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Tandy 1000A & IBM 5161 Expansion Unit

I

IBM Portable PC

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Joined
Jan 15, 2008
Messages
665
Location
70 Miles NW of Melbourne, Australia
I can report that these two work harmoniously together, as you might expect.

After replacing all Tantalum capacitors on the 5161's; planar, extender and receiver cards (after one tantalum nearly exploded in my face), I can now boot via the T130B SCSI card and attached 640MB magneto optical drive in the expansion unit.

Of course the reason for this was to escape the 3 ISA slot constraint on the 1000, which now contains:
1- Progressive Technology 512K RAM card with RTC and a serial port (upgraded from 8250 to 16C650)
- (Anyone have any docs for this card?)
2- 80286 CPU upgrade card (286 Express Card)
3- IBM Extender card, connected via a garden hose thickness cable to the 5161

Clem
 
Very impressive indeed. However, as I recall, the T130B will hang on writes and generally behave unreliably unless a V20 or 286 accelerator is installed and, in the case of the latter, activated. What else would you put in the expansion unit?
 
Great Hierophant said:
Very impressive indeed. However, as I recall, the T130B will hang on writes and generally behave unreliably unless a V20 or 286 accelerator is installed and, in the case of the latter, activated. What else would you put in the expansion unit?
Click to expand...

Well, as per my post I have a 286......... As per posts elsewhere, I also have a V20, however 286 Express Card does NOT like V20's, yet to work out why.

What else? Well between my IBM Portable and the 1000, my main boards of interest are:
Earth Computers Z80 coprocessor
TLM System PC-68K 68000 Coprocessor
Compaticard IV
Copy Option Board
Catweasel

Yet to try them all in the 5161 and/or 1000
 
The Catweasel and Option Board both sit in between the floppy drive and floppy controller. With those three slots in the Tandy 1000/A/HD, either the memory or the 286 Express card will have to be removed if you wish to use the 5161 Expansion Unit at the same time. I do NOT recommend frequent removal of the 286 Express Card, and the system is borderline useless without the memory and DMA expansion card. Perhaps you can put these boards in the Expansion unit, but floppy cables have a max length of 36". Also, the Option Board uses DMA, which may complicate things.
 
IBM Portable PC said:
Well, as per my post I have a 286......... As per posts elsewhere, I also have a V20, however 286 Express Card does NOT like V20's, yet to work out why.

What else? Well between my IBM Portable and the 1000, my main boards of interest are:
Earth Computers Z80 coprocessor
TLM System PC-68K 68000 Coprocessor
Compaticard IV
Copy Option Board
Catweasel

Yet to try them all in the 5161 and/or 1000
Click to expand...

Clem:

Have you given any thought to going with a 1000SX mother board? Those 2 extra slots might work for you.
 
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