I spy a Model M2.

Did you recap it?

carlostex wrote:

So i got a Tandy 1000 SL motherboard. I got it on an impulse, i threw an offer and the seller accepted. […]
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So i got a Tandy 1000 SL motherboard. I got it on an impulse, i threw an offer and the seller accepted.

The Tandy 1000 model i really wanted is a TL/3. Reason being i wanted a 286 system and i don't want to just build a generic one. A TL/3 at 10MHz would provide a decent mid ground between my 12MHz V20 and my 386. Unfortunately TL/3's seem to be hard to find so i'd be happy with a TL or TL/2. I think even a TX would be nice.
So i don't know what i'm gonna do yet. i'll probably try to get a TL along the road, but getting a system with case would just cost a crazy amount of money to ship.

So living in Europe and owning a Tandy 1000 raises a few questions. Powering it up won't be that difficult. I'm gonna use an AT PSU, all i need to do is to change P8 connector, get rid of the -5V line and move the +5V pin to where the -5V was. This way i can connect pin 2 of the P8 connector to pin 1 of the power connector on the board and i'll have proper voltages from pin 1 to 5:

1- +5V
2- +5V
3- +5V
4- GND
5- GND

For the remaining 4 pins on the motherboard connector i can use pin 1 to pin 4 on the P9 connector of the PSU. That way i'll have:

6- GND
7- GND
8- -12V
9- +12V

Now the question is... Where am i going to put this motherboard? Considering it is not a generic XT or AT board i can't just simply put it inside a normal XT or AT case.

So ithought about making a wooden case. That way i can have an AT/ATX PSU installed and make it work. I'll also adapt for the sattelite boards. Then i just need to figure out about floppy drives to use.

And of course the video.There are now DAC's that can convert IBM CGA to a 15KHz analog RGB signal. It's all a matter of getting a 15KHz monitor or using a gonbes upscaler.

Pretty sure a TL case will work perfectly fine with that as well, if that helps. Be careful hooking floppy drives up, it may provide floppy power over what are normally ground leads in the floppy cable. The advantage of the TL/SL and later Tandy machines is that they are XT keyboard compatible, while the 1000/1000A/1000SX/1000TX systems require a special, weird, relatively rare keyboard.

Shame you live in Europe, I have a Tandy 1000SL case (with power supply) in great shape that would love to have a new home. The motherboard had two leaky caps on the ISA area and the acid destroyed too much to salvage imo, so I'm keeping it for spares for one of my functional SLs.

If you do get desperate enough IM me and maybe we can see how much it would cost to ship over. The 1000-series is the best XT-clone in my opinion.

raymangold wrote:

I spy a Model M2.

Did you recap it?

No, the motherboard hasn't even arrived yet. It is currently stuck at customs.

The photos were taken by the seller, btw.

keenerb wrote:

Pretty sure a TL case will work perfectly fine with that as well, if that helps. Be careful hooking floppy drives up, it may provide floppy power over what are normally ground leads in the floppy cable. The advantage of the TL/SL and later Tandy machines is that they are XT keyboard compatible, while the 1000/1000A/1000SX/1000TX systems require a special, weird, relatively rare keyboard.

Shame you live in Europe, I have a Tandy 1000SL case (with power supply) in great shape that would love to have a new home. The motherboard had two leaky caps on the ISA area and the acid destroyed too much to salvage imo, so I'm keeping it for spares for one of my functional SLs.

If you do get desperate enough IM me and maybe we can see how much it would cost to ship over. The 1000-series is the best XT-clone in my opinion.

Yep, i've been wondering about the case. I was suspecting that a TL case could work too, but i really prefer to get an SL one.

If you don't have use for that case i would like to have it. Is the PSU also in working order? One solution would be to get a step down converter so i could provide the 110V juice it needs. I'll PM you.

I finally got this motherboard and adapted an AT PSU to feed the proper voltages throught the proper pins. I got the board to power up just fine with a VGA card, but unfortunately i couldn't get signal from the internal video port. This could indicate 1 of 2 issues, or could be both at the same time, although i find it not likely:

1- Internal video is busted;

2- The DAC i'm using can't decode the ignal properly;

AFAIK there's no difference signal wise between CGA and Tandy video right? So i don't know why the DAC works great with IBM CGA but it can't decode Tandy video properly. I find this so unlikely that i think the damn Tandy video has some sort of problem.

Couple of things to check:

- Maybe the internal video is configured to boot in MDA mode. CTRL+ALT+SHlFT+V should change between MDA and TGA mode.
- Internal video uses a non-standard 225 line text mode from boot. Try MODE 200 to switch it to standard CGA text mode.

Thanks bjt, that problem has been long solved, it was indeed stuck in Hercules mode. The board works great, and i'll be getting a case soon thanks to keenerb.

My AT PSU mod worked fine, and i'll be on the lookout for a 220V Tandy PSU.

I've been looking into reference manuals and it seems that some Tandy 1000 PSU's might be switching PSU's there seems to be an internal jumper that switches operation Tô 220V.

The SL reference manual makes reference to dual input PSU.

I might be on the look for a Tandy 1000 TL board, as it fits an SL case and it has the speed i'm looking for.