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1000RL HD Keybaord and potential Hard drive replacement.

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Frozen001

Experienced Member
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May 31, 2009
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101
I have a Tandy 1000RL Hard drive. Been a while since I got it, and I finally plugged it in, and the HD needed a tap to start spinning, but t appears to work, at least as far as I can currently test. Current problem is that I do not have a keyboard that works with it. It has a PS/2 connector on it but non of my keyboard work. Keys either do not work, or what I press does not match what is shown on the screen. I am assuming this is some oddball signaling. Any thoughts on getting a modern ps/2 keyboard working with this?

So the HD is obviously on its way out, what are my options for replacing this? it is an XT IDE I believe.

Thanks in advance!
 
While it has a PS/2 connector, it actually needs an XT-type keyboard. No modern keyboard will work unless you get an AT-to-XT keyboard converter.
 
The best hard drive you can use with the "SmartDrive" IDE-XT interface in the 1000RL, RLX, TL/2, and TL/3 is the Seagate ST-351A/X. It's much faster, quieter, and more reliable than the Western Digital drives Tandy used in some of these machines. It's 40 MB, but on an XT-class system, unless you load it up with every game known to mankind, that's plenty.
 
No, since you can not connect 16-bit IDE devices (AT-A) to the XT-A interface of the Tandy 1000RL.
 
Cool thanks...

Oddly it will not power up at all right now so more work to do...
 
Thanks- I ordered this direct from:

https://monotech.fwscart.com/category/cards

I want to put this into an Amstrad 1512. Any settings etc you'd be willing to share from your experience with the 1640? Can this be used as a controller card to connect the original HD to? I have a faulty Miniscribe HD (8438 model) although it might be the original controller card faulty, hence wanting to try this. Otherwise I'll reconstitute the HD onto the CF card with my complete set (!) of backup floppies from back in the day, which I made before moving to a newer PC.
 
I'm not sure about the differences twix the 1512 & 1640, however, on my original 2 disk 1640 I just installed the CF disk card in a spare card slot at the back of the 1640. Mine came with a CF card which had MSDOS 6.2 ready to go. I just plugged it in and it powered up asking for "press A" to boot from the A drive. I just waited, and it booted from the C drive. There's nobody more surprised than me that it worked 1st time. I wonder if the setup would work with the MSDOS Tandy range. 1000, 2000 etc?
 
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