Tandy Sensation

[buttertweet]

Thought I'd start a thread for the greatest PC in the history of PC's I remember first seeing it in my college years...I walked into the local Radio Shack, saw the magical multimedia machine, and was spellbound. It was playing this buy-me-hug-me-take-me-home demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PwQTvnq_UY

It sure had me drooling, but it's hard to save up $2000 when you make $6 an hour sorting dishes in the dorm cafeteria. I sighed and went back to my pathetic 286, with Windows 3.0 and monochrome VGA.

 

My college years came and went, and despite upgrading to the venerable AMD 386-40, I never really stopped thinking about the ol' Tandy Sensation. The specs are laughable now:

- 486/25 with disabled co-processor and 4MB RAM

- 107MB hard drive (2/3 pre-filled with junk)

- 2400 baud modem with 4800 (!) send fax

- the "16 million color" promise that turned out to be a sham. The video chip might have 16.7M capability in theory, but the actual palette is only 262,144, and you can only see 256 at a time. Ah, advertising.

- 375ms CD-ROM and 12-bit (!!) sound card

By the time I found a real paying job, the TS had long sailed off into the sunset, and I had to settle for a Packard Heck, with Megarace and the SI sports almanac (including a photo-less version of the fabulous swimsuit issue!) It just wasn't the same.

 

Fast forward not a small amount of years, and zing, I'm finally able to score a couple of original Sensation CD's, fluff a few pillows in Dosbox, and test drive it at long last. It's sensational awesome! True, maybe it would have been more wow-inducing back in the day, but it really is enjoyable. There are tons of demos on the CD's, including the original store demo, and a nice little presentation on the world of multimedia. My old Packard had the edge on gaming (it came bundled with a few Microsoft entertainment pack titles, a nice touch) but the Tandy wins on pure charm and charisma. The text-to-speech program is fun to fool around with, and I've even used the unit converters to translate pounds into kilos, and Fahrenheits into Celsiususieses. I can see myself playing with all the goodies for years to come. Oh, and as for the colors...thanks to modern-day technology, it's finally a reality:

 

 

What can I say? Sensation begins...where ordinary PC's stop!

[Clint Thompson]

I lusted for this computer for many years and unlike you, I didn't have a real computer at the time, unless the TRS-80 Model 3/4 counts so truth be told, I would have been happy with a pathetic 286 that thankfully I had access to through a friend. I think we managed to get Jill of the Jungle to run on that and some of the SSI games if memory serves me correctly.

 

Anyways, we had a Radio Shack just down the street and while I don't recall seeing one in person there, my art teacher managed to get the school to buy him one - fully loaded. Pretty certain it came with a Mozart CD because he was playing that on the system with the included mini amplified speaker deck that sits just in-between the monitor and computer when walking into class one day. He was glowing with joy and I was envious! Want to say this was also the one with the TV card so truly an all-around multimedia computer that would have fit me well at the time, considering the TV I had was really old and even black and white at the time. Not complaining, I was just a kid really, I was lucky to have anything. Imagine my heart knowing kids today having 40" LCD TVs or iPhones with unlimited access to TV shows and YouTube.

 

Have been looking out for one for years... one on eBay for I think $300 quite a while back and now gone but something was wrong with it (as in, it didn't meet my criteria for spending so much money on antiqued computer goodness) so I passed. I suppose it wouldn't serve much purpose really anyways these days but could certainly fill a little nostalgic gap when the crave arises for that era of PC gaming.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Clint Thompson

[rorysl]

My family's first computer was a Tandy 1000TX and I loved that little machine. I can remember seeing ads for the Tandy Sensation and seemed like such an incredible multimedia PC. I'll have to take a look for those CD's and give them a test drive myself.

 

And I can remember that ad campaign as well. If kids had cash, the Tandy Sensation probably would have sold like hotcakes.

[butterburp]

I see our friend Clint has already found this: a sales training video for the Sensation, starring Mike and Mike. Note the aroma of old late-night infomercials...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZIF2mw6fK4

 

Classic quote at 10:45: "Now look, how can I get a text message over a telephone?"

 

By the way, almost a year later, my old Athlon XP machine is STILL essentially a Sensation emulator, with an old 15-inch 4x3 monitor, and Dosbox set at roughly 486/25 speed. Three cheers for Jill of the Jungle.

 

I do want to correct one mistake I made in my original post: the original Tandy palette card is indeed capable of 16 million colors, if upgraded to 1MB VRAM. It's basically a Diamond Speedstar with a Western Digital chip, one of the few ISA cards capable of that color depth. But it really taxes the RAM, if my Dosbox escapades are any measure of reality. Caesars Palace for Windows, which only needs 4MB RAM in 256 colors, requires 12MB when using true color. Ouch.

Edited June 5, 2017 by butterburp

[ChevyNovaLN]

I just thought i'd pop in here (first post, just because i saw this topic) and say hi. I am an original owner of a Tandy Sensation (Model 1 / 25-1650) that i bought when i was 12/13 years old with paper route money. And @rorysl is correct about 'if kids had cash', because i saw it at Radio Shack and i had to have it. And.... I still do. In 2013 i powered it up for the first time in over 10 years and it was dead (motherboard issue). I got lucky and found a spare board for it on Ebay so i swapped it out and made it all work again. One drawback, the replacement board's Joystick port seems to be dead.

 

Fast forward to literally last week... I have it all set up. I only held onto the computer itself over the years. The monitor, speaker system, keyboard, and Deskjet 500C are long gone. However, i've been Ebaying a lot and i now have the MMS-10 speaker system (slightly yellowed), Tandy Enhanced Keyboard (AT with PS/2 Adapter), an old PS/2 Microsoft mouse (no scroll wheel), and have upgraded the system beyond it's original specs.

 

I now have a Sound Blaster 16 Pro ISA card (model 2910) with GamePort disabled (conflicts with the dead one apparently). I had to change the jumpers to not conflict with the onboard Adlib stuff that you cannot disable, but i found a combo that works.

48mb of RAM (book and any info i can find says maximum of 32mb, but that's likely because nothing larger than 8mb sticks existed when built)

250mb hdd (upgraded the 107mb drive that is long gone)

24X CD-Rom is installed currently, but only because i lost the proprietary LMS cable for the single speed drive. I have one on the way, but i may just leave that out.

I have the additional 512k (4 chips) of VRAM on the way so i can get that 1MB of VRAM i've been wanting for almost 25 years.

I have a slightly newer Packard Bell SVGA monitor with the speakers on the side. It's the only oldschool monitor i have left that's the appropriate size.

Evergreen Technologies Overdrive Processor. In theory i guess it's an AMD 100mhz overdrive cpu, it seemed to run Windows 98SE sort of ok. It's now running the factory image of DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1

 

Anywho, I also bought a very clean looking used Sensation on Ebay for spare parts and it'll be here Thursday. I'm hoping it's gameport works as i'll be able to swap that board with mine and have a fully working system.

That's all,

Thanks for reading!

Brian

[TimsterAA]

Resurrecting an ancient thread (sorry - LOL), but I just pulled my Tandy Sensation out of the closet that I bought new back in '93 and gave it the ol' college try tonight. I didn't get very far however because the hard drive is no longer recognized (I'm guessing that gave up the ghost years ago), and I don't have any DOS 3.5" disks. Other than that, it did boot, passed the RAM test (12MB), and the floppy and CD drives lights did flash.

 

Not having used a DOS machine in a couple decades, I'm hoping someone smart out here can help me. I'm sure the prospect of trying to obtain a real replacement HD may be impossible, definitely futile at best. What interface does this HD use? I'm wondering if perhaps I could get an adapter and use a CF card or something similar instead. Next, would anyone out there have any working 3.5" floppies they could put DOS on and sell me? LOL   All I see on flea-bay are disk sets going for $20-$50 and none are known to even be readable.

 

I actually still have the Sensation system, data, and one other CD that came with the system, but I couldn't figure out how to make it boot from the CD (if that's even possible).

 

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give. Would love to get this old machine (my FIRST IBM-compatible PC) back up and running after almost 30 years. Maybe even play some Duke Nukem 3D on it!

 

[ChevyNovaLN]

2 hours ago, TimsterAA said:

Resurrecting an ancient thread (sorry - LOL), but I just pulled my Tandy Sensation out of the closet that I bought new back in '93 and gave it the ol' college try tonight. I didn't get very far however because the hard drive is no longer recognized (I'm guessing that gave up the ghost years ago), and I don't have any DOS 3.5" disks. Other than that, it did boot, passed the RAM test (12MB), and the floppy and CD drives lights did flash.

 

Not having used a DOS machine in a couple decades, I'm hoping someone smart out here can help me. I'm sure the prospect of trying to obtain a real replacement HD may be impossible, definitely futile at best. What interface does this HD use? I'm wondering if perhaps I could get an adapter and use a CF card or something similar instead. Next, would anyone out there have any working 3.5" floppies they could put DOS on and sell me? LOL   All I see on flea-bay are disk sets going for $20-$50 and none are known to even be readable.

 

I actually still have the Sensation system, data, and one other CD that came with the system, but I couldn't figure out how to make it boot from the CD (if that's even possible).

 

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give. Would love to get this old machine (my FIRST IBM-compatible PC) back up and running after almost 30 years. Maybe even play some Duke Nukem 3D on it!

 

Well, you’re in luck.  I’m just that kind of nerd that keeps up with this stuff.  In fact, no kidding, after 20 years of looking for one.... I finally found a copy (corrupted) of the original “Tandy Startup” floppy disk used in combination with the System/Data CDs to restore the computer back to factory hard drive contents.   That exact disk isn’t necessary, but just glad to have finally found it and was able to make an image of it for safe keeping.

 

I’ll respond again later with more info for you, @TimsterAA, but in general yes I can make you a copy of that disk.  But I need to know one thing.   Do your Data and System discs have a 1.3 labeled next to “Data Disc” or “System Disc” ?  Or do they just say the words?    If they say “1.3” on them, this particular floppy disk won’t help and I can send a different one. 
 

As for the hard drive, it might still work and maybe just lost its config.  When first turning the computer on, while the memory is being checked, tap F2 a few times.  See if the hard drive is even configured (bottom left of setup screen).  If not, set it to Auto and try again.   If not, I can’t recommend a “Disk On Module” enough.  The hard drive is IDE, and the DOM (I can send you one too) is basically just like a CF card only it has the IDE interface built right in.  I’ve used and have several 512mb spares. 
 

anywho.  Sending this from my phone, in bed, at 3am. Haha

 

let me know about the CDs and I’m happy to help diagnose/resurrect it. ?

 

Brian

[TimsterAA]

Dude - you are my hero!!! Thank you so much - I set the C drive to auto, rebooted and voila - it booted into Win95!!! ???

 

Then I placed an order with Amazon for a PS2-to-USB adapter because I don’t have a compatible mouse. ?

 

I have the keyboard, and was able to look around a little bit but full investigation will start tomorrow once the adapter arrives. 
 

I can’t thank you enough - I’m ecstatic it turned out to be something this easy. That being said, I definitely would like to work with you on creating a stable go-forward system that’s not reliant on a 28 year old HD. LOL

 

I don’t know if I’ll need the startup floppy, but I’d definitely like to pursue the DOM you talked about. Also, my CDs are version 1.2. Well, I have System and Data discs that are unnumbered, and an extra data disc that’s 1.2. 
 

Let me see how it looks after I get into it more tomorrow, then I’ll reach out to you for further steps.

 

Thanks again and talk to you soon. 

[ChevyNovaLN]

@TimsterAA,

 

Just figured i'd follow up and see how you're making out with the Sensation.

 

Regardless, since it does appear to be a long-lived eBay auction for the DOM's,  I figured i'd post a link (hopefully allowed).   I list two different sizes below, but the Hyperdisk ones are what i've been using as a 512mb of a 1GB Hard Drive replacement for the original 106.9mb IDE drive.

 

1GB:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/253366643514

 

512mb:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/263434915175

 

Note:   When using those Disk On Module devices,  you do need to do two things.

1. Remove the original hard drive so it's not in the way.

2. Use the short little Extension IDE Gender changer cable so the DOM can lay down instead of sticking straight up out of the IDE port on your Tandy.  It'll hit the tray holding the CD-ROM otherwise.   One end goes into your original IDE cable,  the other end goes to the DOM:   https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G0174IO/

 

Brian

 

Edited June 21, 2021 by ChevyNovaLN
tagging TimsterAA

[Frozone212]

On 7/11/2016 at 9:04 PM, buttertweet said:

Thought I'd start a thread for the greatest PC in the history of PC's I remember first seeing it in my college years...I walked into the local Radio Shack, saw the magical multimedia machine, and was spellbound. It was playing this buy-me-hug-me-take-me-home demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PwQTvnq_UY

It sure had me drooling, but it's hard to save up $2000 when you make $6 an hour sorting dishes in the dorm cafeteria. I sighed and went back to my pathetic 286, with Windows 3.0 and monochrome VGA.

 

My college years came and went, and despite upgrading to the venerable AMD 386-40, I never really stopped thinking about the ol' Tandy Sensation. The specs are laughable now:

- 486/25 with disabled co-processor and 4MB RAM

- 107MB hard drive (2/3 pre-filled with junk)

- 2400 baud modem with 4800 (!) send fax

- the "16 million color" promise that turned out to be a sham. The video chip might have 16.7M capability in theory, but the actual palette is only 262,144, and you can only see 256 at a time. Ah, advertising.

- 375ms CD-ROM and 12-bit (!!) sound card

By the time I found a real paying job, the TS had long sailed off into the sunset, and I had to settle for a Packard Heck, with Megarace and the SI sports almanac (including a photo-less version of the fabulous swimsuit issue!) It just wasn't the same.

 

Fast forward not a small amount of years, and zing, I'm finally able to score a couple of original Sensation CD's, fluff a few pillows in Dosbox, and test drive it at long last. It's sensational awesome! True, maybe it would have been more wow-inducing back in the day, but it really is enjoyable. There are tons of demos on the CD's, including the original store demo, and a nice little presentation on the world of multimedia. My old Packard had the edge on gaming (it came bundled with a few Microsoft entertainment pack titles, a nice touch) but the Tandy wins on pure charm and charisma. The text-to-speech program is fun to fool around with, and I've even used the unit converters to translate pounds into kilos, and Fahrenheits into Celsiususieses. I can see myself playing with all the goodies for years to come. Oh, and as for the colors...thanks to modern-day technology, it's finally a reality:

 

 

What can I say? Sensation begins...where ordinary PC's stop!

16M color promise? Link please

[ChevyNovaLN]

7 hours ago, Frozone212 said:

16M color promise? Link please

 

It's quite well known that they promised 16M colors on the Tandy Sensation.   Heck,  even just after the 1 minute mark of this video states it.... and the informative video on the computer itself (shown at 3 minute mark) even states it haha.

 

 

Brian

 

 

[Mr.Tibb]

On 7/12/2016 at 5:59 AM, Clint Thompson said:

I lusted for this computer for many years and unlike you, I didn't have a real computer at the time, unless the TRS-80 Model 3/4 counts so truth be told, I would have been happy with a pathetic 286 that thankfully I had access to through a friend. I think we managed to get Jill of the Jungle to run on that and some of the SSI games if memory serves me correctly.

 

Anyways, we had a Radio Shack just down the street and while I don't recall seeing one in person there, my art teacher managed to get the school to buy him one - fully loaded. Pretty certain it came with a Mozart CD because he was playing that on the system with the included mini amplified speaker deck that sits just in-between the monitor and computer when walking into class one day. He was glowing with joy and I was envious! Want to say this was also the one with the TV card so truly an all-around multimedia computer that would have fit me well at the time, considering the TV I had was really old and even black and white at the time. Not complaining, I was just a kid really, I was lucky to have anything. Imagine my heart knowing kids today having 40" LCD TVs or iPhones with unlimited access to TV shows and YouTube.

 

Have been looking out for one for years... one on eBay for I think $300 quite a while back and now gone but something was wrong with it (as in, it didn't meet my criteria for spending so much money on antiqued computer goodness) so I passed. I suppose it wouldn't serve much purpose really anyways these days but could certainly fill a little nostalgic gap when the crave arises for that era of PC gaming.

You'd be doing very well to find one for under $1000.00 on eBay, these days...

[+acadiel]

Resurrecting this thread... just got a Sensation I.  I'm looking for the boot disks and restore CDs - I only see the Sensation II ones on Archive.org.  Anyone have them?

 

[ChevyNovaLN]

1 hour ago, acadiel said:

Resurrecting this thread... just got a Sensation I.  I'm looking for the boot disks and restore CDs - I only see the Sensation II ones on Archive.org.  Anyone have them?

 

I swear they used to be available,  but since they are not I will see about getting them uploaded for you.

 

Tell me what's more important to you.    Literally the originally provided CDs (Version 1.1 or 1.2,  not sure.. they don't have a number), which can be used with the recently recovered (looked for 20 years) Floppy Boot disk to reload everything,  but it used DOS 5.0.      Or,  a completely custom bootdisk running DOS 6.0,  and the associated Data Disc and System Disc version 1.3   (to my knowledge there never was a floppy boot disk for recovering the 1.3 version with DOS 6.0 as the base).

 

I have all CDs that came with it brand new,  as well as the 1.3 versions of the Data/System discs.    You just can't use that original floppy disk to restore from the 1.3 CDs as they contain DOS 6.0 files and not 5.0 like the floppy requires.

 

Also,  don't hold out.   Where's the pictures of your new setup ?

 

Brian / ChevyNovaLN

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by ChevyNovaLN

[+acadiel]

Quote

 

11 minutes ago, ChevyNovaLN said:

I swear they used to be available,  but since they are not I will see about getting them uploaded for you.

 

Tell me what's more important to you.    Literally the originally provided CDs (Version 1.1 or 1.2,  not sure.. they don't have a number), which can be used with the recently recovered (looked for 20 years) Floppy Boot disk to reload everything,  but it used DOS 5.0.      Or,  a completely custom bootdisk running DOS 6.0,  and the associated Data Disc and System Disc version 1.3   (to my knowledge there never was a floppy boot disk for recovering the 1.3 version with DOS 6.0 as the base).

 

I have all CDs that came with it brand new,  as well as the 1.3 versions of the Data/System discs.    You just can't use that original floppy disk to restore from the 1.3 CDs as they contain DOS 6.0 files and not 5.0 like the floppy requires.

 

Also,  don't hold out.   Where's the pictures of your new setup ?

 

Brian / ChevyNovaLN

 

Thanks!  I think we could likely use all of this on archive.org if you're willing to upload it all on there.  We only have the Sensation II CDs, and I think that since the originals that were out there have disappeared, archive.org might be a better solution to ensure they stick around longer.

 

I just got it in yesterday - It arrived very badly packed, and very dirty.  I've started cleaning the outer case on it, and have a small 6" crack that I need to glue, as well as one of the top case posts that needs to be epoxy'd back on.  I then need to blow out and clean the inside before I attempt to power it up.  It's a very plain unit - one RAM stick, the original 1X CDROM, and I haven't checked to see if the original 100MB HDD is under the CD yet.  The overdrive socket is empty, and I could stand to add more RAM to it if it works, as well as giving it a new HDD.  (I have a bunch of old 2.5" drives that are period correct that might work from a Computer Reset trip.)

 

[ChevyNovaLN]

2 minutes ago, acadiel said:

Thanks!  I think we could likely use all of this on archive.org if you're willing to upload it all on there.  We only have the Sensation II CDs, and I think that since the originals that were out there have disappeared, archive.org might be a better solution to ensure they stick around longer.

 

I just got it in yesterday - It arrived very badly packed, and very dirty.  I've started cleaning the outer case on it, and have a small 6" crack that I need to glue, as well as one of the top case posts that needs to be epoxy'd back on.  I then need to blow out and clean the inside before I attempt to power it up.  It's a very plain unit - one RAM stick, the original 1X CDROM, and I haven't checked to see if the original 100MB HDD is under the CD yet.  The overdrive socket is empty, and I could stand to add more RAM to it if it works, as well as giving it a new HDD.  (I have a bunch of old 2.5" drives that are period correct that might work from a Computer Reset trip.)

 

Very cool.   And yikes on that packaging!     

 

I dug around for a bit and after modifying a URL from TandySensationII to just TandySensationI it worked and here they are.    Just not found easily:    https://archive.org/download/TandySensationI

Note:  That does not have the floppy disk image I need to make,  and the system disc there is an ISO which is likely functional but technically incorrect.  The System disc has audio tracks too and is not just data so ISO files aren't right,  usually needs to be a .bin/.cue file set instead.

 

I'm not sure if i can add to that archive or not,  never done it before, but the System/Data disc images linked there look to be the earlier version that WILL work with the floppy image i have.   I think i can attach that here for quickly obtaining it while i try to figure out how to upload to Archive.org if you want.

 

if you know how i can inject newer/updated files in that archive, let me know, or i can create a new one if that's how that works.   I just created an account there.

 

 

Tandy Sensation Startup Disk.IMA

[+acadiel]

5 minutes ago, ChevyNovaLN said:

 

Very cool.   And yikes on that packaging!     

 

I dug around for a bit and after modifying a URL from TandySensationII to just TandySensationI it worked and here they are.    Just not found easily:    https://archive.org/download/TandySensationI

Note:  That does not have the floppy disk image I need to make,  and the system disc there is an ISO which is likely functional but technically incorrect.  The System disc has audio tracks too and is not just data so ISO files aren't right,  usually needs to be a .bin/.cue file set instead.

 

I'm not sure if i can add to that archive or not,  never done it before, but the System/Data disc images linked there look to be the earlier version that WILL work with the floppy image i have.   I think i can attach that here for quickly obtaining it while i try to figure out how to upload to Archive.org if you want.

 

if you know how i can inject newer/updated files in that archive, let me know, or i can create a new one if that's how that works.   I just created an account there.

 

 

Tandy Sensation Startup Disk.IMA 1.41 MB · 0 downloads

I can't inject newer files into that archive - but if you create .bin/.cue files and the 1.3 patched ISO - and throw them somewhere where I can get to them, I can definitely create a group for the Sensation I under my account that has everything including the floppy image.  I can respin that archive and make a known good one with all the best of everything and make it a little more visible.

 

On another topic, I've been buying an uploading Toshiba laptop recovery CDs too like crazy, as they're getting really hard to find.

 

[ChevyNovaLN]

1 minute ago, acadiel said:

I can't inject newer files into that archive - but if you create .bin/.cue files and the 1.3 patched ISO - and throw them somewhere where I can get to them, I can definitely create a group for the Sensation I under my account that has everything including the floppy image.  I can respin that archive and make a known good one with all the best of everything and make it a little more visible.

 

On another topic, I've been buying an uploading Toshiba laptop recovery CDs too like crazy and uploading them, as they're getting really hard to find.

 

I will create new ISOs (for Data discs) and new .bin/.cue files for the System Discs  (original and v1.3),  and upload them to dropbox and i'll PM you the link.      I need to create a floppy disk for using DOS 6.0, i just never got around to it but i can do that 'soon'.    It's nothing more than simply using any DOS 6.0 bootdisk,  adding the Tandy CD-Rom drivers to it,  and the user would have to do the rest.      fdisk/format the HDD,  run (  sys a: c:) to transfer the system,  and then run the 1.bat from the CD-Rom which will copy Everything back over top of the HDD and it'll be like new again.     So basically a DOS 6.0 bootdisk with proper drivers,  and some instructions.

 

Brian

[+acadiel]

Looking at getting RAM for my Sensation and the Video RAM upgrade.  What do I need to be buying (pin #s, part #s, etc)?  I  know it's likely fast page 30 or 72 pin SIMMs - but does it want single side or double sided?

 

Thanks!

 

[ChevyNovaLN]

1 hour ago, acadiel said:

Looking at getting RAM for my Sensation and the Video RAM upgrade.  What do I need to be buying (pin #s, part #s, etc)?  I  know it's likely fast page 30 or 72 pin SIMMs - but does it want single side or double sided?

 

Thanks!

 

I've purchased various 72pin 16mb FPM non-EDO simms from OEMPCworld in the past. You really can have 64mb total in a Sensation I,  even though the book says up to 32mb.   16mb sticks didn't exist back in 1993 so the book wouldn't state it. 

 

They only appear to have 2 of these and their inventory changes often.

https://www.oempcworld.com/OEMPCworld-com/040202.html

 

Ebay has a matched set at the moment.    Basically 72 pin FPM 16mb Non-EDO Simms (usually around 60ns).  Obviously you can get smaller sizes,  but if spending money may as well just max it out

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144112236036?hash=item218dc23604:g:wrQAAOSwaYBg7bTp

 

These video memory chips should work.

The chips i bought a few years ago were model M5M44256BP  (20 pin DRAM  DIP).  Back in 2019 I paid $16 for 8 of them on Ebay, but having trouble finding a decent price now. 

 

the '- 8' in the print on the chips i think signifies 80ns.   Mine have a '- 7' on them and they are 70ns.  Not sure it honestly matters. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/193019695502

 

Can buy the exact same ones i have from China via eBay, just gotta wait a bit... and purchase 5 of them for $10 ($15 total w/shipping)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/323861343006?hash=item4b67a3eb1e:g:ciMAAOSwEAtdMEhr

 

 

 

Brian

 

 

  

Edited February 13, 2022 by ChevyNovaLN
updated Video memory section

[+acadiel]

The system is up and running with a picoPSU now!

 

Waiting for the system RAM and Video RAM to come in, as well as the disk on module and male-male cable for it.  I also ordered the replacement motherboard/modem combo from eBay - will be using the modem and reselling the motherboard.

 

[+acadiel]

Well, the original CD drive in mine doesn't even spin the disk.  The light comes on, but nada.  So, going to put an IDE one on there.  Did you say you had a modified start up disk, @ChevyNovaLN?

[ChevyNovaLN]

5 minutes ago, acadiel said:

Well, the original CD drive in mine doesn't even spin the disk.  The light comes on, but nada.  So, going to put an IDE one on there.  Did you say you had a modified start up disk, @ChevyNovaLN?

I am working on making a good startup disk that will work seamlessly for someone if they use the updated 1.3 CDs that use DOS 6.0.    The problem with DOS 5.0 is the fact that you can't have a 'menu' to choose options,   but with 6.0 you can.   So i have made a new startup disk that basically asks you if you are using the Tandy CD-Rom,  or an IDE Cd-Rom,  and it loads the appropriate driver before launching MSCDEX to assign a drive letter.

 

The only thing i have left to do,  is likely make a copy of the batch files contained on the CD-Rom that you'd run to reload the hard drive.... and have a modified copy of the config.sys,  autoexec.bat, and the IDE CD.sys file that would be copied over the ones on the hard drive AFTER the CD-Rom file copy takes place.  because otherwise at initial startup of Windows 3.1, it'll still try to load drivers for the Tandy drive and you won't get past the startup stuff  (e.g. have you used a mouse before,  audio tests, etc...)

 

I can send you a copy as-is if you just want to get it going using the 1.3 CD's  (can upload the almost complete version to dropbox),  and can tell you what to do after you copy the data... but before you reboot so you're not stuck.

 

It basically entails commenting out or deleting a line or two from the c:\autoexec.bat and c:\config.sys  (or just modifying them), copying the new SYS file to c:\bin\, and then rebooting. 

 

Brian

 

[Beaugus]

I don't know if anyone will read this. How do I free the power supply in my Tandy Sensation. I hope it is just a broken on/off switch. The power supply seems connected in the back of the box but I don't see a screw.

 

I have used the Sensation since it was new, mostly to play Master of Magic. It sat in same place so long that the feet fused to the desk and I had to use a pry bar to move it.

 

Original i486 X 25 MHx but CPU was replaced. Single speed CD-ROM. Original keyboard. I added a second hard drive; I remember taping or gluing it to something since there was no space for it. Tandy VGM-340 Monitor. Using PS/2 mouse with scroll wheel but only two buttons work.

 

Gus

[Krebizfan]

IIRC, the power supply is held in place by a tab on the bottom. It will need to slide about an inch or so before it can be lifted out. Very unlikely to find a replacement power supply that can fit in that mounting.