Most Popular Storage Devices on the TI-99/4A

[Omega-TI]

This poll will give us a detailed look at the most popular storage methods of TI-99/4A users.

This poll might also give others ideas about possible future upgrades, methods that they did not consider, or possibly even know were available.

 

If you have a RARE storage method, please let us know the details.

 

[+Ksarul]

On other Storage, I have a pair of Quick Disk drives (2.8" on Hex-Bus). I'm still looking at the possibility of connecting an IEEE-488 compatible drive to one of my IEEE-488 cards. I also have 720K 80-track drives (5.25" and 3.5") on a Myarc controller, and 320K drives on a TI DSDD controller card and also on a Hex-Bus Floppy drive.

[RXB]

I have CorComp or Myarc 80 track EPROM in Myarch Floppy Disk controller with 2 drives but have a expansion standalone with 2 more 3.5 DSDD drives or DSQD 80 track drives.

I also have a SCSI card with 2 SCSI drives.

 

I can back up the SCSI with a sector duplication program using Mac OS X and a SCSI controller.

[+hloberg]

On other Storage, I have a pair of Quick Disk drives (2.8" on Hex-Bus). I'm still looking at the possibility of connecting an IEEE-488 compatible drive to one of my IEEE-488 cards. I also have 720K 80-track drives (5.25" and 3.5") on a Myarc controller, and 320K drives on a TI DSDD controller card and also on a Hex-Bus Floppy drive.

got a picture of it

[+InsaneMultitasker]

To help with programming and development and testing, my primary system contains the following storage devices:

 

Horizon RAMdisks - 4MB and 8MB

IDE card with Compact Flash (or IDE EZ135 drive)

SCSI card with two EZ135 drives

Myarc HFDC hard/floppy controller with MFM drive and 3.5" High Density drive

Myarc Floppy disk controller card w/80 track 3.5" drive and 40 track 5.25" drive

512K flash disk onboard (Geneve)

 

Related storage lurking around:

Rave MX01 RAMdisk, for testing

Myarc, CorComp and TI disk controllers, for testing

CF7+ device for some gaming and simple coding

[RXB]

I have CorComp or Myarc 80 track EPROM in Myarch Floppy Disk controller with 2 drives but have a expansion standalone with 2 more 3.5 DSDD drives or DSQD 80 track drives.

I also have a SCSI card with 2 SCSI drives.

SAMS 1 MEG and SCSI card and USB to RS232 Converter.

 

I can back up the SCSI with a sector duplication program using Mac OS X and a SCSI controller.

[Omega-TI]

I for one would LOVE to see some photos of the SOLID STATE HARD DRIVE CONFIGURATION that some people are using! As well as estimates on cost, sources for parts and availability of the hardware. I think this is the "ultimate for me" solution because I doubt anyone is ever going to design, and build a CF or SD solution on a single card to plug into the P-Box.

[+arcadeshopper]

4/a

Myarc Personality Card/WDS100 with 15meg rodime mfm drive

Corcomp DS/DD floppy controller with 2 360k/half height 5.25" drives, 1 720k 3.5"

HDX modified rs232 card

Foundation 128k ramcard (ramdisk)

 

Geneve

Myarc HFDC with 40meg seagate mfm drive and 1 full height 5.25" DS/DD floppy drive and 1.44mb 3.5" drive

HDX modified rs232 card

Edited September 3, 2014 by arcadeshopper

[+mizapf]

Geneve:

 

DSK1: 3.5" floppy disk drive, connected to Myarc DDCC-1 (WD1770), 80 tracks usable via Geneve OS

DSK2: 5.25" floppy disk drive 40 tracks

SCS1: SCSI hard disk (512 MiB, only 248 MiB accessible) connected to a SNUG ASCSI

 

Since I did not upgrade my boot ROM, I keep booting the machine via the 3.5" floppy but work productively on SCS1.

 

Connections to my PC via serial line and XModem transfers (TIImageTool on the PC side; TELCO, PORT, or my own XModem program on the Geneve)

[TI-Sissy]

I for one would LOVE to see some photos of the SOLID STATE HARD DRIVE CONFIGURATION that some people are using! As well as estimates on cost, sources for parts and availability of the hardware. I think this is the "ultimate for me" solution because I doubt anyone is ever going to design, and build a CF or SD solution on a single card to plug into the P-Box.

pie in the sky o. i would upgrade too. if one is ever made i can. i got rid of the bf but have custody of my lil ti

[Omega-TI]

pie in the sky o. i would upgrade too. if one is ever made i can. i got rid of the bf but have custody of my lil ti

 

"Pie In The Sky"? Probably. It was pointed out to me by someone awhile back that it would probably be too complicated, another person mentioned that other people have their own projects, and one 'person' suggested that , "I should stop begging for stuff'. So, with all that in mind, I would like more information on what I could actually cobble together.

[Gazoo]

I for one would LOVE to see some photos of the SOLID STATE HARD DRIVE CONFIGURATION that some people are using! As well as estimates on cost, sources for parts and availability of the hardware. I think this is the "ultimate for me" solution because I doubt anyone is ever going to design, and build a CF or SD solution on a single card to plug into the P-Box.

 

SCSI card

 

SCSI to IDE converter

 

IDE to Compact Flash converter for drive bay

 

Look on ebay. or ask here if anyone has any of these items they'd be willing to part with.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Gazoo

[+OLD CS1]

i got rid of the bf but have custody of my lil ti

 

Congrats.

 

I am still wrapping my head around the interface of the TI system to its cards, both physically and DSR-ly. With all the FPGA stuff out there for converting between different interfaces (SCSI, IDE, SATA, etc.) I cannot see that it would be such a Bad Thing^TM for a PEB card holding a CF, SD, or SSD. The stumbling block I see is permanence: once the storage device is in the PEB, we are naturally going to want a way to easily get data to it. Since we exist mostly in the PC world, the easiest way would be similar to the CF7/nanoPEB method of directly writing to the storage device, so the device would need to be easily accessed, removed, and connected to a PC. Unless, just maybe, a USB port on the back of the card to interface with the PC and present the storage device to both the PC and the TI. Then the problem with SSDs is size: 32GB SSDs are difficult to come by, anything larger is generally impractical for TI storage, expected to be formatted in something other than FAT or FAT32 (exFAT or NTFS, in particular,) amongst other issues. A CF card would be more practical in terms of size and implementation, but they are fairly expensive for the capacities when available in brick-and-mortar retail shops. SD cards may be a little more difficult to interface, but they are a dime-a-dozen for reasonably usable capacities (is there really a need for 16GB or 32GB on an average user's TI? Even 8GB may be pushing it. And what about block sizes -- is the TI limited to 256 byte blocks, or can we go larger to better match the medium?)

 

Tons of thoughts, nowhere to go with them.

Edited September 6, 2014 by OLD CS1

[RobertLM78]

I've never had anything but tapes and floppy disks on the TI, so obviously the disks win out - but they are SSSD, so not too exciting.

 

In MESS I think I like the HFDC for storage. Would be cool to get a physical one - actually I'd like to get a Geneve, too. It can do just about everything the TI can and more .

[Omega-TI]

 

 

Look on ebay. or ask here if anyone has any of these items they'd be willing to part with.

 

Actually I'd like to obtain a WORKING PGRAM card.

I'm impressed that BOOT will save itself to the device and INSTANTLY be available on startup. It acts like a cartridge, but without a cartridge in the slot and the user can supposedly easily change the contents, unlike an actual cartridge that requires a 'burner'. Then of course there is that.... RTC.

 

This is just my opinion, but I think the time is WAY OVERDUE for a re-issue of this device. Anyone up for a group buy?

[+Ksarul]

We'd still need permission to reissue it from Bud Mills. . .

[Omega-TI]

We'd still need permission to reissue it from Bud Mills. . .

 

Does anyone know how to get in touch with him? After reading the manual << HERE >> I'm more convinced than ever the time is

right.

[Iwantgames:)]

I know if you got permission to reissue the PGRAM card I'd be buying one

[Gazoo]

 

Does anyone know how to get in touch with him? After reading the manual << HERE >> I'm more convinced than ever the time is

right.

 

You could try calling him at four one nine three eight five five nine four six. I'm pretty sure he's still at that number as it's still listed under his initials and the address is the same.

 

Gazoo

[Omega-TI]

Thanks Gazoo! I'll give him a call tomorrow (day off), I don't want to disturb the man on the weekend.

I think I'll also post a poll to check interest. I know there are already two of us, possibly a third.

[+Ksarul]

It would be good to discuss permission on the HRDs and other cards he sold as well. . .we definitely don't want to lose long term access to any of them.

[+Ksarul]

Thanks to Bob Carmany, I have the layouts and PAL code for the Quest RAM Disk from Australia. I've got about 75% in my CAD software at the moment--now I just have to finish that and do a complete trace check using the schematics so that I can actually properly identify each component on the board.

[+Torrax]

TI-99/4A #1: TI-32K; TI-RS232/PIO; CorComp-FDC; 2xDDDS-Drives

 

TI-99/4A #2: CF+ (32K/PIO/emuDSK); Speech-Synth; Widgit with SXB+MultiMod, Super Space II 32K, and 2 free slots for other carts.

 

Geneve (SRAM/VRAM upgrades): TI-RS232; CorComp-FDC; 3xDDDS and 1xQDDS(3.5")

 

Storage: Myarc 512K (non-MyXB DSR); CorComp 9900-MES (dead power supply); BoxCar 32K; and SidePort TI-FDC

 

Other Used Carts: XB; 8K Super-Cart; SA-Adv; TOD; and various others

 

2 Non-Working TI's -- dead tan keyboards.

 

Need an extra Speech Synth or 2, sometime in the new year coming up.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Torrax

[+Ksarul]

I have a lead on a possible additional address/phone number for Bud. I'll try this week and see what comes of it.

[+Ksarul]

I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with Bud Mills tonight. We discussed a lot of things, but a few of them are of definite importance here: he still has all of the software/design files for the Horizon RAMDisks. What he does not have is the layout for the p-GRAM. There is a reason for that. He did two runs of the board with the approval of John Guion. After John died, his dad and Bud were not able to come to terms on the future distribution of the card, so all data on it was sent that way and Bud stopped marketing it. He does still have a small number of the original manuals for it in storage, however. With that--he cannot give us permission to make new ones, as the rights lie with John Guion's father. He offered to send me the files for the Horizon HRD4000, though, so we definitely have access to much more than we had. Lastly, he wanted to know when the next Chicago Faire would be--as he plans to come to it! I'll be talking to him some more over the holidays. . .