Author Topic: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project  (Read 69462 times)

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Offline bitseeker

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #25 on: June 06, 2017, 04:11:47 am »
Oh, I didn't realize that they had extended CGA that much. Cool.
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Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #26 on: June 06, 2017, 06:16:30 am »
Oh, I didn't realize that they had extended CGA that much. Cool.

It's basically IBM PCjr graphics but known to most as TGA. This is because the Tandy 1000 line was so successful and the PCjr died such a quick death. On the EX you had to have 384kb of ram or more to use the mode but for most games (eg from Sierra etc) there was no practical difference between EGA and CGA on an XT (other than 16 colours only being available at 320x200 vs 640x350 for EGA).

there a good Wiki on TGA here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Graphics_Adapter

Offline DavinD

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #27 on: June 12, 2017, 07:58:30 pm »
I'd be interested in one of these boards if you end up making them.  Also, do you have a part list link for the cable you made?
 

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #28 on: June 12, 2017, 09:54:27 pm »
I'd be interested in one of these boards if you end up making them.  Also, do you have a part list link for the cable you made?

Cheers, once I've finished building my last two isa IDE boards (seriously time poor atm) I'll finish of the design. Would you find the 1:1 plus-isa adaptor more useful than a 1:2 plus-isa adaptor?

As for the ribbon cable version, I bought all the parts from Vetco. They have the 62 pin idc female headers but not 62 pin edge connectors so I used the 64 pin versions and bought and trimmed 64 wire ribbon cable also.

Female header (not keyed, ignore the picture):
https://vetco.net/products/62-pin-idc-female-socket-connector-0-1

Edge connector:
https://vetco.net/products/64-pin-card-edge-female-connector


Offline DavinD

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #29 on: June 12, 2017, 09:59:39 pm »
Would you find the 1:1 plus-isa adaptor more useful than a 1:2 plus-isa adaptor?

That's a good question.  I'm guessing 1:1 as hopefully I'll find a plus serial adapter out there and will only need it for the ide interface.  It has been a lot of fun "playing" with the first ever PC I owned 30+ years ago.

I still need to find the 3.5 inch external drive.  I had one with my original PC, but haven't been able to find one now.  If only I had kept it all.
 

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #30 on: June 12, 2017, 10:20:35 pm »
Would you find the 1:1 plus-isa adaptor more useful than a 1:2 plus-isa adaptor?

That's a good question.  I'm guessing 1:1 as hopefully I'll find a plus serial adapter out there and will only need it for the ide interface.  It has been a lot of fun "playing" with the first ever PC I owned 30+ years ago.

I still need to find the 3.5 inch external drive.  I had one with my original PC, but haven't been able to find one now.  If only I had kept it all.

Cool, I think the 1:1 is the go also as it allows for mixing and matching of plus and isa boards.

The external drives do pop up on eBay occasionally (i bagged the last one to appear) we never had the external drive for ours but we did have the ram expansion and serial card which we used for a real mouse. The Tandy mouse that was available for use in the joystick ports was pretty crap as the pots had finite range of movement.

Offline DavinD

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #31 on: June 12, 2017, 10:24:45 pm »
Where'd you source the 62 conductor ribbon cable?
 

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #32 on: June 12, 2017, 11:35:21 pm »
Where'd you source the 62 conductor ribbon cable?

I didn't, I got 64 wire ribbon cable from Vetco and removed 2 wires.

Offline DavinD

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #33 on: June 13, 2017, 01:31:25 am »
That's what I thought.  One more question.  Since you used the Lo-Tech card, which way does it go in?  I'm un-sure with regards to front and back of a standard PC, which is PIN 1.  Hope the question makes sense.  I don't want to insert it backwards.
 

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #34 on: June 13, 2017, 01:53:21 am »
That's what I thought.  One more question.  Since you used the Lo-Tech card, which way does it go in?  I'm un-sure with regards to front and back of a standard PC, which is PIN 1.  Hope the question makes sense.  I don't want to insert it backwards.

So I deliberately use the Red Stripe at the end which will be closest to the back of the case and with the ISA-CF-IDE card the IDE header end of the card is the back - meaning it is closest to the rear of the case also. I made sure the red stripe of ribbon cable was installed at the end of the connector also. This will be Pin 1 for both connectors. See pic below:

This should work as shown but I havent been able to test it myself as my 1000 EX hasnt arrived yet. The EEPROM chips used in these are quite "fragile" and will die if the board is in the wrong way (the other chips wont care). So the easy test is to remove the EEPROM chip and see if the machine boots ok without it. if the board is in the wrong way you'll likely get some weirdness or errors - otherwise the Tandy should work just fine as tho the board isnt there.

btw, use a bench vice or large clamp to "install" the ribbon cables into the IDC termination block as they need a fair bit of pressure to install properly. Just dont go all in, ease on the force until it's really well terminated and the clamp part of the termination block sits nice and flat by itself.

Make sure you orient the cable as shown below - ie coming out of the PLUS Female header towards the ISA Slot, looping back over away from the ISA Slot and then coming top down into the ISA slot with the back 2 pins (end furthest away from red stripe) not connected. I'm 99% sure this will work as i've mapped it out in my head - it's copied from a couple of video's I've seen of similar adaptors so im fairly confident in the implementation.  ;D


Offline DavinD

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #35 on: June 13, 2017, 01:57:55 am »
Thanks a bunch.  I should have all my stuff in a week or so.  We'll see how it goes.
 

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #36 on: June 13, 2017, 02:02:09 am »
Thanks a bunch.  I should have all my stuff in a week or so.  We'll see how it goes.

No worries. Btw I updated my post above with extra info.  :D

Offline DavinD

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #37 on: June 13, 2017, 02:04:35 am »
Haha, thanks!  Maybe I'll let you try it first and if it works, you can post a pic all installed. :-DD
 

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #38 on: June 13, 2017, 02:19:57 am »
Haha, thanks!  Maybe I'll let you try it first and if it works, you can post a pic all installed. :-DD

Awesome - TBH I'd try an old ISA serial card, with a serial mouse, first to ensure the apdator works (this is my plan).  8)

PS I'm happy for other 1000 owners to post here with pic's etc.  :-+

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #39 on: June 14, 2017, 01:06:00 am »
Yep, sometimes just go with what works at the moment. :-+

Too true mate.

I realised I forgot to order the 2.2uF Tantalum Caps to enable 5v via the key pin (p20) on the XT-IDE header, so I've banged off an order to RS for some. I've also modded some cheap IDE-CF adaptors to use p20 for power by adding the missing pin 20, desoldering the Floppy power connector and adding a mod wire from pin 20 to the 5v input.  8)



PS, the huge solder-blob on the modded adaptor was there from the factory.  :palm:

NOTE: the above CF adaptors dont work in ISA-CF IDE adaptors, there's something not right with the design rendering it incompatible with other systems too. I found the ones below which must conform to spec better as they work great in everything I've tried.


Offline DavinD

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #40 on: June 14, 2017, 01:51:12 am »
I ordered this one.  We'll have to see how it work.  I'll probably try it out in my old 386 first.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B001HZ5HMS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #41 on: June 14, 2017, 02:07:13 am »
I ordered this one.  We'll have to see how it work.  I'll probably try it out in my old 386 first.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B001HZ5HMS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That should work fine as like the ones I have it has selection for voltage and some passives to keep things under control.

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #42 on: June 17, 2017, 12:24:32 am »
I just finished an adaptor board design in Diptrace for Tandy 1000 external floppy drives (the cables cant be made easily as 30pin IDC Edge connectors as extinct) and placed the Order with Elecrow - should be an interesting trial run for the riser design:




Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #43 on: June 17, 2017, 10:45:21 am »
So I think I've finished the adapter design - im not going to get it made just yet, I'll prolly wait till I can test some printed paper models first:





Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #44 on: June 23, 2017, 11:48:20 am »
I just finished an adaptor board design in Diptrace for Tandy 1000 external floppy drives (the cables cant be made easily as 30pin IDC Edge connectors as extinct) and placed the Order with Elecrow - should be an interesting trial run for the riser design:




So my first ever PCB boards are in transit right now from Elecrow, they even sent me a picture!  :-+


Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #45 on: June 27, 2017, 09:12:39 pm »
Just waiting on the PCB's now. :cool:



and my 1000 EX is due next week now, so hopefully I'll be ordering the PLUS-ISA PCB's soon too.

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #46 on: June 28, 2017, 10:09:28 am »
Huzzah, my Tandy 3.5" drive and the Adapter PCB's both arrived today and the adaptors will work and fit perfectly!



Just waiting on my 1000 EX now.  8)

PS, Im quite happy with the quality of the Elecrow PCB's and the price was great (10 boards for ~18 AUD).

Offline bitseeker

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #47 on: June 28, 2017, 05:45:58 pm »
That's a major milestone. Congrats, djos!
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Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #48 on: June 28, 2017, 08:59:13 pm »
That's a major milestone. Congrats, djos!

Cheers, gives me confidence that the PLUS to ISA adapter will work too. I'll actually have to start designing some more complex designs next.  :scared:

Offline djosTopic starter

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Re: Tandy 1000 ex/hx PLUS Expansion to 8-Bit ISA Riser card project
« Reply #49 on: July 01, 2017, 05:40:51 am »
And done!  8)

I've tested the first one electrically and everything lines up perfectly ... now I just need to make the other 4 that I have parts to make!  :-/O







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