Tandy 4850 EP

[HoJoPo]

My father picked up a Tandy 4850 EP and VGM-441 monitor at an estate sale for me. Both are in near new condition, only the keyboard/mouse are missing. A Microsoft PS/2 keyboard and mouse work fine on it. 486DX2-50, 4 MB RAM on the system.

I just got them home and powered up, the 120MB IDE drive works fine, still has the user's files on it (though they did remove some things, like Quicken).

I did find a copy of the SETUP485 and CACHE485 programs in the DOS directory, it currently has MS-DOS 5.0 installed on it.

I might end up installing SCO Unix or some other System V Unix on it just for fun.



System information: http://support.radioshack.com/support_computer/doc1/1092.htm

Monitor information: http://support.radioshack.com/support_accessories/doc6/6052.htm

 

[vwestlife]

I've never heard of that model before -- it must be quite rare. It is built in the Tandy 2500 chassis (which dates back to the 286 era!) -- you can see where they blocked off the unused microphone and earphone jacks for the 2500's 8-bit DAC audio chip.

Unfortunately due to the lack of Level 2 cache, the performance will not be as good as what a DX2-50 is really capable of.

 

[HoJoPo]

Yes, it is unfortunate about the cache.

I opened it up, very clean inside, only one small cobweb. The battery still keeps the clock/calendar, and is a lithium 3.6V CS 0232 unit dated 1992, same year as the system itself! The battery is velcroed into the case, not built on the motherboard.

I can upgrade the video RAM if I want: ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/tvdog/tandy1000/faxback/01013.txt

Just need to find the chips. I also will probably upgrade the RAM another 16MB, leaving the original 4MB in place, for 20MB total, and install a second hard drive for alternate operating systems (Unix, Linux), leaving the original 120MB drive in it, since at the moment it's in completely original configuration. Windows 3.1 is also installed, along with Ami Pro and Lotus 1-2-3.

The serial number is only 6181, so I think you're right about the rarity. They also made a 4825 SX with 486SX-25 processor. These might be the fastest ones Tandy built using this chassis. The original list price on my system was $2,699 in 1992. The VGM-441 was $599 (14" SVGA .28 dot pitch, pretty good specs for the day.)

I may have a Tandy PS/2 mouse on hand, but I'll need to track down the correct keyboard for it, as I want to keep it as a complete set.

 

[cmflugum]

Good find! The 4850 EP was the first computer I bought. I started at Radio Shack the fall of 1992. The 4850 went on clearance the next summer (93) and I bought one with my employee discount 20%. I think I still paid about $900 for it. The 4850 was meant to be a business computer. I had for 5 years. Too bad it didn't come with the keyboard. The Tandy keyboards back then were built like a tank. I upgraded mine with a SoundBlaster and better video card. I still have the 120 hard drive. I sold it five years later for $700 with a monitor. Have fun with it.

 

[mojorific]

Very nice! If you ever get bored with it and are looking to sell, please message me.

 

[wesleyfurr]

Nice find! According to my hand-compiled notes from going through the Tandy faxbox document list, there were three different versions of the 48xx series, looks like 20-66MHz going by the last two numbers. I haven't flushed out the other specs in my spreadsheet though, so I can't confirm without some more research.

Wesley

 

[Kidpanda]

My family actually had this machine. It is long gone sadly, but my mother paid over 3k for it when it came out. Was nice to play Doom on for sure. I think I still have some of the bits from it. I know we had a Speedstar 64 installed in it, I want to say the video ram was only 512k with the option to add another 512k to it.

 

[zeff]

Thanks HoJoPo for the links! I have this machine as well, serial # 1012, with the same monitor and the Tandy keyboard and mouse you could get at the time. I was trying to figure out what to do with it, so you gave me some ideas.

I thought about trying to get it set up as a node in my k3s cluster, but haven't done the research yet on hardware for getting this thing networked. Did you get a *nix-based OS installed on it?

 

[HoJoPo]

Thanks HoJoPo for the links! I have this machine as well, serial # 1012, with the same monitor and the Tandy keyboard and mouse you could get at the time. I was trying to figure out what to do with it, so you gave me some ideas.

I thought about trying to get it set up as a node in my k3s cluster, but haven't done the research yet on hardware for getting this thing networked. Did you get a *nix-based OS installed on it?

I was playing around with AIX on my PS/2 model 70 386-20 system instead (and I need to try out A/UX on my SE/30 once I get it recapped). The Tandy 4850 EP should be a good candidate for a mid-90s Linux release, Slackware or one of the early Redhat distributions. Most of the commercial unices of the time were pretty limited, but I started with Linux on a 386/40 system in the fall of 1992.

I'll probably swap in an IDE to CF adapter so as not to stress the original 120MB hard drive.