The Tandy 1000 HX is a member of the Tandy 1000 series family. See this entry for more info.
The Tandy 1000 HX, released in 1987, was designed as another entry level IBM compatible personal computer and the successor to the EX. Like the EX, the HX was a compact computer with the keyboard built into the computer casing. The computer came with an Intel 8088 CPU, 256 KB of memory, and had one 720 KB 3.5" disk drive on the right side of the machine behind the keyboard.
HX computers came with MS-DOS 2.11 built into the ROM and “Deskmate 2” on diskette.
The computer's memory could be expanded to 640 KB by the use of a memory expansion card; by default these cards, sold by Tandy, came with 128 KB, but one could add another 384 KB in memory chips to this board. These cards were named “Plus Cards” and used a pin configuration instead of the slot system used by IBM or the T-1000. The cards themselves followed all the IBM standards and eventually Radio Shack started selling the adaptors in their stores to allow the cards to be inserted into a standard IBM 8-bit ISA slot. There were three such spots available in the computer case.
There was also a spare 3.5" drive bay in the computer case. On the back of the machine there was a port which allowed a user to connect an external 5.25" (360 KB) or 3.5" (720 KB) disk drive. There was also a connector for a printer.
The 1000 HX did not come with a hard drive, and Tandy Corporation did not manufacture fixed disks for this type of computer. A HDD could be purchased from third party vendors, however.
It was also here that the DOS in ROM was getting a little old and for the first time the settings on the computer could be changed so that instead of looking in ROM for DOS at bootup, it would go direct to the floppy drive instead. Most versions of MS-DOS worked with the 1000 HX, including 3.x, DOS 5.x & 6.x. DOS 4.0 did not work due to a bug in its environment that prevented it from working.
__________
Contributors: Derek McDonald (aka “Skel”)
Sources: Switchtec's Virtual PC Museum, Emperor Multimedia Electronic Archives, Wikipedia, 8-Bit Micro, Tandy 1000 PC Museum
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
I''m interested in buying it. Where are you located?
Wednesday 25th August 2021
Rich (United States)
I have a brand new Tandy 1000HX computer and monitor with original manuals and accessories brand new in box. I''ve never used it looking to sell for $500 OBO 7272920764
Thursday 21st January 2021
Caralynne K Kline (United States)
I received this computer as a hand me down from my grandma. Wish I still had it.
Monday 30th November 2020
Cameron Young (USA)
NAME
1000 HX
MANUFACTURER
Tandy Radio Shack
TYPE
Home Computer
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1987
KEYBOARD
Full stroke keyboard, 92 keys, 12 function keys
CPU
Intel 8088
SPEED
4.77 MHz / 7.16 MHz
RAM
256 KB (up to 640 KB)
ROM
16 KB
TEXT MODES
Unknown
GRAPHIC MODES
CGA/TGA, 160 x 200, 320 x 200, 640 x 200
COLORS
16 colours
SOUND
3 voices + 1 sound channel
SIZE / WEIGHT
Unknown
I/O PORTS
2 x joysticks, monitor video output, composite video output, mono audio output, lightpen, parallel port, serial port (optional), external floppy drive, 3 internal expansion slots
BUILT IN MEDIA
one 3.5'' floppy disk drives (720 KB)
OS
MS-DOS 2.11 built-in ROM, DeskMate 2.0 and GW Microsoft Basic included with the system
