Explaining and Helping with the Sound on the Tandy 1000 & IBM Personal Computer 4860 Junior |
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The IBM Personal Computer Junior model# 4860 was released in early 1984, and not long after it came it's clone by Radio Shack/Tandy - the Tandy 1000 - the first in a line of PC Jr and PC Compatible machines that would become one of the most popular personal computers of the 1980's, and THE most popular IBM Compatible of the 1980's.
Why don't I get sound from the proper output source on my Tandy 1000 series computer One problem I have run into with the Tandy 1000, in particular my 1000A, while making YouTube videos of game footage, is being unable to get audio to play through the RCA output jack in the back. Some software, Sierra's in particular, properly initiates the Multiplexer that mixes the audio signals inside the Tandy to go to all outputs, while other software, such as the Taito Arcade games like Arkanoid/Rastan/Skyshark/etc. - fails to output to RCA, as it does no initialization of the Multiplexer for gaming and leaves it at the default (beeper through RCA, all else + beeper though internal speaker). While this was not such a big problem early on in the 80's, a time when if you wanted to record your Tandy 1000, you most likely were pointing a Radio Shack camcorder or Super eight camera at it rather than capturing a video-feed off the RCA in the back, today it's a real pain if you're someone like me who uses an actual Tandy 1000 to record "Let's Play" videos and whatnot using the actual old hardware. There's a utility called tdyspkr that allows you to control the audio multiplexer circuit in a Tandy 1000 desktop computer. Basically put, there's a multiplexer chip in the Tandy 1000 that turns the Audio I/O on and off like the mixer-panel on a SoundBlaster card does.
Games Compatible with the PC Jr/Tandy 1000 Sound System Here's a list of games and some descriptions of them that make use of the Tandy/PC Jr. 3-voice sound chip. Of course, most of this list is oriented toward the earlier 1000 series (1000, 1000A, 1000HD, 1000SX, 1000EX...etc, the 8088 models). See the list here at Tandy 1000/PC Jr Compatible Games List. |
