To clarify the vacuum usage: I was not _vacuuming,_ I was only using a shop vac's compressor to blow air out of the nozzle and move loose dust chunks out of the way. Actually vacuuming computer parts using suction is a bad idea :)
Watching how smoothly that fan rotates when you were dusting it out...damn. Shows how well this thing was cared for in my opinion. This is an awesome example of the Tandy 1000 from the looks of it!
You can change the colors in that version of DeskMate, by pressing Ctrl-F1 through Ctrl-F4. And if you let it sit for 10 minutes, it has a screen saver -- not something you'd expect from a piece of DOS software from 1985!
I love seeing these old Tandy Computers, I remember going to my grandparent's house and they had 2 set up! When they upgraded my parents got one, and then when we eventually got a newer computer, the Tandy got to go in our bedroom! It was the first computer my brother and I got to consider as "ours" and even though it was already out dated, we loved using it to teach ourselves how to install games, play games, upgrade hardware, etc... even after we had computers blazing through the internet at top speeds of 56k, we still enjoyed the nostalgia and elegant simplicity of our Tandy 1000. Thank you for making videos like this!
Oh my god, this is it! When I was a young kid my grandparents gave us our first computer and I remember my brother and I playing the shit out of it. I specifically remember King's Quest II and Ghostbusters. As I got older it eventually broke down and we got ride of it. A few years back I found myself thinking of it but couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. I even reached out to my aunt and she and I thought maybe it was a Commodore 64. Then now I watched this and the second I saw it I knew this was it. I remember the round red button, the single floppy drive, the spiralled keyboard cord. Man this is so nostalgic for me! Now I want to track one down myself, lol.
I used to go into Radio Shack and type: 10 Print "Duh"; 20 Goto 10 Run. I would come back the next day and the thing would still be printing "Duh" on the screen endlessly.
I do the modern day equivalent. Make a batch file @echo off :1 echo *whatever you want* goto 1 Half the time employees couldn't give two shits and don't bother to turn it off lol.
I'm just officially an old fart (!), I guess. All these vids are pure, honey-gold nostalgia to me. Everything LGR shows (outside of some of the cleaning techniques) is stuff I used to do routinely. Well, still do, I guess. I haven't bought a complete, new PC in a couple decades now - I think the last one was 1995 or so, and that was only my second one. My system just "evolves" over time. Of course, today nothing is the same as the original but the data... I wish I had a Tandy 1000 story to share, but I don't - I was well into PC clones by then. However, I used your "favorite program" often, at the local Radio Shack stores. My friends and I would then watch and giggle as the store clerks went red with frustration because they had no idea how to stop their display computers from constantly scrolling "Radio Shack Sucks". :-)
I grew up with a Tandy 1000. I wish I still had it, but this was an awesome trip down memory lane. I've got fond memories of dorking around in DeskMate and pretending I had an actual schedule, and even fonder memories of Kings Quest II. Thank you for sharing this!
Tandy 1000 was my first computer given to me by my mother-in-law in 1985. It is the machine along with Kings Quest 1 that began my enjoying gaming for over 30 plus years! It has always had a special place in my heart for gaming. I was fortunate to have 640 k with dual 5.25" floppies. After a few years I did upgrade it with an Adlib card. It was heaven for me for many years.
Man, this video really takes me back, the Tandy 1000 was my first computer. I used it from '85 until the fall of '91, when I started college and got a Mac. I wrote many a school paper in DeskMate's word processor, and learned how to program in BASIC and later Turbo Pascal. I still have the case nameplate, the motherboard and the innards of the keyboard-- I combined them together to make a memento I could hang on my wall. Still got the old DMP-130 dot matrix printer buried in a closet somewhere, too. It had an IBM compatibility mode you could enable with DIP switches on the back, I bet if I dug it out and got a USB to parallel cable it'd still work.
My very first computer was a Tandy 1000, I received back in the 90s. My dad had a 386 prior to that, but sold it early on thinking he would get a 486 in the late 80s. He never did, and my family was computerless for my childhood ... all until a family friend donated his old Tandy 1000 and my dad gave it to me. Although the mid-90's at this point, I hadn't really seen much better and was excited to own my very first computer. My dad tried upgrading it with a hardcard, but it wouldn't fit - though he did have a dot matrix printer he did get working. Anyway, after getting bored of the few games it came with, I eventually stumbled upon that exact same Basic disk you showed in the video - plus a Basic manual. I had no idea what it was, but quickly gained interest as I started programming for the first time. I created a few simple programs, and even started a text based game. After years of fun, I eventually got a much more "modern" Packard Bell PC and mostly forgot about Basic. I got a Casio graphing calculator when I entered high school, only to discover a version of Basic-A - igniting my enthusiasm for programming once again, causing me to dust off that old Tandy and learn even more about Basic. I program Arduino's today, because of that Tandy.
You needed a "short" hard card for the Tandy 1000, on some there were two ways to mount the drive on the card so it would fit Tandy 1000 short slots and the longer PC slots.
That was such a throwback for me. My very first PC when I was 10 or 11 was a Tandy 1000TX. Dad got it with 640k of memory and the optional 3.5" floppy drive. My PC looked exactly like yours right down to the keyboard. I remember he bought a Panasonic 9pin dot matrix printer to go with it. I remember booting up on DOS 3.1 and playing so many of the Sierra games such and Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest and Manhunter. I even remember getting a PC magazine that had code for writing a snake game. Thanks for posting that video and bringing back so many fond memories. FYI, I still love DOS.
I never played with a 1000, but, My Dad had a 4(I think) 000 that I played with. 386 I forget the speed. but, speaking as an old mainframe user from the 70s, Yes, the 70s, That machine taught me DOS. and with DOS....I got a job and it saved my family. that was around 1990. I have a found spot in my heart for Tandy. And I LOVE YOUR WORK! keep it up sir. You do good..
O, geeky nostalgia!!! in 1987, my dad upgraded to a Tandy 1000SX from a TRS-80 model 4 in his office--right in line with what you mentioned about Tandy's upgrade path for their existing customers. It had a green MGA screen, ST-251 hard drive, 1.2 MB FDD, and I want to say 1024K RAM. Later, he installed a Logitech mouse with its own special ISA card to help run his publishing program, PFS: First Publisher. We loved playing MS Flight Simulator on that 1000, but we didn't have a lot of games in those days, so we missed out on the Tandy sound completely - this was a big surprise to find out so many years later! My dad bought a 386 motherboard and we tried to upgrade it, but the board just didn't fit the case and PSU, so we had to give up on that and get a new case. The Tandy 1000 was truly my first PC experience after the TRS-80 world. I loved the sound of that keyboard and seeing and hearing one again made my day. Glad to see you've added a Tandy 1000 to the gang.
Totally sweet. That was a decent price for that machine. The damn power button is just incredibly satisfying. Our school had a couple XT’s which were equally neat, but something about Tandy that made it seem easier to obtain for home users. I never knew that CPM came on the Model 4. I own a Model 4 and it came with TRS-DOS. I’m not exactly sure what it was based on. Not gonna lie, something about that PC speaker on the Tandy 1000 sounded great. It’s smooth. Like they turned down the high pass filter or something. Less harsh than most. Thanks for sharing as always!
The PS/2 will forever live in my memory as the most satisfying computer power switch ever. And the sound of the fans and hard disk spinning up in sequence, made it feel like powering up a spacecraft cockpit (to me as a kid, anyway).
Just a note for the Tandy's PC speaker as you were referring to is actually NOT the PC speaker! There was a DAC on the motherboard for the Tandy sound which was an addon similar to installing a Sound Blaster, only the Sound Blaster when it came out much later was worlds better (which goes without saying :P). It had a PC speaker as usual and then another chip which was called the Tandy DAC and then later Tandy models had the Tandy 3-DAC which supported more "voices" than the original Tandy DAC in those builds. It was an actual sound chip included only in Tandy computers (obviously) and while it was still limited in its sound capabilities, compared to PC speaker it was incredible!
If the TRS80 Model 3 could run CP/M (Mine did), Then for sure the 4 could. CP/M could even run on the Coleco ADAM (No, I'm not making that up, it was, Like our long lost TRS-80s, a Zilog Z80 based machine!). I'm willing to bet SOMEONE got it to run on a ZX-81 (Timex 1000), LOL!
I had a Tandy HD-1000 when I was 12 years old. I never had any games for it, but I learned basic. Mine had a monochrome monitor; never knew they came with color monitors. Seeing this really brought me back!
Grew up on a near-identical Tandy 1000. Programming in BASIC with dad and grandpa, playing Space Quest 1-3, King's Quest 3, Police Quest, Double Dragon, various shareware titles... NES in the other corner... this is my childhood and the reason I'm still slapping keys to this day. Thank you.
Aww man I had this was my first computer ever. I am so glad I found this video. It brings me back to the good old days. I unfortunately destroyed it when trying to take it apart when I was younger. Stupid younger me. I would like to find one and relive that part of my childhood. There was a lot of games and other programs I didn't play with when I was growing up, but. I did play pacman, wheel of fortune and jeopardy. I love this channel so much. I've coming here more often to remember to good times. I recently lost my father on May 16th 2020, and I've been very nostalgic lately. Again that you, it's just bringing me back.
Perhaps it's generational, When I hear "T-1000" I think of the Pontiac econobox that was basically a Chevette clone. The damned jingle is now in my head: "T-1000, The penny pinching Pontiac!".😉👍
Guess it's better than saying "Trash-80 COCO", though I do miss mine, and my 1000, 1000SX, 1000EX. Hey LGR, do you have any 286 Epxress Card expansion boards for the 1000 series? Those were fun to mess with!
Our first home computer was a 1000 HX, with the lower res CM5 monitor. We had the joysticks for it, and a TRS80 style mouse. Panasonic KXP-1123 printer. My folks still have it, but it's boxed up in the attic. We got it in 1987 and used it until 1997 when we bought a Win95 HP. Lots of memories.
Oh man memories. I got one of these as a hand me down from my cousins, my aunt was kind enough to let me have their Tandy once they upgraded to another machine. At this point I had already had a NES so action games on this Tandy weren't going to impress me but those adventure games sure did. I loved Zelda but that world couldn't compare to Hero's Quest or Gold Rush. I was blown away by the amount of random crap you could make your characters do, from typing in pee at a bathroom in Space Quest to instantly getting a game over for typing kill priest in King's Quest. Haha To a kid who was only used to video games having A and B buttons with limited interactions it was wild just going through those adventure games and typing up all sorts of mischief. I also vaguely remember some pinball game where you could build your own machine. Gold Rush ended up being my favorite and it was fun to be able to playthrough the game multiple times to see each path (never did beat the panama path)... ahh man. Gold Rush is one of those games I don't see people talk about much, if anyone wants an old adventure game to playthrough I would totally recommend it. Just don't forget: scurvy is a thing! I certainly had no idea until it was too late!
I was employed by Tandy Australia for 15years working in their computer support division supporting everything from Model 1's to the entire range of Tandy 1000's and the range of Color Computers.
Is the Tandy colour computer a trs80? An older man i know used to say he learned to program on a tandy colour computer. I have no idea which model that is.. Haha
@@Colt45hatchback They were called TRS80 Color Computers by Tandy, (or CoCos by users,) yes, but in fact they had no compatibility with the TRS80. For one thing, they didn't use a Zilog Z80 CPU like a real TRS80. They were more meant to be a home computer, whereas the TRS80 was a business machine. The Dragon 32 computer in the UK was a copy of the CoCo.
Oh right, that must have been frustrating with them both having trs80 in the name, getting software for the wrong model. I know very little about the dragon32, I only know it exists due to youtube, will have to have a more in depth look, thankyou for your reply :-)
I still have my original Tandy 1000. Still runs great. I boot it up every couple of years and revel in the nostalgia. And marvel at how well built it was!
I just inherited a large horde of Tandy TRS 80's of different kinds including a mint condition 1000 SX great machines, great review LGR keep the videos coming.
The Tandy 1000 was our first family computer. I remember the package my parents brought home came with Kings Quest II. We later purchased Karateka, Space Quest, and Hero's Quest. The best of the best was the D&D Gold box series; we started a bit late with the Krynn series - Champions of Krynn. That PC brings back great memories.
McInTEC well yeah obviously! Though its fun to get crazy sometimes. Like I recently built a machine to run Windows 98, and I went overboard with a whopping 768 MB of ram. Yeah! Crazy!
Great video. Reminded me of my Tandy 1000sl. First PC I upgraded myself by adding a memory chip to bring it to 640 k. It was my leap to the PC world from a complete C-128 system, what memories!!
My first ever PC was a Tandy 1000HX. My mother bought it used around 1992 or so so we'd have a computer in the house. It featured the upgraded RAM card, and a 1200BPS modem, and was actually the first ever computer I ever accessed the Internet on, without even realizing it. At the time, I was an avid BBS user, and my mother gave me the number of a "new BBS" to try that was being run in part by a friend of ours. This was the then fledgling Chebucto Community Net in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The number I dialed in to would access a free Internet service via any communications program, such as Telex. There were no graphics whatsoever, rather you were dumped into a version of Lynx, a text based DOS browser that ran from their end, onto their homepage. At the time, being all of 12 years old, and having never heard of the Internet before, had no idea what to do, or where to go, or how to accomplish much of anything in this strange environment that lacked even the most basic ANSI graphics, and I thought, "This is the worst BBS ever!" and promptly disconnected, going back to my games of L.O.R.D. and T.O.S. A year or two later, when the aging monitor bit the dust, we bought our first 486, from a scam artist. That computer was a whole new realm of tales, but that was the computer that allowed me to finally access the Internet in the somewhat more modern form that we're familiar with today, and I finally understood what I'd connected to back on that old Tandy, and it's always made me laugh.
When I managed the Radio Shack in Pacific Beach, California. I was close to all the 1000's on a daily basis. So much so later in life I ended up collecting every Tandy 1000 my store sold. Each one has a warm place in my heart. Great Video! On some great memorizes!
I had a Tandy 1000SX as my first IBM PC Complatible computer. I loved it. We upgraded it to the max including an accellerator board where I physically removed the 8088 Chip and replaced it with an 80286 chip. It performed remarkably well every game I played with that 286 detected it. I also installed a 40MB Seagate Hard Card. It was a hard drive installed into an expansion slot. It was the old MFM/RLL drives so you had to low level format it using debug or spinrite. I maxed out the memory to 640K and installed a memory card expansion which got me up to 2MB. Those were fun times!
I was a Radio Shack Computer Sales Specialist in a retail store about this time, I have a 1000 with a 5 slot motherboard and a 'hardcard" which was a 20 Mb HDD on a card that plugged into a slot. 640 RAM and a clock card (luxury!). My son tried to wear it out playing the full set of King's Quest games on it.
The Tandy 1000 TL/2 was my first IBM compatible PC. This machine has a special place in my heart. This may sound funny, but I was like 7 or 8 years old and addicted to this Stock Trading Sim called "Wall Street Raider" that I played on the Tandy 1000. My brother and I loved to play Jeopardy! against each other. I also played Sim City for the first time on this machine. Oh, and don't forget Lemmings and Prince of Persia. So many memories.............
Tandy 1000 SX was the first computer my family owned. It had two floppy drives and a hard drive! It took us over a year to beat Starflight, the ship moved so slow but we didn't know any better.
Growing up with a Tandy1000, I have so much love for this computer! Based on your video, I'm going to look at cleaning up the model my parents originally bought in the 80s!
I absolutely love the old guy vs. kid dichotomy for the ads, but can definitely appreciate how beneficial having these capabilities at a much lower cost was easily preferable at the time. Keep up the great work, LGR
I gave my Tandy 1000 which preceded the 1000A. I manually rigged up an external 5.25" external drive and I installed a 3.5" internal floppy and an HDD, I don't recall the capacity. I really miss one particular game, Rocky's Boots. My children enjoyed using it as much as I did. Great show!
The simplest solution would be to drop down to CGA graphics, which should quarter the amount of work the poor cpu has to do drawing the screen at a stroke.
Nothing beats the startup sounds of the computer systems of the 80's! Very much agreed about the power switch! The old AT power supplies with the massive red switches are amazing! Great job at restoring! =)
not much point, It'd need to have a matching oscilator/clock or it'll still run at 4mhz and who knows what else that's used to clock? There's not much you'd wanna run on a Tandy 1000 that will benefit from 10mhz OR an FPU except benchmarks.
I was wondering why he did not have an 8087 lying around to give a home to. Also I was wondering if a program had to be made to take advantage of the math co processor for it to be of any use.
My parents got a Tandy 1000SX when I was still in Elementary school. I played a great deal of Below the Root (a sequel to Zilpha Keatley Snyder's trilogy), Robot Odyssey, Thexder, PD Trek 2.5, and I cut my teeth on programming in BASIC. Sopwith, a 3D maze version of Pac Man, and many other lesser-known games that I cannot remember the names of also ran on this machine. The most engaging of these games was most certainly Robot Odyssey. It was an educational game that taught logic for electrical components, and gave you robots to experiment with. There was the Robotropolis campaign, a playground where you could burn any chip you wanted with any of the gates you could dream to use, and the tutorials for how to use the various electronic components, including AND gates, NAND gates, Flip-Flops, Inverters, and many other electrical components. The game did not track voltage, current, or wattage, but was astonishingly robust, otherwise. There was only one bit of technical weirdness I had to deal with. My parents made a copy of the original disk. The copies never ran right, restricting the functionality of the soldering pen in Robotropolis. Everything else ran fine. Just before the computer failed, I managed to find the original disks. Ironically, they didn't really work very well, either. However, I discovered that if you loaded the game with the originals, then played with the copies, you could get the whole game to work properly. Alas, I didn't have enough time with the game in this state to complete Robotropolis before the computer failed.
This might be my favorite old school computer I've seen! Such an aesthetic simple rounded design. Capable of those 16 color graphics, compared to those cyan/purple ones before. Seems like such a perfect home computer for the time. Seems like it was a screaming deal too.
What a great video! I had the Tandy 1000 SX. I souped it up with an 8087-2 coprocessor and a NEC V20 CPU. If you can find the 5MHz version of the V20, you can upgrade.
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX-81, my second was a Tandy 1000 EXACTLY like this, except I had a later version of DeskMate (which really was a good program). Great job Clint, as usual!
That machine looks like it was barely used. No UV discoloration of the plastic, area under the key you removed clean, virtually no dust inside, etc. Did someone donate it or did you buy it on eBay, Craigslist, or ?
Bought it on Ebay, it was stored (boxed) for a couple decades and it was in great shape when it went in there. My unboxing video that I did a while back is the first time it had seen the light of day in ages!
Ah sweet memories. 1988 my family got a Tandy.. no one used it... i became a DOS / basic master and purchased kq3 from the local computer store within walking distance 😀 thanks for the memories
Thanks for the memories! After many years on TRS-80's, C-64 and an Apple II E, this was my first IBM compatible PC! I had some great times playing games on this classic PC! Of course I had to teach myself DOS commands, and put my BASIC to use in the Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files. Getting games to actually run properly was sometimes as much of an adventure as actually playing the games themselves! Adding a 10 meg MFM hard drive, upgrading memory and overclocking were quite adventurous as well! Of course, there was no Internet, so I had to track all that info down the old fashioned way, HAM radio, the library and BBS's! Lemmings and LHX actually are pretty playable after you double the clock speed!! :)
There's none left around me. It really sucks because now I have to buy all my obscure electronic parts on eBay... It was nice being able to walk in and walk out with what you needed.
I had the original Tandy 1000 as my first PC compatible. It was an upgrade from my Tandy Color Computer II. The 1000 was and still is my favorite PC I've used. Thanks for the video and the memories.
wow, this definitely takes me back to my childhood. We had the Tandy 1000 TX model with the 5 and 1/4" drive and a 3.5" drive. We used to have all the documentation and software, and we also had the large tandy printer as well.
Yes my first space quest game I played was Space Quest 3 on the Tandy 1000. It was the first time I heard voice in a game blew my mind. Lol Also Hero Quest was amazing.
Indeed. My first Sierra games were on a 1000 TX. Space Quest (1) and King's Quest II. I got King's Quest III, but my tiny kid brain decided that playing outside was better than dealing with a) that timer, b) the stairs and path, and c) those spells. It's cool though, I eventually came around.
Thanks for posting this. My grandfather had one of these and it later became my first computer. I still have an original Starflight box with discs, manual, copy protection wheel, etc. Unfortunately that's all that remains of the system and software. I wish I had kept it! Btw, I remember sitting next to him and us being so amazed at how much faster his new 286 system was!
My grandmother has a Tandy 1000EX. I remember as a child in the early 90s thinking how awesome it was with its color monitor and graphical games. All I had ever experienced was Apple IIs at school. She has a printer and tape recorder for it. The obligatory Printshop software, Family Feud, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and Classic Concentration for it. I might have to look for some other games for it now!
Glad to see you picked one of these up! Years ago I grabbed a 1000a and TX model both from a local recycler with cm11 and cm5 monitors. They have been the machines I have enjoyed working with the most. I think I paid 30$ for both to :) I grew up with a color computer 3 so I'm always drawn to Tandy stuff
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I had a Tandy 1000 SX in college, and it was an amazing machine. Now I wish I hadn't gotten rid of it so many years ago. Thanks for all your top notch content.
That is one beautiful looking machine. I never owned a Tandy myself, but I can easily remember starting up games and wondering what that Tandy thing might be that you could often choose from the menus. I was mostly a Commodore dude myself, but I often visited friends who's dads had more businessy machines where the Tandy name often came up while I was busy breaking them by snooping around system files, games and bioses... Because I knew exactly what I was doing of course. Sometimes. Great video! I love these system reviews / xen cleaning ones.
Even though I know bull crap about computers in general I absolutely love your videos, specially the restoration ones. As a history nut I can only appreciate the value of your restoration and safekeeping work to keep these important pieces of technological history the closest possible to pristine. In behalf of future generations that will know what a computer was like in the 80's, thank you!
To clarify the vacuum usage: I was not _vacuuming,_ I was only using a shop vac's compressor to blow air out of the nozzle and move loose dust chunks out of the way. Actually vacuuming computer parts using suction is a bad idea :)
Why is it a bad idea
Why is this? Is it because you can loosen/suck parts out? I used the hoover in the past!! Oh no!!!! I feel like I've commited a crime
Short answer: risk of static discharge and the potential damage to components
You suck. :p
Watching how smoothly that fan rotates when you were dusting it out...damn. Shows how well this thing was cared for in my opinion.
This is an awesome example of the Tandy 1000 from the looks of it!
You can change the colors in that version of DeskMate, by pressing Ctrl-F1 through Ctrl-F4. And if you let it sit for 10 minutes, it has a screen saver -- not something you'd expect from a piece of DOS software from 1985!
I love seeing these old Tandy Computers, I remember going to my grandparent's house and they had 2 set up! When they upgraded my parents got one, and then when we eventually got a newer computer, the Tandy got to go in our bedroom! It was the first computer my brother and I got to consider as "ours" and even though it was already out dated, we loved using it to teach ourselves how to install games, play games, upgrade hardware, etc... even after we had computers blazing through the internet at top speeds of 56k, we still enjoyed the nostalgia and elegant simplicity of our Tandy 1000. Thank you for making videos like this!
Oh my god, this is it! When I was a young kid my grandparents gave us our first computer and I remember my brother and I playing the shit out of it. I specifically remember King's Quest II and Ghostbusters. As I got older it eventually broke down and we got ride of it. A few years back I found myself thinking of it but couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. I even reached out to my aunt and she and I thought maybe it was a Commodore 64. Then now I watched this and the second I saw it I knew this was it. I remember the round red button, the single floppy drive, the spiralled keyboard cord. Man this is so nostalgic for me! Now I want to track one down myself, lol.
that is a wonderful story. im happy for you. did you ever get hold of a tandy 1000?
I used to go into Radio Shack and type:
10 Print "Duh";
20 Goto 10
Run.
I would come back the next day and the thing would still be printing "Duh" on the screen endlessly.
Hahaha.
I do the modern day equivalent.
Make a batch file
@echo off
:1
echo *whatever you want*
goto 1
Half the time employees couldn't give two shits and don't bother to turn it off lol.
Duh
10 print "shit"
20 goto 10
Run
write:
10 print "an ibm employee was here";
20 beep
30 goto 10
40 run
RUN!!!
So... I fell asleep in my chair to this episode. Not because it was boring, not at all. But because of Clint's calm and soothing voice.
J-Man Wilson lol
He should narrate audio books.
I have a playlist of sleep videos that are mostly lgr videos and those iceburg videos
@@captainghoul666 same i watch lgr for my wind down stuff. he's so calm. hes like a fireplace.
I think these restoration vids are some of my favorites on your channel and I don't know anything about retro computers
Glad to hear it :)
i know what you mean
i dont know anything about computers in general but i just love watching him clean and repair these old machines
same
me too its my favorite kind of videos
I'm just officially an old fart (!), I guess. All these vids are pure, honey-gold nostalgia to me. Everything LGR shows (outside of some of the cleaning techniques) is stuff I used to do routinely. Well, still do, I guess. I haven't bought a complete, new PC in a couple decades now - I think the last one was 1995 or so, and that was only my second one. My system just "evolves" over time. Of course, today nothing is the same as the original but the data...
I wish I had a Tandy 1000 story to share, but I don't - I was well into PC clones by then. However, I used your "favorite program" often, at the local Radio Shack stores. My friends and I would then watch and giggle as the store clerks went red with frustration because they had no idea how to stop their display computers from constantly scrolling "Radio Shack Sucks". :-)
I grew up with a Tandy 1000. I wish I still had it, but this was an awesome trip down memory lane.
I've got fond memories of dorking around in DeskMate and pretending I had an actual schedule, and even fonder memories of Kings Quest II.
Thank you for sharing this!
Tandy 1000 was my first computer given to me by my mother-in-law in 1985. It is the machine along with Kings Quest 1 that began my enjoying gaming for over 30 plus years! It has always had a special place in my heart for gaming. I was fortunate to have 640 k with dual 5.25" floppies. After a few years I did upgrade it with an Adlib card. It was heaven for me for many years.
Man, this video really takes me back, the Tandy 1000 was my first computer. I used it from '85 until the fall of '91, when I started college and got a Mac. I wrote many a school paper in DeskMate's word processor, and learned how to program in BASIC and later Turbo Pascal. I still have the case nameplate, the motherboard and the innards of the keyboard-- I combined them together to make a memento I could hang on my wall. Still got the old DMP-130 dot matrix printer buried in a closet somewhere, too. It had an IBM compatibility mode you could enable with DIP switches on the back, I bet if I dug it out and got a USB to parallel cable it'd still work.
I'm noticing the higher production/editing values on LGR's videos of late. Good job, LGR!
Thanks, an attempt has been made!
Proud owner of a Tandy 1000 EX here. Loved the heck out of it. The 16 color graphics and 3 channel sound made it a great gaming machine.
My very first computer was a Tandy 1000, I received back in the 90s. My dad had a 386 prior to that, but sold it early on thinking he would get a 486 in the late 80s. He never did, and my family was computerless for my childhood ... all until a family friend donated his old Tandy 1000 and my dad gave it to me. Although the mid-90's at this point, I hadn't really seen much better and was excited to own my very first computer. My dad tried upgrading it with a hardcard, but it wouldn't fit - though he did have a dot matrix printer he did get working. Anyway, after getting bored of the few games it came with, I eventually stumbled upon that exact same Basic disk you showed in the video - plus a Basic manual. I had no idea what it was, but quickly gained interest as I started programming for the first time. I created a few simple programs, and even started a text based game. After years of fun, I eventually got a much more "modern" Packard Bell PC and mostly forgot about Basic. I got a Casio graphing calculator when I entered high school, only to discover a version of Basic-A - igniting my enthusiasm for programming once again, causing me to dust off that old Tandy and learn even more about Basic. I program Arduino's today, because of that Tandy.
You needed a "short" hard card for the Tandy 1000, on some there were two ways to mount the drive on the card so it would fit Tandy 1000 short slots and the longer PC slots.
Do you know MVI A,05H and MOV A,B ?🙄
That was such a throwback for me. My very first PC when I was 10 or 11 was a Tandy 1000TX. Dad got it with 640k of memory and the optional 3.5" floppy drive. My PC looked exactly like yours right down to the keyboard. I remember he bought a Panasonic 9pin dot matrix printer to go with it. I remember booting up on DOS 3.1 and playing so many of the Sierra games such and Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest and Manhunter. I even remember getting a PC magazine that had code for writing a snake game. Thanks for posting that video and bringing back so many fond memories. FYI, I still love DOS.
I love the sound of these machines, makes me somewhat emotional.
I never played with a 1000, but, My Dad had a 4(I think) 000 that I played with. 386 I forget the speed. but, speaking as an old mainframe user from the 70s, Yes, the 70s, That machine taught me DOS. and with DOS....I got a job and it saved my family. that was around 1990. I have a found spot in my heart for Tandy. And I LOVE YOUR WORK! keep it up sir. You do good..
Years ago I found an ibm pc at in a library near me so I asked at the city hall and now I got a free 5170, I can't believe it
O, geeky nostalgia!!! in 1987, my dad upgraded to a Tandy 1000SX from a TRS-80 model 4 in his office--right in line with what you mentioned about Tandy's upgrade path for their existing customers. It had a green MGA screen, ST-251 hard drive, 1.2 MB FDD, and I want to say 1024K RAM. Later, he installed a Logitech mouse with its own special ISA card to help run his publishing program, PFS: First Publisher. We loved playing MS Flight Simulator on that 1000, but we didn't have a lot of games in those days, so we missed out on the Tandy sound completely - this was a big surprise to find out so many years later! My dad bought a 386 motherboard and we tried to upgrade it, but the board just didn't fit the case and PSU, so we had to give up on that and get a new case. The Tandy 1000 was truly my first PC experience after the TRS-80 world. I loved the sound of that keyboard and seeing and hearing one again made my day. Glad to see you've added a Tandy 1000 to the gang.
Totally sweet. That was a decent price for that machine. The damn power button is just incredibly satisfying. Our school had a couple XT’s which were equally neat, but something about Tandy that made it seem easier to obtain for home users. I never knew that CPM came on the Model 4. I own a Model 4 and it came with TRS-DOS. I’m not exactly sure what it was based on. Not gonna lie, something about that PC speaker on the Tandy 1000 sounded great. It’s smooth. Like they turned down the high pass filter or something. Less harsh than most. Thanks for sharing as always!
The power switch on the original 1000 even lights up when you turn it on!
The PS/2 will forever live in my memory as the most satisfying computer power switch ever. And the sound of the fans and hard disk spinning up in sequence, made it feel like powering up a spacecraft cockpit (to me as a kid, anyway).
Just a note for the Tandy's PC speaker as you were referring to is actually NOT the PC speaker! There was a DAC on the motherboard for the Tandy sound which was an addon similar to installing a Sound Blaster, only the Sound Blaster when it came out much later was worlds better (which goes without saying :P). It had a PC speaker as usual and then another chip which was called the Tandy DAC and then later Tandy models had the Tandy 3-DAC which supported more "voices" than the original Tandy DAC in those builds. It was an actual sound chip included only in Tandy computers (obviously) and while it was still limited in its sound capabilities, compared to PC speaker it was incredible!
This original 1000 model does not have a DAC. That's only in the later RL/SL/TL models. The older 1000s have 3-voice audio.
If the TRS80 Model 3 could run CP/M (Mine did), Then for sure the 4 could. CP/M could even run on the Coleco ADAM (No, I'm not making that up, it was, Like our long lost TRS-80s, a Zilog Z80 based machine!). I'm willing to bet SOMEONE got it to run on a ZX-81 (Timex 1000), LOL!
I had a Tandy HD-1000 when I was 12 years old. I never had any games for it, but I learned basic. Mine had a monochrome monitor; never knew they came with color monitors.
Seeing this really brought me back!
There's something oddly soothing about Clints voice...
Why oddly
Probably helps that he uses a good mic
I sleep to it when I'm depressed.
i sleep with this its great
Oddly erotic.
Grew up on a near-identical Tandy 1000. Programming in BASIC with dad and grandpa, playing Space Quest 1-3, King's Quest 3, Police Quest, Double Dragon, various shareware titles... NES in the other corner... this is my childhood and the reason I'm still slapping keys to this day. Thank you.
LGR
Thanks for bringing us these amazing restorations of legacy PCs. Like some others have said these are some of my very favorite videos you do.
Aww man I had this was my first computer ever. I am so glad I found this video. It brings me back to the good old days. I unfortunately destroyed it when trying to take it apart when I was younger. Stupid younger me. I would like to find one and relive that part of my childhood. There was a lot of games and other programs I didn't play with when I was growing up, but. I did play pacman, wheel of fortune and jeopardy. I love this channel so much. I've coming here more often to remember to good times. I recently lost my father on May 16th 2020, and I've been very nostalgic lately. Again that you, it's just bringing me back.
The Tandy 1000 can also be shortened to T-1000
T2
Just so long as it doesn't turn into a pool of liquid
That would cause confusion with the Toshiba T1000 laptop.
Perhaps it's generational, When I hear "T-1000" I think of the Pontiac econobox that was basically a Chevette clone. The damned jingle is now in my head: "T-1000, The penny pinching Pontiac!".😉👍
Guess it's better than saying "Trash-80 COCO", though I do miss mine, and my 1000, 1000SX, 1000EX. Hey LGR, do you have any 286 Epxress Card expansion boards for the 1000 series? Those were fun to mess with!
Our first home computer was a 1000 HX, with the lower res CM5 monitor. We had the joysticks for it, and a TRS80 style mouse. Panasonic KXP-1123 printer. My folks still have it, but it's boxed up in the attic. We got it in 1987 and used it until 1997 when we bought a Win95 HP. Lots of memories.
This was my first computer back when I was a kid. Thank you so much for covering this computer!!!
Oh man memories. I got one of these as a hand me down from my cousins, my aunt was kind enough to let me have their Tandy once they upgraded to another machine. At this point I had already had a NES so action games on this Tandy weren't going to impress me but those adventure games sure did. I loved Zelda but that world couldn't compare to Hero's Quest or Gold Rush. I was blown away by the amount of random crap you could make your characters do, from typing in pee at a bathroom in Space Quest to instantly getting a game over for typing kill priest in King's Quest. Haha To a kid who was only used to video games having A and B buttons with limited interactions it was wild just going through those adventure games and typing up all sorts of mischief. I also vaguely remember some pinball game where you could build your own machine.
Gold Rush ended up being my favorite and it was fun to be able to playthrough the game multiple times to see each path (never did beat the panama path)... ahh man. Gold Rush is one of those games I don't see people talk about much, if anyone wants an old adventure game to playthrough I would totally recommend it. Just don't forget: scurvy is a thing! I certainly had no idea until it was too late!
These particular videos are always so satisfying to watch.
You're house would be like a museum/playground for me. I grew up using these old computers and I love playing the old games on them.
I was employed by Tandy Australia for 15years working in their computer support division supporting everything from Model 1's to the entire range of Tandy 1000's and the range of Color Computers.
Is the Tandy colour computer a trs80?
An older man i know used to say he learned to program on a tandy colour computer. I have no idea which model that is.. Haha
@@Colt45hatchback They were called TRS80 Color Computers by Tandy, (or CoCos by users,) yes, but in fact they had no compatibility with the TRS80. For one thing, they didn't use a Zilog Z80 CPU like a real TRS80. They were more meant to be a home computer, whereas the TRS80 was a business machine. The Dragon 32 computer in the UK was a copy of the CoCo.
Oh right, that must have been frustrating with them both having trs80 in the name, getting software for the wrong model.
I know very little about the dragon32, I only know it exists due to youtube, will have to have a more in depth look, thankyou for your reply :-)
You know I picked you with a pin for about 0.1 seconds many years ago at Tandy Australia. You said "ow" and forgot about it. I'm sorry if it hurt.
I still have my original Tandy 1000. Still runs great. I boot it up every couple of years and revel in the nostalgia. And marvel at how well built it was!
I just inherited a large horde of Tandy TRS 80's of different kinds including a mint condition 1000 SX great machines, great review LGR keep the videos coming.
Brad McCartney Wow nice score!
The Tandy 1000 was our first family computer. I remember the package my parents brought home came with Kings Quest II. We later purchased Karateka, Space Quest, and Hero's Quest. The best of the best was the D&D Gold box series; we started a bit late with the Krynn series - Champions of Krynn. That PC brings back great memories.
640K Ought to be enough for anyone.... Uh Huh...
McInTEC well yeah obviously! Though its fun to get crazy sometimes. Like I recently built a machine to run Windows 98, and I went overboard with a whopping 768 MB of ram. Yeah! Crazy!
Mathew Dempsey my windows 98 machine sadly has a 128mb memory limit so a 256mb stick is still only worth 128mb
nice quote from Bill Gates
I run Windows 11 on 640K, but that's because of the nuclear war. I'm from the future, don't vote for Tim Allen.
Snopes looked into it: He didn't actually say it. It was just a common idea at that time.
Great video. Reminded me of my Tandy 1000sl. First PC I upgraded myself by adding a memory chip to bring it to 640 k. It was my leap to the PC world from a complete C-128 system, what memories!!
Thanks for doing 4K
My first ever PC was a Tandy 1000HX. My mother bought it used around 1992 or so so we'd have a computer in the house. It featured the upgraded RAM card, and a 1200BPS modem, and was actually the first ever computer I ever accessed the Internet on, without even realizing it.
At the time, I was an avid BBS user, and my mother gave me the number of a "new BBS" to try that was being run in part by a friend of ours. This was the then fledgling Chebucto Community Net in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The number I dialed in to would access a free Internet service via any communications program, such as Telex. There were no graphics whatsoever, rather you were dumped into a version of Lynx, a text based DOS browser that ran from their end, onto their homepage.
At the time, being all of 12 years old, and having never heard of the Internet before, had no idea what to do, or where to go, or how to accomplish much of anything in this strange environment that lacked even the most basic ANSI graphics, and I thought, "This is the worst BBS ever!" and promptly disconnected, going back to my games of L.O.R.D. and T.O.S.
A year or two later, when the aging monitor bit the dust, we bought our first 486, from a scam artist. That computer was a whole new realm of tales, but that was the computer that allowed me to finally access the Internet in the somewhat more modern form that we're familiar with today, and I finally understood what I'd connected to back on that old Tandy, and it's always made me laugh.
Uploaded just in time to enjoy the video during my lunch break 😊
Thank you for taking the time to clean these relics. So many people show crusty old hardware on UA-cam and it's just kind of sad.
Man that sweet startup sound.
When I managed the Radio Shack in Pacific Beach, California. I was close to all the 1000's on a daily basis. So much so later in life I ended up collecting every Tandy 1000 my store sold. Each one has a warm place in my heart. Great Video! On some great memorizes!
Sweet, a LGR vid on my birthday!
I had a Tandy 1000SX as my first IBM PC Complatible computer. I loved it. We upgraded it to the max including an accellerator board where I physically removed the 8088 Chip and replaced it with an 80286 chip. It performed remarkably well every game I played with that 286 detected it. I also installed a 40MB Seagate Hard Card. It was a hard drive installed into an expansion slot. It was the old MFM/RLL drives so you had to low level format it using debug or spinrite. I maxed out the memory to 640K and installed a memory card expansion which got me up to 2MB. Those were fun times!
Hey boss, I'm going to take a 18 minute, 44 second break. I'll be back to work after that.
literally me rn
Same 😂😂😂😂
JHDK That's a long wank or shit....
TIL some places don't give lunch breaks.
I was a Radio Shack Computer Sales Specialist in a retail store about this time, I have a 1000 with a 5 slot motherboard and a 'hardcard" which was a 20 Mb HDD on a card that plugged into a slot. 640 RAM and a clock card (luxury!). My son tried to wear it out playing the full set of King's Quest games on it.
must be Tandy week. both you and VWestlife put out Tandy 1000 videos.
The Tandy 1000 TL/2 was my first IBM compatible PC. This machine has a special place in my heart. This may sound funny, but I was like 7 or 8 years old and addicted to this Stock Trading Sim called "Wall Street Raider" that I played on the Tandy 1000. My brother and I loved to play Jeopardy! against each other. I also played Sim City for the first time on this machine. Oh, and don't forget Lemmings and Prince of Persia. So many memories.............
Farts program is the best program
I think that program STINKS ! LOL.
Tandy 1000 SX was the first computer my family owned. It had two floppy drives and a hard drive! It took us over a year to beat Starflight, the ship moved so slow but we didn't know any better.
7:17 - Nice bodge cap on the logic IC there. :-)
7:05 And the resistor bodged to the side of the chip "is a bit how you doin'" at the bottom. :D
lightpixel He wasn't in like Flynn with those screws tho.
Growing up with a Tandy1000, I have so much love for this computer! Based on your video, I'm going to look at cleaning up the model my parents originally bought in the 80s!
Ooooh! It's beautiful!😍
I absolutely love the old guy vs. kid dichotomy for the ads, but can definitely appreciate how beneficial having these capabilities at a much lower cost was easily preferable at the time. Keep up the great work, LGR
Ed Judg, Probably Had A Moustache LOL
$1200 in 1985 was a lot of money. I was a teenager then and I don’t remember anyone having a home computer
I gave my Tandy 1000 which preceded the 1000A. I manually rigged up an external 5.25" external drive and I installed a 3.5" internal floppy and an HDD, I don't recall the capacity. I really miss one particular game, Rocky's Boots. My children enjoyed using it as much as I did. Great show!
I love magic erasers. I tell all my friends about them. They don't believe in my hype. Fools.
A very good-looking machine. I love the esthetics of the late 1970's and early-to-mid 1980's computers.
That is some crazy lagging on Lemmings. Even the clock is having trouble with it. If the sound is turned off, does that fix anything?
It helps but not enough to make it super playable. It's just a really slow machine not made for games that new.
Can the CPU be over clocked at all? By a couple of MHz?
maybe dropping in the math co-processor would be a fun experiment too.
The simplest solution would be to drop down to CGA graphics, which should quarter the amount of work the poor cpu has to do drawing the screen at a stroke.
Nothing beats the startup sounds of the computer systems of the 80's! Very much agreed about the power switch! The old AT power supplies with the massive red switches are amazing! Great job at restoring! =)
Thanks for the info on the 1 meg card. I've seen that for sale, but the seller never explained its use.
Clint - I adore how in focus it is! Like..I can almost feel that plastic. Great work - been watching you for ages now and you're just the ducks nuts.
Are you gonna upgrade to a 10Mhz 8088 and install the 8087 too? D:
not much point, It'd need to have a matching oscilator/clock or it'll still run at 4mhz and who knows what else that's used to clock?
There's not much you'd wanna run on a Tandy 1000 that will benefit from 10mhz OR an FPU except benchmarks.
Will the bus handle it?
I was wondering why he did not have an 8087 lying around to give a home to. Also I was wondering if a program had to be made to take advantage of the math co processor for it to be of any use.
Exactly - just because it has an FPU, doesn't mean that the programs are going to make calls to it.
If he's adding more RAM etc he may as well add the FPU, even if only a few programs use it.
That looks gorgeous. It looks brand new. I need to find one of these someday... I had the Tandy 1000 SX when it first came out.
2:20 lol great edited :D
My parents got a Tandy 1000SX when I was still in Elementary school. I played a great deal of Below the Root (a sequel to Zilpha Keatley Snyder's trilogy), Robot Odyssey, Thexder, PD Trek 2.5, and I cut my teeth on programming in BASIC. Sopwith, a 3D maze version of Pac Man, and many other lesser-known games that I cannot remember the names of also ran on this machine.
The most engaging of these games was most certainly Robot Odyssey. It was an educational game that taught logic for electrical components, and gave you robots to experiment with. There was the Robotropolis campaign, a playground where you could burn any chip you wanted with any of the gates you could dream to use, and the tutorials for how to use the various electronic components, including AND gates, NAND gates, Flip-Flops, Inverters, and many other electrical components.
The game did not track voltage, current, or wattage, but was astonishingly robust, otherwise. There was only one bit of technical weirdness I had to deal with.
My parents made a copy of the original disk. The copies never ran right, restricting the functionality of the soldering pen in Robotropolis. Everything else ran fine. Just before the computer failed, I managed to find the original disks. Ironically, they didn't really work very well, either. However, I discovered that if you loaded the game with the originals, then played with the copies, you could get the whole game to work properly. Alas, I didn't have enough time with the game in this state to complete Robotropolis before the computer failed.
I have found my new ASMR obsession..toothbrushing cleaning
This might be my favorite old school computer I've seen! Such an aesthetic simple rounded design. Capable of those 16 color graphics, compared to those cyan/purple ones before. Seems like such a perfect home computer for the time. Seems like it was a screaming deal too.
Computer: thanks for brushing my keys 😅
LGR: What the
f***?
What a great video! I had the Tandy 1000 SX. I souped it up with an 8087-2 coprocessor and a NEC V20 CPU. If you can find the 5MHz version of the V20, you can upgrade.
I see someone bought that mouse at a military exchange :)
Oh yeah, LOL. I recognize the AAFES price tag from way back when.
The Tandy speaker output makes me think of the old Sega Master System's sound processor. So nice!
What camera are you using? The quality is amazing.
Thanks! I'm using a Lumix GH5 these days.
Nice. :-) I have a GH3. The M4/3 format really hits the sweet spot for DSLR quality w/o the crazy large and expensive lenses.
This was the machine I was first exposed to PC's on! Great memories.....I was enchanted immediately
7/32 what a nice fraction to make a socket in....*cough* metric system for the win *cough*
Those sorts of things drive me nuts too. For reference, it's right about 5.56mm, so if you have a slightly oversized 5.5mm socket, it might work.
Or just use some pliers.
Nah ya'll are being weak
6mm drill bit, self tapping wood screw.
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX-81, my second was a Tandy 1000 EXACTLY like this, except I had a later version of DeskMate (which really was a good program). Great job Clint, as usual!
1:20 Don’t buy IBM, you wouldn’t like me when you buy IBM.
I had my Tandy 1000 from ~late 85 until I got a 386 in 1994. It was a great machine! It was a tough beast.
What a beauty!!!... The computer, Clint! Not you ;)
Amazing video, as usual... When will you make a cr@ppy video, man?...
It's a Pixel THING what, you think Clint isn't beautiful? Shame on your cow
clint is a beautiful man.
I miss the sound of old computer systems idling, fans blowing, hard drive chirping every now and then. Beautiful
10 print "farts"
20 goto 10
What a fun stuff
All of your videos are the equivalent of a 1988 newspaper sales flier; AMAZING!
That machine looks like it was barely used. No UV discoloration of the plastic, area under the key you removed clean, virtually no dust inside, etc. Did someone donate it or did you buy it on eBay, Craigslist, or ?
Bought it on Ebay, it was stored (boxed) for a couple decades and it was in great shape when it went in there. My unboxing video that I did a while back is the first time it had seen the light of day in ages!
Pretty awesome synthesizer. I appreciate the tip again about the CompactFlash card hard drive and all the upgrades lots.
Bill Bixby.
Yep, had to pause the video to double check. Had no idea he did print ads for Radio Shack lol
Don't make him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.
Ah sweet memories. 1988 my family got a Tandy.. no one used it... i became a DOS / basic master and purchased kq3 from the local computer store within walking distance 😀 thanks for the memories
Paku Paku looks like another game I've seen before but I can't quite place it......
Mario Bros
Yep! That's the one!
In the movie?
Thanks for the memories! After many years on TRS-80's, C-64 and an Apple II E, this was my first IBM compatible PC! I had some great times playing games on this classic PC! Of course I had to teach myself DOS commands, and put my BASIC to use in the Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files. Getting games to actually run properly was sometimes as much of an adventure as actually playing the games themselves! Adding a 10 meg MFM hard drive, upgrading memory and overclocking were quite adventurous as well! Of course, there was no Internet, so I had to track all that info down the old fashioned way, HAM radio, the library and BBS's! Lemmings and LHX actually are pretty playable after you double the clock speed!! :)
the good ol days when Radio Shack wasn't a mobile phone store
Shelby sadly, it had to turn into one since 90% of its stock could be replaced with a smartphone.
There's none left around me. It really sucks because now I have to buy all my obscure electronic parts on eBay... It was nice being able to walk in and walk out with what you needed.
I had the original Tandy 1000 as my first PC compatible. It was an upgrade from my Tandy Color Computer II. The 1000 was and still is my favorite PC I've used. Thanks for the video and the memories.
Strongbad's computer
wow, this definitely takes me back to my childhood. We had the Tandy 1000 TX model with the 5 and 1/4" drive and a 3.5" drive. We used to have all the documentation and software, and we also had the large tandy printer as well.
SPACE QUEST!!
SQ2 - my first Sierra game... I was in love.
Yes my first space quest game I played was Space Quest 3 on the Tandy 1000. It was the first time I heard voice in a game blew my mind. Lol
Also Hero Quest was amazing.
Indeed. My first Sierra games were on a 1000 TX. Space Quest (1) and King's Quest II. I got King's Quest III, but my tiny kid brain decided that playing outside was better than dealing with a) that timer, b) the stairs and path, and c) those spells. It's cool though, I eventually came around.
The first voice I heard in a game was "Prepare to qualify..."
Thanks for posting this. My grandfather had one of these and it later became my first computer. I still have an original Starflight box with discs, manual, copy protection wheel, etc. Unfortunately that's all that remains of the system and software. I wish I had kept it! Btw, I remember sitting next to him and us being so amazed at how much faster his new 286 system was!
My grandmother has a Tandy 1000EX. I remember as a child in the early 90s thinking how awesome it was with its color monitor and graphical games. All I had ever experienced was Apple IIs at school. She has a printer and tape recorder for it. The obligatory Printshop software, Family Feud, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and Classic Concentration for it. I might have to look for some other games for it now!
Glad to see you picked one of these up! Years ago I grabbed a 1000a and TX model both from a local recycler with cm11 and cm5 monitors. They have been the machines I have enjoyed working with the most. I think I paid 30$ for both to :) I grew up with a color computer 3 so I'm always drawn to Tandy stuff
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I had a Tandy 1000 SX in college, and it was an amazing machine. Now I wish I hadn't gotten rid of it so many years ago. Thanks for all your top notch content.
That is one beautiful looking machine. I never owned a Tandy myself, but I can easily remember starting up games and wondering what that Tandy thing might be that you could often choose from the menus. I was mostly a Commodore dude myself, but I often visited friends who's dads had more businessy machines where the Tandy name often came up while I was busy breaking them by snooping around system files, games and bioses... Because I knew exactly what I was doing of course. Sometimes.
Great video! I love these system reviews / xen cleaning ones.
Even though I know bull crap about computers in general I absolutely love your videos, specially the restoration ones.
As a history nut I can only appreciate the value of your restoration and safekeeping work to keep these important pieces of technological history the closest possible to pristine.
In behalf of future generations that will know what a computer was like in the 80's, thank you!
Something sublimely relaxing about watching a fellow clean an old PC with a woodgrain toothbrush.