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Tandy Model 20 (25-1641)

Waybackwhen

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Joined
Nov 21, 2022
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Wow! I just bought a completeTandy model 20 (25-1641 )at an estate sale with all accessories including the printer with all the original boxes. My problem is that it did not come with the monitor cable and it's a 9 pin female on the monitor that connects with a 14 pin female off the computer? It does not have the #9 pin hole in it so here's a dumb question but could I cut off the 9 pin on a 15 pin connector? or does anyone know where I could find one, I've checked Ebay and couldn't find any. Any ideas would be helpful. Thank's
 
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Going to guess that you have either a CGA monitor (if it is Tandy I would guess either a CM-5 or CM-11) or a monochrome monitor (such as a VM4 or VM-5 if Tandy) and the 14 pin monitor plug is an early VGA monitor port. The two aren't really compatible.

Your easiert solution is to use a VGA monitor that has a separate cable, so you can buy a 14 pin VGA cable to attach it to this computer. A slightly more difficult method would be to use a 15 pin cable and remove the extra pin (I don't recall which one is unused; I believe the pin's use was to auto detect the resolution the computer was outputting)

A third option if you cannot find a VGA monitor is to look for a CGA or monochrome ISA card. Come to think of it, are you sure there isn't a monitor port on any of the expansion slots? Maybe someone put one in so they could use this combination at some point? I can't imagine why anyone would do that, but maybe...? But back to getting a card: I could see this option as viable only if you live somewhere that you wouldn't be able to get a VGA monitor locally, as I am sure a CGA card would be more than a VGA monitor would be at a thrift store.

A final option would be that it is quite possible that you already have an LCD TV that has a VGA port on it. Get that 14 pin VGA cable mentioned earlier and hook the computer up to that.

Hope one of these ideas work for you

J White
 
Hi, I should have added that the monitor that came with it was the original with the computer it's a
Tandy VGM-390 .After searching for a used one I found a male 9 pin to male 15 pin that was the last one on Ebay. I have that ordered and Im going to try removing the #9 pin from the 15 Pin. I don't know if it will work
but it seemed like my best possible option to give it a try considering the time I spent looking for an original! I'll post the results if it works for anyone that might run across the same problem. Thanks for the reply!
 
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