Tandy 1000 EX Personal Computer

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The Tandy 1000 EX was designed as an entry-level IBM compatible personal computer. Initially marketed as a competitor to IBM's PCjr, the the EX was a compact computer that had the keyboard and 5.25" floppy drive built into the computer casing. The 5.25" drive was accessible on the right-hand side of the computer. The EX was marketed as a starter system for people new to computing, and sold for US $1000.00 from RadioShack in December 1986. The EX and later the HX would be among the most popular of the Tandy 1000 line because of their (relatively) low price. The EX doubled the on-board memory to 256kB.

The EX was upgradable by Tandy PLUS cards, and system had bays for three. The PLUS cards' connector was electrically identical to the ISA slot connector, but used a BERG-style 62-pin connector instead of a 62-contact ISA card edge connector. The RAM could be upgraded in the EX and later the HX to 640kB, but required a PLUS memory expansion card. This card also provided DMA. Other PLUS cards could be installed to add serial ports, a 1200 baud modem, a clock/calendar and bus mouse board and a proprietary Tandy network interface.The 1000 EX came with MS-DOS 2.11 and Personal Deskmate on 5.25" 360 kB diskettes.

The 1000 SX came with MS-DOS 3.2 and Deskmate II on 5.25" 360 kB diskettes. While Deskmate II used a text-based interface, Personal Deskmate used a graphical interface and also supported a mouse-like cursor using a joystick-mouse driver or a Tandy bus mouse. The MS-DOS was a version specialized for and only bootable on the Tandy 1000, as it would announce on the screen of any other PC-compatible one tried to boot with it; it included a version of BASICA (Microsoft's Advanced GW-BASIC) with support for the enhanced CGA graphics modes (a.k.a. Tandy Graphics or TGA) and three-voice sound hardware of the Tandy 1000.

Manufacturer: Tandy
Date: December 1986

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