Tandy 1000
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| Released: | 1984-11-?? |
| Discontinued: | 1993-??-?? |
| Developer: | Tandy Corporation |
| Type: | Hardware |
Tandy 1000 is a line of home computers designed by the Tandy Corporation to be compatible with the IBM PCjr. The computers were distributed by RadioShack and remained a popular computer series long after IBM discontinued the PCjr line.
The original Tandy 1000 was released in November, 1984 and worked well both as a home computer and a gaming machine. Like the PCjr, the system had built-in joystick ports, 16-color graphics, and an on-board audio chip. Most of the hardware was 100% compatible with the PCjr software, but since the Tandy 1000 line outlived the PCjr by almost a decade, most games developed after 1984 are listed as Tandy compatible rather than PCjr compatible.
Over the years, the Tandy 1000 released several improved models. It began with the original 1000, then the A, HD, SX, EX, HX, TX, SL, SL/2, TL, TL/2, TL/3, RL, RL/HD, RLX, RLX-HD, RLX-B, RLX-B-HD, RSX, RSX-HD. In 1993, Tandy sold the Tandy 1000 computer line to AST Computers who discontinued the line.
For a long time the Tandy 1000 line used the Tandy Graphics Adapter (TGA), a clone of the PCjr Graphics Adapter. This was compatible with the earlier monochrome, CGA, and composite standards, but couldn't manage EGA graphics. Tandy upgraded their aging TGA to the newer and more impressive VGA standard starting with the RLX model which also gave it EGA backward compatibility.
Although IBM pioneered the same graphics and sound that Tandy copied, they abandoned it relatively quickly for the EGA standard and PC Speaker. Despite the Tandy 1000 being better both in hardware and price, many game developers stuck with IBM as their base platform. However, hundreds of games were developed that took advantage of the Tandy's superior graphics and sound capabilities.
Games
Few games were released strictly for the Tandy 1000 line, but many included Tandy support. Regardless, most games released for the DOS platform would work just fine on the Tandy 1000 provided you had a model compatible with the necessary graphics and sound. Rather than list games that have Tandy graphics support, this section lists all games released that support the Tandy 1000's audio hardware.
Music & Sound
The Tandy 3 Voice audio protocol was designed to match the PCjr 3 Voice. This gave it three pulse waves and a noise channel. For the first few models of the Tandy 1000, it even used the exact same audio chip as the IBM PCjr, an SN76496, and accessed it at the same hardware interrupt. Staring with the EX model, the chip was replaced with the NCR 8496, which cloned the 3 pulse wave channels perfectly, but had a slightly different noise generator. Starting with the SL models, Tandy began using the PSSJ-3 which included the usual 3 voice capabilities and a built-in DAC giving the machine digital audio and speech capabilities. Later Tandy 1000 models had various problems with audio that are discussed in detail in the Tandy 3 Voice page.
Links
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_1000 - Wikipedia.
