The Tandy 1000 TX was similar to the Tandy 1000 in that it had an external keyboard and casing. The difference, however, was the addition of an 80286 CPU on the TX model; otherwise, it was nearly identical to the Tandy 1000, including the odd parallel port edge connector.
The TX had a 3.5" drive, with an optional 5.25" drive. It contained hookups for two joysticks in the front along with the keyboard, and included a volume control with a phono input on the front. The back had all of the same ports as the Tandy 1000. The memory size was 640k (upgradable to 768k, which was devoted to video) and the computer came bundled with Deskmate II.
The TX had a special function to the F4 key that would reduce the speed of the processor to half the normal rate for programs(mainly games) that 8-10 mhz was simply too fast for. To activate this function, you held down the F4 key during boot-up.
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Contributors: Derek McDonald (aka “Skel”), Casey
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I had a Tandy 1000TX that my father bought in 1987 and was our family computer until 1991-1992. It was a very weird machine built on the Tandy 1000 XT platform with only support for 640k ram plus 128K extra video ram, no support for extended memory and only 8 bit ISA slots. All of this even though the TX had an 8Mhz 80286 processor. By the end of it''s life with me we had added a second floppy and a 20MB hardcard. The machine came with Dos 3.2 and did not have Dos or DeskMate in ROM like some of the earlier Tandy 1000''s.
Thursday 26th January 2023
Joseph Linington (Canada)
The last copy of of MS-DOS I bought in a shrink-wrapped box was MS-DOS 4 and it worked great on this machine. I bought it at the Salvation Army thrift store in Estevan, Sk, Canada.
Monday 24th May 2021
Greg Bzdell (Canada)
I posted this in the original 1000 forum. Sorry! My first MSDOS-compatible comp was a Tandy 1000TX with a 20meg Hardcard. I rescued it from the landfill and it had CM-5 monitor. Great machine...... although not as good as my maxed-out CoCo 3. I wish I still had both of them.
DeskMate, in all its forms, was effing wonderful. I still use the last version in DOSBox. Sublime.
Monday 24th May 2021
Greg Bzdell (Canada)
NAME
1000 TX
MANUFACTURER
Tandy Radio Shack
TYPE
Home Computer
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
? 1986
KEYBOARD
Full stroke keyboard, 92 keys, 12 function keys
CPU
Intel 80286
SPEED
8 MHz
RAM
640 KB (up to 768 KB)
TEXT MODES
80 x 25 / 40 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES
CGA/TGA, 160 x 200, 320 x 200, 640 x 200
COLORS
16 colours
SOUND
3 voices + 1 sound channel
SIZE / WEIGHT
354 x 290 x 97 mm
I/O PORTS
keyboard, 2 x joysticks, monitor video output, composite video output, lightpen, parallel port, serial port, 5 internal expansion slots, audio mono output
BUILT IN MEDIA
one 3.5'' floppy disk drive + optional 20 MB hard disk or 5.25'' floppy disk drive
OS
MS-DOS 3.22, DeskMate 2 and GW Microsoft Basic included with the system
