The Last Tandy 1000 | The Really Rare Tandy 1000 RSX!

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  • čas přidán 26. 06. 2024
  • #computer #technology #retro The Tandy 1000 RSX is the last in the storied line of Tandy 1000 PC compatibles. Today these machines are very rare and often sell for hundreds of dollars on ebay. But you know me, I got it cheap. Will I get my money's worth? Or did I buy a nice white colored bomb?
    ° If you'd like to support what I do, I have a Patreon!
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    ° Background music provided by:
    www.epidemicsound.com
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    / thetechtimetraveller
    00:00 - Intro
    02:50 - Surrealist PCjr Chiclet Keyboard Nightmare
    04:48 - Tandy 1000 RSX Overview
    05:38 - Unboxing the RSX
    06:41 - Plugging N Praying
    07:22 - Setting up with screen
    08:27 - Inside the RSX
    08:52 - Comparing to the Victor and 2500SX, and the TL
    09:44 - The 2500SX case is like a post-covid office tower
    11:03 - Perry the pr0n Prawn returns!
    11:14 - Fixing the floppy drive
    12:28 - Opening the hard drive
    13:24 - Replacing the hard drive
    13:43 - Microfibre cleaning
    14:30 - Trying some games
    20:37 - Don't get stopped in Bad3Dville
    22:06 - Fixed Test Drive III sound
    23:08 - Seeking Tandy DAC support
    26:57 - Conclusion
  • Věda a technologie

Komentáře • 197

  • @TechTimeTraveller
    @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +30

    You may have seen this video previously - due a CZcams processing glitch, I had to delete and reupload. Unfortunately that lost a few comments - feel free to 're-comment' and I can respond.
    And remember: don't get stopped in Bad3DVille. Seriously. :)

    • @thekevmeister77
      @thekevmeister77 Před 3 měsíci +1

      I miss radioshack. I was too young to appreciate what it was before it went under

  • @tarajoe07
    @tarajoe07 Před 3 měsíci +40

    LMAO. The keyboard dream sequence was amazing.

    • @tobyCornish
      @tobyCornish Před 3 měsíci +2

      It was sooOOoOoOoOo creepy... I loved it

  • @thedungeondelver
    @thedungeondelver Před 3 měsíci +31

    It's wild but people today don't realize that for a significant period of time, Tandy held down a corner of desktop computing in the US. The Models 1-4, and their expanded-on PCjr series really did call the tune. Who remembers seeing software boxes that indicated "Tandy Graphics compatible"? I sure do.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +9

      For sure. What's wild to me now is that they're all gone... Radio Shack was everywhere when I was young!

    • @tarstarkusz
      @tarstarkusz Před 3 měsíci

      The Tandy 1000 line was a terrible computer. People remember it because they played with them as children. They weren't trying to bring home work from the office.
      Of all the Tandy 1000 models, this one is the least desirable, IMHO. It strays too far from the T1000 specifications.

    • @squirlmy
      @squirlmy Před 3 měsíci

      But, that was one very specific aspect; the graphics. And it was partly because IBM at the time was mainly interested in only providing graphics capabilities for business presentations, not for games, or computer "art". Once "graphics cards" became popular, and CGA and EGA was outdated, and the VGA standard introduced, Tandy standards became irrelevant.

    • @tarstarkusz
      @tarstarkusz Před 3 měsíci +1

      @@squirlmy That's not really true. The PC was an extremely poor gaming device for reasons having nothing to do with the video standards. Games lagged far behind VGA. ISA was very slow and the PC itself was pretty slow too. There were never any video card standards that had hardware sprites, hardware scrolling and other gaming features. TGA and EGA remained popular game options into the early 90s.
      Not to mention price. Few people were sporting 386s with VGA early on. These rigs were very, very expensive. 5 grand easy. People were not buying them for their homes and those who did almost certainly were not playing games on them or allowing their kids to do so.
      The 256 color 320x200 VGA mode has a large bandwidth requirement. A single VGA screen is 64kilobytes, which is over 3.8MB per second at 60fps. Most games won't need an entire screen of movement, but it does up the ante and a low end 386 would struggle moving such large amounts of data at any reasonable speed.
      And, of course, you are completely ignoring sounds and readily available joysticks.

    • @Gr8thxAlot
      @Gr8thxAlot Před měsícem

      @@tarstarkusz I used Lotus 1-2-3 on ours without any problem. I was still using it into the late 1990's to code with a text editor. I didn't need anything fancy for that.

  • @MacaroniMancer
    @MacaroniMancer Před 3 měsíci +11

    "Your keys are so squishyyyyy..."

  • @chasonlapointe
    @chasonlapointe Před 3 měsíci +7

    Chiclet keyboard nightmare might be your best skit yet. Hilarious!

  • @maxxlr8tion578
    @maxxlr8tion578 Před 3 měsíci +7

    Radio shack, I miss that place at least twice a week.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +5

      We had The Source (not sure who came up with that name change idea), and for a while they had electronics supplies but then they went under sadly. I miss being able to just run to a physical store to grab what I needed.

    • @thekevmeister77
      @thekevmeister77 Před 3 měsíci +1

      Same

  • @rivards1
    @rivards1 Před 3 měsíci +5

    Prawn 😉

  • @KoopaMedia64
    @KoopaMedia64 Před 3 měsíci +5

    I was not ready for the PC Jr keyboard horror sketch, that was highly entertaining. Great video overall. Kinda makes me wanna get a Tandy 1000 but then, I remember I have an Amiga 500 which is just as good.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +2

      Many thanks! I went down a bit of a rabbit hole with that sketch. Big thanks to epidemic sound for that awesome haunted house background track. It was perfect!

  • @AdamChristensen
    @AdamChristensen Před 3 měsíci +6

    I'm glad the PCjr I picked up a few years ago came with the "improved" keyboard. I knew the chiclet keyboard was bad, but I didn't know it was also haunting.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +4

      I shudder to think how many would-be King Grahams were lost to the chiclet keyboard's peevishness.

    • @pikadroo
      @pikadroo Před 3 měsíci +2

      I think i have one around here. It’s got normal size keys but you can’t store it with anything on top of it or those keys won’t come back up.
      Was going to get it working on a z80 project just never got around to it. I think it’s the wireless keyboard, so i’d have to modify it to be a real keyboard.

  • @craigtiano3455
    @craigtiano3455 Před 3 měsíci +4

    "Unsticking" a Connor drive by physically moving the head with the top off is usually ineffective. Back in the day, we'd heat the drive up with a heat gun, put it in a towel and then swing the towel in a wide arc. The idea is that the heat would loosen up the lubricant on the mechanicals inside, while the movement in the arc causes the head to move back and forth. We almost never pulled the top of the drive off unless we knew the drive mechanism was bad (like an obviously bad bearing noise) and wanted to salvage the platters to make clocks out of them.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +2

      Yeah I was 100% sure this one was bad.. off camera it made some horrible grinding noises. I just wanted to show the insides for the heck of it.

  • @GeneralKenobiSIYE
    @GeneralKenobiSIYE Před 3 měsíci +3

    LOL Your cut away scenes are getting more and more amusing. Keep up the good work, my friend.

  • @Vanders456
    @Vanders456 Před 3 měsíci +8

    I was fully not expecting "...so I put sandpaper in the floppy disk drive"

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +4

      The rust was pretty bad. I tried to think of a more elegant way.. I did try nail file but it just wasn't helping.

    • @pikadroo
      @pikadroo Před 3 měsíci

      If adrian’s digial derp de der did it. The 8-bit cartel would be applauding. 😂

    • @pikadroo
      @pikadroo Před 3 měsíci

      Sometime fixing things ain’t pretty.

    • @matthewrease2376
      @matthewrease2376 Před 3 měsíci

      Did I miss out on a new drive cleaning method??

    • @cobrag0318
      @cobrag0318 Před 3 měsíci

      If it seems stupid, but works, it ain't stupid.

  • @herzogsbuick
    @herzogsbuick Před 3 měsíci +5

    I've been watching you for quite a while, your skits keep getting better and better, and they already made me laugh my ass off. it's like This Old Tony, but old tech mixed with an acid flashback. that tandy keyboard nightmare break was gold. pure gold. and any one who doesn't agree can sit on a tack!

  • @thebiggerbyte5991
    @thebiggerbyte5991 Před 3 měsíci +4

    Excellent. I would certainly have been happy to have one on my desk back then.

  • @thekevmeister77
    @thekevmeister77 Před 3 měsíci +3

    I will forever be haunted by that animation 😂

  • @markshade8398
    @markshade8398 Před 3 měsíci +1

    I worked at RS until about 1993. By that time the Sound Blaster and other cards were soooo common that the support for the Tandy 1000 sound was slipping. But it had been one of the most popular options for a good number of years.
    By the time the RSX came out the Tandy sound was definitely on it's last legs ,good as it had once been.

  • @dianeramakers3368
    @dianeramakers3368 Před 3 měsíci +4

    My very first computer was a Tandy 1000TL

  • @joetheman74
    @joetheman74 Před 3 měsíci +3

    You are lucky to be able to have all these nice Tandy machines. I had a Tandy 1000 machine in 1988. It was my first PC and it was my first experience with DOS games like all those great Sierra adventure games as well as my first time accessing local BBS. Plus I was learning guitar back then and had a lot of fun with the 1000's sampling capabilities and music program. I would record my guitar as a sound sample and use it as instruments in the Deskmate music program. Plus I had the printer and loved playing with The Print Shop (which I also had on my Apple II back in '84 up until I got the Tandy.) Great memories.

  • @clarkstar11
    @clarkstar11 Před 3 měsíci +5

    Hi I'm one of your Aussie viewers my first PC was the CoCo when i was like 7 but I just wanted to say I love your channel and how you present the Finds you've come across and the history of them and your 'Old School' way of Presenting it! Thnx for the awesome content!

  • @MrGencyExit64
    @MrGencyExit64 Před 3 měsíci +4

    This was my first computer. Imagine my shock when I found out years later that the rest of the Tandy line was enormous, and nothing like these :)

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci

      Tandy went on for a loooooong time lol. When I got the 1000TL from my school, I was stunned - I thought Tandy was long gone, and that was in 1991. :)

  • @RoundSparrow
    @RoundSparrow Před 3 měsíci +7

    @3:25 - Marshall McLuhan on Canadian national TV said Finnegans Wake read out loud had college kids saying "It's just like LSD drug", but I didn't realize Kings Quest with a PCjr keyboard was just as far-out!

  • @LetsPlayKeldeo
    @LetsPlayKeldeo Před 3 měsíci +5

    Lets hope this time it will reach more people :3

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +1

      So far it's below trend line. :( I was looking at my analytics and indeed the bulk of my audience is around on Sundays. But I just wanted to get it out there. Maybe it'll improve as the day goes on.

  • @aaronmarko
    @aaronmarko Před 3 měsíci +2

    In my restless dreams, I see the Tandy 1000 sitting in a Radio Shack playing some game. A robot turns into a plane and flies across the stage. In my old age as I near death, I discover it is called Thexder and I weep for my youth drifting away.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +2

      Thexder alternately fascinated and threw me into frustration rages at the same time

    • @aaronmarko
      @aaronmarko Před 3 měsíci

      @@TechTimeTraveller Yeah coming across it like, I wanna say 30 years after it came out was a real trip. All this time I thought I'd just invented this game from my childhood but no, it was real.

  • @marklewus5468
    @marklewus5468 Před 3 měsíci +3

    Your mention of BBS triggered my personal wayback machine. In the very early 80’s me and my (then) wife ran a BBS called “Aphrodite East” out of Northern NJ. It ran on a Z80 TRS-80 model iii with a two 720 MB 5-1/4 inch floppy drives. No hard drive in those days as they still cost $$ thousands. It had two dedicated dial up phone lines for modems. At its peak we had a couple hundred users. Good times!

    • @thekevmeister77
      @thekevmeister77 Před 3 měsíci

      That sounds really cool. Glad y'all had a fun time

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +1

      Miss the days when all people fought over was Star Trek vs Star Wars online. :)

  • @dustincarpenter1707
    @dustincarpenter1707 Před 3 měsíci +2

    love your approach to humor

  • @Metal_Maxine
    @Metal_Maxine Před 3 měsíci +3

    Great video. I really liked the segment with the PC Junior keyboard creature things.
    The Spectrum has already multiplied. I won another one in a give-away (same model, keyboard seems more co-operative). It arrived in a cube shaped box but was packed on the diagonal because the box base was too small to let it lie down.🙄

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +2

      Thank you!! I really would love to have a Speccy but they don't come up for same in my zone often. They seem like awesome little machines!!

  • @reasonablebeing5392
    @reasonablebeing5392 Před 3 měsíci +2

    1000sx was my first PC - scored for cash for a couple of hundred bucks with all of the original receipts. Guy had gone on a credit card spending spree and was in need of quick cash. Upgraded it with the NEC V20 that I got as a free sample from the local NEC rep. Also got a free old 10MB full height control data PATA drive (was passed around as an eval unit and was collecting dust on a salesman's desk) that I put in an old wooden case with a surplus power supply and fan and sat under the 1000 SX. As you mentioned things were moving fast - I sold the system to a local church for what I paid for it - they used it for a mailing list and typing letters so it was perfect for them. Used that cash to build a 286 clone then 386, etc. Fun times.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +1

      It still amazes me that there was a time when it was worth it to sell a second hand PC. My Dad never just hung on to old hardware or passed it down :(.. it was always worth decent money on the second hand market. These days I struggle to get rid of anything more than a couple years old.

  • @thekevmeister77
    @thekevmeister77 Před 3 měsíci +2

    Tandy is one kf those names where i know ive heard it but have no idea what anything tandy is, so big thanks for the history

  • @mattalki
    @mattalki Před 3 měsíci +4

    I actually still have my Tandy 1000TL that I bought new in 1989 as a 15 year old. I saved all my pennies for that one. I worked at Radio Shack from late 1991-1996, and did sell the 1000 RSX. It didn't sell well because the 2500 SX/25 wasn't much more expensive, and that 5.25" bay was useful for multimedia kits (CD-ROM drives). BTW, you're missing the RLX in your collection. It was also an AT Class machine (286/10) with 1 expansion slot and VGA graphics.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci

      Interesting. The sites I did my research on said the RLX was an XT class 286, and only had 1 8 bit expansion port. I thought I read because of this the Tandy sound is at the original address for the 1000 series, just adding the DAC. I'm gonna go reread on that! That's so cool that you still have your original TL! I might have kept the TL my school lent me if they had allowed it, but it was too valuable apparently.

    • @mattalki
      @mattalki Před 3 měsíci

      @@TechTimeTraveller I really could have sworn it was a 16 bit slot where the RL had an 8-bit one, but we're talking nearly 30 years ago in my old brain. That said, I'm pretty sure it was a full AT box, but who knows? Time to find one and look! 😂

    • @LabCat
      @LabCat Před 3 měsíci +1

      I had a 1000RLX as a LabKitten. It was our first family PC, and after using an Apple II at school, the idea of having a GUI? Oh my stars! No more swapping floppies?!
      It came with a - humongous for the time - 40MB HD, VGA graphics, and 1 MB of RAM. I remember being very irritated that I couldn't run Windows 3.1/286 on it, because there wasn't enough free upper memory (the system reserved 64k for the onboard graphics, whether you used them or not).

  • @Hollaendaren
    @Hollaendaren Před 3 měsíci +2

    HE'S GOT A COVOX! 😂

  • @Choralone422
    @Choralone422 Před 3 měsíci +5

    The intro to Skate or Die sounded mostly correct based on my memory of hearing it on the C-64, NES & PC Adlib. Just sounded almost like it was having a little trouble playing the song in a few places like there wasn't enough CPU power or there was something else holding it back.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +3

      I'm thinking the TNDY port redirector was chewing up CPU. I should revisit this with my 2500SX which is 33mhz and see if it improves.

    • @JimLeonard
      @JimLeonard Před 3 měsíci +1

      @@TechTimeTraveller No need, it works fine on any Tandy 1000 as it doesn't use the DAC, but bit-bangs one of the channels for the digitized audio.

  • @dipdoting
    @dipdoting Před 3 měsíci +1

    This takes me back! I grew up at Radio Shack, we had the complete TRS-80 line (Model I, II, III, 16, the works!)...and then we bought the Tandy 2000 which was our gateway into the IBM-PC compatibles world. We were "wowed" by an impressive demo, but soon found it wasn't really compatible with much. We ran Digital Research's GEM (Graphic Env Mgr) which was pretty cool for it's day. BTW: The keyboard part had be LOLing!!! Your animations are priceless!!!

  • @bombfog1
    @bombfog1 Před 3 měsíci +3

    Man, second video in a row wherein you creep me out (3:00). Ha Ha Ha!

  • @lemringtail3309
    @lemringtail3309 Před 3 měsíci +2

    The 2500 RSX also has the same board, including the Acumos-branded VGA, the AMD 386sx, and the 1MB of onboard RAM. I didn't realize that the SX/33 also had the same board (or a slightly newer revision) until you mentioned it, even though I had worked on both of mine relatively recently.
    It's good that you were able to repair the drive; finding a suitable replacement drive that would fit with the case bezel of my 2500 XL was a hassle.
    I really like the look of the later 1000s with the tiny cases.

  • @Trixtoxia
    @Trixtoxia Před 3 měsíci +3

    OMGOMGOMGOMG THIS WAS MY FIRST COMPUTER! I loved Lemmings and Tank Wars on this thing.

  • @emulateiam
    @emulateiam Před 3 měsíci +2

    I loved the post covid office building

  • @bluelblock
    @bluelblock Před 3 měsíci +1

    Oh my god, not the Kings Quest nightmare!

  • @ugencz8364
    @ugencz8364 Před 3 měsíci +2

    Once again, your videos are just amazing!

  • @tigheklory
    @tigheklory Před 3 měsíci +3

    I literally sold this computer at Radio Shack.

    • @tigheklory
      @tigheklory Před 3 měsíci +3

      LOL edited, I sold this computer at Radio shack.

  • @joshhiner729
    @joshhiner729 Před 3 měsíci +2

    Ive got to say your animated pc jr keyboard had me laughing pretty good. Great video and I appreciate the in depth info on getting the sound to work. I appreciate the time that went into this. Id have been over the moon to receive this machine “today” and back in the 90s. I was stuck with a beeper speaker until like 1994 when I finally moved to a 486. I had a 286 for what seemed like ages prior to that with cga until 1991 oof only upgrading to vga in 92.
    I played and beat (and suffered through) so many games with my cga card. Even Microprose knights of the sky in wonderful cyan magenta white and black 3d wow was I desperate to play computer games eh? Those were the days. Id have loved 16 colors then and dreamed of vga 😂😂

  • @mstandish
    @mstandish Před 3 měsíci +2

    It's even better the second time!

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +1

      I made sure to add some new stuff just for those who helped me out by viewing it again. Thank you!

  • @theflint7692
    @theflint7692 Před 3 měsíci +2

    12:07 solving this issue should be the final exam for an engineering degree

  • @dimitrioskalfakis
    @dimitrioskalfakis Před 3 měsíci +2

    first class edutainment. 10Q!

  • @SempaiARK_SemapiAl
    @SempaiARK_SemapiAl Před 3 měsíci +1

    The dream sequence and broken recorder recital broke my covid riddled body..

  • @compu85
    @compu85 Před 3 měsíci

    OMG the Pc Jr keyboard.... wow the stuff of nightmares!!

  • @pikadroo
    @pikadroo Před 3 měsíci +4

    Omg… that keyboard is really a creeper.😳😳

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +2

      That went a little off the rails lol. Now I can't quite look at my PCjr the same way.

    • @pikadroo
      @pikadroo Před 3 měsíci

      @@TechTimeTravelleryeah, that got out of hand quick. 😖

  • @thomast4315
    @thomast4315 Před 3 měsíci +6

    I think I owned this or a similar model. Never throw anything away I guess.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +4

      Yeah I really regret tossing so many things.. including a couple of Tandys.

  • @BollingHolt
    @BollingHolt Před 3 měsíci

    LOVE the narrative! At 43, I also have fond memories drooling over 386 and 486 machines in Computer Shopper. I have a Tandy 1000 TL/2 that I use daily to connect to BBSes, and I just got the extra RAM chips to boost to 768k so I can play more games. I've been looking for a 1000 RLX for YEARS, followed by the RSX and 2500, but the only ones I have seen are priced as if they're unobtainium :/ Being patient... Great video, dude!

  • @HTMLEXP
    @HTMLEXP Před 3 měsíci +2

    Great video, I enjoyed the animations and skits.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci

      Thanks so much! They take forever to make and kill our production schedule but I really enjoy doing them.

  • @workplaydie
    @workplaydie Před 20 dny

    These vids are awesome! So much attention to detail. Calming. I love the skits.

  • @spacepygmy4443
    @spacepygmy4443 Před 3 měsíci +2

    Great vid 🎖

  • @nitehawk86
    @nitehawk86 Před 3 měsíci

    Had a 2500 RSX as a kid. Thing was a beast for its time. Though that time only lasted a year or two before everyone started getting 486-class machines.

  • @sheenaQuarto83
    @sheenaQuarto83 Před 3 měsíci +2

    I vaguely remember seeing Tandy computers at the local Radio Shack growing up.

  • @mccrh7737
    @mccrh7737 Před 3 měsíci +3

    Awesome machine, I would have loved it back in the day 😀 These days I would add a SCSI card and a MWave or Sound blaster 16 😉 All the advancements with SCSI you can add CD, HD/Flash storage and networking all in one package 😊

    • @thekevmeister77
      @thekevmeister77 Před 3 měsíci +1

      yeah i just immediately perked up when the game music started playing

  • @ShaunMcCloud
    @ShaunMcCloud Před 3 měsíci +2

    Our first PC was a Tandy 386 SX-25. I don't remember what it was. It has a 112 MB HDD though. And Windows 3.1. I remember it looking like this though.

  • @JimLeonard
    @JimLeonard Před 3 měsíci +2

    Also one of my favorite machines; nice to see a video on this.
    A few corrections:
    - The Skate Or Die music is unique in that it bit-bangs one of the 3-voice channels to produce digitized sound output -- no DAC needed.
    - Modmxt was not modified by FreddyV, it was written completely by FreddyV.
    - You checked a lot of websites for games with Tandy DAC support, but I didn't see mobygames -- next time try searching there, as it has a dedicated Tandy DAC category.
    - 4-D Boxing doesn't need port redirection; because it supports the Tandy DAC natively, it also knows how/where to find the Tandy 3-voice at it's 1e0 location. In fact, most games that support the DAC can find the 3-voice chip just fine, as they had to test on the real hardware at some point.
    And finally: Good grief, the PCjr chiclet keyboard wasn't THAT bad! :-) Of course it wasn't good, but I've worked on keyboards that genuinely incite nightmares.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +1

      Always nice to hear from you!
      Yes Skate or Die had me fooled - someone pointed to it and said it supported DAC, so that was probably confirmation bias at work there. To be honest, I found it difficult at times to discern between bit banging the 3 voice and actual use of the DAC. I'm not confident I got it right in most places.
      I have about 4 hours of footage that got edited down to 30 min so a lot was left on the virtual cutting room floor - but I did spent some hours perusing different game sites, and Moby was among them. I remember I downloaded Outrun from there but could not get it to use the DAC for some reason. It might have been one of the ones where I couldn't get it to run properly at all because it wanted both Tandy graphics AND sound. I think I downloaded some patches for some software from your site (oldskool) but couldn't make them work.
      And 4D boxing definitely did not work for me without the redirection. I don't know why, I checked the specs and it should totally have worked. I actually have that on film but for time reasons just cut to me getting it working. Need to figure out what I did wrong there. I think sometimes depending on where you download the game from not everything is there, or there's a different version, etc?
      And the PCjr keyboard.. type wise it's not the worst, but its line of sight wasn't great, and come on man, that layout.. lol Whoever stamped IBM on that mess should have been flogged! Anyway, it was just an excuse to make a semi-horror cartoon to amuse myself. :) There are definitely worse.. the velcro-sealed hard-as-concrete membrane keyboard the Keyfax uses is the absolute worst.
      Hope you are keeping well!

  • @P5ychoFox
    @P5ychoFox Před 3 měsíci +2

    I like the way you say that augures well (the French version for that bodes well).

  • @stevec00ps
    @stevec00ps Před 3 měsíci +2

    Dreamscene is a bit like Salad Fingers :D

  • @RobinFowler1982
    @RobinFowler1982 Před 3 měsíci +1

    We had a TL/2 aside from it not having a High density 3.5 disk from the get go, it was a great machine

  • @WoodsPrecisionArms
    @WoodsPrecisionArms Před měsícem

    You are so right that’s when computers were computers - dos operating systems - I ran a bbs I ran Maximus and then Major BBS with 4 multi line nodes. Ahhh it was great and the internet came and that was that

  • @markshade8398
    @markshade8398 Před 3 měsíci

    And Prince of Persia was one of the best games for Tandy sound. Also Lemmings... It had GREAT music on the Tandy sound.

  • @JeremyBolanos
    @JeremyBolanos Před 3 měsíci

    I remember when my school got a CGA monitor and card. 16 colors, wow. My first not-a-commodore was a Tandy 1000HX from the base PX.

  • @paullee107
    @paullee107 Před 3 měsíci +2

    I'm pretty sure the rsx is the Tandy I had before my 486! Used for games and also running a bbs

  • @thekevmeister77
    @thekevmeister77 Před 3 měsíci +4

    10:38 ahhh i remember these little volume knobs, god i hated them

  • @tarstarkusz
    @tarstarkusz Před 3 měsíci +1

    People remember the Tandy 1000 series with rose colored glasses. They were the lowest of the low end and obsolete long before they were discontinued. If you had one of these as a kid and all you wanted to do with them is maybe write a book report for school and play some games, these were great. If you wanted to any serious work with these, they were utter crap. While they were cheap up front, anything you wanted to do with them was more expensive.

    • @Sashazur
      @Sashazur Před 23 dny

      Like you said they were fine for most home users. They were an intermediate step in price and capability between things like the C64 or Apple ][ and a business-level IBM clone.

    • @tarstarkusz
      @tarstarkusz Před 23 dny

      @@Sashazur That's a fair point, especially with respect to the apple II. The Apple II was actually more money than the Tandy 1000. The 1000 comes with more RAM, an 80 column screen, "bigger" disk drives and most likely a faster CPU. I know the 6502 is faster at the same clock speed, but they ain't running at the same speed.

  • @matthewrease2376
    @matthewrease2376 Před 3 měsíci +1

    Duuude I love using modmaster on my 1000 TL/2. Idk how the machine is able to mux 4 channels into 1 so quickly, quite impressive.

  • @avalinah
    @avalinah Před 2 měsíci

    Muahaha I finally know our exact age difference. Turns out, I got it exactly right previously just by vibe in the previous videos 😂 love your videos!

  • @TheNewSchmoo
    @TheNewSchmoo Před 3 měsíci +2

    I wondered what had happened , well worth another view later though .

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +1

      I added a few minutes and made some changes here and there to make it somewhat worth the second outing. :) Had to add Demonic King Graham to my PCjr nightmare sequence lol

  • @teddyboragina6437
    @teddyboragina6437 Před 3 měsíci +3

    our family had some sort of tandy 1000.

    • @teddyboragina6437
      @teddyboragina6437 Před 3 měsíci +1

      5:00 correction: I googled tandy 2500 and this looks way closer to what I remember.

  • @BlackDragon-xn2ww
    @BlackDragon-xn2ww Před 3 měsíci +2

    I found my Tandy 2500 SX/33 386 in my brother truck bed with whole bunch of other old junk noticing it had a hard drive I grabbed it the pc sat for about 15yrs waiting for I thought a monitor but after reading about removing a pin and vga cable worked this was huge cause now it has vga graphics so I hooked it up to my led tv and the screen was very sharp image another fix was a ps2/usb adapter brings it up to a laser mouse found a old 2x cd drive brings cd games to this system a button battery the latest deskmate and we are up and running windows 3.0 sadly the volume knob was damaged but did get a sound out of it so other than replacing that seems alright hardly a scratch anywhere it a nice system now enjoyed your video

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +2

      Cool! Someone very generously donated the SX/33 I have... I'm going to dive into it at some point soon. One weird thing though, despite having the exact same board for some reason Tandy removed the MIC jack. Does yours have a MIC jack?

    • @BlackDragon-xn2ww
      @BlackDragon-xn2ww Před 3 měsíci

      @@TechTimeTraveller no I don't think so

    • @BlackDragon-xn2ww
      @BlackDragon-xn2ww Před 3 měsíci

      No but there a hole for one but it has a plastic cover in it guessing that was not a feature
      @@TechTimeTraveller

  • @WoodsPrecisionArms
    @WoodsPrecisionArms Před měsícem

    I have a Tandy TL/2 my parents bought me new and it still works - even the 20 MB hard drive and monitor still works - never had to do a thing to it - when they had the good old 1 and 2 layer boards lol

  • @AlejandroRodolfoMendez
    @AlejandroRodolfoMendez Před 3 měsíci +2

    Amazing work, it's so cool that works well. Have you consider putting some cf card adapters

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +1

      It's an option for the future for sure. Sooner or later I'm going to run out of hard drives. It's just for me, the whine of a vintage hard drive really brings me back.

    • @AlejandroRodolfoMendez
      @AlejandroRodolfoMendez Před 3 měsíci

      @@TechTimeTraveller have you check also that dude that makes ssd with ide Pata interface. Or a a ssd to ide adapter. Also some ide to SD since the cf cards are getting expensive

  • @perry6466
    @perry6466 Před 3 měsíci +1

    you deserve mor viewers XD

  • @Gr8thxAlot
    @Gr8thxAlot Před měsícem

    Looking at that oxidation, my guess is that it was on a desk surrounded by plants. I spent my early career as a help desk tech, and I always dreaded the plant desks.

  • @the_kombinator
    @the_kombinator Před 3 měsíci +2

    486 with EGA? I must have touched thousands of computers in the 90s and I've never seen a 486 with EGA. Hell I barely saw EGAs on AT machines...

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +1

      EGA was really rare to me too on anything. The vast majority of 286-class and down that I saw had herc mono or CGA like me. And then we all vaulted to VGA. EGA was for the rich. :)

    • @the_kombinator
      @the_kombinator Před 3 měsíci

      @@TechTimeTraveller I had exactly ONE CGA monitor, I bought it in 1996 or 1997 to play with. It quickly got sold with a 386 for like $150 ;) I don't miss it. I would like to get an honest EGA now, but I do have a Multisync II which covers a wide array of graphics cards I have (MDA to EGA anyhow, I can even get it to do a 64 color(?) VGA through a two-head VGA card with a 9 pin output)

  • @tarstarkusz
    @tarstarkusz Před 3 měsíci +3

    8:12 It is almost certainly just dirty heads and dried grease on the rails.

  • @philharris9631
    @philharris9631 Před 3 měsíci +2

    Ok so how did you make me feel sorry for a keyboard???

  • @cobrag0318
    @cobrag0318 Před 3 měsíci +1

    That version of skate or die theme is blah. But it did sound like more than 3 voices, at least 2 in the chords for the melody, the running background, and the percussion at least. Though I suppose they could pull a side trick and emulate additional voices by rapidly switching between instruments so long as their notes don't have to be played at the same time. Speaking of Sid, I'd have expected them to use that dac to play a digital sample of the guitar. The way the Sid rendered the digi of the overdriven guitar is ::chef's kiss::

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci

      As Jim Leonard said in the comments (and he has very deep knowledge of these machines), they fooled me because they bit banged one of the 3 voice channels so it kind of sounds like more voices. The 3 voice is pretty versatile and more than once had me fooled on whether it or the DAC was handling the sound.

    • @cobrag0318
      @cobrag0318 Před 3 měsíci

      @@TechTimeTravellerBit banging, that'd explain it. CPU intensive though. The programmers of the era got quite good at getting around the limitations of the systems. Though I'd wonder why the didn't use the DAC. Maybe playing digital samples through the DAC for the entire theme would take up too much disk space. It's always a compromise. Could be much much worse.

  • @brettany_renee_blatchley

    Did some professional work on these.
    My first (personal) system was a TRS-80 Model 1 that was the first demo machine of the independent Radio Shack I worked for as a teen (I bought this demo with my "store discount"). So, I hacked mine with extra wire-wrapped TTL (to the horror of my parents) & Fig Forth. (It wasn't long before before I was being paid to write and optimize Z-80 assembler. By this time, I worked in several BASIC dialects, several machine/Assembly languages, UCSD Pascal, and FORTRAN and RPG II (IBM Sys/3 Mod 10).

  • @wraithcadmus
    @wraithcadmus Před 3 měsíci +1

    Huh, the Tandy sound for Maniac Mansion sounds *really* close to the ST version I had.

    • @fnjesusfreak
      @fnjesusfreak Před 3 měsíci +1

      Basically SN76489 vs. AY8910 - close enough that that makes a lot of sense.

  • @marccaselle8108
    @marccaselle8108 Před 3 měsíci +1

    Haha the polygon cop and sound bastards lol

  • @catriona_drummond
    @catriona_drummond Před 3 měsíci +4

    You actually got something for cheap? That's a bit out of character. :P

  • @jrg1man1978
    @jrg1man1978 Před 2 měsíci

    Ha. In 1985 I was 7 also. And we had a PC JR AND just got a used AT AND dad got tired of me on his "real" computers and got a Coleco ADAM for us! You could only play Buck Rodgers on cassette drive so long, so back it was to the AT. The 80s were pretty wild for young "nerds".

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 2 měsíci

      A childhood friend had an Adam. I remember wondering if the tape drives were going to explode.. they were running so fast.

    • @jrg1man1978
      @jrg1man1978 Před 2 měsíci

      @@TechTimeTraveller they worked well. And looking back it was before double density drives. They held LOTS of stuff.

  • @RoundSparrow
    @RoundSparrow Před 3 měsíci +2

    @21:56 the cop goes "he has a cobalt"? "co-alt"? "colt out" (gun manufacturer)? I'm expecting it's a sound hardware reference? confused.

  • @AiOinc1
    @AiOinc1 Před 2 měsíci

    Unfortunately, those Conner drives suffer from sticky rubber bumpers inside which make them total junk for the most part these days.

  • @WoodsPrecisionArms
    @WoodsPrecisionArms Před měsícem

    You should build a new system in the old Tandy case

  • @uni-byte
    @uni-byte Před 3 měsíci

    DAC = Digital to Analog Converter. Analog, not audio. Despite what it's used for.

  • @TinyHouseHomestead
    @TinyHouseHomestead Před 3 měsíci +1

    Yep, i got a complete Tandy 1000 RSX setup, and I got a Tandy 486SX 33mhz, that looks like a larger version that has a 3 1/2" floppy and a 5 1/4" bay on top what is that??? 😱😁🤪🤣👍👍🇺🇸

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +1

      Sounds like a 2500 or a Sensation? The latter go for big $$$ now too.

  • @tarstarkusz
    @tarstarkusz Před 3 měsíci

    You should not open a hard disk unless you know the torque setting of the screws. I suggest starting with like 10 inch pounds and tighten and see if it clicks or moves the screws. Then keep going up in torque until you first approach the screw turning. Then, split the difference between the current torque and the last torque that didn't it. Like if 40 didn't tighten it and 50 does, use 45 when putting it back together..
    Torquing the screws down to the right torque is EXTREMELY important in ensuring the drive doesn't fail again. If you over or under torque them, in my experience, they WILL fail quickly. But when you get the torque right, so long as the room you did it in wasn't a really dusty room, it works pretty well.

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci

      I reasoned that this drive was already beyond repair.. I think the head mechanism is messed up, and the air seal was pushed in on one side.. possibly someone else monkeying with it before me. I've not had any luck recovering a Conner so was just messing around there. I'd love to hear if there were any techniques that might work to save the next one though.

  • @davydp
    @davydp Před 3 měsíci

    Where can u find that zerale file? (@19:30) thx

  • @davids5148
    @davids5148 Před 3 měsíci +2

    Hey...it's year 2000 compatible.

  • @KayakTN
    @KayakTN Před 3 měsíci

    I have an RLX. I'm not sure what the difference is, but it's decent.

  • @Lachlant1984
    @Lachlant1984 Před 3 měsíci

    I thought I heard or read that the RLX had DOS in ROM. Wasn't the Tandy 2500 based on the Panasonic PC Partner?

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci

      I think maybe the RLX did too.. I was going off the top of my head in that narration. I'm not 100% sure of the production timing for various models.
      All the Panasonic Business Partners were Tandy - they produced several of their models under various badges they either owned or subbed to. DECstation, Victor, Panasonic, etc. I had the Panasonic one as a kid but have yet to find an example of the exact model for my collection in 15 years of looking.

    • @Lachlant1984
      @Lachlant1984 Před 3 měsíci

      @@TechTimeTraveller I did see a CZcams video once where I think somebody compared a Business Partner to a Tandy 2500(?) and they spoke of the relocated hardware addresses.

  • @andystandys
    @andystandys Před 3 měsíci

    If I had the opportunity to pick one of these up cheap, I probably would. But, realistically I have most of my Tandy needs covered in my current collection. (i.e. 1000 SX, TL/3, 2500 SX/33, 3100 Model 10)

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci

      Ooooh you have a TL/3.. I think those are even rarer than the RSX. Can't remember the specs offhand.. 386? I wonder what the motherboard looks like.

    • @andystandys
      @andystandys Před 3 měsíci

      ​@@TechTimeTraveller The TL/3 is a "286," but it's not a *true* 286 because of something to do with the architecture. I can't remember what that delineation is, offhand, but I've seen it pointed out before online. The TL/3 also has the DAC, but I haven't really tested it out much. I need to do a video on mine at some point.

  • @senilyDeluxe
    @senilyDeluxe Před 3 měsíci

    so... should I tape that video to VHS before CZcams pulls it again?

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci +2

      I think we are ok. No processing errors and after a slowish uptake this am it seems to be going along a normal trend line now. :)

  • @estebanvillalobos2303
    @estebanvillalobos2303 Před 3 měsíci

    i had one 25 years ago or so

  • @tommylee2k
    @tommylee2k Před 3 měsíci

    Connor Harddisk. I didn't like them when they were new, and I don't like em now. Their average lifetime was somewhere between not-working-at-all and instant-broken

    • @TechTimeTraveller
      @TechTimeTraveller  Před 3 měsíci

      I had some Conner 100mb way back when and can confirm this was my experience also.

  • @CrazyMan_Engineer
    @CrazyMan_Engineer Před 3 měsíci

    I had Space Quest 3

  • @yatapaws
    @yatapaws Před 3 měsíci

    i almost bought one of these same ones at my local e-waste places but didn't have enough money. (it was going for 70 i only had 30 on me)

    • @yatapaws
      @yatapaws Před 3 měsíci

      it was a lil rougher than this one but still intact

  • @Aeduo
    @Aeduo Před 3 měsíci

    It's not September yet. :)