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FS: Original Tandy 1000 computer + keyboard

vwestlife

vwestlife

Veteran Member
Joined
May 2, 2008
Messages
5,409
Location
central NJ
Since I just got a 1000SX, I've decided to sell my original Tandy 1000. It's been upgraded to 640K (with DMA) but is otherwise all original. It has dual 360K floppy drives, but can be upgraded with a hard drive; I've tried standard XT-type MFM and RLL controllers in the past, and they worked just fine.

Includes the matching Tandy keyboard, original Tandy MS-DOS 2.11 system disk, a copy of Tandy MS-DOS 3.3, and the original manuals.

Differences between the original 1000 and the later, more popular 1000SX:
* 4.77 MHz 8088, instead of 7.16 MHz
* no 8087 coprocessor socket
* only 128K on motherboard (without DMA)
* only 3 expansion slots (two of which need to be occupied just to upgrade it to 640K!)
* TEAC 5.25" 360K floppy drives are black instead of white
* older ROM BIOS version (this one has the original version 01.00.00, dated 1984)
* has a "light pen" port on the back, instead of an onboard RS-232 serial port

Asking $50 + shipping (or pickup in central NJ). Compared to the $200 the original 1000 typically lists for on eBay, I think this is a very fair price. PM me if you're interested!

Photos coming soon.
 
If everything is fully functional, that is indeed a fair price. In fact, it's a steal because it comes with a working keyboard and some other original materials (disk and manuals). Hopefully you'll make someone very happy...
 
The original 1000 is an odd duck. Proprietary memory and DMA upgrades, no ability to boot hard drives, no ability to upgrade the video card, proprietary keyboard, weird bugs, no 8087 socket. It seems very similar to the original IBM PC, before the 1982 revision.
 
Great Hierophant said:
The original 1000 is an odd duck. Proprietary memory and DMA upgrades, no ability to boot hard drives, no ability to upgrade the video card, proprietary keyboard, weird bugs, no 8087 socket. It seems very similar to the original IBM PC, before the 1982 revision.
Click to expand...

More accurately, it is very similar to the original IBM PCjr.
 
Great Hierophant said:
The original 1000 is an odd duck. Proprietary memory and DMA upgrades, no ability to boot hard drives, no ability to upgrade the video card, proprietary keyboard, weird bugs, no 8087 socket. It seems very similar to the original IBM PC, before the 1982 revision.
Click to expand...

All the talk about the original 1000 not supporting a hard drive is hogwash. This one has the original 01.00.00 ROM from 1984 and it has worked with and booted from any XT-type drive and controller I've put into it, without any special configuration needed. In fact, back in the early '90s Radio Shack sold my dad one of their IDE-XT "SmartDrive" controllers for use in it, and they didn't say anything about needing a ROM update, although they did say to upgrade to DOS 3.3, which we were already using. (Ultimately he returned the controller because it turned out to be incompatible with the MiniScribe 8225XT IDE-XT drive we had.)
 
I'm sorry, I forgot to finish my thought:

The Tandy 1000A fixed many of those problems, the most important being the 8087, the hard drive booting and some of the bugs, making it much more usable going forward. Similar to how the refresh of the IBM PC made it a bit more useful.

Since vwestlife has said that the BIOS was not a problem apparently, then I suppose that the myth has taken on a life of its own. Does your 1000 have one or two cards to upgrade the system to 640K?
 
Here are some photos. Sorry I couldn't get better pictures of the system unit itself, but it's tucked away on a hard-to-reach shelf. It has one 3.5" floppy drive installed, which can be either left in or replaced with the original second TEAC 5.25" 360K drive; your choice. The MS-DOS 2.11.22 disk had its label torn off and pasted over at some point, but is the original Tandy system disk. The manuals are dated 10/84 and 11/84.

DSC00982.jpgDSC00963.jpgDSC00964.jpgDSC00967.jpgDSC00972.jpg
 
Great Hierophant said:
Since vwestlife has said that the BIOS was not a problem apparently, then I suppose that the myth has taken on a life of its own. Does your 1000 have one or two cards to upgrade the system to 640K?
Click to expand...

I forgot to mention: once you have the Tandy 256K upgrade card installed, which adds DMA, you can then add any additional card you like to upgrade from 256K up to 640K; it doesn't need to be a Tandy-specific card. So this one has the Tandy 256K+DMA card and a generic PC/XT-type RAM card to bring it up to 640K. (Tandy's own secondary RAM card only supported a maximum of 512K.)
 
vwestlife said:
I forgot to mention: once you have the Tandy 256K upgrade card installed, which adds DMA, you can then add any additional card you like to upgrade from 256K up to 640K; it doesn't need to be a Tandy-specific card. So this one has the Tandy 256K+DMA card and a generic PC/XT-type RAM card to bring it up to 640K. (Tandy's own secondary RAM card only supported a maximum of 512K.)
Click to expand...

I did not know that, but that is very good to know. If I had the appropriate daughterboard for my 286 Express card, I'd definitely grab it.

I have read that there was some incompatibility issue between the 256KB DMA upgrade cards and BIOS 01.01.00, whereby the DMA controller is incorrectly programmed. The 512KB RAM card solves the issue.
 
The Tandy 1000 is still available. Compared to what you'll see on eBay, the price I'm asking is worth it for the keyboard alone!
 
Don't let this go to eBay folks! It works great with the XT-IDE. And other hard drives as long as you can change the IRQ on the controller board.
 
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