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Tandy 1000 HX, looking for some Card Plus like I used to have

RetroGaming Roundup

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May 14, 2013
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After building a maxed out C64 with the SD card HD, ethernet, etc. it occurred to me I would really like to get ahold of a Tandy 1000 HX like I had around 1990. At some point I found some upgrade card plus from PC enterprises and another company I can't recall and had it tricked out with more RAM, a HD and VGA. I would like to put together a similar build again and found this forum while digging around the web for cards. The base PC itself seems pretty easy to find but of course the card plus cards are not so easy. I saw a few examples of what I am looking for, one just recently on this forum. I am hoping someone has some components or a complete setup they would like to trade or sell. Tandy's were my transition from the C64 and Apple world into the PC world. At the time I was in the Army and had both a 1000 HX and an 1100 HD laptop, they were functional, accessible, and at the time affordable. Shortly after that I got into building PCs and ditched the Tandy's.
 
Welcome to the forum! Unfortunately, I think that you'll find these to be a VERY hard find. The only examples I've seen were up at auction nearly 2 years ago, and a forum member paid out the nose for them, outbidding me and several others, I'm sure.

That said, you can still do decently if you're willing to sacrifice the VGA option. Get a Tandy 1000HX with the memory card option, buy or create a Plus->ISA cable, and then install one of the XT-IDE flavor cards that various forum members have created.

If you're after a VGA card for your 8088, you would probably be better finding another larger 8088. To my knowledge, no one has created a homebrew VGA card that will be usable in the Tandy EX/HX series. Besides, without the speed upgrade board, the VGA is essentially useless in an 8088, anyway (at least in my opinion) - you're forcing the CPU to do more work already to process graphics, and thereby slowing down your gaming experience.
 
Like all things from Hot Wheels to Star Wars figures it seemed like junk at the time ;). I am more looking to display on VGA monitors reliably than to produce VGA resolutions natively, which is silly since the vast majority of the games that run on XT class machines don't even support VGA, makes me wonder why the aftermarket card manufacturer bothered. I recall thinking it was a neat upgrade at the time but my memory is really fuzzy. I will likely use an arcade converter board that is designed to interface CGA boards with modern VGA monitors. I just want to use the monitor on my desk.

I will certainly solder up a plus to ISA adapter to experiment with what other XT class cards I can get working just for kicks. Back in 91 or so I did solder up an adapter and managed to interface an 8bit RLL type HD to the HX, but boot reliability was sketchy for some reason. I never pursued it much because I moved on to building much more powerful boxes.
 
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