Tandy 1000HD

 Tandy 1000HD

I picked this computer out of an old house that was being renovated. It was under the stairs and I asked the owner if I could take it and he said yes. It was under some plastic but it was very dirty and I wasn’t sure if it would work or not. I brought it home and started cleaning it up.

I completely disassembled everything and carefully cleaned the motherboard and keyboard and then put it back together before turning it on for the first time. This Tandy PC came with the main CPU unit, a keyboard, and a Mono Tandy Monitor. The 1000HD came with a Hard Drive pre-installed and there was one 5.25” floppy drive, probably the original 360K drive. There was a RAM card installed in one of the ISA slots and there was a Hard Drive controller in one of the other slots.

I plugged in the monitor with the composite cable already attached to the monitor then I plugged in the keyboard. I plugged in the power cords for the CPU and the monitor to a power strip but I did not turn the power strip on yet. After all connections were made I turned on the power strip. Then I first switched on the monitor and then flipped on the main switch for the CPU unit. I adjusted the monitor and I could see the memory size reported as 640K. It stayed that way for quite a while and eventually came back with an error and asked me to put in a system disk. This led me to believe the hard drive was not working or was not being recognized by the BIOS.

I powered down and then I found a 360K boot disk from my XT-286 and put it in the floppy drive and flipped the CPU switch on again. I got the same error message and even though the LED light came on the floppy it would not spin up and I could not boot the floppy. I tried to clean up the floppy drive and tried again but I could not get the floppy drive to spin up. I decided to try swapping in another floppy drive. I read up on the 1000HD and it did support 3.5” drives at 720K. I read about setting the jumpers on the drive and the fact that the cable used was not the same as the floppy cable used in the IBM PC. I grabbed a 3.5” floppy I had that was noted as a 720K drive. I set the jumper to drive 0 and reused the same cable already in the computer. I used a power cable extension to allow me to place the floppy on the desk outside the case. The floppy already had an edge card adapter connected.

I put in a 3.5” floppy with MS-DOS/Tandy 3.3 (from my Tandy 1400FD) and powered on. The drive did spin up but it would not read the disk. I tried another system floppy but it would not read. I suspected that this 720K drive was not working. I found another 3.5” drive, a 1.44 drive, and swapped it in place of the previous 720K drive. I again set the jumpers and I moved the edge card adapter over to this new 1.44 drive. I put the same DOS 3.3 disk in the drive and turned on the power. This time I got it to boot! It was alive! So, for now, I have a 1.44 floppy drive attached instead of the original 360K 5.25” drive. I would find out later that most 1.44 drives will operate as a 720K drive when the BIOS only supports 720K, as in this case. So, technically I have a 1.44 drive but it is being identified by the BIOS as a 720K drive and it only reads 720K disks.

Next, I attempted to get a directory of the C: drive. But I could not get the hard drive to respond to a directory command. I could hear the hard drive spinning up at power on but it appeared to be otherwise dead. I read up on the controller and I inspected the controller to make sure everything was connected properly and that the pins were set correctly. I could find no defect in the settings or the cables. I decided I would try to do a low level format using Debug. I didn’t want to lose whatever was on the hard drive but I felt I had no choice but to try to get the drive to come to life with a format. I entered the debug commands and it found the controller and the disk drive. But when I attempted to continue the routine it stopped with an error. I tried it a couple more times with the same result. Maybe the hard drive was damaged and would not format.

I pulled the hard drive out of the case and made sure I had the cables connected properly. I turned the drive upside down and set it on top of the power supply. Then I turned on the power again to boot from the floppy and again attempt the low level format one more time. To my surprise I was asked for the date and time and then the computer finished booting to PC DOS 2 and I was at a C> prompt. The hard drive booted! It turns out that all I had to do was turn the drive over and now it works. I have had no problems reading and writing to the hard drive since I turned it upside down. I am afraid to install it back the way it was inserted before. I will instead re-install it in this inverted position since the cables are long enough to make the twist. I may have to drill some holes in the original bracket so I can fit the screws to the hard drive.

The hard drive has a copy of PC-DOS 2.x and both WordPerfect and Wordstar. I was looking for DeskMate but it was not there. I moved WP and WS to a separate directory and attempted to install DeskMate and a couple of games. Eventually I decided to reformat the hard drive and I put Tandy/MS-DOS 3.3 on the hard drive and made it bootable. I found a copy of DeskMate 2 and also installed it to the Hard Drive. I did not need to keep PC-DOS or WP and WS. I want to set this up to show a couple of games using the PCjr/Tandy features this unit was meant for.

In order to show the Tandy/PCjr graphics features I decided to replace the mono composite monitor with a CGA monitor. I only have one CGA monitor, a Goldstar, and it was attached to the XT-286. But the XT-286 also has a mono card so I removed the CGA card and the Goldstar monitor from the XT-286 and attached a mono monitor from a non-working Leading Edge PC. I moved the Goldstar CGA monitor over to this Tandy 1000HD.

I expected to be able to experience the Tandy/PCjr graphics for CGA by simply attaching the CGA monitor to the RGB port on the back of the 1000HD. But so far it just looks like regular CGA - just like it did on the XT-286. DeskMate does not look any different. And some games I had on floppy don’t look any different. I did some reading and it seems that some programs will only use the Tandy graphics on the composite monitor output and not on the CGA output. I am still trying to figure it out but I did attach a color composite monitor I have and it works. But I still haven’t seen any special Tandy/PCjr graphics. The software that I have does not seem to work with the Tandy graphics. I will attempt to get some software that supports Tandy graphics, preferably on the CGA monitor.

Now that I have confirmed that this PC works I am going to finish cleaning it up and place it on the desk next to the XT-286 and the Packard Bell VX-88. Then I will try to find some software to make the Tandy graphics work.

In my computer line up this is now my earliest working PC or PC Compatible. It is earlier than the Packard Bell VX-88 and the XT-286 by almost two years. I want to set all three of these PC’s in line with one another and be able to show the Tandy in color, the VX-88 in mono (With both DOS and CP/M-86), and the XT-286 in VGA mono. (I think I have a VGA card and a VGA white monitor that will work). This will show the progression from the typical business uses and the color that was usually used in home computers.

—--

3/12/22

After sitting for a few months I finally got to finishing cleaning and assembling this PC. I cleaned the keyboard and case and re-assembled the hard drive and floppy drive. I installed the hard drive upside down since it works in that orientation. The floppy is an off-white 1.44 and I don’t have a complete panel that works. I tried to take the black panel from another floppy but it wouldn’t fit. For now I just have it installed without a full panel. It’s looks fine and I don’t really have a choice. I don’t care to work that hard on making it look original. I’m mostly interested in the software.

I started up the computer and it works. But the keyboard cable or connector sometimes needs to be massaged before it will work. I got it to work but I am not sure if the problem is in the wire of the keyboard or the connector on the main board.

I downloaded an image of another user’s Tandy 1000 (Trixter) that is supposed to have a bunch of useful utilities, including for the Tandy Graphics and Sound. I will attempt to move some of that software over to my Tandy 1000HD and finish setting this computer up as a demo. I will have to wait since we are in the middle of a storm and having some power issues today. For now, I moved this computer over to the stand next to the Packard Bell PC but have not powered it up yet.

—--

03/13/22

In order to use Laplink to transfer files I needed to add a serial port. I found a Serial+Parallel card and installed it in the last remaining expansion shot. When I went to plug in the cable to the serial port I could not fit the connector. The port is too close to the case and blocks access to the port. I removed the back panel of the case and cut the area above the new serial port using a pair of snips. I then tried to refit the cable and it worked.

I reassembled the computer and monitor and turned it on to see if the serial port would work. I ran Laplink and set it to Serial port 2. That didn’t work, it hung the computer and I had to reboot. After reboot I again started Laplink and set it to use Serial Port 1. That worked. I now have this computer connected to the Gateway 2000 by Laplink and am ready to transfer some files.

I forgot how to manage the network in Win95. When I tried to use WS_FTP, on the Gateway 2000, to connect to my Filezilla Server on my Windows 7 machine I got an error. I had to look up how to confirm network settings in Win95. It turned out that I had the ethernet cable disconnected so that I could use the port on the switch for another machine. I plugged the ethernet cable back in but still did not get connected. I rebooted and let Windows95 set up the network again after having the cable connected. It worked. After rebooted I had access through the LAN to my Filezilla Server

Now I will move a file over to the Gateway 2000 using the FTP server, then copy it to the Tandy 1000HD using Laplink. Let’s start with the game Tetris. It worked. And the game is clearly using all the Tandy colors, not just the typical 4 CGA colors. Now, let’s find something else to help illustrate the Tandy features.

I did find a few games that illustrate the Tandy Graphics as compared to the typical IBM CGA graphics. I would like to find a couple games that play in both modes so I can easily illustrate the difference.