The best upgrade for this system would be a Make-it-486 CPU upgrade, an EMS card that will fit in a Tandy, an 8-bit VGA card, a one-slot IDE solution (XT-CF card) and a Roland MIF-IPC-A + MPU-401 in addition to the Sound Blaster. Also, the keyboard could be replaced with a Northgate Omnikey keyboard. Oh, and a Tandy CM-11 would be nice. Fortunately, the TX can switch between Tandy graphics and VGA graphics with a utility called VSWITCH.

I forgot to take a photo of the composite video output, one of the system's best features, so here it is :

That's great work, thanks for sharing!

I don't think I'll ever see a tandy or pcjr here in Europe.

Cool! Lots of fun to be had!

Harekiet wrote:

I don't think I'll ever see a tandy or pcjr here in Europe.

There is a PCjr in Sweden. I sent it there. : - )

If you can live without the PCjr monitor the shipping becomes a lot easier and a lot less expensive.

mbbrutman wrote:

There is a PCjr in Sweden. I sent it there. : - )
If you can live without the PCjr monitor the shipping becomes a lot easier and a lot less expensive.

Yeah I'd have to import one from the states. I'm not retro enough to spend that much money on it, but it would be nice to have some XT like machine that might have predictable clocks so you could try some more fancy programming.

Harekiet wrote:

mbbrutman wrote:

There is a PCjr in Sweden. I sent it there. : - )
If you can live without the PCjr monitor the shipping becomes a lot easier and a lot less expensive.

Yeah I'd have to import one from the states. I'm not retro enough to spend that much money on it, but it would be nice to have some XT like machine that might have predictable clocks so you could try some more fancy programming.

As far as I can tell, Tandy's own machines had little, if any international presence. However, Tandy's TRS-80 had its European/Australasian clones like the Dick Smith System 80, and the TRS-80 Color Computer was also virtually cloned in the Dragon 32 and 64 computers. When it came to the 1000 series, I know of no "international models". The PCjr. also had very little international presence. The closest it got as far as I know was the obscure IBM PC JX, released only in Japan and Australasia (AU and NZ). Its close to a "true American" as most computers ever got.

It all seems to be Z80 stuff though. I'd like a proper 8088 style custom machine. Someone just needs to make an PC-XT implementation for that chameleon cartridge 😀

That's awesome, thanks so much for taking the time to type that up and post your pics. I love drooling over the systems you guys post. 🤣

This thing is sweet. I remember seeing the Tandy name in many old games but I never bothered to investigate. Just seemed as something exotic 😀

Anyway, I see it's a very nice machine and wouldn't mind owning one myself 😀

Great machine! Don't forget to have a lot of fun with it 😁

I read up on Tandy 1000TX and there is some criticism of 286 not being able to run in protected mode. I don't see how that's a problem since hardly any software uses 286's protected mode anyway. I think this is a great computer and judging by eBay prices, I'm not the only one 😀

awesome setup!
IMHO a setup like this has value for being itself: once you upgrade it to 486ish/vga then it has no reason to exist IMHO , the point is to have tandy gfx/sound for all these old games 😀
Although I am not a fan of such old machines, one day I hope to get a similar setup or the Amstrad 1640 one... I always wanted a cga/ega pc but it has to be a complete brand-name setup ... 😁

You may have the last but I have the first! 😜
Well... sort of. It's an IBM PCjr equipped with a JrCaptain fitted with extra ram bringing the total up to a whopping 640k. 🤣

I payed 10$ for it back in 2007 or 08 (Can't really remember).

You may think this is a bit unrelated but actually the PCjr actually was the first computer to have the "Tandy graphics" built in. In fact before it went flop and Tandy removed all references to the PCjr the graphics set was referred to as PCjr graphics.

So what would you say is the biggest difference between your PCjr and a Tandy 1000TX?

If I recall correctly, probably the biggest differences between the two are the cartridge
slots on the Junior, along with the chiclet keyboard and the external expansion bus.
I don't think the Junior had a 286 but just an 8088, while the Tandy 1000 TX had
the 286 but still with the 8 bit expansion bus.

The Tandy 1000sx and th Junior are probably closer in spec, apart from the
external expansion bus, cartridge slots and keyboard they are more or
less the same (I think). Great Hierophant or Trixter could probably give a
more detailed rundown.

Yeah the PCjr is a 4.77 mhz 8088 and stock they usually came with 128kb or 64kb on the earlier models. They also as he said came with 2 cartridge ports (presumably to compete with other home computers of the time such as the Commodore 64) and one internal floppy diskette drive. The very strange external expansion port is also a great oddity and is reminiscent of the Texas instruments home computer in that respect. The Jr also featured proprietary ports on the back meaning you cannot use any of your controllers, keyboards,monitor or mice from the IBM PC or any of it's clones. Even the power unit was odd on this machine, it is an external unit the looks similar to the commodore power supplies (meaning it has a normal 3 prong plug then some cord then the power box and then some more cord with the proprietary plug on the end.) except that the plug on the end looks like a coffee machine power plug. It has two sockets vertically.
However the PCjr was not only strange on the outside it was strange internally, many things were different in the PCjr from even the IBM 5150. The PCjr could only make use of one floppy disk controller board and due to the graphics and sound "upgrades" from the IBM PC the PCjr was not compatible with many of the software titles released to the PC compatible market.
The PCjr can handle up to DOS 3.0 with no hardware modification, it also came with IBM BASIC V1 on ROM and in a cartridge for some reason (Presumably so you could use newer versions of basic without using a diskette drive? Newer versions of basic were never made for it though since it was a huge failure).
The 8088 chip can be upgraded by using a NEC V20 to a whopping 7 mhz! But I've heard it's not really a big deal and most likely will go unnoticed. Also with such expansion side cars as I have (The JrCaptain in my case) parallel ports and memory upgrades are available. Although you will most likely want to modify the hardware to let you make use of the parallel port in a bi directional manner (as they were meant as printer expansion ports) or modify the RAM parts to accept up to 860kb.
Also as you can see in my picture I have the second release Keyboard and unit since mine has a floppy diskette drive and a proper (albeit small) keyboard, but it's still better than that chicklet mess 🤣 )

Great Hierophant wrote:

As far as I can tell, Tandy's own machines had little, if any international presence.

Sorry forgot to reply to this post, but in Australia we definitely got the Tandy 1000's 😀 My uncle had a Tandy 1000HX that I wasn't allowed to touch because I was just a "kid" 🙁 He's thrown it out a long time ago now 🙁

keropi wrote:

awesome setup!
IMHO a setup like this has value for being itself: once you upgrade it to 486ish/vga then it has no reason to exist IMHO , the point is to have tandy gfx/sound for all these old games 😀

The addition of a VGA card can be very complementary to a second-gen (> 1988) Tandy 1000 system, where switching between it and the onboard ETGA graphics can be easily accomplished, and where the combination of VGA and the capabilities of the PSSJ may provide the "best" graphics and sound available for a particular software title.

Furthermore, an appropriately expanded Tandy 1000 system, in such a dual-monitor configuration, can easily provide a range of software support from ~ 1985 - 1992. This, again, with the best graphics and sound options available to the software.

It's worth mentioning that, up until ~ late 1988, most PC software leveraged the 3-voice + noise PSG sound capabilities (common to the PCjr and Tandy 1000 line) to provide the "best" sound experience. If you don't have a Tandy 1000 system, and you're not at least trying this older software in DOSBox' Tandy mode, you're probably missing out.