RECEIVED: Tandy 1000SX startup diskette

[Dopy25]

I'm looking for someone who can make me a copy of the Tandy startup floppy I can use to test my floppy drive on a Tandy 1000SX.

 

I have a pack blank of floppies. I'll send them to someone who can make me a boot disk and send it back. Bonus props to anyone willing to send me something fun to use on the Tandy.

 

This is what I see at boot. 

 

Edited August 17 by Dopy25

[Dopy25]

Here's the pack of blank floppies I'll send to someone in exchange for a boot disk. The package is sealed. It's up to you if you want to open it, or send me copies from a different pack. I'm not picky. I just have no idea what I'm doing with this. It has a hard card installed but it won't boot from that, I'm guessing. 

[eightbit]

While I unfortunately no longer have the hardware to help you here make a disk, I wanted to bring up something I was looking at the other day that could help you make that disk yourself (and do a bunch of other stuff):

 

https://www.serdashop.com/PicoMEM

 

 

[Dopy25]

35 minutes ago, eightbit said:

While I unfortunately no longer have the hardware to help you here make a disk, I wanted to bring up something I was looking at the other day that could help you make that disk yourself (and do a bunch of other stuff):

 

https://www.serdashop.com/PicoMEM

 

 

Dude that's awesome! I've found a few different boot solutions, but that looks way better than anything else. 

 

Also I noticed that I think the floppies I have are too big (storage). So I'm not sure what to do. 

 

 

EDIT:

 

 

Ugggghhhhhh. The Tandy 1000sx is incompatible.

 

While the PicoMEM is in an advanced and functioning state, it is still a work in progress. There are several caveats and known issues on various systems. Notably, the Tandy 1000 series of machines is currently not compatible. 

 

 

Edited August 9 by Dopy25

[eightbit]

Damn, that sucks. Well, it says does not work "yet". I know the author of this thing is going crazy with updates so maybe it is on the horizon. I'd reach out to him and see if he has an ETA as yes, it does look awesome.

[onlyinajeep]

I'll have a go making a couple floppies for ya this weekend. The diskettes you show in your photos are HighDensity(HD) for 1.2Mb drives. The Tandy1000SX has a 360k drive that used DoubleDensity(DD) floppies. As far I as know, they are not interchangeable could be wrong though  There is a gimmick similar to what eightbit suggested, an XT-IDE device. It uses CF/SD cards for storage and acts like a hard drive. There are various sources for these, I have TexElec version, https://texelec.com/product/isa-compactflash-adapter/ in my 1000SX, works great!

 

[onlyinajeep]

And you can upgrade your memory to 640k quite easily. Just pop eight KM41256 (256k X 1) chips in the empty sockets next to the current ram and change a jumper (iirc).

 

Edited August 9 by onlyinajeep

[Dopy25]

2 hours ago, onlyinajeep said:

I'll have a go making a couple floppies for ya this weekend. The diskettes you show in your photos are HighDensity(HD) for 1.2Mb drives. The Tandy1000SX has a 360k drive that used DoubleDensity(DD) floppies. As far I as know, they are not interchangeable could be wrong though  There is a gimmick similar to what eightbit suggested, an XT-IDE device. It uses CF/SD cards for storage and acts like a hard drive. There are various sources for these, I have TexElec version, https://texelec.com/product/isa-compactflash-adapter/ in my 1000SX, works great!

 

 

Thanks a bunch! I do believe you're correct. The space is not correct for the 360k needed for a Tandy. I didn't realize that until I kept reading for a solution. They're still yours if you want them and can send me a bootable version of DOS on my Tandy. Everything I've found says to install DOS from a floppy to the CF/SD/HDD but I don't even know if my floppy drive works 🤷🏼‍♂️. So I'm on a mission to find a way to use one of those solutions without a working floppy. It's been a pain so far. 

 

I plan on buying that one or one that has an accessible slot from the back of the Tandy. It's about $15 more for that one though. 

 

Either way, I'll need a way to install DOS to it so I'll need a floppy. Looking forward to hearing back from you!!! 

 

 

2 hours ago, onlyinajeep said:

And you can upgrade your memory to 640k quite easily. Just pop eight KM41256 (256k X 1) chips in the empty sockets next to the current ram and change a jumper (iirc).

 

Absolutely! The computer came with 640, but one of them is bad. I haven't narrowed down which 256k is the culprit but I figure I'll just replace all 8 (or 16 so they're all new). I put the jumper back since I removed the extra RAM and all was fine.

 

I really want something to boot on here though before replacing the RAM. I guess it may be something else stopping that bank from working too.

 

Send me a PM and we can work something out if you're able to make a DOS floppy for me, please!

Edited August 9 by Dopy25

[Dopy25]

Thanks to @onlyinajeep I have DOS for my Tandy along with a couple other disks. My floppy drive works... Or did?

 

No idea what's happening now but I keep getting ram errors so I ordered replacement RAM on AliExpress. Should be here next month some time.