Tandy 1000TX and SX Pictures

Following are some pictures of the 1000TX (below are some of the 1000SX). With an 8MHz 286 processor and memory upgradeable to 768k, the TX is the last of the PCjr-compatible 1000's.

At left is a view of the TX displaying a fractal image using Fractint.

At right, a view from the back.

At right, the front panel. The 3-1/2" drive is standard, the 5-1/4" drive was added by the previous owner. On the front: a reset button, keyboard port, 6-pin joystick ports, volume control knob, and earphone port.
And the back panel. The power plug, Tandy-style card-edge parallel port, serial port, CGA digital video port, composite CGA video port (red) and audio port (white). The composite video and audio ports are compatible with the RCA ports on a modern TV or VCR.


Above left and right, an adapter to convert the 34-pin card edge printer port to a standard 25-pin port. Jim Sandlin gives detailed instructions on how to make this adapter on his Web site. Unfortunately, while this adapter works with printers, it didn't work with a Zip drive. Apparently, the TX's parallel port can't be used bidirectionally, not even in "nibble mode." (As an alternative to making an adapter like this, Tandy made different cables - if you can find them - to connect Tandy and non-Tandy printers to the card-edge port.)

At left, a view of the keyboard. Tandy designed its own keyboard for the 1000 rather than using a standard type. This keyboard uses an 8-pin DIN plug like the one at right; you can also see labels for function keys that can be pressed to select options at bootup. Note at left how the "lock up system" (i.e., HOLD) key is conveniently located right next to ENTER.

Left: No User Serviceable Parts Inside!

At right, a view with the cowl removed.
The drive bays come out as a unit, left.

At right, a view from the back with the power supply removed. The 286 is the square chip at top left in the picture.

Left: there is a bank of DIP switches next to the expansion slots. DIP switch 2 needs to be turned off to use a standard XT hard drive controller, or an upgrade video card.

At right, the memory chips are installed. To the right and above is a jumper that needs to be removed to get the memory recognized.

The TX didn't come with a real-time clock. To get one, you install a Dallas Semiconductor DS1216E, called a Smartwatch. These pictures (left, right, below) show it being installed under a ROM chip.

Right: The SMWCLOCK.COM program from Tandy is used with the Smartwatch.

Left: I have two cards installed, a hardcard, which as you can see is very wide, and an I/O card that takes up two slots (it has two serial ports and a parallel port). Now, the hardcard would normally go in the innermost slot because of its width and power draw, but that slot is blocked by the Smartwatch, so I have moved the hardcard to the middle slot, and I have used a power splitter cable to connect power directly to the hard drive rather than have the drive draw power through the expansion bus. The parallel port for the I/O card takes up very little space and fits next to the hardcard, then the I/O card itself, which is a very short card and also fits in limited space. That leaves two 10" slots open at the end. I have turned DIP switch 2 off on the motherboard (see above), though Tandy hardcards like this one can use IRQ 2.

Right and below, the front and back of the 1000SX. The SX is the "little brother" of the TX, produced the year before (1987) and containing a 7.16MHz 8088. This machine came with 256k RAM and is upgradable to 640k on the motherboard, the first Tandy 1000 model that didn't require an expansion card to go that high (and also the first model to come with a DMA chip). The SX came with a 5-1/4" floppy drive; the 3-1/2" drive pictured is an add-on. The memory has been upgraded as well.

Apart from the differences listed above, the SX and TX are very similar machines.

Right: No User Serviceable Parts Inside, and we mean it this time!! When you open the machine, you see this crossbar blocking access to the expansion slots. It looks like it's riveted in, but it really isn't - it pulls right out. (Actually, this bar is probably there to help support the weight of a monitor.)
Pictured below is the computer with the crossbar removed.
It is easier to get at the slot screws if you remove the rear cover also; see at right.
Like the TX, the SX takes a Smartwatch chip to add a real-time clock. At left you see it installed under the BIOS chip in front of the innermost expansion slot. As with the TX, this means that the hard card can't be in that slot. The 4 DIP switches in the bottom left corner of the picture are the same as in the TX.

Right: DeskMate II. This version of DeskMate is text-based and operated using hotkeys, though there are some underlying similarities to the later graphical versions. Earlier Tandy computers (such as the TRS-80's) also had text-based DeskMate versions. This MS-DOS one allows the screen colors to be changed. I find DeskMate II much harder to use than DeskMate 3.0x (and if you don't have the manual, forget it), but some people liked it.

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