Tandys with hard drives?

[facattack]

I forget. I had a Tandy 1000 EX. Which Tandys had hard drives? Which ones could you install one in? And, oh, I heard some had DOS in the ROM?

 

[geoffm3]

I forget. I had a Tandy 1000 EX. Which Tandys had hard drives? Which ones could you install one in? And, oh, I heard some had DOS in the ROM?

I think you could install a hard disk in any of the 1000's with detached keyboards. They did require special firmware on the hard disk controller to support in most cases and also needed to be able to use a different IRQ than in normal IBM PC compatibles. I think the hard cards that Tandy originally sold had WD RLL/MFM controllers with custom firmware on them.

Some of the later model 1000s had a hard disk controller built in, either XT IDE or if if they were later (I think starting with the RSX) AT IDE. XT IDE drives are very hard to find so those with the XT IDE disk controller are mostly useless unless you can find an XT IDE drive. Supposedly compactflash cards support 8-bit data transfers so those could be used on the ones that do have the XT controller. I'm not entirely certain of that though.

Any of them can use a hard drive though (including the console EX/HX versions) with the XTIDE card project that's on here. I've got one in my HX now. The only thing that you need to do there is make a PLUS connector to IBM PC slot adapter, which is easy to do with a ribbon cable and a pin header and card edge IDC connectors.

 

[Chromedome45]

I know the Tandy 1000HX has DOS in ROM. Not sure of others but there were a few of them.

 

[Great Hierophant]

Not too many Tandy 1000s came with hard drives factory preinstalled, those that did are the Tandy 1000HD, Tandy 1000RL-HD, Tandy 1000RLX-HD and Tandy 1000RSX-HD. The only Tandy 1000s that do not have a DOS-in-ROM are the 1000, 1000A, 1000HD, 1000EX, 1000SX and 1000TX.

 

[facattack]

Thanks for the replies. My next question is in regards to DOS BOX. Can it run Tandy games? I know the Tandy version of The Black Cauldron was different from the DOS version because you see a small graphic of the Horned King appear over Henwen as she drinks her water. Cool effect but not in other versions.

I archived some Tandy games onto disk when I had the Packard Bell 486 computer operational. I might not do any hardware monkeying around on my own as I have too much stuff and may have to move...

 

[raifield]

DOSBox can emulate a Tandy system, there are settings in the .conf file for Tandy graphics and sound

 

[barythrin]

A big difference btw in The Black Cauldron at least (I only played it on my Zenith) was in the Tandy version you could have 3 sounds at once vs the PC speaker version. Honestly I've heard the two and kinda like the PC version better lol the Tandy one sounds too creepy.

 

[pearce_jj]

Supposedly compactflash cards support 8-bit data transfers so those could be used on the ones that do have the XT controller. I'm not entirely certain of that though....Any of them can use a hard drive though

The 8-bit transfer mode is 'optional' in the CF spec. Then again, so is the true-IDE mode in general, and all cards seem to support that.

For the 1000, might be worth keeping an eye on the power consumption, as most of them have VERY small PSU's.

 

[raifield]

According to the Technical Reference, the Tandy 1000SX has a 73w PSU. which surprised me. The desk lamp next to it is using a 100w bulb. I can only imagine the inferiority complex this gives the Tandy.