Running TWO P-Boxes...

[Omega-TI]

With all the goodies coming out, I know it's bound to happen sooner than later... so, what do you do when you run out of slots in the P-Box? Is it as simple as getting a Y-adapter made, or are there timing issues and data crashes involved in using two P-Boxes?

 

 

[gregallenwarner]

There was a website selling exactly that: a Y-adapter ribbon cable to connect 2 PEB's. I believe this was the site: http://www.iec-usa.com/cgi-bin/iec/05MCOlderTI.html though I'm not sure if they still sell that cable. With a flex interface card in each peb, there's no reason why you can't have 2 peb's on one ti bus. Just be sure no two cards conflict on either address decoding or cru addresses.

 

Edit: they do still carry that cable: http://www.iec-usa.com/cgi-bin/iec/L1173

Edited November 4, 2014 by gregallenwarner

[+mizapf]

With a flex interface card in each peb, there's no reason why you can't have 2 peb's on one ti bus.

 

And the second cable connects to ... where?

[gregallenwarner]

That Y-adapter cable that I linked above.

[Gary from OPA]

It works I done it myself for decades, two PEB's connected together.

 

The only thing is to make sure the y cable is short, and has very good ground shield, or low-ohm ribbon cable.

 

Three PEB's is harder, the ti starts to get crosstalk in the cable, you can only do three with custom pcboard and nice ground plane.

 

Of course you can not have more then one card on each CRU, sadly the range is only from >10xx to >1F00 that normal DSRLNK in assembly and the OS scans for.

 

But you can build custom cards on some addresses in the pre >10xx range.

[Willsy]

Atrax runs two PEBs on his system. Of course you can only have one 32K. That can be an issue. For example some RAM disks contain the 32K so even if you have two PEBs you can only have one ram disk in the system (if it has 32k). Same for SAMS cards.

[+arcadeshopper]

I bought this cable and their extension cable and have not been able to get them to work. I think the issue is the bit of pcb they used to make the male connector

[Gary from OPA]

I bought this cable and their extension cable and have not been able to get them to work. I think the issue is the bit of pcb they used to make the male connector

 

Y-cable and Extension cable? -- Have you tried one without the other. -- You can't add too much load on the side between the console and before the firehose starts.

 

One of things in the firehose front part that plugs in the ti99, is a bunch of buffer chips on data lines to be able to push the data up the cable due to its long length.

 

Also I have found some systems can't handle two peb's and speech box, best to have the speech in your PEB also, no sidecars at all on the TI99 side if you trying to run two peb's.

 

Try also if you have access to multiple consoles or firehose's different combo's of them, one might work over another, due to age and old '74 buffer/driver chips.

[+arcadeshopper]

 

Y-cable and Extension cable? -- Have you tried one without the other. -- You can't add too much load on the side between the console and before the firehose starts.

 

One of things in the firehose front part that plugs in the ti99, is a bunch of buffer chips on data lines to be able to push the data up the cable due to its long length.

 

Also I have found some systems can't handle two peb's and speech box, best to have the speech in your PEB also, no sidecars at all on the TI99 side if you trying to run two peb's.

 

Try also if you have access to multiple consoles or firehose's different combo's of them, one might work over another, due to age and old '74 buffer/driver chips.

Just one at a time Gary..neither worked I have tried on two consoles. One with upgrades on the firehose. With and without the speech in line.

[Gary from OPA]

Just one at a time Gary..neither worked I have tried on two consoles. One with upgrades on the firehose. With and without the speech in line.

Something must be defective. -- Get out an ohm-meter and test each one of pins in their cable maybe just one or two is bad, and you an fix the defect.

[Omega-TI]

Personally, I'd rather not end up at the two box solution. There is an alternative that could put that off, possibly indefinitely.

 

Modern SMT requires (1) less power, which would put less strain on our ageing P-Box power supplies. SMT also lets you cram a lot of stuff into a small space. Why not make a combined device/card, to remove another original card that uses more power? This would (2) free up at least one extra slot for future expansion. Since the card would be new, it would also (3) add at least another generation to the TI's functional life. That's three good reasons right there.

 

There is a market for this stuff, just look at how many F18A's or XB 2.7's that have been sold, or all the excitement over Greg's new speech interface., or how many new Uber cart's are being made. I think the time might just be perfect for the development of a "multi-PEB card".'

 

Now what would I combine? Well, people have been moving to larger capacity disk drives or the HxC for awhile now, so why not exploit them to their full capability? Okay, a new FDC is in order, so what goes with it? You might as well copy it after the Myarc HFDC, but with a modern flair, make the HD solid state, like using an SD card. Time stamping of files has been done in the past, why not support that same method too? Okay, we add an RTC. But if you add an RTC, you might as well just include the PGRAM right? But then we want to eliminate that extra card, so why not put the 32K onboard... but add a jumper in case someone wants to add a competing device later.

 

So, would you be interested in a Floppy Disk Controller capable of 720K or 1.44M with a Solid State Hard Drive, RTC and P-GRAM functionality that also had 32K onboard? I believe that is all possible on a single full sized card in this day and age. Now granted the TI-Gods would have to get together like they did on the Uber GROM card, and this would probably take a few years to come to fruition, but this pie in the sky could really become a reality someday.

 

Yeah, that's a lot chit to put on one card, and would end up costing a couple hundred bucks, but really, as a hobby, those of us who still have a TI are hardcore so I doubt that would stop many of us remaining users. I suspect there are a lot of TI'ers out there on eBay lurking because a lot of crap is getting sold, and it's not just Atari Age users.

 

Is that two slots opened up?

 

** EDIT **

 

Oh, and one more thing, considering how much a P-Box costs (with shipping) and the necessary Y-adapter, even at $200.00, this new type of super-functional card would probably be cheaper than the second P-Box approach.

Edited November 5, 2014 by --- Ω ---

[RXB]

P.U.N.N. (Portland User Ninety Nine) User group had a guy named Terry Priest that ran for 2 weeks each year 24 printers to print out all the Stores yearly Inventory and sales.

 

Terry daisy chained two (2) P-Boxes and filled them with RS232 cards hooked up to the printers. His garage sounded like a printing house.

[+OLD CS1]

That cable could answer the desire of combining the nanoPEB/CF7+ with a PEB. Unless you can disable the 32k on the nano/CF7, there would still be the problem of redundant 32k devices (like my new Myarc 512k card.)

[Omega-TI]

That cable could answer the desire of combining the nanoPEB/CF7+ with a PEB. Unless you can disable the 32k on the nano/CF7, there would still be the problem of redundant 32k devices (like my new Myarc 512k card.)

 

Even if you removed the 32K from the P-Box, and was able to run with the 32K on the Nano, I think you would have conflicts with CF card & disk drive storage devices.

[+OLD CS1]

 

Even if you removed the 32K from the P-Box, and was able to run with the 32K on the Nano, I think you would have conflicts with CF card & disk drive storage devices.

 

Set the disk interface in the PEB for a different CRU address. I think you need a non-TI card for that, though. Should work fine for my BwG.

 

If you set a CRU address higher for a second card and remove the first card, the drives on the second card will adjust downward, right? Would make moving between real and virtual disks much easier.

[Omega-TI]

 

Should work fine for my BwG.

 

 

SOAB! You have a BwG! That's the controller card with a time stamping RTC on board!!!!

[+OLD CS1]

 

SOAB! You have a BwG! That's the controller card with a time stamping RTC on board!!!!

 

[+Ksarul]

There are about 10 of us with BwG controllers here in the US, Ohm. . .and about 80 more in Europe, so there is still hope that you might eventually find one.

[Omega-TI]

There are about 10 of us with BwG controllers here in the US, Ohm. . .and about 80 more in Europe, so there is still hope that you might eventually find one.

 

I'm not sure which way I'm heading now, a BwG would sure be nice, but I have a friend that plans to make a PGRAM card for the two of us in the future, and that will come with an RTC, so that would double up on that feature, so I'll have to wait a while to see what actually happens on that front.

 

Also, I'm curious, WHY we're sticking with the old limited TI floppy drive format. Back in the day, we needed compatibility with each other to trade and use software, now days that's no longer the case as almost everyone get's their software via the internet. It seems to me a new PC compatible controller that works just like a FIAD directory would be optimal. It would be faster, get around the 127 file limitation, store a heck of a lot more than a standard drive and we could probably even have drag & drop compatibility via a USB connection just like we have on a USB memory stck. As long as the TI can load and run the programs, why stick with the obsolete and limited format?

[Omega-TI]

 

Looks like the last paragraph in my previous post went over like a lead balloon.

Did I tread on something sacred?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re72di5phM0

[+Ksarul]

In a word: compatibility.

[Omega-TI]

In a word: compatibility.

 

Okay, I understand what you are saying, but honestly I did not think compatibility between machines really mattered anymore, since most stuff is obtained via Internet.

We have HD's, CD's, HDX's, HxC's etc. I did not think the storage format or media was as important as just being able to access and use the data on individual machines.

What I envisioned was memory card in the TI-PEB that files could be dropped on (just like a memory stick), via the drag & drop method, but accessed in FIAD format on the TI, just like the HDX does. The only difference is that since the device would be on the TI, there would be no need to have the PC on every time you wanted to use the mass storage device.

It would also give either the PC or the TI 100% control over access and manipulation of files WITHOUT THE NEED to convert stuff into different formats like .DSK or .HFE.

 

But, since I don't want to step on any toes, I'll let the idea drop.

[+mizapf]

Just from my own point of view ...

 

I still have my floppy disks, and I have a SCSI hard disk attached to my Geneve. Until I get another boot EPROM I am still depending on a floppy device which can boot my machine. And beyond that, I don't know how good the HDX is supported in the Geneve; if not, wouldn't be of any use for me anyway.

[atrax27407]

Which boot EPROM do you need, Michael? I have the Geneve boot EPROMs for both regular and GenMod that allows for booting from a SCSI. Send me a private email at: Rmcarmany@aol.com

[+mizapf]

I discussed an even newer boot program with Tim just some weeks ago... one which takes out all remaining smaller or bigger bugs and which is even more flexible. But we're not yet done collecting the ideas.