it's a fun vintage PC to have for some of that old software. I enjoyed your Tandy 1000 videos except for one small thing - you didn't show any games that took advantage of the extra colors and sound of the machines! CGA looked bad then, and it still does. the 16 colors from the 1000 was a HUGE improvement at the time. The sound was also a huge improvement. My friends were all jealous of my Tandy 1000, at least until VGA hit the market.

[slightlyevolved]

About the HX, another difference over the EX was that the HX had MSDOS 2.1 in ROM, with a menu driven interface and could boot with no disks. Also, the second drive bay supported an internal hard disk option, or a 2nd floopy.

It also does have audio out. There is a volume wheel on the right side of the machine near the joystick ports, along with a 3.5mm headphone port. As I recall, while not stereo, i seem to recall that it did at least output to both channels; but don't quote me on that, I may have had my speakers connected with a splitter adapter.

The internal card ports were standard ISA with a different slot design. You can get adapters to use standard ISA cards. The PLUS cards all had a passthrough, so cards stacked above would plug into the port of the card below. No circuitry, and no backplane (technically) just a straight tap off the ISA lines.

The ports on the back mostly were for adding a 5.25" disk drive externally, and the printer port was a standard parallel 'centronics' connection, but with a card edge connector instead of pins. Printer being the most common, of course.

I also *think* modems may have been able to connect to the drive port, but maybe those were internal only. Thats long enough ago that I might be getting my modem for it confused with the other computer I got later.

[JimLeonard]

Fascinating about the Panasonic computer, I'd never run into that before.
If you'll be covering more Tandy 1000 series systems, you should pick a game that supports the Tandy 16 color graphics and three voice sound. Look for specific tandy support in the hardware requirements stickers of your box software, or screenshots with 16 colors on the back of the box.

[kelli]

The HX does have an audio out port; it's just that it's only the headphone port on the right side of the machine. 😀

[rkrenicki]

Ah, looks like you caught the note about the Panasonic FX-1650 being an SL/2 and not a TL/2 on this video. ;). The FX-1650 was my first "PC Compatible" computer, so I have many many hours on one of those. It took me several years to track one down to re-add to my collection... now that I have one, they seem to all be coming out of the woodwork, hah!

[nowhereman]

Just found this channel. Loving it so far 👍✊

[Seth_Arkada]

That one connector next to where the power supply is, doesn't go to a ribbon cable. That was for Tandy's "Plus Card" expansions. They were exclusive to the HX and EX, but offered similae upgrades for the 1000/1000A (additional RAM and a DMA controller, serial port, modem). They are pin-compatible with ISA, and people even made ISA slot adapters for the EX/HX. The most popular one is an open-source project, which adds DMA, upgrades RAM to the max with an additional 96K of upper address, serial port, and XT-CF Lite.

[kennyadvocat]

I had the 1000sl2 as a kid. It was several years old when we got it free from a neighbor. Came with the big daisy-wheel printer and loads of floppy discs. Pretty crazy how a 1988 expensive computer was basically worthless by the time windows95 dropped. But my old desktop from 2009 is still good for email and youtube.

[joshhiner]

Great videos. I appreciate your channel. I noticed the games tested on part one and two were 4 color pc games not tandy 16 color. Also the pc games didnt support the cool three voice sound of the tandy 1000. To really show what the tandy can do Id recommend games that utilize those features. There were tons of 80s games that did including almost all of sierra’s kings quest and other adventure titles etc.. Anyways thanks for the wonderful videos.

[martianrobotics]

Dude, you're running Tandy 1000s. Why are you in 4-color CGA mode and no 3-voice when playing games?

[douro]

I had a TL. It had a 40MB Western Digital hard disk in it when I bought it...and a copy of AntiEXE.

[brianhintze]

Ahhh Radio Shack. The one place where you give personal info, eye exam, and a blood test…to buy a pack of batteries.
I loved going in there as a kid, but many times the old fart salesmen were total snobs or thought kids were there to steal.
I bought my first “real” computer from one in Fremont, OH. An IBM Aptiva P133 for $1500.00. I used my first credit card and thought it was amazing.
My junior high school had a Model I or II that we played simple black and white games, but we loved it. Good memories.

[eriscreations]

I have a TL mine since 1989. I also have 2 hx and 1 ex. Fantasic dos computers. I'd recommend space quest 3 to best test the tandy 1000 tl as it has 16 colour tandy graphics as well as support for the tl digital sound fx.

[jackilynpyzocha]

I had an RLX 1000, with a color monitor, printer, keyboard, mouse and 3 1/2" floppy drive, 20 MB hard drive. DOS 6.22, BASIC, and DeskMate(my favorite app!)

[michaelcloutier]

Each of the card had a connecctor that passed trough with a female socket that just stacked together one on top of the other.

[shadowdeath]

There's an audio jack on the right side next to the volume knob on the EX.