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Tandy 1000-WS

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    #1

    Tandy 1000-WS

    Here you go. My other action win.

    I've attached some pretty good size pictures (if the forum doesn't crop them). The Tandy part numbers are on everything.

    Edit: Higher quality pics: http://imgur.com/gallery/yzvrp

    This appears to be in a TL style case, as witnessed by the floppy drives (2x). However, the board somewhat resembles a later SL/2 type board (but without the audio DAC jumpers in the front). Be happy if you all could compare this to the SL, SL/2, TL/2, TL/3, SL/E, etc. There is a lot on this board that is not populated. I'd love to figure out what it's missing (besides the obvious ISA slots, the DRAM sockets, and floppy connector).

    I've dumped the BIOS and the Welch Allyn and Tandy Boot ROM from the ISA card. The system boots into a Tandy terminal emulator, expecting I/O on the built in serial port. It boots into MDA mode, with a POST of 128K. There's apparently enough sockets to add 128K more, for 256K. If anyone can interleave the ODD and EVEN BIOS files for me to make one coherent 32K file, let me know.

    The two ports on the ISA card are for a serial printer and a credit card reader. I vaguely recall a light barcode pen reader as well, but I don't remember how it hooked up. Maybe it daisy chained with the printer or credit card reader.

    IMG_3986.jpg
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    Last edited by acadiel; July 15, 2017, 05:08 PM.
    Tags: None
    #2
    Nice. I've never heard of this model. What's the story on it?
    Pete
    http://pski.net

    Comment

      #3
      Well it had a working parallel port. I suspect the printer connected to it while the bar code reader and CC reader connected to the ISA card. There is only one discrete UART on the card. But it has an MCU (HD63A03X) that also has a UART built into it.

      @pski, apparently it was a extreme cost reduced Tandy 1000 (SL/TL hybrid) used by Radio Shack stores as an intelligent terminal connected to the back-end store management server. It was used as a Point-of-Sale terminal.
      "Good engineers keep thick authoritative books on their shelf. Not for their own reference, but to throw at people who ask stupid questions; hoping a small fragment of knowledge will osmotically transfer with each cranial impact." - Me

      Comment

        #4
        Originally posted by eeguru View Post
        Well it had a working parallel port. I suspect the printer connected to it while the bar code reader and CC reader connected to the ISA card. There is only one discrete UART on the card. But it has an MCU (HD63A03X) that also has a UART built into it.

        @pski, apparently it was a extreme cost reduced Tandy 1000 (SL/TL hybrid) used by Radio Shack stores as an intelligent terminal connected to the back-end store management server. It was used as a Point-of-Sale terminal.
        When I worked there, I seem to remember something was daisy chained to something else. The receipt printer likely was serial; for some reason, I remember a RJ11 to DE connector on it. (My memory is like 20 years old at this point.) The Welch Allyn was probably a pen barcode reader; I remember those. The magstripe definitely inserted itself into the serial stream somehow as well, as credit cards simply dumped the data into the terminal.

        The system is *very* close to this SL/E: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthrea...799#post389799

        I need to see under his drive bay and look at the missing chips. There's some of the audio circuitry (header) missing in mine compared to his, along with the DRAM sockets, the ISA sockets, the floppy header, and likely some other chips under the bay. The SL/E motherboard is (c) 1989 and mine's (c) 1988, so it's slightly newer.
        Last edited by acadiel; July 16, 2017, 06:43 PM.

        Comment

          #5
          Compared my motherboard to the Tandy 1000 SL Technical manual. The motherboard appears to be missing the following.

          TL;DR: They left out three ISA connectors, all floppy drive circuitry, and lots of DRAM sockets/capacitors as well as the supporting capacitors/resistors for these. The PSU is also fan-less.

          I'm going to put 4 DRAMs in the empty sockets to bring the system up to 256K, and install a 1K EEPROM into the EEPROM socket to see if I can get the unit to save the CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-V video preference.

          Chips/Sockets missing (some sockets are there, but no chips of the below):
          *U10 - DIP18 - 64K x 4 DRAM 120ns
          *U11
          *U15
          *U16
          *U19
          *U20
          *U23
          *U24
          *U27
          *U28
          *U31
          *U32
          *U34
          *U35
          *U36
          *U37
          *U5 - DIP14 - 74LS00
          *U12 - DIP40 - 765A FLOPPY CONTROLLER
          *U17 - DIP8 - IC EEPROM 1K SERIAL
          *U18 - DIP24 - Floppy Disk Support Logic? (8041401)
          *U21 - DIP40 - 8087?

          Sockets and others:
          J2 - Floppy Disk 34 pin Connector
          J6 - ISA slot
          J7 - ISA slot
          J8 - ISA slot
          R6 - 8087 resistor
          C21 - 8087 capacitor
          R4 - Floppy Support logic resistor
          C7 - DRAM capacitor
          C8
          C16
          C17
          C20
          C23
          C25
          C26
          C30
          C33
          C41
          C52
          C49 - Floppy connector Capacitor
          C53
          C54
          C55
          C56
          C57
          C58
          C59
          C60
          C61
          C62
          C63
          C64
          C65
          RP3 - Floppy resistor pack

          1000ws-roms.zip
          Last edited by acadiel; July 17, 2017, 04:47 AM.

          Comment

            #6
            That is really cool...thank you for sharing photos and information! I saw that on the auction listings and wondered just what it was. Now I know!

            I compared with my photos...different than the SL, but not a whole lot. You are welcome to poke around and compare for yourself...unfortunately I don't have an SL/2, so no photos of one... http://www.megley.com/photos/tandy

            Wesley

            Comment

              #7
              Originally posted by wesleyfurr View Post
              That is really cool...thank you for sharing photos and information! I saw that on the auction listings and wondered just what it was. Now I know!

              I compared with my photos...different than the SL, but not a whole lot. You are welcome to poke around and compare for yourself...unfortunately I don't have an SL/2, so no photos of one... http://www.megley.com/photos/tandy

              Wesley
              This card is very interesting to me. Looks Tandy constructed. Has a boot ROM on it. See attached hex dump or more detail here.

              From http://www.vcfed.org/forum/archive/i...hp/t-3496.html :

              "20. POST - A search of the memory area from C800:0 to EF80:0 is done (in 2K blocks) for the BIOS extension ROM's that may be located on expansion cards.
              When a BIOS extension ROM is found (first two bytes are 55AA), a checksum on it is done. If the checksum is incorrect then the segment of the faulty BIOS extension ROM and the word 'ROM' is displayed (eg. C800 ROM). If the checksum is correct then the motherboard BIOS ROM hands control to the BIOS extension ROM found on the expansion card. BIOS extension ROM does whatever tests and initialisation that it wants and then returns control to the BIOS ROM on the IBM/XT motherboard. Some BIOS extension ROM's will display messages on the screen."

              If anyone has any LinkedIn "in-mails" availalbe, I'd like to see if we can ping some of the old Tandy POS guys about this thing.
              Attached Files
              Last edited by acadiel; July 17, 2017, 05:40 AM.

              Comment

                #8
                Some more work today.

                Pics: http://imgur.com/a/y1P7Z

                Installed a 1K EEPROM into the EEPROM socket. Hypothesis was that the EEPROM would allow me to do a CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-V to save the settings over to Tandy Graphics from the default MDA that this unit outputs.

                * Yay! System DOES save the default as Tandy Graphics when I do a CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-V
                * What's this? Insert System Disk prompt. This wasn't there before. Remove EEPROM and boot back into MDA, nope, no Insert System Disk prompt; boots directly into terminal emulator. Add it back, change to Tandy graphics, get an insert system disk prompt!
                * Terminal emulator starts RIGHT after the insert system disk prompt

                Also tried my floppy adapter for kicks and grins. (Removed the ROM Terminal emulator card first.) This unit is missing not only the floppy drive controller chip but the floppy drive control logic chip (which was a Tandy custom chip.) I installed an Exabyte ISA Floppy controller, and put it on the default IRQ/DMA/IO that a floppy drive expects.

                The system boots up into the "Insert System Disk" with the floppy controller installed, even with a bootable DOS 2.2 or 3.3 disk. Press a key and wait, and the floppy light comes on, but there's no stepping/seeking coming on. The light turns off and turns on a little bit later.

                More fun to come. Also going to try upping it to 640K with eeguru's 8 bit memory expansion card, and possibly putting an XTIDE in it and try to see if it has an actual Tandy DAC and Tandy Sound. It DOES have the PSSJ on board.

                Someone asked me why I'm doing this. Well, it's a mystery system. The only way to figure it out is to play around with it

                Comment

                  #9
                  very cool machine, what are the chances that this was a cost reduced machine designed for POS or Industrial Control type applications?
                  My Retro Collection:
                  CBM: C64, Amiga 500 x2, 600 & 1200
                  Apple's: IIc, Mac SE, LCII, LC630 & Power Mac G3/233 Desktop
                  PC's: K6-III+ 500 System + Roland MT-32 & Tandy 1000 EX 640kb, 3.5" FDD, CF-IDE 4GB HDD
                  Visit my Tindie store for Tandy 1000 Adapters for EX, HX, SX, SL, TX & TL etc

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Originally posted by dJOS View Post
                    very cool machine, what are the chances that this was a cost reduced machine designed for POS or Industrial Control type applications?
                    Originally posted by eeguru View Post
                    ... apparently it was a extreme cost reduced Tandy 1000 (SL/TL hybrid) used by Radio Shack stores as an intelligent terminal connected to the back-end store management server. It was used as a Point-of-Sale terminal.
                    Pretty good, I'd say.

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Lol, clearly I missed that bit!
                      My Retro Collection:
                      CBM: C64, Amiga 500 x2, 600 & 1200
                      Apple's: IIc, Mac SE, LCII, LC630 & Power Mac G3/233 Desktop
                      PC's: K6-III+ 500 System + Roland MT-32 & Tandy 1000 EX 640kb, 3.5" FDD, CF-IDE 4GB HDD
                      Visit my Tindie store for Tandy 1000 Adapters for EX, HX, SX, SL, TX & TL etc

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Today's update:

                        Installed 128K in the four sockets. System now boots with 256K.

                        Some thoughts about the floppy disk not working with the Exabyte controller. The Exabyte controller only has a FDC chip on it. The Tandy motherboard normally had a FDSL (Floppy Disk Support Logic) chip as well as the DSDD floppy chip (and both are missing). I'm starting to wonder if the reason why the Exabyte isn't working is because the logic is missing; and I likely need a FDC that some support option ROM onboard to actually make the system boot from floppy.

                        Any suggestions for an 8 bit floppy controller with an option rom to try out that theory?

                        Comment

                          #13
                          Originally posted by acadiel View Post
                          Today's update:

                          Installed 128K in the four sockets. System now boots with 256K.

                          Some thoughts about the floppy disk not working with the Exabyte controller. The Exabyte controller only has a FDC chip on it. The Tandy motherboard normally had a FDSL (Floppy Disk Support Logic) chip as well as the DSDD floppy chip (and both are missing). I'm starting to wonder if the reason why the Exabyte isn't working is because the logic is missing; and I likely need a FDC that some support option ROM onboard to actually make the system boot from floppy.

                          Any suggestions for an 8 bit floppy controller with an option rom to try out that theory?
                          You can find them on ebay occasionally, or build one of Sergey's.

                          Sergey's floppy bios may actually work as a generic ROM for your existing floppy controller, if you track down a standalone ROM card.

                          Comment

                            #14
                            Originally posted by dJOS View Post
                            very cool machine, what are the chances that this was a cost reduced machine designed for POS or Industrial Control type applications?
                            The WS-1000 was made by Tandy to be used in Radio Shack stores as the POS cash register. It was connected to a Tandy 3000 running Xenix in the back office. The stores did inventory, credit card transactions, stock ordering, etc. with this setup.

                            Tom

                            Comment

                              #15
                              Originally posted by hornbetw View Post
                              The WS-1000 was made by Tandy to be used in Radio Shack stores as the POS cash register. It was connected to a Tandy 3000 running Xenix in the back office. The stores did inventory, credit card transactions, stock ordering, etc. with this setup.

                              Tom
                              Nice. makes a lot of sense for Tandy/Radio Shack to use their own gear like this.
                              My Retro Collection:
                              CBM: C64, Amiga 500 x2, 600 & 1200
                              Apple's: IIc, Mac SE, LCII, LC630 & Power Mac G3/233 Desktop
                              PC's: K6-III+ 500 System + Roland MT-32 & Tandy 1000 EX 640kb, 3.5" FDD, CF-IDE 4GB HDD
                              Visit my Tindie store for Tandy 1000 Adapters for EX, HX, SX, SL, TX & TL etc

                              Comment

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