Revisiting the Tandy 1000 EX after 35 years.

[Turbo-Torch]

A big purchase (up there with my first used car) was a Tandy 1000 EX I bought when in high school.  The local BBS scene was all about MSDOS systems, and my Model III wasn't getting much support anymore by 1987.

RS always had great sales and I ended up purchasing mine for $600 along with a serial card for $80 and CM4 monitor on closeout for $100.  For less than the normal $800 price, I had a nice IBM compatible setup and was going crazy with downloads. 

I soon added the Plus board for full 640K and the 3.5" external disk drive.

 

One day a REALLY big local BBS showed up and it mirrored Rusty n Edie's BBS out of Ohio.  If you don't know the story Google it. 

It was at that point I decided I needed a hard drive for all the sweet high end software and games rolling in every night.

Unfortunately, RS didn't offer a hard drive kit for the EX, so I sold it and bought a 1000 SL with a 32mb hardcard.  For some reason, I always regretted selling the EX.

 

Been looking on/off for a few years now and recently noticed one on eBay with the 640K Plus card (rare and necessary) and a 300 baud internal modem.  Put a bid in and got it for far less than I thought I would.

Seller was one of those 2 sentence description guys with a few meh pictures, but it ended up being one of those way better than expected eBay experiences.

Big box shows up, remove the brown paper wrap and it's in the original box.  Open it up and it was like 1987 again; EX was in the original soft foam, all manuals on top and the disk folder containing the original DOS and DeskMate disks were inside.  Pull the EX out and it looks like new!

Boots up and works perfect.  Took it apart and it was dust free, including the fan.

 

The composite output on a TV looked just as bad as I remembered, so off to find a CGA monitor which is pretty much unobtainium these days.  Ended up finding a very low hour Magnavox on FB marketplace for $100...more than I wanted to spend, but a really nice monitor that's a deluxe version of the 1084 or cm8833.  Stereo speakers, small dot pitch and perfect convergence...far better than anything RS ever offered.

 

ISA adapters were ordered from Australia.  I suspected the EX was ISA pin compatible back in the day but couldn't source the connectors to try and build my own.

Ordered a Blue Lava mini CF XT-IDE card off eBay (the item that makes it all worth it!).  Also, after hours of searching, I found a monitor stand that can support a CRT and is similar to the RS original which allows access to the side disk drive.

 

Just got it all set up.  Still plan on replacing the internal modem with a serial card and buying an external wifi modem to give the internet BBS scene a try.

 

No fugly yellowing here.

 

ISA to Plus adapter is on the left.  Blue Lave XT-IDE on right.

I bought a 2GB Verbatim CF card on Amazon to replace the 64MB one that was included.

 

 

640K DMA memory expansion board on bottom, 300 baud modem in center and XT-IDE on top.

 

 

Heck yeah!  1,997 MB hard drive on a 1000 EX!

 

 

Awesome 16 color TGA graphics and sound.

 

[Asaki]

One of these days I'd like to get something from that era, but they're always out of my price range when I look (not to mention the shipping costs).

We used to have two IBM PC Jrs. and I really regret that we got rid of both of them. We had the good, wired keyboards, too, and tons of upgrades.

 

How much was it?

[Turbo-Torch]

2 hours ago, Asaki said:

How much was it?

 

Final bid was $162.50

Monitor $100

XT-IDE $39

2 ISA adapters $27

2GB CF $12

Stand $34

 

If you already have a monitor kicking around, that's a big part of it.  Make sure it supports RGB TTL and not just analog.  The monitor I bought has been selling in the $300 to $500 range on eBay, I got lucky finding it locally for $100.  

An RGB to HDMI converter is another option.  texelec just started offering one on their site for $70 which is pretty slick if it works as good as they say.  

[Turbo-Torch]

Added a few more accessories.

 

Installed an NEC V20 cpu for ~20% performance increase. With shipping it was $8.41 off eBay. And whatever that speedPAK delivery is...holy crap, it made it from China to my mailbox in 5 days!

Checkit shows a nice increase and games like Silpheed don't slow down as much.

 

Put together a dual port ISA RS232 card. It was difficult to find a card that had the extra set of chips installed to enable the 2nd port. Bought one without the chips and then a 2nd larger card (too big to fit in the EX) that was upgraded.  Used those chips and modified the bracket for the smaller card. COM 1 is 25 pin and COM 2 is 9 pin.  XTIDE fits nicely above it.

 

 

Next is an ArcaneByte WiFi modem. I love the dial up experience, but now wish I bought one these ages ago. It understands the Hayes AT command set. ATDT followed by an address (instead of a phone number) and you're hooked right up.  Currently over 1,000 BBSs out there to explore and no more long distance charges!   Works great with my Model III too.

 

 

 

 

Downright awesome being able to use a real 1000EX, with my original copy of Telix to play TradeWars again!

 

Just needs the clock/calendar kit to max it out.  And maybe the 3.5" external floppy drive.

[ColecoGamer]

I owned the exact same Tandy computer during my teenage years. It was a great PC hybrid with good graphics and sound. My first entertainment title was Thexder by Sierra, and boy, did I enjoy playing that game. In fact, my local Radio Shack had a healthy selection of software available for the Tandy line of computers. I also purchased an Activision game named Hacker, I believe it was called. You travelled through a sewer tunnel system of sorts, and it was addicting and fun.

 

I was a big fan of Sierra’s adventure games, so I bought quite a few of them on sale (i.e. KQ III, SQ and Leisure Suit Larry). My Tandy had a somewhat beefy configuration despite lacking a harddisk (512k RAM vs 256k; a 1200 Baud Modem; (2) 3.5” Floppy Drives; and a beautiful color monitor). Tandy computers were the only PCs I enjoyed owning, aside from the ST and Amiga back in the day.

 

Edit: I missed out on owning the CoCo 3, which I hear was an exceptional computer for the money.

Edited January 20, 2022 by ColecoGamer

[Turbo-Torch]

19 hours ago, ColecoGamer said:

My first entertainment title was Thexder by Sierra

 

That was the first game I put on the CF card.   It plays like it was designed for the 1000.  Starflight is another I really enjoyed, took a while to find the version that supports Tandy graphics.  Marble Madness and both Arkanoids are really well done too.

 

19 hours ago, ColecoGamer said:

(2) 3.5” Floppy Drives

 

Did you have the 1000 HX that came with a single 3.5 drive and a blank bay for another next to it?  It was cool how they modified the EX case in order to pull that off.  I'd still like to know what happens if you hooked up an external drive while having both internals?  Would it show the external as C:?

I had both the 5.25 and 3.5 external drives, but of course could only hook one or the other up as drive B.

I bought each on sale.  The 5.25 rarely went on sale for $149 marked down from $249.  Oddly, the 3.5 was always on sale for $99 with an original cost of $289.  I remember finding the store manager's order book in an aisle and noticed $99 was their cost and $289 was the selling price.  Every item on all the pages I flipped though seemed to have a 300% or higher markup.  

  

[ColecoGamer]

3 hours ago, Turbo-Torch said:

 

That was the first game I put on the CF card.   It plays like it was designed for the 1000.  Starflight is another I really enjoyed, took a while to find the version that supports Tandy graphics.  Marble Madness and both Arkanoids are really well done too.

 

 

Did you have the 1000 HX that came with a single 3.5 drive and a blank bay for another next to it?  It was cool how they modified the EX case in order to pull that off.  I'd still like to know what happens if you hooked up an external drive while having both internals?  Would it show the external as C:?

I had both the 5.25 and 3.5 external drives, but of course could only hook one or the other up as drive B.

I bought each on sale.  The 5.25 rarely went on sale for $149 marked down from $249.  Oddly, the 3.5 was always on sale for $99 with an original cost of $289.  I remember finding the store manager's order book in an aisle and noticed $99 was their cost and $289 was the selling price.  Every item on all the pages I flipped though seemed to have a 300% or higher markup.  

  

I never played Arkanoid or Marble Madness on the Tandy, but I’m sure they were worth playing on the hardware, though. You know, Thexder always gave me the impression that it was designed for the 1000. It played perfectly on that machine. In fact, I believe the Tandy port is the best  version to own. I remember playing Thexder on the Amiga some years later, and there was something about it that just didn’t feel right to me.

 

The gameplay felt choppy on the Amiga for some reason.

 

Yes, if memory serves me correctly, I did own the Tandy 1000 HX. It came with (2) 3.5” floppy drives already installed side-by-side. I loved that machine.

 

You know, I should try and hunt one down. 
 

What you mentioned about the manager’s store order catalog is crazy. Sounds like being a manager of a Radio Shack had its perks!

Edited January 21, 2022 by ColecoGamer

[ColecoGamer]

Here it is! Beautiful machine… (good price, too).
 

Tandy HX

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by ColecoGamer