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Were there any ACTUAL AT class Tandy 1000's?

deathshadow

deathshadow

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This occurred to me in the magiduck thread, thought I'd come right out and ask.

It seems like every Tandy 1000 that had a 286 processor -- like the RLX -- only had 8 bit slots and lacked the second IRQ and DMA chips to be a true AT class machine; just like how they were limited to 384k of extended memory with zero capacity to go past that. (since you can't add protected mode extended memory via 8 bit slots). This made them "more XT" than the IBM XT/286.

The first unit I can find information on that even had 16 bit slots was the RSX, which had a 386SX-16 in it...

Were there any 286 based Tandy's that actually were AT's? If there were such machines, did they have the tandy sound at a different port, or is that unique to the RSX?

I'm really not familiar with the 2500 line for example, so I'd be interested to hear about those. Any information software-wise on detecting if that second DMA controller is present and if Tandy sound is present at a different port would be appreciated.

Whilst I'm starting to be glad that for Paku 2.0 and it's associated sound engine (that's going into three or four other games) I've allowed port overrides from the command line on all devices, I'd still like to have the best in autodetection if at all possible; and that means knowing more about all the various devices that had PCJr/Tandy/PS1 audio. I JUST got my PS/1 audio autodetecting properly (at least it works on one person's Model 2121 and in DOSBox) so now I want to take a deeper look at the later Tandy models that moved the base port.
 
It seemed to me that it took a long time for the AT platform to really catch on with most of the clone makers.
 
tipc said:
The answer to that question, not the posted one, is yes, the Tandy 3000HX. I think the 3000HL had 8-bit slots, but not positive.
Click to expand...

I was kind-of discounting those from the list since it was my understanding they lacked the "tandy/Jr" sound as they were targeted more at business... that and wasn't there an option for 640x400 on the VM-1 and CM-1 for them to make them have video capabilities like the highly incompatible 2000?

I suppose the more specific question would be, are there any 286's from Tandy that are truly AT class AND retain the tandy/PcJr sound capabilities. Again I'm not seeing any of that until the 1000 RSX.

The 3000, 4000 and 5000's all don't count for my question as they don't support Tandy/Jr sound... or graphics in many cases as they went EGA/VGA... most of which by that time I barely recognized as Tandy's as they may as well have been AST's...

Well, that and the front bezel design on most of them were about as attractive as an Edsel; same for most of the later 1000's like the entire "R" series. No, that's not a compliment. Pretty much from the SL onwards it was just... gah.

Some of those post 1986 designs I swear when the people behind them were sacked, they went to go work for Packard Hell.

Petty reason to hate a machine, fistful of fugly in bezel design but... I swear it was like across that entire period both Tandy and IBM were bound and determined to kill themselves off.
 
The Tandy 2500 line is comprised of proper "AT class" systems, all of which feature the SN76496+DAC-containing PSSJ chip at the 16-bit, 1E0 starting address.

  • 2500 XL (80286 @ 10 MHz)
  • 2500 XL/2 (80286 @ 16 MHz)
  • 2500 SX (80386SX @ 16 MHz)
  • 2500 SX/20 (80386SX @ 20 MHz)
  • 2500 SX/25 (80386SX @ 25 MHz)
  • 2500 SX/33 (80386SX @ 33 MHz)
  • 2500 RSX (80386SX @ 25 MHz)
The 1000 RSX shares the same motherboard as the 2500 RSX, and rightfully belongs to this line of systems, despite its marketing-decision, "1000" moniker.

The first-model Sensation! also features the PSSJ chip, and would be supported the same as the above, not that it would be necessarily worthwhile to do so...

I'll refer you to Jeffrey Hayes' "TSPAK181.ZIP" package for detection routines, else you might want to check out Frank Durda IV's, "PSSJ Digital Sound Toolkit."
 
deathshadow said:
I was kind-of discounting those from the list since it was my understanding they lacked the "tandy/Jr" sound as they were targeted more at business... that and wasn't there an option for 640x400 on the VM-1 and CM-1 for them to make them have video capabilities like the highly incompatible 2000?
Click to expand...

There were video boards that would drive a VM-1 or CM-1. AFAIK they were fully compatible, but whether or not they had all points addressable 640 x 400 color or monochrome video modes I'm not sure. What may have been the case, definitely w/other cards that output frequencies similar to the 2000s video system was that the CGA was double scanned. It was still CGA, would support virtually all CGA software, but the displayed graphics was contiguous, didn't have that gap between scan lines. Looked way better too. Which is why I steered away from the Tandy 1000 and vanilla pc's back in the day. The graphics were just horrible to me, by comparison to double scanned CGA or it's equivalents.
The AT & T 6300/Xerox 6040/Olivetti M24? had 640 x 400 graphics (and there were others, HP, Televideo, NCR), and was pretty compatible all around. A bunch of these incompatibles were largely incompatible because of the lack of CGA/MDA support.

And I even think there was an EGA card that drove the CM-1, which is weird. Unless I've received apocryphal information.
 
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The 1000RSX was the only AT-class member of the Tandy 1000 series. But the prior 1000RLX came pretty close; it has a 10 MHz 286, onboard VGA and a 1.44 MB floppy drive, and with 1 MB of RAM installed, it can load HIMEM.SYS (with the /PS2 switch) and Windows 3.1 in Standard mode... slowly. :) But it still only has an 8-bit ISA slot, an IDE-XT hard drive interface, and an XT keyboard interface, and still has the Tandy sound chip at its original port address.
 
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