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Tandy hardcard in a standard pc

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k2x4b524[

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Is that possible to do? Can i throw an XT-IDE Bios on it and have it see the XT-IDE drive on the card? When you plug it into a PC it just says, it won't work in unless it's a tandy 1000, so i'm wondering if that's in the bios code, or the card itself.
 
How would i go about doing that if i don't reader, my rom burner board isn't capable if reading back unfortunately. I'm pretty sure the on-board bios is looking for a Tandy, can i flash a chip with XT-IDE to work the drive on the card which is 8-bit ide?
 
Depends on the chip--you may have to replace it with a flashable one. For example, if the chip is a 2764 UVEPROM, you could replace it with a 28C64 EEPROM flashed in your XT-IDE.

But, let's assume that the BIOS is in the normal place, at C800. With the card in the system, boot DOS from floppy and run DEBUG:

You'll get a hyphen prompt. The following dialog has what you type in boldface and what DEBUG types in normal typeface:

Code: 
A:\>[B]debug[/B]
-[B]mc800:0L2000 100[/B]
-[B]rcx[/B]
CX 0000
:[B]2000[/B]
-[B]ntandbios.rom[/B]
-[B]w100[/B]
Writing 02000 bytes
-[B]q[/B]

A:\>

Your BIOS file will be called tandbios.rom
 
k2x4b524[ said:
Is that possible to do? Can i throw an XT-IDE Bios on it and have it see the XT-IDE drive on the card? When you plug it into a PC it just says, it won't work in unless it's a tandy 1000, so i'm wondering if that's in the bios code, or the card itself.
Click to expand...

Tandy used off-the-shelf components for their ISA hardcards -- mostly Seagate and Western Digital IDE-XT drives and controllers. Those are 8-bit IDE-XT -- not to be confused with the so-called "XT-IDE" controller talked about on this forum, which is really a way to use 16-bit IDE-AT drives on an XT system with 8-bit ISA slots, and will not work with these true 8-bit IDE-XT drives.

What you are probably seeing is the Tandy-specific version of MS-DOS which was loaded onto the hardcard, which will only run on a Tandy 1000 computer. I believe the message it displays when attempting to boot it on a non-Tandy computer is something like "This disk is only bootable on a Tandy 1000". But seeing that much means the drive and controller are working! You just need to boot from a standard MS/PC-DOS boot disk and reformat the hardcard with a non-Tandy-specific version of DOS, and then it'll work in your PC.
 
that's exactly what it says actually, but i'll look to figure out where it's bios resides anyway, that will be useful to know. If all i have to do is go in and reformat it, then it's all good. The controller has 2 8-Bit ide connectors on it, does it support 2 hard drives though?
 
k2x4b524[ said:
that's exactly what it says actually, but i'll look to figure out where it's bios resides anyway, that will be useful to know. If all i have to do is go in and reformat it, then it's all good. The controller has 2 8-Bit ide connectors on it, does it support 2 hard drives though?
Click to expand...
If it's the Seagate ST-05X controller, then yes, it does support two IDE-XT drives (cabled independently, not both on one cable like with IDE-AT):

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-di...CHNOLOGY-INC-Two-IDE-XT-Interface-drives.html

Tandy also used an equivalent IDE-XT controller (well, actually "interface card" since the controller is on the drive itself with IDE!) from Western Digital, although I don't remember the model number off-hand.
 
i think it's western digital, because it's hooked to a wd drive and the controlled looks conspicuously western digital like, if it does work in a standard pc, i can either try and sell the bugger, or bolt a pair of my ST351A/X's to it in my 5150
 
This makes sense to me, to a point. I have a series of software that came with a Tandy 1000 system. Every time I attempt to run any of the software on my PC, I get the same message, that the computer must be a Tandt 1000 in order to run. So is there something in the BIOS that's looking for a specific code, or entry in the software to indicate to the computer that is is a Tandy? More imortantly, has anyone found a work around other than an emulator program?

Chuck(G) said:
Almost certainly that's part of the BIOS code. Can you read and post the BIOS contents?
Click to expand...
 
The Tandy versions of MS-DOS will not boot on a regular IBM-compatible PC, but other Tandy software I've tried, such as DeskMate, does work, as long as you're not trying to use any of the special Tandy 1000/IBM PCjr graphics or sound features.
 
vwestlife said:
The Tandy versions of MS-DOS will not boot on a regular IBM-compatible PC
Click to expand...

That's the issue I've been having though. None of Tandy's software seems to work with any of the PC's I have tried them on. I'll have to get some titles, but a couple, I know for sure were Chessmaster for Tandy, Deskmate, and Tandy's version of Visicalc. (I don't remember what is wasncalled now) I attempted to run it on a 5150 PC (actually 2 different PCs), an IBM 5160 XT and even a Compq 5304 running Windows 3.0 and Windows 98 and DOS 6.0. Other programs that weren't designed to run on Tandy worked fine.

I understand about the color, which would explain the Chessmaster, but as for the others, could it be the version of DOS I was running: DOS 3.3?
 
There is a non-Tandy version of Deskmate. Deskmate was GUI so used the Tandy video hardware to full advantage (and sound too).
 
A lot of the Tandy software checked for a special byte in ROM. If not there, it didn't run. Many others simply insisted on running in one of the Tandy graphic modes so it wouldn't run anywhere else. They were quite insular. They wanted to sell you everything, and not let you use it anywhere else but their machines.

Hard drive controllers disigned for the early 1000 line (1000, 1000a, 1000hx, 1000ex) used a non standard interrupt and I think they did not work in true pc compatibles.
 
Tandy software generally checks for five bytes in the BIOS ROM : 84 65 78 68 89. Tandy, unlike IBM, always included MS-DOS with their systems, and those MS-DOS versions were designed to take advantage of the special graphics and sound hardware and any special issues of the Tandy machines. Since they were not meant for anything else other than Tandy 1000 computers, no one should complain that it does not work on their non-1000 system. Get a generic MS-DOS instead.

Other than the bundled Deskmate software, almost all software Tandy sold was fully IBM PC compatible, as Tandy had a line of PC compatible computers that did not support the special graphics and sound of the 1000 series.

Controllers designed for IBM PC compatibles generally use IRQ5 which Tandy 1000s use for the video. IRQ2 is the preferred choice for the early Tandys, which is often not used on an IBM or generic 8-bit PC, so they work fine. I had a Tandy Hard Card 20MB with a WD-1002-WX1 MFM fixed disk interface card and I had a standalone version of the exact same card in an IBM PC/XT, as they were popular and faster than the Xebec controllers used by IBM.

kb2syd said:
A lot of the Tandy software checked for a special byte in ROM. If not there, it didn't run. Many others simply insisted on running in one of the Tandy graphic modes so it wouldn't run anywhere else. They were quite insular. They wanted to sell you everything, and not let you use it anywhere else but their machines.

Hard drive controllers disigned for the early 1000 line (1000, 1000a, 1000hx, 1000ex) used a non standard interrupt and I think they did not work in true pc compatibles.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the clarification on the Tandy controllers in PC's. I'll have to try that some day. That way I'll remember which way it does work.

Didn't a couple of the early deskmates only work on the 1000 line (if it were the bundled copy)?
 
kb2syd said:
A lot of the Tandy software checked for a special byte in ROM. If not there, it didn't run...They wanted to sell you everything, and not let you use it anywhere else but their machines.
Click to expand...

Hmm where have we come across this more recently....?
 
kb2syd said:
Didn't a couple of the early deskmates only work on the 1000 line (if it were the bundled copy)?
Click to expand...

I had a copy of the very first MS-DOS version of DeskMate that came with the original Tandy 1000, and it ran fine on a standard IBM XT, except that it used the F12 key to exit to DOS... and the function keys on the XT only go up to F10!

But alongside the Tandy 1000 series, Radio Shack sold an IBM XT clone too, the Tandy 1200HD, so I'm sure it had its own version of DeskMate which conformed to the 83-key PC/XT keyboard layout:

dgpj4w.jpg
 
k2x4b524[ said:
Didn't that sucker have all the frills that the 1000 had aswell? except for being fully xt compatible?
Click to expand...

I don't know, but the Tandy 1000 RL HD I finally sold a month ago had a copy of Deskmate installed. and of course, it was working. The thing I was amazed with about Tandy systems is just how quickly the thing is ready to use when it's booted.

.
 
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