30 Jun
1997
30 Jun
'97
5 a.m.
I've just arranged for a Tandy 1000HX and it appears to be kind of odd. It
was bought at one of Tandy's infamous 'tent sales' where they dispose of
stuff
they've had sitting around the local 'Shack, and the guy who bought it
originally said that it didn't come with any 3-1/2" floppy installed and that
both covers are still over the bays. It boots off of an external 5-1/4"
drive, which if I remember correctly, is selectable easily enough by way of
the SETUPHX program included with it's DOS diskettes. Do any of you
TRS-80/Tandy knowledgable people remember ever seeing a HX set up like this?
Every one of them I've ever seen new has come with a 3-1/2" floppy in the
left-most bay, right next to the expansion connectors. I bought one of these
nifty machines when they first appeared as well, and had an external 5-1/4"
floppy and CM-11 monitor with it, as well as the PLUS memory, RS232 and 1200
bps modem cards.
Jeff jeffh(a)unix.aardvarkol.com
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amiga enthusiast and collector of early, classic microcomputers
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
30 Jun
30 Jun
10:37 a.m.
Jeff,
Ok, put in generic 1.44 mb floppy drive and Pow! Why? that oddball
half laptop shaped with out display pc has both 5v and 12v in place
of several grounds lines in that internal floppy interface inside
that 1000HX. Sometimes I use those newer 1.44 as a 720k substitute
which works for XT's, heck, I did used one recently to boot up a IBM
XT to make a new 360k disks from a bootable 720k 3.5" disks. While
back, I converted both 720k HX floppy drives by cutting two
thick traces on PCB and used them in clones.
I think it used V40 cpu and, it will support 640k by itself by adding
two bank worth of 256k x 1bit chips and move a jumper, it's on the
little board with one chip on it. The 62pin bus is backwards and
upside version of XT bus! Quite a project by itself to create a mini
adapter using 62pin to a 90 deg slot to use MFM/RLL smallest hd
controller but very doable via a small homebrew PCB.
Otherwise use 8bit rom based scsi controller instead and find a
small scsi hard drive which is much easier and more pleatiful.
Easier this way because I did try to use XT IDE which is hairy
work than that scsi solutions on a ZWL-183-92 laptop with external 5v
drawn from laptop also to the card plugged via its XT type bus
epansion slot and it saw the scsi hd easily. That is first step of
my personal project to "standardize" that clunker to use standard
scsi hd internally.
In truth, 1000HX is very nifty machine in
appearance and size. But I wished Tandy kept their heads and made
more useful design in that same shells with 386 and pentium chips in
it. :))
I've just arranged for a Tandy 1000HX and it
appears to be kind of odd. It
was bought at one of Tandy's infamous 'tent sales' where they dispose of
stuff
they've had sitting around the local 'Shack, and the guy who bought it
originally said that it didn't come with any 3-1/2" floppy installed and that
both covers are still over the bays. It boots off of an external 5-1/4"
drive, which if I remember correctly, is selectable easily enough by way of
the SETUPHX program included with it's DOS diskettes.
Huh? When we got this
machine, we worked on it without needing that
program...odd that's news to me.
Do any of you
TRS-80/Tandy knowledgable people remember ever seeing a HX set up like this?
Every one of them I've ever seen new has come with a 3-1/2" floppy in the
left-most bay, right next to the expansion connectors. I bought one of these
nifty machines when they first appeared as well, and had an external 5-1/4"
floppy and CM-11 monitor with it, as well as the PLUS memory, RS232 and 1200
bps modem cards.
Jeff jeffh(a)unix.aardvarkol.com
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amiga enthusiast and collector of early, classic microcomputers
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
Jason D.
11:35 a.m.
On 01-Jul-97, jpero(a)mail.cgo.wave.ca wrote:
Ok, put in generic 1.44 mb floppy drive and Pow! Why?
that oddball
I don't see much point in this though since the HX's controller won't
handle the 1.44 meg drive anyway. Plus, it'd be easy enough to add a floppy
drive to it, but supposedly neither knock-out plate has been punched out
behind either of the drive bays! This is what prompted my original post.
I think it used V40 cpu and, it will support 640k by
itself by adding
two bank worth of 256k x 1bit chips and move a jumper, it's on the
little board with one chip on it. The 62pin bus is backwards and
upside version of XT bus! Quite a project by itself to create a mini
adapter using 62pin to a 90 deg slot to use MFM/RLL smallest hd
controller but very doable via a small homebrew PCB.
Otherwise use 8bit rom based scsi controller instead and find a
small scsi hard drive which is much easier and more pleatiful.
Actually, it's an 8088 running at like 7.16mhz I believe. One needs the
PLUS Memory board to add the memory above 256k, the DMA functions, and the two
additional PLUS connectors for the additional cards. That's a neat idea about
the SCSI though...heck, it'd be a cinch fitting one of the newer drives into
one of the 1" x 3-1/2" drive bays. The only problem would be power to the
drive, since as you've already mentioned, Tandy likes to send the power
through the ribbon cable.
In truth, 1000HX is very nifty machine in
appearance and size. But I wished Tandy kept their heads and made
more useful design in that same shells with 386 and pentium chips in
it. :))
Yes, true, but XT class machines were still pretty much the norm for the
low-end in '87 when the HX appeared. I'm glad to be getting another one
though and remember 'PCM' making a big deal about the machine, asking if it
might not be the best 1000-series machine up to that time. Too bad Tandy
didn't at least make it a 286 like the TX which came out about the same time.
Jeff
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amiga enthusiast and collector of early, classic microcomputers
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
1 Jul
1 Jul
2:27 a.m.
Jeff,
I don't see much point in this though since the
HX's controller won't
handle the 1.44 meg drive anyway. Plus, it'd be easy enough to add a floppy
drive to it, but supposedly neither knock-out plate has been punched out
behind either of the drive bays! This is what prompted my original post.
Why not
check out the external 5.25" internals? Point is, can use
those easier to obtain 1.44mb drives and use them as 720k in old XT's
in place of harder to find 720k drives. I did that just like that
in one of those IBM XT using its original controller and a brand new
20 bux 1.44 in PC that allowed me to fire it up with my 720k Dos 5.0
and install it to hd also allows user to interchange data with newer
pcs easily. 360k was 40 tracks by 9 sectors, 720k used 80 tracks but
the older controller controlled this drives no problem therefore
any newer 1.44 will work as a 720k duty. In fact, 1.44 and 720k
drives only differs in minor ways: higher frequency heads, extra
sensor put in to support the 18 sectors.
BIG snap!
Actually, it's an 8088 running at like 7.16mhz
I
believe. One needs the
PLUS Memory board to add the memory above 256k, the DMA functions, and the two
additional PLUS connectors for the additional cards. That's a neat idea about
the SCSI though...heck, it'd be a cinch fitting one of the newer drives into
one of the 1" x 3-1/2" drive bays. The only problem would be power to the
drive, since as you've already mentioned, Tandy likes to send the power
through the ribbon cable.
Thanks for correction and oddball mHz? Most clones uses
8mHz.
If you could look in external drive, it might have adapter wirings
that will allow you to make new cables adapters for that "1.44" as
720k drives to put in your HX machine.
nip!
Yes, true, but XT class machines were still pretty
much the norm for the
low-end in '87 when the HX appeared. I'm glad to be getting another one
though and remember 'PCM' making a big deal about the machine, asking if it
might not be the best 1000-series machine up to that time. Too bad Tandy
didn't at least make it a 286 like the TX which came out about the same time.
Yeah, but I considered the Tandy's pcs after 286 machines was made
then back to 8088's, 386 and 486 was study in quality stuff but one
hot rebuke to Tandy for NOT putting in cache for both 386 and 486
machines. :( When I aquired the Tandy 486 EP, used it to run Linux
and X windows on it, graphic engine performance is not there and
if it did have cache it would be a keeper but I traded it away to my
friend's for other items. Right now it's using win95 on it and my
friend is going to buy a ISA based windows accelerator card for it.
:(
The early first 1000 and maybe 2000 that used 2 sided
boards looked grabage similar to their 8 bit machines that I seen
along with some small percentage is not totally XT compatible. But
after 286, things improved enough to be a decent pc. Then RS
dropped ball and let competiters' PC's sold through RS. :(
Plus they always asks too much $ through and what kicks me hard was
canadian RS, yes I am canadian, tried to ask for heatsink paste there
because I saw they did have some but no longer stocked so I reduked
them for that unwise decision. And took the $ to my friend's local
audio repair business to order it in 1oz tube for 15 bux.
I also asked my other friend living in USA to check RS to see if RS
still stocks these white stuff. Consider a warning for canadian who
needs vital stuff from RS. :)
(Question: did Tandy used 386dx chips
in their machines and those sissy 386sx? I have seen few that did
used 386sx but not dx ones... and external cache in one of these
machine?)
Jason D.
9789
days inactive
9790
days old
3 comments
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jeffh＠unix.aardvarkol.com -
jpero＠mail.cgo.wave.ca