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The Tandy 1000 SL/TL Series




The Tandy 1000 SL


Along with the Tandy 1989 Computer Catalog came the Tandy 1000 SL. While there was no mystery or art to building a PC based computer, while perusing computer magazines of the day, it rapdily became obvious not all MS-DOS machines were created equal. Tandy was well aware of this issue, and decided to raise the bar with the 1000 SL; a computer loaded with features and priced for home use. Built around the Intel 8086 CPU, which ran at a software selectable 4 or 8MHz, one 5.25" 360k floppy drive and room for a second or a hard drive, and five 8 bit ISA XT style expansion slots, one Rs-232 port, one paralel port, 384k RAM (expandable to 640k), and a 512k ROM (containing MS-DOS) and 1Kb EEPROM (which boots you to DeskMate at power on). Boot time to DeskMate was roughly ten seconds. A quick change to the EEPROM would have you boot to an MS-DOS prompt virtually instantly.





Other features making the Tandy 1000 SL quite appealing:

  • Built in Enhanced CGA (Tandy Graphics) 16 color Hi-Res
  • Two joystick ports
  • Three voice integrated sound
  • Analog/digital and back conversion
  • Built in speaker
  • Built in mic/phone jacks
  • 101 key enhanced keyboard
  • Integrated music editing software



The 1000 SL came with a single 5.25" 360K floppy drive and 384 KB of memory. This was the last Tandy computer with two 5-1/4" drive bays. Although you can install 640 KB of memory, 32 KB is dedicated to graphics meaning a maximum of 576 KB can be used for software, preventing software that requires 640 KB from running.









Tandy 1000 SL/2


The Tandy 1000 SL/2 was essientially a 1000 SL with a 3.5" floppy drive instead of 5-1/4" and 512 MB of memory from the factory instead of 384 MB.










Tandy 1000 TL Series


Also new for the 1989 Catalog year, was the Tandy 1000 TL. With an introductory price of $1299, the TL offered numerous features for the price right out of the box. While still an XT class computer, the TL came with the Intel 80286 CPU, real time clock and more:


  • Intel 80286 @ 8MHz
  • 640k RAM factory, upgradable to 720k
  • Enhanced 101 key ketboard
  • MS-DOS 3.30 & DeskMate in BIOS
  • 3.5" 720k Floppy Drive
  • Software compatible with IBM PC
  • Enhance Sound/Speech
  • DeskMate includes ten applications
  • Real Time Clock/Battery




The Tandy 1000 TL offered five 8-bit XT compatible ISA slots - again, even though the TL had an 80286 CPU, this computer was still an XT class machine. In fact, I've seen it described as a Tandy 1000 TX (another XT class 1000) with improved graphics. Like the TX, the TL also had a the Intel 80286, co-processor socket, 5 ISA slots, 640k, etc... Due to the CPU, the TL typically runs applications and games faster than a TX, however, not as fast as the AT class computer found with the same CPU.