Completed a totally cool 1986 Tandy 1000sx

[budbd]

Haha, just had to brag on getting going a totally "cool" viintage 1986 computer, a tandy 1000 sx with a hard drive hard card combination with a total capacity of 21309440 bytes(I think that means 21 megabyte hard drive), also has a 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 disk drive.
I was fortunate enough to get this little beauty last week for $2, bought the monitor today for $5(a tandy rgb). This thing has an 8088 processor, ega 16 colors, and was last used in 1991, from what I see by some of the files saved on the hard drive.
I kept on thinking the hard drive was inoperative, but after it was opn for awhile, the hard drive card and motherboard must have finally made a connection, don't know why, likely age and disuse.

These Tandy's just seem to keep going and going, and someone had installed dos 5 on the hard drive.

Looks like I can't use 1.44 mg 3 1/2 floppies in the 720 kb drive, for some reason, bummer too, but of course a common problem is that it doesn't recognize more than 360 kb on the floppy above ms dos version 3.2 without some kind of trick I read of(will have to research this).
But hey, Radio Shack still lists on their web pages the specs for all their computers and other technical stuff, maybe even minor replacement parts.

Just gonna relive my younger days back in the 80's when I had a 8088 processor then.
Anyone else have a vintage tandy?

[GaryRouth]

Nice job getting the Tandy running!

I took the 286 in the garage apart one too many times: it's been gone for a few years now. The 386 was still functional, but then so was the 486, and last year both met their maker at the hazardous waste site [I was getting tired of finding old peripherals for them, since it was the peripherals that seemed to die off first]. Never had a Tandy, but did tap a few keys on a couple back when they were at the stores. I remember thinking that DeskMate seemed pretty useful. Those days are pretty hazy in the memory - you must be having some ComputerWorld (remember them?) digital-age flashbacks sitting in front of a working Tandy!
. . . Gary

[budbd]

As luck would have it, I bid on and won an original six disk set of tandy ms dos version 3.3 and gw basic and extra utilitie programs for $6.50 delivered, which is what originally came with this computer. I hadn't seen anything like that in a month of searching ebay.
Sure glad I got the computer system locally, but unfortunately I could only get ahold of an original operating system ms dos from Packard Bell, ms dos 3.3. For this machine, it seems to be able to handle any brand of ms dos, unlike some of the other Tandy computers of the time that might not have been able to.

Future plans are to install a vintage and mint condition copy of "PC Tools", and a 8087 math coprocessor, and possibly installing the original ms dos version, instead of that version 5, eliminating installed software that I cannot access cause I don't have the books, and installing some vintage software I can get ahold that does have books or entry keys, cause you have to have a book cause you get asked questions, like what is the first word in a paragraph of such and such page, and are denied entry if you don't have the right answer.

I might keep my eyes open for a original vga card(hopefully with software) and the tandy vga monitor, haha, but not holding by breath so to speak.

[Designer]

Congrats Budbd on getting it up and running

I remember seeing your post in "remebering the good old day's" thread about this, so did you find the correct Tandy dos version you needed or did you go with another?

[colecifer]

i have a tandy but haven't fired it up to see if it works. I'll have to try it out soon.

[budbd]

Yeah, mentioned above I found on ebay a tandy ms dos 3.2(accidently quoted it above as 3.3).

[Lardass]

Concrats budbd,

I found one of the ancient computers up in the loft on time and luckly for me managed to get it up and running. I sold it on ebay and I got a pretty hefty price for it, working and all.