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TI Related -- Ebay / Heads Up Notice


Omega-TI

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Note, the 9118 VDP, all four of the specialized chips (OSO, POLLO, MOFETTA, and AMIGO) are missing, the RAM is not present, and none of the daughter boards are installed (Pascal, Extended BASIC, and the start menu boot ROM board). I have three or four partially assembled motherboards for the 99/8, and all of them are more complete than this one is.

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Note, the 9118 VDP, all four of the specialized chips (OSO, POLLO, MOFETTA, and AMIGO) are missing, the RAM is not present, and none of the daughter boards are installed (Pascal, Extended BASIC, and the start menu boot ROM board). I have three or four partially assembled motherboards for the 99/8, and all of them are more complete than this one is.

and yet the price is already almost $200, with 4 days left.

 

For those wondering how much is really missing, compare that 99/8 ebay pictures, with pictures of 'working' model here: http://www.ti99.com/ti99stegg.htm

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I am now the owner of one of the machines that he shows on that page--S/N 80. I also have one of the last ones completed--SN 103 on the case but SN 134 inside. Both of them have the Pascal GROMs and ROM, but it isn't working on one of them. I also have a pair of 128K cards and a 512K card for them (along with the necessary Armadillo Interfaces). Lastly, I have an RS-232 card with a DSR designed for the /8.

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Well, except for the AMIGO mapper chip we know in detail what is happening on the board. And for that one we know the external behavior and the equations. So it could certainly be reverse engineered; in fact, in a virtual sense it is what I do in MESS. The only issue today is that you do not get GROMs anymore, so you'll have to build a hardware emulation of GROMs.

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Well, except for the AMIGO mapper chip we know in detail what is happening on the board. And for that one we know the external behavior and the equations. So it could certainly be reverse engineered; in fact, in a virtual sense it is what I do in MESS. The only issue today is that you do not get GROMs anymore, so you'll have to build a hardware emulation of GROMs.

 

So technically speaking, a talented FPGA programmer could recreate the functions of a 99/8 on a single chip from currently available information?

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So technically speaking, a talented FPGA programmer could recreate the functions of a 99/8 on a single chip from currently available information?

 

In principle, yes. If emulation does not suffice for you. I know, many people believe in what they can grasp with their hands, but many old systems will probably not be worth the effort to rebuild them, but we can get an experience with emulation. I'd be really interested how the 99/2 felt like or the CC-40 (the former already being implemented in MESS but not working, the latter envisaged to be added). Or the 99/4B and 99/5 which I believed to be phantoms until I recently saw obviously existing prototypes on the Web.

 

BTW, anyone coming to Birkenau on Saturday with a Hexbus floppy drive? I'll bring the screwdriver. :-)

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Michael, I'm pretty sure that Michael Becker owned one of each of those at one point in time. I know he brought one of them to one of the TI Treffs that I was at. . .I think it was the 99/5.

 

I won't be able to bring a Hex-Bus floppy, as I won't be able to come to Birkenau, unfortunately. Doesn't Ciro have one?

Edited by Ksarul
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In principle, yes. If emulation does not suffice for you. I know, many people believe in what they can grasp with their hands, but many old systems will probably not be worth the effort to rebuild them, but we can get an experience with emulation.

 

The MiniMig and analogous projects have been very popular.

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The 99/8 motherboard went for $710 in the end. I have a feeling the winner will be definitely disappointed when the figure out what would be needed to turn it into a complete machine. All of the GROMs and ROMs are missing too. I wonder though, we might be able to replicate the GROM boards with a variant of the UberGROM. . .and there is enough data out there to replicate the special chips, so it just might be possible to bring one of those spare mobos to life. . .

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New was $299.95 in a summer 1988 Triton catalog, no drives. With one drive $499.95, two drives $619.95. Tenex was the same price for the base unit by itself, but was cheaper for the one drive system at $459.95.

 

At this guy's auction price, may as well go for a PE box. They sell for less used, have more expansion possibilities plus if only one card fails, you don't lose the whole circus. At least his shipping is free on the Corcomp.

Edited by Ed in SoDak
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I've got about 10 good rolls of it for mine. It does show up every now and again on eBay too--and there were some third-party sources for it as well, so it helps to look for it by width of roll. I think there is even one source still making it new. . .as it apparently has uses in things other than the TI thermal printer.

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