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Where Can I purchase a Tandy 1000 EX RAM Board (Plus Board) ?

T

TheChaoticToast

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Mar 11, 2015
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Hi,

I recently Purchased a Tandy 1000 EX system, which has only 256k RAM. I have DOS 2.0 running on it, and was curious where I may be able to purchase a Ram Board. I am having trouble finding one on ebay, so any help will be much appreciated. ALSO, please leave a link to the site. Thanks!
 
Good luck...I doubt you'll find one not already installed in a system. Wish I could be more optimistic, but I would imagine pretty much all ever produced ended up installed in systems.

Perhaps someone will someday make a combo RAM/XT-IDE PLUS card...yeah, I know...I'm dreaming... :)

Wesley
 
You are not dreaming. I would have one ready next week if I could find a source for the extremely tall 62 pin IDC connectors.
 
k2x4b524[ said:
it might cost more, but why not craft your own? The soldering would take a little work, but it could be done.
Click to expand...

I could easily craft my own - or invent my own stacking mechanism which would work just as well. However I'd like to build them for others to use.
 
I have an IDC to card slot ribbon cable that works great with an XT-IDE, it was fairly common for companies to make small ISA cards that used an adapter cable in the 1000EX/HX. Would it be economical to either do that, or the make your card using a short IDC to IDC jumper cable?

I have a clone DMA/memory card in my 1000EX that only has a single additional card connector, unlike the Tandy card which has two.
 
Apart from needing the DMAC for memory refresh, were there any plus cards that took advantage of DMA? If not, I would imagine a card with SRAM on it instead of DRAM would be easier to build.
 
The internal RAM is in sockets, so I wonder if it's possible to populate the mainboard with higher capacity chips. Sure, you'd lose DMA, but if you just want the expanded memory capacity it could be a better option.

I plan on trying to reverse engineer the ROM (to upgrade the software) so I might as well swap in some 64k DIP RAM and see if it recognizes it.
 
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ISA sockets are still available, maybe I could make a riser card for it by mounting pin header (/socket) via card-edge, as do the IDE-to-CF adapters on eBay. Need a sketch showing exact dimensions, clearances, and header placement if there is interest in such a thing.
 
pearce_jj said:
ISA sockets are still available, maybe I could make a riser card for it by mounting pin header (/socket) via card-edge, as do the IDE-to-CF adapters on eBay. Need a sketch showing exact dimensions, clearances, and header placement if there is interest in such a thing.
Click to expand...

Please send me a PM with what you need and i'll get that information. I have an HX.
 
What do most people want for their PLUS slots these days? I would suggest a RAM/DMA card, a serial card (maybe with two ports) and a hard drive interface. That is three slots for three cards. Except for the first, there is no reason why an ultimate combo would need to conform to Tandy's arrangement.
 
That being said, how much could one cram on one of those boards? I could see a clock, dma, with serial and parallel done via headers, with a hard drive connector, sure it would look ugly with the cables out the back, but it i have seen super io boards that small. that's one slot. A ram board with ems add-on, that's a second board. For the third, i'd make an 8-bit network board for it.
 
It would be awesome to see such a card created! Is the extra-long connector required for even the bottom slot? Been a while since I looked in the one I have...and not sure I've ever looked in one that was populated...mine doesn't have the RAM card either.

While it would be awesome to have that huge list of features in a card, we probably should be reasonable in our dreams...at least in the beginning. :) Personally, the RAM and XT-IDE are the big ones...not sure if the DMA is needed or really helpful if you don't have other cards?

You guys are giving me a glimmer of hope for my EX!

Thanks,

Wesley
 
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