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TX or TL?

I've hosted tvdog's information for over a decade now, and I've read the FAQ and wikipedia pages, and I am ashamed to say that I cannot answer this question (maybe someone can help): What is the fastest Tandy that you can put a hard drive into and has built-in composite (RCA) video output?

I ask this because I'm going to be using a Tandy for development for a full week in April, and I was all set to hotrod my TL/2 with a hard drive when I looked at the back of it and found no composite video output. The only other Tandys I have with composite video out are a Tandy EX I have buried somewhere (can't add a hard drive, obviously) and a few Tandy 1000s/1000 HDs (fit the bill, but slow as molasses). So, I'm looking for the "best fit" for my needs (tx? sx? No idea)

The composite video output is a requirement because I need to hook the thing up to a projector. Don't ask :)
 
If you have a HD controller that will work in a 1000a and the EX has the DMA added in, you can add an HD to an EX.
 
Trixter said:
I've hosted tvdog's information for over a decade now, and I've read the FAQ and wikipedia pages, and I am ashamed to say that I cannot answer this question (maybe someone can help): What is the fastest Tandy that you can put a hard drive into and has built-in composite (RCA) video output?
Click to expand...
The 1000TX. It's an 8 MHz 80286 (real mode only). All other 1000s with composite out are 4.77 or 7.16 MHz 8088s.
 
kb2syd said:
If you have a HD controller that will work in a 1000a and the EX has the DMA added in, you can add an HD to an EX.
Click to expand...

An EX? This thing?

tandy_1000ex_1.jpg


Where would I put the hard drive? And the EXs have a weird slot config, right? I have a speech synthesizer for the EX and it's not an ISA bracket...
 
Trixter said:
Where would I put the hard drive? And the EXs have a weird slot config, right? I have a speech synthesizer for the EX and it's not an ISA bracket...
Click to expand...
There is no drive bay for an internal hard drive in the EX, but maybe you could hack in a 2½" laptop IDE drive somewhere.

And what kind of wacko keyboard layout is that, in that photo? :eek: "M" to the right of "L"... shifted numbers with symbols underneath... various other keys moved around... :confused:

The EX and HX use so-called "PLUS" expansion cards... basically the ISA slot replaced with a pin connector, like an overgrown SCSI connector. Radio Shack offered an adapter to let you use a standard ISA card in an EX/HX, and conversely, also offered an adapter to let you use a "PLUS" card in a normal PC (or other member of the 1000 series) with a standard ISA slot.
 
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Trixter said:
Where would I put the hard drive? And the EXs have a weird slot config, right? I have a speech synthesizer for the EX and it's not an ISA bracket...
Click to expand...

I have posted the directions for creating a standard slot in the HX/EX several times. You need a 62 pin female plug, a 62 pin card edge connector and a few inches of ribbon cable.

Crimp them up, paying attention to pin1 vs pin1. I think they are swapped in the EX/HX series, but the pinouts are available in TVDogs collection of documents.

There is an alternative way here:
ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/tvdog/tandy1000/documents/hx-hd.txt

Then use a standard tandy HD controller and a smallish 2.5" laptop with some double sided foam tape to attach the drive in one of the small cavities inside the EX.
 
Terry Yager said:
AZERTY= German/European.

--T
Click to expand...

Fascinating! Where have I been? I haven't seen the world beyond QWERTY. Oh, I've heard of DVORAK - but anything besides QWERTY was like metric to me. (In the U.S. we just never adopted the metric system.) It do seem strange to us - as does that AZERTY keyboard. I'd never even heard of that! Alas, what a shallow life I lead.
Anyhoo, here are more fascinating keyboard layouts now that the subject has been brought up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATOMIK#Chorded_keyboards_and_mobile_devices

Pretty interesting.
 
kb2syd said:
I have posted the directions for creating a standard slot in the HX/EX several times. You need a 62 pin female plug, a 62 pin card edge connector and a few inches of ribbon cable.

Crimp them up, paying attention to pin1 vs pin1. I think they are swapped in the EX/HX series, but the pinouts are available in TVDogs collection of documents.

There is an alternative way here:
ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/tvdog/tandy1000/documents/hx-hd.txt

Then use a standard tandy HD controller and a smallish 2.5" laptop with some double sided foam tape to attach the drive in one of the small cavities inside the EX.
Click to expand...

This is very helpful, thank you. I may look into doing this with my EX (although the best solution for me would be an IDE controller + CF -- I might have to wait for hargle's project)
 
patscc said:
AZERTY is more of a french/belgian thing than anything.
However, they start getting really weird once you get to Cyrillic & Greek, and so on. Check out this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout
patscc
Click to expand...
I've heard of AZERTY, but I didn't realize that in addition to the letters, the numbers and punctuation marks are drastically changed from the QWERTY standard, especially the shifted numbers. The Canadian French layout is not nearly as majorly changed from the U.S. QWERTY layout.
 
Terry Yager said:
I stand correction. I sometimes get mixed over when looking on languages other than England. My apologetics to the French/Belgianlanders.

--T
Click to expand...

They aren't Belgianlanders Ter!
- - here's the real story;

There are different kinds of ethnic people in Belgium.

In general a citizen of Belgium is called - Belgian
More specifically

- People that come from Flanders and speak Flemish as native language are called Flemish
- People that come from Walonia and speak French as native language are called Wallons.
- People that come from German speaking parts of Belgium and speak German as native language are called German speaking Belgians.
- People that come from Brussels and either speak French or Flemish or both as native language are called Brusselois.

33% of Brussels and 11% of Belgium's population is non-Belgians.

source=http://www.outdoorland.info/Belgium/101253.htm
 
Here are my thoughts on the various features of the Tandy TL:

Enhanced Graphics - Name a game that will use this mode that will also not work with an EGA/VGA adapter. Hercules graphics support is very convenient, but that can also be added with a card.

PSSJ Sound - Alot more games support the Sound Blaster than the digitized output of a PSSJ and you need a Sound Blaster Pro in order to select a DMA channel other than 1. Cloud says that the PSSJ will not give up DMA 1, and I want to use the Sound Blaster 1.x for the Game Blaster chips.

DOS in ROM - Not especially useful if you are using a hard drive, unless the hard drive is drive D. Useless for PC Booters, very useful if you have only have floppy drives.

101-Standard Keyboards - This is a very useful feature indeed. Those 90-key keyboards do not look appealing.

And the Tandy TX features:

Composite Video - This guarantees that you can use a TV for an output device. On the other hand, it may not show the same colors as an IBM CGA.
 
Great Hierophant said:
PSSJ Sound - Alot more games support the Sound Blaster than the digitized output of a PSSJ and you need a Sound Blaster Pro in order to select a DMA channel other than 1. Cloud says that the PSSJ will not give up DMA 1, and I want to use the Sound Blaster 1.x for the Game Blaster chips.
Click to expand...

DMA sharing may, or may not be a problem, depending on the card. I tried a SoundBlaster at DMA1, and it worked fine (although the PSSJ DAC is unusable, as a result), but I couldn't get the PAS to work with the same setting.
 
Great Hierophant said:
DOS in ROM - Not especially useful if you are using a hard drive, unless the hard drive is drive D. Useless for PC Booters, very useful if you have only have floppy drives.
Click to expand...

My opinion of this feature changed 180 degrees when I got a TL/2 a few years ago. It is simply the coolest thing since sliced bread -- it's like getting the "undo" feature of a multitasker. Program frozen? Pop the red button and you have an A: prompt in less than two seconds. Don't like the game you're running and can't figure out the quit command? Pop the button, POOF you're back at the DOS prompt. It's really useful.
 
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