Great news that you got your Tandy 1000 TL/2 upgraded to 768K. That really makes a difference making more memory available for DOS programs. You can even go a step further and add a Lo-Tech 1MB memory card, enable the D000 address block and USE!UMBS and DOSMAX for 64K of upper memory. BTW, the ADJMEM utility is something I wrote all the back in 1988 when I released the GRAFIX package for the Tandy 1000. Glad to see people are still using it!
I disassembled ADJMEM to see how the memory check was done so I could add it to the Tandy version of Commander Keen 4. Later I found out disassembling wasn't necessary, because ADJMEM came with the full source code. :D
Wow! Welcome to the channel! So sorry I'm so behind on comments! I definitely recognize your name from the adjmem program and the Grafix package! Very nice work on those! Adjmem was so useful and helped me play those games before the memory upgrade worked! By the way, I have looked at those lo-tech 1MB cards and was wondering what it would do on this type of system with such an interesting memory map. So, right now, I have about 592KB of RAM free with the video memory maxed out at 128KB with the expanded RAM I added. What could I do with the extra 64KB of upper memory? Right now, every game or program I have works fine with the 592KB of free conventional memory, but I'm always up for tinkering! Thanks again for watching and commenting on this video!
You can go two routes for a memory upgrade. 1st is the Lo-Tech 1MB memory card. You can get 64K of upper memory using the D000 address block. You would then use both USE!UMBS and DOSMax utiities to get about 625K free after loading DOS high. The 2nd option is a Lo-Tech 2MB EMS board again set to the D000 address block. This is what I use. I run DOS 6.22 and have a muiltboot option to have either EMS only or UMB. For the 2nd config I use the UMBEMS device driver from IBM PCDOS 7.0 to convert the 64K EMS page frame to an upper memory block. The memory overhead from the Lo-Tech EMS driver is only about 3K when running in EMS 3.2 mode.resulting in about 622K bytes free.@@retrotv1tech
I actually bought a Tandy 1000TL back in 1989 when I was 15 years old. I worked an entire summer and saved all of my cash to buy it. When I turned 18, I got a job at Radio Shack (college job), and they were clearancing out the 128K upgrade for $29! I bought it and installed it. I still have my 1000TL, and it has the full 768K of memory, the 5 1/4" drive, a 20MB hard card, and an original sound blaster card. It's a neat system! This TL/2 looks just like it.
That's amazing! It is a really neat system for sure! The TL/2 only has a few differences. I read something about the TL/2 having a hard drive controller and less expansion slots. Not sure what the other differences are. It's hard to find much info! So cool that you upgraded yours too!
@@retrotv1tech Yeah, the TL/2 has 4 slots while the TL has 5. The controller basically takes the place of one slot. I had to buy a hard card for mine, as I needed the controller too. I'm amazed that the HDD still works after all these years. Otherwise the TL and TL/2 specwise are the same. Every once in awhile I boot it up and play a game on it just to keep it limber.
Very Cool Josh!! Going to watch the beginning as I came in late, thanks for sharing with us. I love that you still have your childhood computer, I keep all my stuff too LOL. Have an awesome night. Can't wait to see what's next.
Thanks Jenna! So, this one is just like my childhood computer, but it's not the same one, unfortunately. My parents got rid of our first computer when we got the newer ones because we didn't think about keeping them back then. However, the good news is that I found one literally exactly like the one I originally had!
@@retrotv1tech Ohh I see, I totally understand about that because no one even thought these things would have much value, especially after replacing them with the newest one. That is so cool that you were able to find almost the same one you had as a kid, I am so nostalgic so that is amazing to me. I have all my toys and gaming systems I had as a kid, I did have to replace my Coleco controllers as they didn't work anymore, but thank God for Ebay, and ecommerce as we can pretty much find all the things we need form our childhood. Loving these videos they are really fun. 😀
@@retrotv1tech Thanks so much! I am so grateful that I kept most of it, as I honestly think it is what brings me the most joy in my life, and I feel it was a springboard into my business which I truly love, and have a great passion for. 😀
Well done figuring out what needed to be done to the Tandy! It’s cool, when you first opened the tandy case up it looked like a bunch of random techy stuff but once you explained it, it started to make a bit more sense! The 32 year old battery was neat to see, surprised it didn’t look more crusty 😂 It was a cool concept to see how it crashed before the updates and then how it worked when you fixed the memory too! Thanks for a great video! 💕
Thanks for the video. I just received a very pristine TL/2 and was wondering about the RAM upgrade. Your video puts me on the right path from the get go and I appreciate that. Subbed!
Glad to see your persistence paid off. I loved your excitement when it booted up successfully. I know that feeling!! While I never did much chip-installing, my old-school toolkit does have a chip puller tool. WHAT!?!?!?! You don't have a phone line?? How are you going to go back to test the dial-up modem sounds??? ;) There are emulators out there for that feeling, as well as a hard drive clicker emulater. Good times and great stuff! Keep it Retro Josh!
Seeing a black bar at the bottom of the screen while playing Commander Keen 4 means you're using an older version. Later in the video the black bar is gone, so you're playing a newer version. This newer version adds a check to see if you have enough video memory. If you don't have enough, you'll get those graphical glitches. This newer version also disables the score box by default to make the game run faster.
Thanks! That is true. I did see that in the release notes of the new version. I started this video and May and finished it just recently, so sometime during that period, I did download the new version. I’ve tried it with the score box enabler as well, but it is faster without it for sure. Thanks for watching!
Also, I just realized that you're the one who wrote this version! Thank you so much for doing that! It makes me so happy to play Keen 4 on my Tandy with my Gravis! I don't have a newer machine with a CRT (only some retro pentium laptops), and this game really looked great on a CRT, so thank you! And thank you for watching!
Great Vid 2ND SENIOR Techy Bro Of Ours I Knew You Would Get It Upgraded & Working Again As You NEVER Give Up Just Like Your SENIOR Techy Web Developer Sis ALI...My Next Task Is To "Upgrade The Ram" On The 2nd Hand Samsung NP3530EC-AOCDX Laptop That Will Be Arriving To My Door In Just A Few Days...Lets Hope It's An Easy Upgrade For Me This Time Around :) :) :) :)
@@retrotv1tech I would be happy to reach out to you on my experiences with my TL. The 80287 I have came from the Netherlands, and it has helped in a number of ways.
I'm trying to upgrade the RAM in my TL/2. Do you know a reliable source for these chips? I see a bunch of listing with the same pictures used over and over from China, and I really do not trust chips from China.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a retailer that seems to sell them firsthand anymore that I can find. Just be sure you get genuine Texas Instruments TMS 4464 chips. I got mine on eBay, and luckily, they worked. But retailers like Mouser and others online don’t seem to carry them. Good luck!
@@retrotv1tech The stock 80286 handled 12Mhz without issue most of the time. I did a hack to the back of the motherboard which routed a 12Mhz single to the CPU's clock. Everything still worked just fine, just faster. Slice a board trace and route a 30 awg jumper wire. Download the technical reference manual for that machine and I bet you can figure it out on the schematic.
Great news that you got your Tandy 1000 TL/2 upgraded to 768K. That really makes a difference making more memory available for DOS programs. You can even go a step further and add a Lo-Tech 1MB memory card, enable the D000 address block and USE!UMBS and DOSMAX for 64K of upper memory. BTW, the ADJMEM utility is something I wrote all the back in 1988 when I released the GRAFIX package for the Tandy 1000. Glad to see people are still using it!
I disassembled ADJMEM to see how the memory check was done so I could add it to the Tandy version of Commander Keen 4. Later I found out disassembling wasn't necessary, because ADJMEM came with the full source code. :D
Wow! Welcome to the channel! So sorry I'm so behind on comments! I definitely recognize your name from the adjmem program and the Grafix package! Very nice work on those! Adjmem was so useful and helped me play those games before the memory upgrade worked! By the way, I have looked at those lo-tech 1MB cards and was wondering what it would do on this type of system with such an interesting memory map. So, right now, I have about 592KB of RAM free with the video memory maxed out at 128KB with the expanded RAM I added. What could I do with the extra 64KB of upper memory? Right now, every game or program I have works fine with the 592KB of free conventional memory, but I'm always up for tinkering! Thanks again for watching and commenting on this video!
You can go two routes for a memory upgrade. 1st is the Lo-Tech 1MB memory card. You can get 64K of upper memory using the D000 address block. You would then use both USE!UMBS and DOSMax utiities to get about 625K free after loading DOS high. The 2nd option is a Lo-Tech 2MB EMS board again set to the D000 address block. This is what I use. I run DOS 6.22 and have a muiltboot option to have either EMS only or UMB. For the 2nd config I use the UMBEMS device driver from IBM PCDOS 7.0 to convert the 64K EMS page frame to an upper memory block. The memory overhead from the Lo-Tech EMS driver is only about 3K when running in EMS 3.2 mode.resulting in about 622K bytes free.@@retrotv1tech
I actually bought a Tandy 1000TL back in 1989 when I was 15 years old. I worked an entire summer and saved all of my cash to buy it. When I turned 18, I got a job at Radio Shack (college job), and they were clearancing out the 128K upgrade for $29! I bought it and installed it. I still have my 1000TL, and it has the full 768K of memory, the 5 1/4" drive, a 20MB hard card, and an original sound blaster card. It's a neat system! This TL/2 looks just like it.
Holy moly, I just realized you're resort TV1! I'll see you around the parks!
That's amazing! It is a really neat system for sure! The TL/2 only has a few differences. I read something about the TL/2 having a hard drive controller and less expansion slots. Not sure what the other differences are. It's hard to find much info! So cool that you upgraded yours too!
@@retrotv1tech Yeah, the TL/2 has 4 slots while the TL has 5. The controller basically takes the place of one slot. I had to buy a hard card for mine, as I needed the controller too. I'm amazed that the HDD still works after all these years. Otherwise the TL and TL/2 specwise are the same. Every once in awhile I boot it up and play a game on it just to keep it limber.
That's awesome! I try to turn my TL/2 on at least every couple of days to keep things spinning and moving! They're such cool machines!
Very Cool Josh!! Going to watch the beginning as I came in late, thanks for sharing with us. I love that you still have your childhood computer, I keep all my stuff too LOL. Have an awesome night. Can't wait to see what's next.
Thanks Jenna! So, this one is just like my childhood computer, but it's not the same one, unfortunately. My parents got rid of our first computer when we got the newer ones because we didn't think about keeping them back then. However, the good news is that I found one literally exactly like the one I originally had!
@@retrotv1tech Ohh I see, I totally understand about that because no one even thought these things would have much value, especially after replacing them with the newest one. That is so cool that you were able to find almost the same one you had as a kid, I am so nostalgic so that is amazing to me. I have all my toys and gaming systems I had as a kid, I did have to replace my Coleco controllers as they didn't work anymore, but thank God for Ebay, and ecommerce as we can pretty much find all the things we need form our childhood. Loving these videos they are really fun. 😀
That's so true, and so cool that you still have most of your stuff!
@@retrotv1tech Thanks so much! I am so grateful that I kept most of it, as I honestly think it is what brings me the most joy in my life, and I feel it was a springboard into my business which I truly love, and have a great passion for. 😀
I love that you’re super passionate about this retro technology! Another great video Josh!
I appreciate that!
OMG, I love how excited you were when it successfully upgraded. How fun!!! I miss my Tandy 1000!!!
Thanks! It was such a long process, and it's so cool when it finally works!
Fun Video Josh! Thanks for making these!
Glad you like them!
Well done figuring out what needed to be done to the Tandy! It’s cool, when you first opened the tandy case up it looked like a bunch of random techy stuff but once you explained it, it started to make a bit more sense! The 32 year old battery was neat to see, surprised it didn’t look more crusty 😂 It was a cool concept to see how it crashed before the updates and then how it worked when you fixed the memory too! Thanks for a great video! 💕
Absolutely! That is exactly what makes this so great!
Thank you so much, Nikki!!
Thanks for the video. I just received a very pristine TL/2 and was wondering about the RAM upgrade. Your video puts me on the right path from the get go and I appreciate that. Subbed!
That’s great! Congrats on finding the nice TL/2! They’re great machines, and I do hope my video helps with the memory upgrade! Good luck!
Very cool video Josh. I can tell you spent a lot of time on this. Really great work man!
Thanks a ton! I definitely did spend a lot of time on this one!
Glad to see your persistence paid off. I loved your excitement when it booted up successfully. I know that feeling!! While I never did much chip-installing, my old-school toolkit does have a chip puller tool.
WHAT!?!?!?! You don't have a phone line?? How are you going to go back to test the dial-up modem sounds??? ;) There are emulators out there for that feeling, as well as a hard drive clicker emulater. Good times and great stuff! Keep it Retro Josh!
Thank you!! And yeah… I’m actually tempted to get a phone line to test it, but I know my wife won’t let me. Lol.
Fascinating stuff! Nice going Josh!
Glad you enjoyed it
Keep them coming!
Good video I saw it last night after your live stream
Thanks for watching!!
I had a Radio Shack CoCo machine...extended RAM and doubled-up on cartridge slots.
Very capable 6809 processor...internally it was all 16-bit!
Very cool! I never had a CoCo.
I liked and shared, great job Josh!
Thanks!
Great SepTandy video! This is a really cool old Tandy computer!
Thanks! I really love it!
Um, that was an EPIC intro. I had to keep clicking my phone to see if it was a commercial
Glad you liked it!
Seeing a black bar at the bottom of the screen while playing Commander Keen 4 means you're using an older version. Later in the video the black bar is gone, so you're playing a newer version. This newer version adds a check to see if you have enough video memory. If you don't have enough, you'll get those graphical glitches. This newer version also disables the score box by default to make the game run faster.
Thanks! That is true. I did see that in the release notes of the new version. I started this video and May and finished it just recently, so sometime during that period, I did download the new version. I’ve tried it with the score box enabler as well, but it is faster without it for sure. Thanks for watching!
Apogee Forever. You are wonderful sir.
I love this. Josh teaching us about CGA and TANDY-Color mode makes me so happy.
Also, I just realized that you're the one who wrote this version! Thank you so much for doing that! It makes me so happy to play Keen 4 on my Tandy with my Gravis! I don't have a newer machine with a CRT (only some retro pentium laptops), and this game really looked great on a CRT, so thank you! And thank you for watching!
Love it Josh
Thanks!
40:20
Woohoo!
Those original memory chips you upgraded with were 4 bit 16k for a total of 32k, 1/4 of the intended 128k.
That’s right. I learned my lesson. :-). Thanks for watching!
You're welcome, I enjoyed watching!
Time to buy Sierra Game stock and play Space Quest!
Never had a Tandy. Just used them at school
That's cool though! I never saw them at a school. We had C64's and then IBM PS/2's at our schools.
Nick manzione send me! Keep it up👍🏻
That's awesome! I appreciate that!!
Great Vid 2ND SENIOR Techy Bro Of Ours I Knew You Would Get It Upgraded & Working Again As You NEVER Give Up Just Like Your SENIOR Techy Web Developer Sis ALI...My Next Task Is To "Upgrade The Ram" On The 2nd Hand Samsung NP3530EC-AOCDX Laptop That Will Be Arriving To My Door In Just A Few Days...Lets Hope It's An Easy Upgrade For Me This Time Around :) :) :) :)
Good luck with the upgrade!
I own an original Tandy 1000 TL. Mine has 768K. Did you get an 80287? too?
Not yet! I was wondering if it would help in games or general system performance at all. What do you think?
@@retrotv1tech I would be happy to reach out to you on my experiences with my TL. The 80287 I have came from the Netherlands, and it has helped in a number of ways.
I'm trying to upgrade the RAM in my TL/2. Do you know a reliable source for these chips? I see a bunch of listing with the same pictures used over and over from China, and I really do not trust chips from China.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a retailer that seems to sell them firsthand anymore that I can find. Just be sure you get genuine Texas Instruments TMS 4464 chips. I got mine on eBay, and luckily, they worked. But retailers like Mouser and others online don’t seem to carry them. Good luck!
@@retrotv1tech Thanks. Well, here goes nothing LOL!
Good luck!
@@retrotv1tech Thanks! Hopefully they'll arrive soon.
Like is bopped! Join me there friends👍
Thanks!
Had one, came with 768k, upgraded it to 12Mhz.
Nice! What chip did you use to do that? Sounds like a fun project!
@@retrotv1tech The stock 80286 handled 12Mhz without issue most of the time. I did a hack to the back of the motherboard which routed a 12Mhz single to the CPU's clock. Everything still worked just fine, just faster. Slice a board trace and route a 30 awg jumper wire. Download the technical reference manual for that machine and I bet you can figure it out on the schematic.
#SepTandy
Here
Pretty good but WAY too many ads.
Oh wow! UA-cam did the auto ad thing. I just fixed it! So sorry! I know that's annoying!