ti99iuc Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Hi ! For who never seen the z80 card for ti99 (like me before of now !!), i post here some picture... ;-D i'm really curious to test it on my Peb but I am very worried ... I would not break it. I Will Scan the manual in next weeks and will save on my site in download Section where you can be found a lot of other things. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Looks really damn neat-o. What is its purpose? Can it run CP/M? Can it use the native drive system for the prior? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+retroclouds Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 wow, that looks really nice! Was there any CP/M floppy disks with the card ? I think it could be very difficult finding them. There's also that other CP/M Z80 card. I think it was from a company called "Morning Star" or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 Looks really damn neat-o. What is its purpose? Can it run CP/M? Can it use the native drive system for the prior? Yes, this card is for CP / M.. uses its own format, It Seems different from the TI Format, and the card is connected to the Z80 diskcontroller of TI99 with an IDE cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 wow, that looks really nice! Was there any CP/M floppy disks with the card ? I think it could be very difficult finding them. There's also that other CP/M Z80 card. I think it was from a company called "Morning Star" or something. No :-(, isn't CP/M Floppy... :-( ... i hoping but nothing... i will looking for them now... About Morning Star's Z80 i never seen it... have you a pic ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertLM78 Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 I've never even heard of this before. Pretty cool (I'd like one!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Nice! I've never seen one either! It looks pretty solid! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 It looks like a full-blown Z80 system, less any direct video output. Maybe it is MSX1 compatible? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 woowoo factor 10 useability factor -1 cool find 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 I have both Z80 cards. There is no 'direct video' output on Foundation version, other then that it is total z80 standalone system, you have it running a program, doing calcs, and reading/writing to your floppy drives, it like having a co-processor on your ti99, the only sad factor is you need a 'terminal program' like mass-trans, telco running in vt100 emulation mode to see what is happening and to 'type' to z80 command os (cp/m) to give it run commands, the video and keyboard is basically over the serial port to your tirs232 card, the reason for 25pin connector on back of z80 card. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am1933 Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Serious piece of kit!, would be interesting to get some benchmarks on it. Should have known that "The Don" would already have had one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed in SoDak Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 (edited) I recall seeing an ad for Morning Star's cp/m card long ago. Foundation also sold a neat 128k RAM card, my dad owned one and really liked it. His stepson got it when he passed. The gal he remarried didn't like me, nor I her and she made sure I got none of his TI setup. I have an old Osborne cp/m with the disks. Usually each platform had its own flavor of cp/m but some conversion may be possible. It was the precursor to DOS and if you can run one, the other is not too different. Mostly, the various cp/m machines varied to how they wrote to disk. There's commands to change the disk parameters to read other formats, as programs can often be ported if you can get them on the machine. We did use the Osborne when I worked at a newspaper. We wrote articles and used it to port them via rs232 to the typesetting equipment, which was controlled by an Apple II clone. I ran my TI as a BBS to remotely serve up the articles I had written at home. Pretty high-tech for 1989 coming from a couple hillbilly publishers. Three completely different confusers all talking to one another and we used them till we got a Lisa with MacWorks installed and went "modern" with laser printer output instead of phototypesetting. Fun days, but always a dollar short. Had to get a real job after a couple years, lol. -Ed Edited April 3, 2014 by Ed in SoDak 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 I have one of these cards as well. I also have the 80-column card from Foundation that works well with it. What I DON'T have is the manual or a functional CP/M disk for it. . .one note on this card--it DIDN'T come with CP/M, it came with RP/M, a CP/M workalike. I've seen a MorningStar card, but I do not have one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 I have both Z80 cards. There is no 'direct video' output on Foundation version, other then that it is total z80 standalone system, you have it running a program, doing calcs, and reading/writing to your floppy drives, it like having a co-processor on your ti99, the only sad factor is you need a 'terminal program' like mass-trans, telco running in vt100 emulation mode to see what is happening and to 'type' to z80 command os (cp/m) to give it run commands, the video and keyboard is basically over the serial port to your tirs232 card, the reason for 25pin connector on back of z80 card. That is... um... interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted April 4, 2014 Share Posted April 4, 2014 I spy a Western Digital WD2793A on the board. Is that a drive controller? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted April 4, 2014 Share Posted April 4, 2014 It is--it expects its own disk drives and it expects a terminal for the video. It will also use the Foundation 80-column card as a direct connect using the 25-pin serial connectors on the back of each card. Like the MorningStar board, it is basically a complete single-board computer inserted in the PEB that pretty much ignores all of the TI peripheral cards. Note: the 80-column card is monochrome. . .great for text applications but not so great if you were trying to do graphics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted April 4, 2014 Share Posted April 4, 2014 with today's technology and better chips, it would be neat to make a better complete single-board computer version, but then the market is very limited and peb's are even more so, it would be better to see a new single-board computer designed around the actual ti99 hardware instead of z80 parts. Still it was neat attempt at the time to bring the ti99 into the business world of time of cp/m machines and try to keep ti around after the '83 crash, i knew a few people at time that used it for invoicing and database programs, as there was no similar good ones on the native ti itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted April 4, 2014 Share Posted April 4, 2014 The biggest problem with this board was that it just didn't sell well enough to keep Foundation alive, Their memory cards were pretty common, as they were the first TI card that had more than 32K, and they had a degree of third-party software support as well. When later, battery-backed cards came out, sales plummeted, and with the low sales of the Z-80 and 80-column cards, Foundation folded their tent and disappeared. . .unfortunate, as it was a great idea, for all of the reasons Gary mentioned and more. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 (edited) A few years ago, I adapted the P112 single board CP/M computer with an IDE daughter board to fit inside the PEB and draw power from it. It connected to the TI via any terminal program (I used ZT4) and used a CF card for storage or an external floppy drive. I demoed it at one of the Chicago Faires Edited April 5, 2014 by Vorticon 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 Nice work, Vorticon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted April 6, 2014 Share Posted April 6, 2014 Nice work, Vorticon! Thanks I wish we have a true 80 column terminal program for the TI though that works with the F18A. Emulated 80col is hard to read unfortunately, which is why I ended up connecting the card to an external terminal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted April 6, 2014 Share Posted April 6, 2014 The Foundation 80-Column card does just that--but it isn't a software solution, and it does require an additional monitor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lee Stewart Posted April 7, 2014 Share Posted April 7, 2014 Thanks I wish we have a true 80 column terminal program for the TI though that works with the F18A. Emulated 80col is hard to read unfortunately, which is why I ended up connecting the card to an external terminal. Walid... Maybe I'll tackle that as a Forth project after I get fbForth into a cartridge. ...lee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertLM78 Posted April 7, 2014 Share Posted April 7, 2014 (edited) Thanks I wish we have a true 80 column terminal program for the TI though that works with the F18A. Emulated 80col is hard to read unfortunately, which is why I ended up connecting the card to an external terminal. MESS with the EVPC does a nice job with 80-column that I find highly readable. I think it's actually going to be my default setup from now on . Edited April 7, 2014 by RobertLM78 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted April 7, 2014 Share Posted April 7, 2014 MESS with the EVPC does a nice job with 80-column that I find highly readable. I think it's actually going to be my default setup from now on . Oh, that means I should better not add some blur for better "emulation experience"? Apart from that, the colors need some adjustment; the TMS9918 emulation is much closer to the real thing 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.