Omega-TI Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 From my earliest experience with the TI back in the early 1980's, up to the present, one thing has remained constant, the drive to improve our TI's and add new software and hardware. Back in the early days, much of the hardware was so expensive, people turned to user groups and magazines to find alternate solutions to their upgrading issues. Not much has changed, many seller's on eBait want some 'interesting prices' on their stuff, so now people come here to Atari Age and find all kinds of new toys for their TI's... and at reasonable prices too. Development continues. Back then we could only dream of GROM emulating Uber Carts, inexpensive VGA boards, or even ponder the ability of storing everything ever conceived or written for TI on a single chip like an SD card, now it's reality. In the near future we are about to see a new speech-in-the-box card, an updated keyboard modification, heck even a Web browser. I myself cannot wait to see what is released at the Chicago Faire this year! Now, what do YOU want to see developed next? Do YOU have any new ideas or concepts? Where do YOU think we and our TI's will be in the next couple of years? Will we finally have more addressable memory? Will we have a new modern HFDC type controller controller? Will we all have a serial/WiFi card plugged into our TI's that can not only access our local networks and the Internet, but also put us into contact with TI users world wide with some kind of built-in messaging software? WHERE WILL WE BE IN THE NEXT 3, 5 OR 10 YEARS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dphirschler Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 I'd personally like to see: - a "supercart" that takes an sdcard loaded with cartroms. - an in-console realtime clock. - a casing for the nanoPEB (or in-console mod kit). - and of course, I am still waiting for the ps2/AT keyboard mod. Darryl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 - a "supercart" that takes an sdcard loaded with cartroms. - an in-console realtime clock. - a casing for the nanoPEB (or in-console mod kit). - and of course, I am still waiting for the ps2/AT keyboard mod. I agree 100% 1,2,3 & 4 #1 Right now we do have the Lotharek HxC which gives the TI PEB user the ability to use an SD card as a disk drive. It's not exactly a cartridge, but you can have all your games on it. #2 The RTC is one of my holy grails! Having it in the console is a great idea, that way any TI user, regardless of configuration could use one. Do you think enough people would have the soldering skills to install one? I've soldered for years, and I'm still too chicken to even try the speech in the console mod, so I'm patiently waiting for Greg to finish up his little gadget. #3 I thought someone was going to make one with a 3D printer. I wonder what happened to that idea? #4 Ditto! I'd like to add a #5 to that list. After reading a post by Manic1975 today, I got to thinking about a new updated variant of the Myarc HFDC, it could be a DSQD disk controller with HD capabilities, but the hard drive would be a memory card attached. Of course if someone wanted to do a 'bare bones' SSHD only, I'd not complain. There is DSR space available for a separate device, at least in my box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iwantgames:) Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 A SD card cart would be sweet I loves my Lotharek for my .dsk images so a sd card cart for cartridge games would be awesome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKRetrogamer Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 - a "supercart" that takes an sdcard loaded with cartroms. I was thinking exactly the same thing earlier today along with a separate, standalone SMALL 32K RAM upgrade which plugs into the side of the console for when I don't need disk-drives (or a mod to add 32K to the speech-synth box)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jstimson Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 I'd like to see a nanoPEB or something similar that would still let me use my full PEB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Yeah I agree a new style of NanoPEB, with options to disable sections or enable them and a pass-true to the big old PEB or other sidecars, and a nice style case. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 Yeah I agree a new style of NanoPEB, with options to disable sections or enable them and a pass-true to the big old PEB or other sidecars, and a nice style case. Once Greg's speech interface for the P-Box becomes available, there will probably be a few empty speech synthesizer boxes available. I bet a new card could be designed to fit in the confines of that box, and a toggle switch or two and even the memory card could be accessed under that little door. There is one major modification I'd like to see on a gadget like that... I'd dispense with the 9PIN RS-232 port and swap it for a straight USB connection. The extra electronics would only add a few bucks to the final cost. In the end the consumer would save money on the now required serial to USB converter and the extra cables and connectors. It would essentially be "Plug & Play" for anyone with a non-classic (old) PC. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 The only issue with USB is that it requires a USB stack which consists of various classes. There are some single-chip USB solutions, though, which can provide basic classes, like HID, Mass Storage, etc. Each one of those will also require a handler, which I am not certain are offered in the USBoC devices. For instance, for a USB keyboard a DSR or ISR hook would have to read the USB keyboard and inject a keystroke into the system. Mass storage would need a driver to read FAT16 and FAT32 as that would be the prevailing filesystem on storage devices for portability (or exFAT to support the big drives which would otherwise be formatted NTFS.) The best we could hope from a mass storage device would be low-speed mode, and I believe even that would saturate our data buss. No issue, though, given the amount of data we will be handling. In short, to run USB we need a stack, classes, and handlers. If not available in an ASIC, there a few lightweight USB stacks which can be implemented in FPGA. That is just off the top of my head, so I am hoping that are the higher layers available, as well. This is not meant to be a discouragement, rather perhaps a challenge for someone up to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 In short, to run USB we need a stack, classes, and handlers. If not available in an ASIC, there a few lightweight USB stacks which can be implemented in FPGA. That is just off the top of my head, so I am hoping that are the higher layers available, as well. This is not meant to be a discouragement, rather perhaps a challenge for someone up to it. Okay, I did not realize it would be so complicated. I'm using the adapter (pictured below) for my TI's HDX connection right now. I just figured that something like this could be INTEGRATED into the design itself, it would function just the same to the end user. Of course I'm only talking about the COMPORT here, not a bunch of other stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 SD cart is easy.. the AVR that runs the UberGROM can also interface directly to SD if powered by 3.3v (it needs different software though). I just did a proof of concept standalone, so I hope to release that version of the GROM firmware too before I leave. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iwantgames:) Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 sweet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted November 1, 2014 Author Share Posted November 1, 2014 ... I hope to release that version of the GROM firmware too before I leave. Leave? Where you going? You can't leave! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wildstar Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 (edited) What all we need to do with USB is have create a USB to Serial or RS232 bridge or some sort removing the worries of the USB Stack because that is done "outside" the eyes of the TI-99/4A. Letting some sort of SOC solution take care of the hard stuff. The same way we already use chips like Wiznet to take care of ethernet and similar solutions address the USB stuff. All it needs to look to the TI-99/4A is something like RS232 or otherwise some simple serial bus similar to Commodore serial bus which was essentially stackless and can sort out all the hard stuff and use a common interface back to the host computer (in our case, the TI-99/4A). I have a Wiznet Gateway bridge which I will attempt to test with the TI-99/4A via my PEB. The Wiznet Gateway bridge would take care of the Ethernet TCP stack so all I need to do is connect RS232 via a null modem cable (hopefully TI didn't use some very strange proprietary pinout). The keyboard doesn't need to send anyting awkward. It just needs to keymap decently. The DSRs shouldn't be something extremely awkward or complicated. Edited November 1, 2014 by Wildstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wildstar Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 (edited) This would be my next BAD-ASS number crunching item for use with my TI-99/4A. http://www.greenarraychips.com/ More specifically: GA144-1.20 Evaluation Boards http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/products/index.html This would give my TI a big-ol' number cruncher to work in the background using the 144 (x2) F18A (Forth 18A processors not to be confused with the F18A FPGA 9918A chip) in the two GA144F18A chips on the board. http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/index.html#F18A http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/PB003-110412-F18A.pdf http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/PB004-110412-F18A-IO.pdf http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/DB001-110412-F18A.pdf Edited November 1, 2014 by Wildstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hloberg Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 (edited) With a PEB or a nanopeb/CF7+, a F18a 80 column and nascent internet capabilities we have a fairly contemporary 1980s era machine. If we come up with a decent GUI for funnelweb we'd have something that really kick butt. Edited November 1, 2014 by hloberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 There's a Forth CPU being actively developed for the TI. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted November 1, 2014 Author Share Posted November 1, 2014 If we come up with a decent GUI for funnelweb we'd have something that really kick butt. I like the way you think! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wildstar Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 There's a Forth CPU being actively developed for the TI. Sure, that would be still useful but the GA144 board would provide for a parallel processing. While, I may get the Forth CPU being developed for the TI when its available. If it can provide full Forth not just FIG Forth... it would be awesome. I would be interested in where I can read on this Forth CPU for TI. If it plugs into the PEB, that would be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am1933 Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 There's a Forth CPU being actively developed for the TI. What happened to the second and third ones? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iwantgames:) Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 What happened to the second and third ones? The forth one wanted to rule so offed the second and third and is now eyeing the first 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Tyne Forth chip currently being developed is a four core chip so toy can run Forth in parallel :-) I addition, its native machine code is Forth: so words like drop dup swap * 2* etc are it's native machine code. Each core can execute up to three instructions in a single clock cycle. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wildstar Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Found my "Fire Hose" (okay, the main PEB board that has on one end a board that plugs into the PEB and the other end plugs into the TI-99/4A). That big cable section was famously nicknamed in the TI community back in the day as the "Fire Hose" due to its resemblance to a fire hose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Excellent news--now you can start testing the complete system. . .and the fire hose was an improvement over the train that those of us who initially built our systems before the PEB was available had to put up with--the system took up a lot of real estate initially, although that could be mitigated if you were one of the lucky few that got a Denali Data Backer Bus before they tanked due to inability to keep up with orders. The Backer Bus was a bar that connected to the side of the 99/4A and routed the bus to a connector pointed in the opposite direction, mounted at a place behind the TI. This turned the train into a snake that continued on behind the console, instead of next to it. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wildstar Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 One of my B&Silver seems to have a broken ribbon cable to the keyboard so I'll transfer the keyboard component of a beige unit over (until I have time to repair the keyboard ribbon by re-soldering but that's just one of the two Black & silver units so not to worry to much. I'll have to trace down the other black & silver unit but okay. 30+ years. Not the one I used regularly but okay. Anyway, ordered also another TI power supply so I have it to power it up. Not want to dig around to find it. Such is life but okay. The beige keyboard should be pin compatible but I want to use the black & silver's motherboard because it can support third party cartridges. It shouldn't be too hard to get this up and running soon. Waiting for all the stuff to come in. Once that is all up and running, this TI is up and running with the upgrades such as the F18A VDP plugin module and my other stuff. It'll be cool and interesting at the very least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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