Jump to content
IGNORED

I miss my Tandy 1000 EX


chicgamer

Recommended Posts

This forum makes me nostalgic for my family's very first computer. If you can't guess what that was from the thread title, it was a Tandy 1000 EX.

 

When he initially bought it, my dad told us it was for school work, and that we had consoles for playing video games. Of course, that didn't last. :) He ended up buying the memory upgrade to 640K (which was super expensive at the time) as well as an external 3.5" floppy drive.

 

The Tandy 1000 EX was where I first played the AD&D gold box games (even though the load times for battles, etc., were sooooooooo slow).I also remember playing Rampage and Bad Dudes and Ikari Warriors (actually beat it) and some Ninja game (was it just called Ninja?) on the Tandy 1000 EX.

 

My mom passed a few years ago, and I left the Tandy 1000 EX to be sold with a lot of other stuff neither I nor my siblings wanted. I didn't take it because I don't have a lot of extra space where I am now. Not my best decision.

 

Anyway, why am I sharing this? No clue. I guess it is just nostalgia. Anyone else have a similar situation? Did you end up buying another computer later on? I'm considering getting another someday, but . . . it won't be my childhood computer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still have my tandy 1000 tl. So many good games for it. I also got a few ex & hx because they work well on tv's and are all in one. I have a modern The cf card makes load times much faster. and easy to copy games from a zip file archive to play on the system. no need for floppies.

This forum makes me nostalgic for my family's very first computer. If you can't guess what that was from the thread title, it was a Tandy 1000 EX.

 

When he initially bought it, my dad told us it was for school work, and that we had consoles for playing video games. Of course, that didn't last. :) He ended up buying the memory upgrade to 640K (which was super expensive at the time) as well as an external 3.5" floppy drive.

 

The Tandy 1000 EX was where I first played the AD&D gold box games (even though the load times for battles, etc., were sooooooooo slow).I also remember playing Rampage and Bad Dudes and Ikari Warriors (actually beat it) and some Ninja game (was it just called Ninja?) on the Tandy 1000 EX.

 

My mom passed a few years ago, and I left the Tandy 1000 EX to be sold with a lot of other stuff neither I nor my siblings wanted. I didn't take it because I don't have a lot of extra space where I am now. Not my best decision.

 

Anyway, why am I sharing this? No clue. I guess it is just nostalgia. Anyone else have a similar situation? Did you end up buying another computer later on? I'm considering getting another someday, but . . . it won't be my childhood computer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still have my tandy 1000 tl. So many good games for it. I also got a few ex & hx because they work well on tv's and are all in one. I have a modern The cf card makes load times much faster. and easy to copy games from a zip file archive to play on the system. no need for floppies.

 

Oh, wow, I didn't realize there was an alternative to the old floppy drives for the Tandy 1000 computers. Now, I regret not taking the computer even more!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry to hear about your mom passing.

 

I have a couple similar experiences.

 

My very first computer was a TI 994/a when I was 9 years old. When I was older I sort of forgot about it and left it at my parents' house. Years later I learned it was moved to a storage trailer where it eventually was destroyed by the weather.

 

When I was 12, my mom bought me my second computer. A C64c. When I was 16, I sold that computer to a friend for $80. Always regretted that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I had a sl/2. It had ega 16 color monitor 3 channel sound not 2 like my friends tandy. Also 3.5 drive and a dot matrix printer where I used deskmate to write all my school reports.

We bought all the kings, space, heros, and police quests. We would use the 3.5 and my friend would use the 5.25 and call each other to share passwords to start the game every time.

Also had stellar 7, thexder, out of this world, and many others.

Later the newer games needed an internal hard drive to play.. So that was the end of it. We went coco2,tandy 1000 then a compaq win 95 computer(which was lame but really played the sierra games fast go right on the screen loads 3 rooms over and sir graham falls in a moat)

I still have all this at my parents house.

We even bought a modem which we used 3 times to write a message to a friends place(wow we were amazed at simple stuff then)

Those old sierra games were like crack and I spent every day playing them. Oh and leisure suit larry doing hoes and whatnot.

I remember pressing something and b was the boss key that brings up a graph. Great for moms coming into the room to not see that preverse game. If only it worked on my...nevermind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My sl2 had 16 colors. My friends 1000 had 4 color cga.

They did not have vga without a seperate card.

Thats how I remember it. My sound was better than my buddies as well as had 3 channel and another channel to do digital stuff.

It is still all at my parents under it's factory tandy dust covers. Games, printer, everything..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The SL had an additional DAC for sound but very few programs took advantage of it.

 

ALL 1000 series, including the very first model, had 3 voice sound.

ALL had TGA capability. TGA is not EGA or VGA. None were limited to only 4 colors.

 

http://support.radioshack.com/support_computer/doc1/1041.htm

 

My SL was Hercules compatible and had "enhanced" graphics of 16 colors in 640X200 vs. my EX @ 320X200...nice but not even close to EGA.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I responded to the wrong thread yes your right it was tga not ega.

I dont know what my buddy had but his had less colors on his 1000. Maybe it was his moniter? I dunno. His had the 5 1/4 drives no idea what model. At school we played space quest in red or amber monochrome.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...