Tandy 1000 EX and HX
The Tandy 1000 EX and Tandy 1000 HX were all in one Tandy 1000 Compatible PCs. They, collectively, were the least expensive Tandy 1000 models.
| Tandy 1000EX | |
| Manufacturer: | Tandy Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year Introduced: | 1986 |
| Form Factor: | Compatible PC |
| Clock Speed: | 7.16 MHz |
| Memory Size: | 256 KB standard, expandable up to 640 KB |
| Graphics: | Tandy Graphics |
| CPU: | Intel 8088-2 |
| Predecessor(s): | TRS-80 Color Computer Family, Tandy 1000 HX |
| Successor(s): | Tandy 1000 HX |
Tandy 1000 EX
The Tandy 1000 EX was Tandy's first compact all-in-one, compatible PC. It was in part designed to be a replacement of the Color Computer which was dwindling in popularity as the popularity of compatible PCs were soaring. It was also designed to be a lower cost Tandy 1000 with a proprietary expansion slot. It also had no built-in DMA. It came with MS-DOS 2.11 and Personal Deskmate. It featured a 5 and a quarter inch floppy disk drive on the side of the machine and a special port on the back of the computer to add an external floppy disk drive. One draw back of the compactness of this system is you could not stack a monitor on top of the system with using a special shelf that Radio Shack sold separately. This shelf was also used on the Color Computer 3 and its CM-8 monitor.
| Tandy 1000 HX | |
| Manufacturer: | Tandy Corporation |
|---|---|
| Year Introduced: | 1987 |
| Form Factor: | Compatible PC |
| Clock Speed: | 7.16 MHz |
| Memory Size: | 256 KB standard, expandable up to 640 KB |
| Graphics: | Tandy Graphics |
| CPU: | Intel 8088-2 |
| Successor(s): | Tandy 1000 RL |
Tandy 1000 HX
The Tandy 1000 HX is a similar to the 1000 EX but with two main difference. First, instead of a 5 and 1/4 floppy, it has and 3 and a half inch disk floppy disk drive mounted in front with a slot next to it for a second drive. Like the EX there is a external floppy port in order to add a 5 and quarter inch drive and no DMA. The other major difference is that like Tandy 1000 SL and later models it has MS-DOS command.com and the desk.com Deskmate executable in ROM. In the case of the HX, the ROM contains MS-DOS 2.11 and Personal Deskmate II. Personal Deskmate II is quite similar to Deskmate 3 except it is designed to only run off 3 and a half inch floppies. One of the new features in this version of Deskmate is the Music program which takes advantage of the Tandy 3-voice sound.
Tandy PLUS interface
Unlike most Compatible PCs, the Tandy 1000 EX and HX not use the traditional 8-bit ISA expansion cards. Instead, Tandy created a more compact expansion card called PLUS. Each machine has three PLUS slots and the stack on top of each other. PLUS cards available through Radio Shack include an internal modem, a serial port, RAM expansion up to 640 KB. It should be noted that the RAM expansion comes with DMA, similar to the memory expansion card available for the original Tandy 1000. There were also third plus cards including a hard disk drive interface and the most popular one, an adapter to allow ISA card to be plugged to the PLUS slot. You see, PLUS and ISA are electrically identical with just a different plug and pin-out. The most common ISA card to used with this adapter was a 2400 Baud modem since Radio Shack only made a 300 baud in the PLUS format.
Legacy
The Tandy 1000 EX and HX were the beginning of super affordable Compatible PCs. Anecdote: When I worked at Radio Shack, we still sold the 1000 HX even though it was almost 3 years old. By the time I was there, it didn't sell well. I think one reason for this is that it had the old style as far as badging, color, etc. Its replacement, the Tandy 1000 RL, sold much better but didn't come out until 1991.
Emulation is available for 1000 HX. There are 3 emulators that I recommend: 86-Box, PCem, and DOSBox-x. PCem is the easiest to setup. 86-Box is more customizable. DOSBox-x, on the other hand, is not actually a computer emulator but a generic MS-DOS emulator that has special Tandy Graphics and Sound Support. There are a few variants of DOSBox, but I like DOSBox-x the best because it is the only version that supports disk images and it's also the only one that is menu driven without a front-end.
Links
| v • d • e Radio Shack Computers, Peripherals, and Operating Systems |
|---|
| Zilog Z80 Systems - TRS-80 Model I • TRS-80 Model II • TRS-80 Model III • TRS-80 Model 4, 4P, and 4D • TRS-80 Model 12
Motorola 68000 Systems - TRS-80 Model 16 • TRS-80 Model 16B • Tandy 6000 Other Home Computers - TRS-80 MC-10 x86-Based Computers - Tandy 1000 - EX - HX - SX - SL - SL/2 - TX - TL - TL/2 - TL/3 - RL(RL/HD) - RLX(RLX/HD) - RSX(RSX/HD) Peripherals - Tandy 1000 SmartDrive • Monitors Operating Systems - CP/M • XENIX • MS-DOS • Microsoft Windows |
