Tandy 1000 TL/2

[Zippy Zapp]

Being a Commodore user in the 80's and the early 90's I didn't think much about the IBM PC and Clone market. The DOS computers of the time could not touch the sound and graphics of the C64 or Amiga. When it came to games there was just no comparison between ugly 4 color CGA games and the C64 with full 16 colors. Add in the SID chip and the PC beep speaker was just not a good sound solution in comparison. I know there is something to be said for what they were able to do with CGA and games like the Ultima series. Some people are nostalgic about it and that is understandable. I am not, though, because when I did get to use an IBM PC I was usually not impressed.

One thing I did appreciate at the time was that Radio Shack/Tandy were trying to better that by bringing out the best features of the PCjr to the clone market. Until EGA came around, Tandy graphics and sound were the king in the DOS PC gaming market. Well, when the developer decided to actually use the extra Tandy modes in their games. Thankfully quite a few did. And some of those early games that were not available on the C64 are a great match for the Tandy 1000 line.

I recently picked up a Tandy 1000 TL/2 for cheap and when I finally got it and hooked it up to my 1084 I was happy that everything still worked, including the XT-IDE WD 20MB Hard Drive that amazingly still has the original software and DOS installed. (V3.30). The seller said it was in good condition but they didn't get around to getting a monitor to work with it so I couldn't actually verify it was working.

Tandy 1000 TL/2 from 1989

The Monitor AKA Check PIN 7 of the RGB Cable

1084 monitors are a good match for CGA/TGA level graphics as the 1084 usually has a switch to allow for RGBI, which was used in the C128 computer. Tandy Graphics use the same CGA monitors they just allow for more colors on the screen at the same time. When I first turned on the system I was greeted by corrupted graphics. The system booted into DeskMate, Tandy's GUI from those days.

Corrupted display, Deskmate.

I hoped I didn't purchase yet another project computer. So I tried some simple things and checked the system board and other things out. This system is pretty close to mint. Even the mainboard had no dust so I was surprised it didn't work. I posted on the VCFED Tandy forum with a shot of the display hoping that someone who knew Tandy would recognize and where to start looking. There are almost no technical manuals for this model T1000 that I could find. To me it looked like a sync problem but I was not sure. Thankfully some nice person said to check to see if PIN 7 was connected on my RGB cable. I checked my cable and indeed it was. Tandy and Commodore both used this pin as the monochrome graphics pin. The TL/2 uses TTL monochrome, while Commodore used this as a composite monochrome on the C128. According to the 1084 manual Pin 7 is Not Connected when in Digital RGB mode and this is composite Sync when in Analog RGB mode. They are wrong as clearly the TTL monochrome signal was screwing up the sync. Once I clipped pin 7 from my cable everything was perfect. The monitor cables you can get on eBay for the 1084 and other CGA monitors usually have all wires straight through. Pin 7 was not used on the original CGA spec so it really shouldn't be connected. Some monitors will ignore this but my 1084-D does not.

The Keyboard

101 Key Tandy 1000 Enhanced Keyboard

This unit actually included the original keyboard, which was great to see. It too was in perfect minty condition. It didn't look like the original owner used it much. I was happy to see that the computer and the keyboard were not yellow at all, except for the 360k floppy drive. The keyboard is heavy and mechanical, although I have not pulled off a key so I do not know which key switches they used. I would guess Alps. It is great to type on. It is an XT class keyboard so it can't be used on a modern computer without an adapter. Actually, I have read that the enhanced keyboard should be able to automatically switch to AT mode. I won't be testing that out.

About the Computer and Upgrades

The TL/2, like most of the Tandy 1000 line is an XT class computer. So that means only 8-bit slots and not full compatibility with the AT standard that lives on to this day. The IDE controller on the board is an XT-IDE and even though it uses the same cable it is not the same IDE that most people know. It only works with a 20MB and a 40MB drive. They called the drives "SmartDrive". Mine is the WD 20MB. To use modern storage, Texelec sells the XT-IDE adapters so you can use a regular IDE drive or a SD/CF card adapter. Texelec also makes a 2MB EMS memory expansion that will give some programs more memory. By default the computer includes 640k memory. There is four empty sockets for 4 4464 DRAMs that will bring it up to 768K. That extra memory is only used by the graphics subsystem. The system came with an 80286 CPU running at 8 Mhz and only in real mode. This means that it basically has the same abilities as the original 8088/8086 only faster. In real mode the CPU can not user extended memory so no UMbs. EMS was a workaround developed by lotus and some other companies that banks out RAM in 16K chunks. So to me it seems more like a 1764 REU than a true RAM expansion. Some programs utilized this so it is a good upgrade to have. I also have a Parallel port card coming that supports EPP so that I can plug in my Zip 100 parallel drive. Mainly for transfer but I would also like to image the HD.

The TL/2 and other Tandy systems had DOS installed in ROM so you can boot even without a working floppy or HD. I used the setup program to change it to disk so I can run a later DOS then the 3.30 that is in ROM.

The system also came with a 720K 3.5" floppy from the factory and an option for a Tandy 360K floppy, which is installed in my unit. Tandy used specially modified PC drives that get power from the ribbon cable. So if your drive fails you can't use any old PC drive without first modifying the cable or creating an adapter. Not a big deal though really. One nice feature is the ability to switch the speed to 4.77Mhz for really old games and programs. I added a parallel port because Tandy on this and many other models took a page from Commodores cheapness and decided to make the Parallel port an edge connector, similar to what Commodore did with the PET IEEE port. So you need an adapter or special cable to plug it into a printer. I can create my own but since I want a ZIP to work with this I decided to buy a cheap 8-bit Parallel board.

Beyond old games that I do have, and some old software that works best on this class of PC I am not sure what else I will use it for. Included with my system was all the original manuals, documents, system disks and even a sealed copy of Lotus 123 for Deskmate. I am happy to have it as it is something I used to see frequently and mess around with when I was young at Radio Shack stores. Tandy, my Gateway 2000 486 and IBM Aptiva Pentium 90 are some of my favorite PC type computers.

Well I hope I didn't bore you too much but these pieces of history are interesting to me and I hope you find old systems other then Amiga and Commodore fun too.

Any Tandy owners here? Also if you have any recommendations for imaging the HD, please do share as these old drives are not ideal to work with.

[BloodyCactus]

I have a 1000SX with original keyboard, I just got a PS2 to Tandy Kyb adapter because the original keyboard layout is a pain in the nonstandard backside!

I also added some time back a new clock adapter.

I do run my C128 adapter that converts to vga.

[intric8]

I absolutely loved reading this. Thanks for writing that up; I learned a lot today.

[BloodyCactus]

I did writer a .SYS driver that does nothing but let you choose how much graphics memory the tandy subsystem uses. So... normally the system uses 16kb ram, some games use 32kb... but if you dont size memory right at the start, you cant dynamically resize ram!

and i wrote a tool that adds all that extra baseram into the MCB chain so it can be used, because the graphic ram is fixed address, and ram above it is often not in the chain, this lets you add blocks in rom pockets to the system. (my network card in my 1000sx has 8kb ram block, that if the card is not in use, you can add to the system etc)

here is two zips of my tandy files

https://bloodycactus.com/files/tandy1k.zip
https://bloodycactus.com/files/tandyram.zip

may or may not work for you, because it checks for a "proper" tandy machine and I dont think the TL/2 is classed as a pcjr clone like the 1000/1000sx/1000tx are.

thinking.. yeah probably wont work as Tandy Video II is not the same as Tandy Video (pcjr). buuut maybe? i dunno. never ran into a tl/2 to test

[Zippy Zapp]

@intric8,
Thanks so much!

@BloodyCactus,

That's cool, I will check it out. You are probably right about it not working since it is Tandy Video II. I do know that I still need to add the extra RAM. I have a bunch of those DIPs as extras for my C64 build that uses 2 4464 DRAMs. So I will get those installed. I do know that running SETUPTL2 /A gives you access to a bunch of advanced stuff including how much video RAM to allocate from 16KB to 128KB. Not sure why 128KB because if I did my math correctly only the 640x200x16, which is one of the modes added to the TGA2, can use at max 64KB. I guess since the 128KB addon RAM is dedicated to video RAM it makes sense.

These are neat little computers and I am having fun using it but looking back at where the Amiga was at this time as it was so far ahead of anything else. Even AmigaDOS was light years better than anything in the IBM DOS universe. It is a shame more people didn't experience the Amiga. I think DOS users would have been amazed at what AmigaDOS could do, even without the Workbench.

[fastrobplus]

I also enjoyed reading the comprehensive write-up about your Tandy TL.

A friend of mine recently gifted me a TL1 so I could install a Diamond Trackstar 128 Apple IIe on a card. This one has no HDD and a broken power button but everything else was good. I fabricated a new power button (which is similar to the Amiga 3000's funny power button on a stick)
My friend also upgraded the video memory and I bought Star Trek 25th Anniversary and Planet X3 to test the Tandy II graphic modes. Have not actually tried this yet.
The Apple card works though I discovered that the floppy can only read the front of a disk. If you flip the disk over, there's no timing hole and apparently this Teac drive requires it to be present to read anything. I worked around this by buying an awl and punching a second timing hole in each Apple II disk.

[Zippy Zapp]

Oh wow. I think that Apple II card is pretty rare. Yeah, most PC drives can't spin the disk if there is no index hole. Some can be disabled but I think Teac and Newtronics later models can't. They did sell some disks that were universal that had index holes on both sides. I have quite a few from BASF as they were sold here as DSDD Universal.

[EzdineG]

Thanks for sharing! Interesting bit about the 1084-D!

[Zippy Zapp]

What was the price? I can't find it in the OP post. I bought my Tandy 1000 TL/2 for $400 (plus $35 for installation & operation guide.)

IIRC, it was $150. I think with shipping it was close to $200. It was probably lower then going rate as it was essentially untested.